Hello friend.

Fantastic video on the Dark Fishing Spider aka the Dock Spider in my neck of the woods. If you’re at all intimidated by these, give this video a chance to make you fascinated instead.

Good butterfly day.

The ducklings came to visit! Mama/auntie merganser keeps bringing different numbers of babies - sometimes more, then less, then more again. So I think there’s a crèche nearby. Later they completely passed out in this spot, snoozing in the sun.

Robins are almost ready to fledge. I thought this one was going to go for sure, but it changed its mind. Sometimes we need a few tries before we take big steps.

Had a painted turtle lay her eggs in our driveway! Our local turtle conservation folks came and excavated the nest. 3 eggs have gone to their facility for safe hatching.

Check out this sword stuck in a stone!!

💯 💯 “the government should be willing to call the bluff of any company bragging about the destructive potential of its products, ending the era in which these A.I. labs can simultaneously terrify the public about their technology while continuing to develop and market it without constraint.”

Defaults are decisions. Algorithms are decisions. Feeds are decisions. Friction, labels, visibility, appeals, and safeguards are all decisions too. Online safety is defined by product choices long before a parent, teacher, or moderator ever gets involved.

This was a such a charming read. I wanted to read the book before watching the movie. Sweet, funny, and smart.

Zoom!

And it's why the biggest internet safety advice I give parents of teenagers is to make crystal clear that they will never blame their kid for being the victim, because that is the ONLY way they will ever know there's a problem. bsky.app/profile/raha...

Today’s visitor.

The hatchening has begun. Mama robin feeds the wee hatchling in the nest while papa looks on.

With AI “search” shifting attention away from websites and ads, it seems it was only a matter of time before brands started trying to manipulate LLM outputs to make up for that loss in ad views. Looks like AEO replaces SEO as the dark arts of the internet.

There comes a point during nesting where papa robin starts to bring food items to the nest and mama robin will take them in lieu of the not-yet-hatchedlings feeding. It’s a bit of a practice/bonding thing. The first few times he doesn’t quite know what to do. He’ll get the hang of it though.

Hello neighbour!

Papa robin guards the nest while mama robin is busy vanquishing her arch enemy - her reflection in the kitchen window. She returns victorious. I have now put sticky notes all over the window to try and break up the reflection.

It got a little windy yesterday.

Courtship zoomies!

While Southern Ontario contends with extreme heat, it's snowing in Northern Ontario this morning. This is a shot from Highway 599 near Pickle Lake. Photo from 511 Ontario. #ONwx

The t-shirt says it all. Do we aspire to health for all or health for some in Ontario and Canada? The closure of the CTS in Peterborough is resulting in more outside use of drugs and healthcare strain here my story from my run last night.

POV you bought your husband a stuffy to make him feel better last week, and he loans it to you to make you feel better this week.

A master class on how not to read a room, and how to not even attempt to know your audience.

The Internet is disappearing before our very eyes and it’s why we should all support that absolutely critical work of @archive.org

Results Age xkcd.com/3245/

Pullback Drive xkcd.com/3244/

Penny Arcade for May 12th 2008,18 years ago today! www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/0...

One of our local blue jays does a good enough impression of a broad-winged hawk to fool the Merlin app.

A pair of hooded mergansers.

River spelunking today now that the water is low. Found the remains of Penelope the deer. Discovered Sink Archipelago. Many cool rocks and trees were encountered. Soakers were got.

Hello friend.

It really is time for more constituents to fight for higher education as a public good. For too long this has fallen to staff and often precarious faculty and postgrads, but parents, politicians, alumni, professionals in general, this is your fight.

Cute Face

Gift link. Well said. These caricatures--savior or doomster--are the fault of the AI boys and credulous media coverage of them, now reflected in self-fulfilled polls and next policy. Americans are down on AI. These two caricatures are to blame. wapo.st/4tJHwFQ

The mergansers are back too.

The heron has returned!

Purple finch!

Pisces: Today is a good day to start a big project. Improve your house, take on an extra task at work, abandon your flesh, start a novel.

Social media is no longer social. Most of it is passive viewing of videos and pictures from people we've never met. But we're still studying social media like it's 2010. We've entered the post-social media era — and research needs to catch up. osf.io/preprints/so... preprint w/ Richard Rogers

New Penny Arcade for your Friday! www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2026/0...

How To Live A Good Life #oldknees

Flooded woods. This part of our property becomes part of the river each spring.

Lots of juncos this morning.

Yes. The brain doesn’t work like AI. It’s not a computer. We use metaphors for it from technology b/c it’s really hard to understand how the brain works and we don’t entirely understand how a pile of electrified jello does all this. But it’s definitely much cooler than AI.

A totally not haunted tree. Nope, not haunted at all.

I solved the daily #CluesBySam, Apr 18th 2026 (Hard), in less than 15 minutes 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 cluesbysam.com I hardly ever get these without a hint.

Raging river, pollen plumes, and a little blue thing going by.

Counterpoint: I use em dashes with abandon and will not let "AI" steal them from me. I was overusing them first and will continue to do so long after "AI" is a crater in our financial system, or our merciless overlords, or both

Crocuses are up!