Luke Macaulay

We can solve conservation problems, but we need to do more than simply preserving natural areas and leaving them alone. Unmanaged natural areas can provide acceptable habitat, but usually far from optimal. There’s a few reasons for that: 1. land use change and development has so altered the landscape that we need to actively work to represent a diversity of habitats in conserved areas. 2. Natural processes like fire, grazing from native herbivores, and predation by apex predators, which interacted to shape vegetation diversity, are usually absent. 3. Invasive species can dramatically reduce the habitat value of an area 4. A lot of our forests were harvested 80 to 100 years ago, and we now have relatively even-aged stands that lack age and structural diversity needed to support a diversity of wildlife. Despite all this, we have the knowledge and ability to manage natural areas to support greater biodiversity and abundance. It often involves targeted disturbance. Warning some of these may surprise you: -Strategic timber harvest to create structural and species diversity and establish forest understory. -Herbicide for invasive and undesirable plants, -Prescribed fire to maintain open grassland areas, -Timed disking to stimulate wildflowers, and/or -Targeted grazing to mimic historical herbivory and reduce grass dominance. Determining how to apply these tools can take a lot of nuance and should be done with forethought, but they can make dramatic improvements for some of our most declining wildlife species.

Here is the link to join: ​riverside.fm/studio/luke-ma…​ If you're using a phone or iPad to join, you'll want to ​download and use the Riverside App ​to join.

This Wednesday at noon, I'm excited to have Lee Irwin, founder of Mason Dixon Habitat Restoration, join me for a discussion on: Habitat Restoration & Management: What to Plant & How to Manage It Lee planted his first native grass planting in 1988 and has been involved in wetland restoration since the early 1990s. He founded his native plant nursery in 2001 and has become one of my go-to colleagues for practical, real-world habitat management advice. This should be a highly useful conversation — I think you'll enjoy it! Link to join below:

@elonmusk This clip was like a scene out of Dune.

Bamf

@SpaceX I’m so excited for the work yall are doing. Inspirational. Thank you @SpaceX and @elonmusk . 🇺🇸👍🤙

The path to launch is filled with obstacles and success is only possible through the tireless efforts of many working together towards a common goal. “Critical Path” continues the ongoing Starship series, following SpaceX engineers through the final days before launch of the first Starship V3 and the challenges that come with development of the world’s most powerful and fully reusable rocket.

I can highly recommend Pastureguard for controlling sericea lespedeza, six days later and they are definitely cooked. I used 20 ounces in 25 gallons of water with 12 ounces of non-ionic surfactant.

Growing bucks.

Here’s how I downloaded and set up Nemotron, Qwen3.6, and Gemma to run agentic coding (similar to Claude Code) locally. My local machine has an @nvidia RTX 5090 GPU. 1. NVIDIA Driver updates •NVIDIA App → Studio Driver (Clean Install) → Restart. 2. Install Ollama •PowerShell:
irm ollama.com/install.ps1 | iex •Restart PowerShell. 3. Download the Models Run these one at a time in PowerShell: # 1. Nemotron (already done) ollama run nemotron-3-nano:30b # 2. Qwen3.6 (strong daily driver) ollama run qwen3.6 # 3. Gemma 4 (for vision) ollama run gemma4:26b Tip: You can type /bye after each finishes to return to the prompt for the next download. 4. Install VS Code + Cline •Install VS Code. •Extensions (Ctrl + Shift + X) → Install Cline (saoudrizwan). 5. Configure Cline 1Open Cline sidebar (robot icon on left). 2Click gear icon (Settings). 3Set: ◦API Provider: Ollama ◦Base URL: http://localhost:11434 ◦Model: nemotron-3-nano:30b (you can switch later) ◦Context Window: 64000 ◦Use compact prompt: ON ◦Use different models for Plan/Act: OFF 4During onboarding, choose “Bring my own API key”. 6. Basic Usage •File → Open Folder (important — open your project folder). •In Cline, use Plan mode first for complex tasks. •Switch models at the bottom of the Cline panel (Nemotron, Qwen3.6, Gemma4:26b). I now have three strong local models ready. What do you think? Anyone using other approaches they like?

J-Cal: Nvidia is taking the gloves off with its open source model. They will own the whole stack. “You will not be able to tell the difference between Jensen Huang's open source LLM and Claude for 95% of your searches, I guarantee you. Now, why has Nvidia and Jensen downplayed their open source model until this moment? Why would he do that? Why would he never bring it up in the All-In interview, never bring it up? Because his top customers (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.) were very concerned, from what I understand, about the fact that Nvidia had made so much progress on their open source model. But suddenly, after OpenAI announced their Jalapeno chips, after Anthropic started making chips, after AMD did successful projects with both of these companies, after Elon said he's going to do his own fab, Nvidia's taking the gloves off. They are going to own the whole stack. You get the hardware from them, and you're going to get a model that's competitive with OpenAI's for free.”

Happy Birthday America, Land of the Free. Don’t give up on the First, Second, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments. They’re unique, and your freedom - and the worlds’ - depends on them.

Happy Independence Day, America! 🇺🇸 What a day to be an American. 250 years of the greatest nation on Earth.

Top 5 things to learn more about the natural world around you and help wildlife and habitat in your yard: 1) Get @seekbyinat and learn your native and exotic plants and animals around you. 2) Use @MerlinBirdID to learn what birds are calling around you. 3) Let some native “weeds” grow up, identify them with the Seek app and if they’re native, let some of them go to flower. Many of them will attract all sorts of pollinators. Like this Devil’s walking stick 👇 4) Follow the label on any pesticides and herbicides you use. If they wash into waterways, some of them can kill a lot of aquatic organisms. 5) Make sure you use results from a soil test to apply fertilizers. extension.umd.edu/resource/soil-…

@nvidia @grok what percentage of currently proposed data centers are planning to use this technology?

Water usage has been a hot topic in the AI data center world, but the numbers may surprise you. According to the Manhattan Institute, data centers use 0.2 percent of daily water usage in the U.S. and that number has dramatically decreased in the past few years due to a new method: liquid cooling. By moving to 45°C liquid cooling, AI factories in favorable climates can use dry coolers instead of conventional cooling-tower-based systems, cutting facility cooling water use from roughly 2.6M gallons per MW per year to near zero. Liquid cooling enables AI factories to be both water and energy efficient, while creating opportunities for heat reuse and dispersal to local communities, allowing these factories to become energy grid assets. Learn more below ⬇️ nvda.ws/4gAVGoJ

@theallinpod @friedberg Thank you @friedberg for the eloquent opening.

POD UP! 🚨 Besties are back to discuss: -- SpaceX's record IPO, Cursor deal, and the first trillionaire -- The modern politburo and the new oligarchy (@friedberg cooks) -- Behind the scenes of the Anthropic Fable ban -- Iran War peace deal (0:00) Bestie intros! (2:41) The New Oligarchs, America's incoming politburo, and learned helplessness (14:18) SpaceX's record breaking IPO, $60B Cursor acquisition, and the trillionaire reactions (33:34) Behind the scenes of the Anthropic Fable ban (1:01:18) Claude psychoanalyzes its creator, Dario Amodei (1:14:31) Iran War MOU and the market impact

The free water is really nice. I have been to two newer Mexican restaurants recently that charged for chips and bottled water. I explained to one that our tap water in America is clean and to bring me tap water. 😝 When places tell me they don’t have tap water available I ask how they are washing their hands.

The World Cup has turned America into a discovery channel for the rest of the world. And they are not handling it well. In the best possible way. Here is what they are discovering: Free public restrooms. Europeans pay every time. Free water at every restaurant. Just appears. Free refills. Coffee. Sodas. Iced tea. Unlimited. Free chips and salsa before you even order. Free warm bread with dinner. Ice in drinks like civilized people. Air conditioning everywhere. Not a moral debate. A fact. Parking lots attached to the actual place you are going. Drive throughs where the food comes to the car while you sit in it. Ranch dressing by the gallon. Tex-Mex that cannot be explained only experienced. Dental care that actually works. Buccee’s. There are no words for Buccee’s. Then they found the grocery stores. Five of them within one mile. Each one the size of an aircraft hangar. Burgers. Steaks. Brisket. Ribs. Pulled pork. Lamb. Veal. Every cut of every animal ever domesticated by human civilization available in one refrigerated aisle at ten in the morning on a Tuesday. The Germans stood in the meat section for forty five minutes. In silence. Processing. They finally understand why we do not have trains. We have roads wide enough for the cars we actually drive. Parking lots the size of small European countries. Airports in every city worth visiting. Why would we need trains. The Germans are taking ranch home by the bottle. The Dutch found queso and briefly lost the ability to speak. The Japanese are photographing HEB like it is the Louvre. The Czechs are weeping in West, Texas. Welcome to America. Everything is free, enormous, air conditioned, comes with chips, and has five grocery stores within a mile that will sell you any cut of any animal you have ever imagined. Write that down. 🦋

@nayibbukele Yes. We can have development and significantly enhance wildlife diversity and abundance by adjusting land and habitat management.

The key to saving the environment is not looking backward, it’s moving forward. I realized this the first time I visited Italy twenty years ago. Everything was clean and green. The rivers sparkled. The lesson for me was obvious: the answer is not underdevelopment. The answer is progress. When China was poor, the air was so polluted that people could barely see the blue sky. Today, blue skies have returned to their cities. Development does not only create wealth, it also provides the resources needed to restore and protect the environment. Some environmentalists want us to preserve every aspect of our biodiversity, including the mosquitoes for example, so that researchers can fly in once every ten years from their universities (which build particle accelerators and billion-dollar laboratories with their pocket money), study our ecosystems, and count how many people died from dengue outbreaks. They want to buy our air through carbon credits. If carbon credits were such a great deal, they would be selling them to us, not the other way around. Cleaning every river, lake, and water source in El Salvador, and ensuring they remain clean and sparkling, would cost roughly $12 billion. Where is that money supposed to come from without economic development? Carbon credits? The path forward for our country is the path of Japan and Singapore, not the path of the Congo.

@quail4ever Chesapeake Valley Seed in Maryland has been a big supporter of our local QF Chesapeake Bay Chapter and they carry most all the native seeds you need to get some quail habitat started.

Prime Time for Late Summer & Early Fall Food Plots! The window for late-summer and early-fall food plot planting is approaching, and the right seed mix can make all the difference this hunting season and beyond. Shop the PF & QF Habitat Store Signature Series—premium food plot seed mixes engineered to deliver reliable attraction, nutrition, and habitat value for every season. Our Signature Series mixes are proven performers for every property and every season. Featured late summer and early fall Signature Series food plot mixes include: Summer Sweet Spot • Tree Stand Treat • Winter Wonderland • Whitetail 365 • Fatal Fall Forage • Quick Cover • Deer & Turkey Variety Pack Explore detailed mix breakdowns and find the right seed for your goals here: bit.ly/3QcoKIn

@quail4ever Here are a couple of native seed mixes that will create habitat. The second one ore ted also for preferred quality deer forage.

@pmarca I thought that was parody…. But it’s not…

“Purchase materials for cross burnings”, “Purchase materials to make KKK robes and hoods”.

@JTLonsdale Also includes Russian Hill. 👍

Also has the best SF offices, on the nicer piers.

@realDrTT @SteveStuWill @FriedrichHayek When did you come out of the closet? Asking for a friend. 😂

I’m a right wing professor (views are my own and not of my university). For sure, some of it is attributable to discrimination against conservatives — but a lot of it is self-selection. Conservatives tend to be higher in conscientiousness and lower in openness — so they’re natural born managers and businesspeople. This is the opposite of what most professors tend to be. Academia has unfortunately become a massive echo chamber. I used to be very opposed to the idea of “affirmative action” for conservatives — but if universities are going to survive, they need to embrace diversity of thought.

Not only have conservatives become vanishingly rare in academia, so have centrists. That’s how complete the left’s dominance is: Even moderates are now a fringe group in academia. stevestewartwilliams.com/p/academias-le…

@DataLucky @BRRRRcollects @unusual_whales Lukasz knows!

@BRRRRcollects @LukeRangeWalker @unusual_whales Lol :)

BREAKING: Reporter: “To what extent are Americans’ financial situations motivating you to make a deal? [with Iran]” Trump: “Not even a little bit…. I don't think about Americans’ financial situation”