Daniel Austin

Madagascar fanatic, photographer, guidebook writer for Bradt Travel Guides, webmaster, traveller and connoisseur of pedantry

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@Suzypuzy That's a garden cross spider, Araneus diadematus (Araneidae family). Cardinal spiders are from the Agelenidae family, which build horizontal sheet/funnel-shaped webs, not classic orb webs.

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@TWEvangelical @twit_tnot They said they initially identified him via his father, to whom the serial number on the rifle was registered.

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@TWEvangelical @twit_tnot If they obtain a court order from a judge (which can be done rapidly in major cases), law enforcement can force 23andMe to run a DNA check, as detailed in the company's legal terms: https://t.co/HvjGHVTCPz.

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@TallestJohn Very possible, but keep in mind constituencies that take longest to count are the big ones with rolling countryside (= more Tory voters) whereas less sprawling ones with people living in tower blocks etc (typically core Labour voters) are quicker to count so can declare earlier.

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@islingtonlloyd @BBCNews To be fair, if you've ever seen lions in the wild, they're usually smothered in flies when resting/sleeping too. (The flies are attracted not only to the lion's own sweat etc but also the film of blood and gut juices from prey that perpetually cover a lion's body.)

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@inaturalist Thanks for sharing!

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@MarkScherz My fervent hope is that some day a taxonomist with an even more childish sense of nomenclatural geekery discovers that Mini ature is less closely related than you thought and moves it into Imm gen. nov.

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@danbushy @eBay_UK Broken on the website too

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@TibbleJulie @TalkTV That 19 months is on top of the life sentence he already has.

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@Patriciab_uk @abiroberts I'm no more of a fan of royalty than you are, but kings and queens get their titles immediately upon the death of the last one. The coronation ceremony is just a kind of after-party for the sake of a lot of pomp; it has no particular legal significance with regard to the title.

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@jordonadams14 @LuckyHeronSay You can't give people a right then say they're immoral for using it. One could certainly make the argument ambulance/fire service shouldn't have the legal right to strike (like police, army & prison workers). But while they do, it's wrong to pin it on them for using their rights.

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@SDroushiotis @LKTranslator Ridiculous things being posted by a parody account? Well I never! I don't think political satire would work if it wasn't ridiculous.

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@mattjphotograph @LKTranslator It's clearly not news, is it; it's parody

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@Davidwillashley @duolingo Seconded! The whole reason I'm pointlessly learning Turkish on @Duolingo is because they don't have Malagasy available.

[David Ashley @Davidwillashley]

Many thanks for helping me learn other languages, @duolingo. Now can we have a Malagasy 🇲🇬 course please?

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@gareth_hollyman @MetroMayorSteve @LFC ?

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@bigwhite541 It's squarking 7700 so may need to land, but likely overweight. The 777 has fuel-dumping capability (so it doesn't need to fly in circles for hours burning off fuel, as many planes have to). Dumping fuel should ideally only be done over the sea, so I guess that's what it's doing.

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@rocketnthusiast @GY1Matt @BoeingAirplanes @flightradar24 @Airbus Undeniably true; nothing in life is 100% safe. So surely it's about frequency of incidents. If you rank operational Boeing/Airbus models by number of fatal flights per million flights, eight of the top 10 "least safe" planes are Boeing and only two are Airbus.

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@SDHansLanda @flightradar24 I wouldn't say "sharply". The blue line is the altitude. At one point it levels out and then ascends very slightly. This can also be seen in the vertical speed (grey) where the line briefly (~10s) goes above zero indicating a slight ascent after its descent levels out at 9,000ft.

[Daniel Austin @DanielAustin]

@cbissex Well, he did promise on Monday that he was going to take Sue Gray's advice to streamline the No 10 office. We just didn't realise he was planning to do it by being so obnoxious that they'd all quit.