Why lectures seem to last forever? An explanation based on the time dilation principle of Einstein's special theory or relativity (1905). Note 1: Also applies to many other types of presentations. Note 2: I originally came up with this idea 35 years ago, after one week as a freshman college student

What Good is the Fiddle on a Fiddler Crab? www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/2025/10/03/w...

Attention Academics: The Anthropic settlement includes many academic works. A book I edited is listed and eligible for a claim. If you've ever written or edited a book, check to see if its part of the settlement and make a claim: secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup

RIP to Jane Goodall, who was cool with this Gary Larson FAR SIDE strip from 1987:

Fun fact: male fiddler crabs have 1 GIANT claw. If the claw gets severed, they can grow a new weaker one. Other crabs cant tell the diff so may surrender to a weaker claw if it looks big ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles... Watch: youtu.be/hg9WoCwrB10 Easy read: nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

Fiddler crabs are so cool. We don't have them in NZ! I'm in Fiji atm

A quick guide on "How to fall downstairs": Step 1 Step 6 Step 8, 9, 10, 11.

Here's a closer look.

I wanted to get a video of this ghost crab but every time I got close to their hole they scuttled back in, so I tried getting clever with it. I made a little sandcastle and shoved my phone into it, hit record, and walked away. Crab was VERY suspicious of this addition to their environment.

Fiddler crabs gathering at low tide at Croatan National Forest in North Carolina.

When you want to do reproducible analysis in R, some packages require you to set a RNG seed. I'm not sure I trust anyone who doesn't immediately run `set.seed(42)`

#photography #wildlife #marsh #birds #birdphotography #treeswallow #crabs #fiddlercrabs

Fox Sports uses AI to achieve the impossible: make Aaron Rodgers look deader inside. defector.com/fox-sports-a...

Steelers rookie RB Kaleb Williams lets a kickoff bounce past him into the endzone and ignores it, giving up a TD to Seattle. 35 years ago, Steelers rookie RB Barry Foster does essentially the exact same thing vs SF. Rules are a bit different now. Was one worse than the other? Discuss #NFL #Steelers

And now for something completely different: the 2025 AI Darwin Award nominees! https://aidarwinawards.org/nominees-2025.html

Look at this crazy thing! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Robot fiddler crab gets pulled apart by real fiddler crab 🦀🧪🦑 youtu.be/UOFtsJkiRmE?...

The Em Dash Responds to the AI Allegations ​ www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the...

In preparation of today's mark-up of the NIH appropriations bill in the Senate and other activities, I sent this note to Senator Susan Collins' office. 1/2

It hasn't popped up in the @xkcd.com feed yet (which is a few days behind for some reason), but today's comic about @inaturalist.bsky.social data is truly fascination: xkcd.com/3118/

MetaWin 3.1.0 released today Available at www.metawinsoft.com Major new features are a number of additional data graphing options, including:

New Youtube video available now! This features, Austruca lactea, a common fiddler crab species in Japan. youtu.be/bfE9ps2hkfI?... YouTubeの横長動画の更新です💡今回はハクセンシオマネキ、説明少なめですがご笑覧下さい。 🦀🦑🧪 #crab #カニ #invertebrate

Most people probably think the term “cryptic species” refers to when one cannot tell 2 species apart when looking at them in nature, such as if a birder could not tell if a bird was species A or B because A and B look alike. This may be correct but does not have to be. 1/42 🦀🦑🧪

Population genetics of bedbugs shows that their population has tracked human expansion, with a major surge when humans started forming cities. doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

All of NIH funding to Northwestern University is frozen. This pause includes noncompeting approved funding, new and competing grants with fundable scores. No reimbursements for money already spent have been received since March. This situation is rarely reported so please Please get the word out!

Northwestern has not received any NIH funds since March. No written communication about why or what can be done. Thank you Ben Singer for raising awareness at #ATS2025

Emergency Alert: About two months ago, we discovered that one of our beloved six year old cats had advanced cancer and had to be put down. It became clear over the subsequent month that her sister was lonely so we decided to get her some kitten companions.

NSF director to resign amid grant terminations, job cuts, and controversy www.science.org/content/arti...

TFW you get a notification from some retailer that something on your wish list has become available and you're going "What the hell is that and when did I put it on my wish list?" It's not necessarily wrong--you probably did add it--it's just confusing.

Hi, you're now in a stare-down with a thick-legged fiddler crab (Paraleptuca crassipes). Congratulations. 📷 silviupetrovan on iNaturalist 📍 Indonesia 🔗: www.inaturalist.org/observations... #ObservationOfTheDay

🦀 Fiddler crabs play love songs in the sand 💛 with a four-step courtship routine, males drum their claw on the ground to attract a mate Those with larger claws make higher energy seismic signals, which prevents dishonesty about claw size 👇 bit.ly/4cmjWXP

Biggest commitment to a 3 second joke I've ever seen

I spent the last week on a cruise, more-or-less without any internet. After only about 1 minute of Bluesky doom scrolling I really wish I could go back to that "ignorance is bliss" time.

Scotland, please produce 17 trillion more David Tennants, please. H/T @falconesse.bsky.social youtu.be/yUr8QyTCph8?...

Tubuca paradussumieri found in Taiwan. Cool long clawed crab with restrained but impressive atmosphere. 燻銀的かっこよさがあるシオマネキの仲間、Tubuca paradussumieriです。台湾にて。 🦀🦑🧪 #crab #カニ #invertebrate

Admittedly it's very "back of the envelope" but based on numbers I happened to see at a meeting yesterday, my rough estimate is the NIH indirect cap of 15% will immediately cut my university's entire budget by about 6%. Some universities will have it worse, others not as much.

Stolen from LinkedIn... 🧪

Well, usually the Onion is spot on with its satire. But this is just wrong. We have been doing this for years already. Biologists Unveil New Taxonomic System Classifying Species By Hotness — theonion.com/biologists-u...

Austruca citrus dancing in a mangrove forest in Fiji. 森のダンサー、レモンフィドラークラブです。フィジーのマングローブにて。 🦀🦑🧪 #crab #カニ #invertebrate

Tubuca arcuata enjoying muddy feast. シオマネキの食事です。小バサミさばきに注目！ 🦀🦑🧪 #crab #カニ #invertebrate

As others are finding, my MS Office family plan was secretly hiked $30 to give me "Copilot and AI" which I of course never wanted. By going to cancel the plan it let me revert to the "Classic" plan which leaves out the AI bullshit. I was never charged as the annual fee is months away, but still...

Yup. Microsoft automatically switched me to the $99.99/year version with Spicy Autocomplete. You have to go all the way through "cancel subscription" to be presented these options and get the $69.99/year one you actually chose.

Xeruca formosensis, endemic to Taiwan. Super cool fiddler crab species. 台湾固有種のタイワンシオマネキです。ツートンカラーがおしゃれな素晴らしいシオマネキです。 🦀🦑🧪 #crab #カニ #invertebrate

After years of dilly-dallying over it, I finally deleted my Facebook account. It's a nightmare in a bazillion ways and I had little justification for staying. I downloaded my data prior to deletion and discovered it was almost exactly 20 years since it was first created. Not going to miss it.

We have achieved full fluff

Another thing I made this year: Real and implied birds.

Preparing for fall graduation, as one does

In honor of me having nothing particularly interesting going on to post about, I'm going to dig into my archives and pull out some highlight animal photos from the deep past (i.e., pre-Bluesky). The first set will be from a December trip to Costa Rica from 8 years ago. 1/11

In honor of reaching 1000 followers—and the local Antarctica-like weather (literally. same temp as my visit two years ago)—I give you this photo of a Gentoo Penguin contemplating the deeper mysteries of life... Why am I here? Why are you here? Why are you taking my photograph? 🦑🦉🧪 #birds #penguins