As I've leveled up from beginner to intermediate birder, there's one problem I haven't been able to even begin to solve: I do not know how I'm supposed to tell all these goddamn sparrows apart

No other person or entity in my entire life thinks I'm offline as much as the games app does. It's almost flattering.

Is this post how Katie finds out that Sam misspelled her name in his phone

At the beginning of spring migration season, I had 86 lifers and my goal was 100 by the end of migration. I'm at 132 now. 🪶

All the rich people talk about capital gains taxes or whatever, but I think the single best tax change for me would be increasing the max I can put in my FSA so it covers more than ~5 months of out-of-pocket medical expenses (and yes I know compared with many people's expenses this isn't a lot)

If your argument relies on debating prepositions, your argument sucks. This was true with "did they die 'from' or 'with' covid?" and it's true here too.

I cannot decide whether to read the department's quote as "raw milk is dangerous no matter who you buy it from" (correct) or "the smol bean producers must be protected from bad publicity because it could happen to anyone"

About to start the annual barrage of training modules. Can't wait to spend two hours telling Kendra that yes, it is sexual harassment if her boss offers a promotion in exchange for a date, and advising George not to buy gift cards in response to the "CEO" emailing from ceo@misspelleddomain dot com

Above the fold today Gift link ICYMI: www.nytimes.com/2026/06/02/w...

It's not just measles: Doctors are seeing more of a number of vaccine-preventable illnesses. And it's not just childhood vaccines: They're seeing more adults refuse tetanus shots after injuries, and even blood transfusions bc the blood might come from a vaccinated donor. From me and Dani Blum:

The office is so cold today that even the men are uncomfortable. They're talking about it in the elevators because they've never experienced it before.

Several years before his death, Jeffrey Epstein banked his sperm. If he died, the contract said, the cryobank shouldn't destroy it, but rather transfer it to the control of his estate.

Great egret and osprey

Somehow, when I wasn't looking, I became the sort of person who voluntarily gets up at 5:45 on a Saturday to drive an hour to maybe see some new birds

Sure, sex is great, but have you ever closed the tab group for a story that went through ten (10) editors because it's done now and the file has been scheduled for its publication time

I'm not going to link or screenshot the main-character article of the day, but I will say, as exhausting as I find the constant pressure to use generative AI, what I find even more exhausting is the seeming desire of AI promoters to believe everybody already is using it. For the record, I'm not.

This is a fun, interesting piece.

TIL because I'm 5'2, I'm supposed to have a 25-inch waist. I don't make the rules, the clothing companies do

Here's how the Trump administration is chipping away at transgender health care access for adults With more than 30 interviews with trans adults, treatment providers, conservative activists and trans rights activists over the last two months. For @nbcnews.com: www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

My most crotchety-old-man opinion is that books where the characters randomly say things in French should have footnotes so I don't have to take myself out of the plot to go to Google Translate

A neighbor is having a party and playing the Cha Cha Slide Are there actually people for whom that's fun and not a horrifying middle school dance flashback?

I have some trouble understanding the extent to which interacting with LLMs cooks the brains of an apparently meaningful contingent of otherwise intelligent, deliberative people.

Connections Puzzle #1075 🟪🟩🟨🟨 🟪🟩🟪🟨 🟩🟨🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟦🟩

SCOOP: RFK Jr. has fired two leaders of the US Preventive Services Task Force, John Wong and Esa Davis. Breaking story here, more to come.

The only thing I want to know is whether this will affect the "web" tab that has thus far allowed you to avoid the AI enshittification, because if so... I’ve resisted switching search engines for SO long, but I'm out

oh huh chrome you thought you were going to separate me from my tabs just by abruptly restarting my computer to install the update I've been postponing? over my dead body

It's 95 degrees out, which is why the cat has declined my invitation into an air conditioned room and is lying in a sun patch in a spot that is the farthest he can physically get from an air conditioner

Well no, it doesn't diminish those questions, but it sure makes you look like the wrong person to answer them www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/b...

Dear automated phone tree, we both know your menu options haven't actually recently changed, so why don't we skip the formalities and cut to the part where I yell "representative" six times and you connect me to a human

I am once again begging, praying, weeping for lists of written instructions rather than videos. I do not want to watch your two minute video in the hope of catching the two seconds where you whizz past what goddamn menu the thing is under. Write. It. Down.

What

Post-birding snuggles

GOTCHA Lifer #115

This is the dream. This is all I want in life.

Love to be proselytized by a taxi

Social media stop giving the content you hate free publicity challenge: difficulty level impossible

The Andes hantavirus is clearly far less contagious than the coronavirus, scientists agree, but they have found cases where it spread among people without direct contact. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/14/h...

I swear to god if one more PR person sends me an email about a supplement that has been "clinically studied" in hopes that I'll think that means "clinically validated"

Much as one runs through a badass, incontrovertible argument in the shower, I am currently walking home running through the imaginary monologue in which I told the man coughing on the train without covering his mouth that I bet all his colleagues hate him

PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) is now PMOS (polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome). The name change follows a multiyear process stemming from a recognition that ovarian cysts aren't the primary aspect of the condition, which affects multiple body systems, and many patients don't have them.

I've deleted my post reacting to the Guardian report that an MV Hondius passenger with hantavirus had been told she was just anxious, because the Guardian has retracted the article:

"That's true, Isildur. I did promise that I wouldn't betray you to your death. You're right to call me on that."

Second group birding walk, 12 lifers: - Black-throated green warbler - Black-and-white warbler - Scarlet tanager - Veery - Ruby-throated hummingbird - Common yellowthroat - Wilson's warbler - Green heron - Bay-breasted warbler - Cape May warbler - Swainson's thrush - Spotted sandpiper

I'm young enough to be a digital native but old enough to have still submitted college papers in hard copy and received them back with handwritten comments, and woof I'm glad for that

The Trump administration has slashed funding for infectious disease research and has far fewer employees, including disease detectives, to respond to outbreaks. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/h...

Love to do a phone interview and wonder if the source can hear the cardinal raising the dead outside my window

Not enough people are talking about how absurd it is that there is a strain of hantavirus called Sin Nombre. Just absolutely ridiculous.

💀

NEW: Babies Are Bleeding to Death as Parents Reject a Vitamin Shot Given at Birth The vitamin K shot, a lifesaving injection given to newborns to prevent uncontrollable bleeding of the brain and intestines, has become collateral damage of the anti-vaccine movement.

If Connections is going to keep doing this, then there is a new cap on all my future streaks and it is however many days pass between Connections doing this