Stupid birds won't cooperate for a photo, so you'll have to visualize: Steller's Jay hanging upside down from suet holder, hammering the hell out of the suet ... and Song sparrow foraging in a planter directly underneath, being pelted by falling pieces of suet that it shakes off, then eats. 🪶 🌿

Bushtits - there's never just one. My feeding pictures - there's always a smudge or glass reflection. ugh. 🪶

wooohooo Kakapo female lays her second egg while the nestcam is active. The egg-laying sounds (like farting) end around 15:01:55, but she didn't reveal the second egg until about 15:03:40. #endangered #kakapo #birds 🪶 www.youtube.com/live/BfGL7A2...

The curse of studying "how to age birds when banding" is no longer being satisfied with a photograph's lighting, composition, subject, posture, dynamics, etc, unless it's also possible to pick out what's Staffelmauser molt vs a feather partially shielded from UV exposure. 🪶

Love it when science and creativity get together like this ... hoping for some detections from nearby motus tower soon 🤞 🧪 🌿

Appropriate that this Castration party is on the same day as the traditional opening of the breeding season for Northern Hemisphere racehorses. www.threads.com/@therealredm...

Today's Q4 estimated tax payment day. For years, quarterly payments historically cleared within 2-3 days of postmark. But 2025 Q3 took 3 *weeks* to clear. IRS staffing cuts and maybe the tech disarray? Honestly curious to see how quickly yesterday-mailed Q4 check comes back.

Amazon just doing its usual stealing sales from a Small Business they probably charged to badge itself as a Small Business Brand.

Brilliant move in terms of positioning themselves as consumer-friendly, "you're not going to be stuck with a worthless brick when we move on from this product" for future purchases. In today's chaotic market, that's a good thing to have stick to your brand.

I traveled heavily for work before COVID, flying weekly for months on end. I would happily never fly again but when the alternative to losing 1 day to a flight is losing 3-5 days each way to train or driving, well, I'll thumb my nose at airlines rather than cut it off.

I hate this airline, hate their "loyalty" program, hate the 45 different layers of pricing and T&Cs. It's like they go out of their way to make it an unpleasant experience for "valued customers" who don't cheerfully pay full first class $$$$ and carry their credit card. rant done, back to logistics

As if ship outages aren't enough, the ferry comes back into service just in time to deal with another visit of 40-some critically endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales feeding in Dalco Passage & Commencement Bay today. #orcaobstaclecourse #psws ferries.wsdot.wa.gov

nah, not fishy at all ...

‼️A German hacker known as "Martha Root" dressed as a pink Power Ranger and deleted a white supremacist dating website live onstage This happened during the recent CCC conference.

10th Juliebot - likebot - spambot of this session has been created. As usual it appeared immediately after one of the others had been suspended. What IS different is this one started racking up Follows right away, instead of sleeping for a while.

Juliebot Likebot spambot whatever ya call them, it's clearly bots doing likes to entice people to look at profile and go to their onlyfans/girly.bio page. Recycled photos, texts, posts etc. Report away! Account #4 of 8 new ones tonight got suspended and here's #9 replacing it:

aaand the Julie-bots are back for another round tonight. Looks like 8 accounts in the starting lineup, most recycling the photos and texts and URL from last night except for c30 is now c31. Enough Reports for Misleading/Bot or Spam and they'll get suspended. List here: bsky.app/profile/did:...

When I post an image with a lot of text, what are the *current* options for having it auto-parsed? Without having to create an account or turn off privacy and anti-tracking? The couple of options I've found are neither recent nor working.

My tactic for resisting an estate sale packed with stuff I'd love to buy is to start bread making and broth making so I have to be around the house for the kneading and monitoring stages. Yummy homemade bread + hot soup for dinner and not bringing more Stuff home = win-win ARGH but I wanna go

Wake up three days running to fog cutting visibility to under 200 feet. Then there's this morning, so clear I can pick out sea lions 3 miles away (through binocs, my eyes aren't THAT good). Shame it's still < 50F and damp. Hot chocolate and seed starts indoors it is, then. #pnw

@fearlessfeli.swifties.social - since I can't respond in that thread, had to quote-reply - here's a moderation list someone made to track the Juliebots. List goes up and down as new ones are created to replace suspended ones. bsky.app/profile/did:...

@vulpez.bsky.social - if enough people report the julie-bot account (profile -> Report -> Misleading -> Spam) it'll get suspended like three others with the same link have in been in the last hour. There are two other sleeper accounts pending that are not yet cranking out like-spams.

midnight filk warning ... Juliebot juliebot let's whack-a-mole the juliebot Juliebots the spam likebots spamming spammer juliebots Juliebot is a likebot lures rubes to follow a sexbot ok the scan needs work ...

What the heck I need a break from vac-sealing bulk purchases ... gonna see about tracking the spamming likebot juliebot thing. There's a moderation list that tries to detect them for people who want to just block (which doesn't stop the likes). bsky.app/profile/labe...

aaaand the Julie like-bots are back spamming Likes to get people to check out the profile and go to their links ... Blocks don't stop them from automatically Liking responses and posts within a second or two of creation. I really wish Bsky would plug that loophole. #likebot #spammer

Happy Birthday @alepresser.com B-day present publicity-bump! Comic can be found at sidequested.com. An archive binge is a *great* way to start your weekend.

Google AI can't even get basic knitting partially correct despite millions of photographs, videos, diagrams, and instructions on the web. This is so clearly obviously outright *wrong* the first thought is "April Fool's or some drunken joke I'm not in on". And we're expected to embrace this tech?

Blocking a porn spambot account doesn't prevent them from automatically slapping a "Like" on responses within a few *seconds* of me posting it. Seems counter to how "Block" should function.

test test test test

Being old is not only the surreal-ness of your childhood house furnishings moving from "vintage" to "antique", it's also realizing that the films and songs and books you grew up with (because your parents loved them) are over 100 years old. web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicd...

Where others see swamp, I see *habitat*

Counting down the days til bird banding starts up again! Band-Tailed Pigeons have migrated away. Golden-Crowned Sparrows and gobs (that's a technical birding term) of seabirds have moved in for the winter. I suck at IDing them. Time to install the heated feeder for the Anna's hummingbirds. 🪶

TIL the Washington State lottery-vending machines will take MC/V debit cards with just your zipcode; they don't require a PIN.

This is why odds keep getting janked even higher for lotteries. Lower chance to win = more rollovers Rollover = higher pot next week Higher pot = more people buying tickets More ticket sales = more revenue to government In addition to what govt gets from the taxes on the prize #powerball #lottery

wooooosh Nothing like an accipiter drive-by to stop the fights over whether the song sparrow gets to monopolize the feeder or not. Song sparrow was trying to intimidate the spotted towhee (who was ignoring him) at the time. Juncos were probably rooting for the hawk, which missed. #pnwbirds 🪶

The Brown/MIT school shooter was from Portugal—the most egregious example yet of an immigrant doing a job that could that thousands of Americans could have done.

Dangit just as I get the resolve to get off my ass and do some work outside because it's clear and not raining, new clouds and fog move in. Maybe if I hibernate indoors until summer warmup, the storm debris will compost itself into my yard and save me the trouble of hauling it off? #pnwlife

Brubeck sounds really REALLY cool on steel pan. I'm enjoying this personal jamming a helluva lot more than what we're attempting in class. Someday I might be skilled enough to even play it properly! This year ... is not that day. #pan #music

I need to download this contract because it sounds like one of those drinking games of "find the red flags". Or an excellent example for a contracts class on extreme one-sided exploitative contracts. Red Flag Bingo Card, anyone?

OK so I get in, sorta, via the Google gmail login. You have to be in non-incognito mode, turn off all privacy, accept all cookies from everyone, to get past the captchas. To find the account is now locked and requires government ID to verify. Pass. I don't trust them with my data.

WTF is up with LinkedIn demanding I enter a phone number to "verify it's you"? I never gave them my phone number. I've always declined and skipped those annoying popups. So what are they verifying it against? Or is this just a way to hold my account hostage until I "consent" and give it to them?

Heaviest rains going into the areas already flooding due to levee failures. Then they'll go east into the mountains, dumping water all the way. And that water will run off into the still-raging rivers, which drain right back to this same area to empty into Puget Sound. #wawx

Holy crap the line that just hit Seattle to Tacoma and other parts north and south. These are close to the highest winds I've experienced here in the last couple of years. Branches & evergreen cones are flying everywhere. Heads up! Oh yeah, this comes with another round of heavy rain. #wawx

Back in the dark ages of my misspent early career, I coded rain and flood models. It taught me this: Water is going to win. Water will always win. You can't just squish it into less space. It's going to go SOMEWHERE. NOW. All you can do is try to hold more and direct the rest. #wawx #floods

Check wsdot.com/Travel/Real-... before heading east out of Seattle-Metro. 49 miles of US 2 are now closed due to multiple washouts, mud+landslides and debris on the road, flooding and all that. This is not an easy, quick fix. #wawx #flood

For those who want to follow crests or simply learn more, the USGS website still has the stream monitoring open to the public. URL dashboard.waterdata.usgs.gov/app/nwd/en/ You can zoom around, click sites for the latest readings, and so on.

There's a big residential area just west of the levee break and long stretches of retail, industrial park/distribution centers, and corporate buildings to the north and northeast. The Green River flows north, past Tukwila and joins another in-flood river headed to Seattle #seattlefloods #wawx

Treat yourself to some holiday goodness after you've endured one too many aural attacks of "the note's in here somewhere" vibratto staccato'd machine-gun style from carols broadcast over store speakers

SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going— SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti— SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE