I moved to Sudbury in the fall - are the milkshakes worth the drive over to Espanola?

One of my favourite features of Substack is the “reads” tab on someone’s profile. Generally writers I like are reading work from other writers that I’m interested in. It feels like a very organic way to find stuff I like.

Thinking like a mountain in the age of AI Click on the article title to read more.

In a sea of opinions about the role of LLMs in academics I offer my own.

Apart from being harmful, exploitive plagiarism machines, LLMs rob us of the opportunity to experience the gift of friction in writing, which changes how we think.

We must not give away that gift.

doi.org/10.1002/fee....

Going to be an interesting few days 🥶

"Maybe you noticed that Monet's lily pads are hardly lifelike. A.I. used to make mistakes like these"

Goldfinches singing in the yard and a handful of ducks overhead this morning. Feels a little like spring in Northern Ontario!

I don't believe the human mind is equipped to process 2.75 million Snow Geese. I've seen about 250k before and it nearly broke me. ebird.org/checklist/S2...

📷 Karl Bardon, eBird

3/3 on roll up the rim wins right now. Gotta focus on the little things.

Welcome - PrairieJuniper A personal blog, like the good ol' days, but new.

Gonna be writing a blog I'm calling PrairieJuniper over at @leaflet.pub

Sorry what?? There are plants that can generate heat?? Incredible

Checklists on your new app, detailed trip reports on leaflet, RBAs and social interactions on Bluesky. I’m in!

There’s definitely room for a more social bird listing interface. eBird is great from a data collection perspective, but I want to know what my friends all over the world are seeing day to day!!

Dan I already spend too much time on eBird. Making my browser a gateway to eBird deep-dives is not conducive to getting work done. Can’t wait to try it out!

What if the Great Lakes were the Great Islands? I've spent a lot of time sea kayaking on the Great Lakes, including a 45-day sea kayaking trip from Port Huron, MI on Lake Huron to Grand Marais, MN. In all of that paddling, I’d never once imagined the Great Lakes as islands within a sea. But that’s exactly the perspective that cartographer Stephen Kennedy created with his The Great Islands map. To produce the effect, the Great Lakes bathymetry was inverted, and by inverting it the depths become mountains. The familiar geography of the region is transformed into a completely new world.

Ever paddled the Great Lakes and wished you could see them in a completely new way?

That’s what cartographer Stephen Kennedy does with his The Great Islands map. He inverts Great Lakes bathymetry so the lakes become land, and the land becomes sea.

I wasn’t happy about this one on Thursday!

Visiting my parents in southern Ontario this weekend and made a quick trip down to Long Point for some early-winter birding. Big Creek NWA was chock-full!

I think the Stu you’re looking for is @stu-mackenzie.bsky.social

A pair of American Kestrels sharing a European wall lizard this morning. Invasive species control in action!

The gorse is in full bloom here. Unfortunately “here” is Vancouver Island, where it definitely isn’t supposed to be. A shame, because it sure is pretty

Migrants along the waterfront this morning. Counted 18 American Pipits coming in over the strait from the Olympic peninsula, with another handful foraging among the tide pools.