Screenshot of a fully decorated room in the app Focus Friend
I’m actually envious over the decor of the imaginary bean @hankgreen.bsky.social put on my phone. I would trade my whole apartment if I could have one room that was actually this cute and peaceful.
(Also I didn’t want to post this photo because yes I did pay for premium and yes I am embarrassed.)
Not the point of @derekkrissoff.bsky.social's most recent newsletter, but I noticed that the company OUP is using for their AI EA is called Hum, which is also the name of the unsettling close-to-human robots in @helencphillips.bsky.social's dystopian sci fi novel from last year. Life mirrors art.
Last night I finished my latest 5⭐ read, When the Moon Hits Your Eye by @scalzi.com. I was hesitant to try it because I thought the premise was just too silly, but dang it if it didn't make me cry and feel genuine hope for the future a few times. And also laugh out loud, of course. Still very silly.
Two pouter pigeons on Andor.
An illustration of an English Pouter standing tall, with its huge crop.
A few folks sent me messages about some unusual pigeons that appeared on the show Andor. Thank you! They are real pigeons and not CGI. They belong to the group of breeds called Pouters or Croppers. Here’s an illustration of an English Pouter from my book A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching.
A white dry-erase board with a handwritten list titled "Lori's Self-Prescription Survey" followed by the first half of a question "When did you last spend 25 minutes..." and then the ends of questions listed are: Moving, Outside, Creating, Helping, With Friends?
I was inspired by this week's @ologies.bsky.social episode to make my own little chart this morning so if I'm feeling really down and can't figure out what might make me feel better, I have an idea of where to start. Really helpful episode, can't wait for part 2!
This sale and suggestion made me spring for this book, because I've been meaning to give @nicolaz.bsky.social's fantasy a try but nothing shoots to the top of my TBR like a sci fi novella, and DANG I've only just started and I'm hooked SO HARD #scifi #booksky #currentlyreading
me during busy work weeks: I can't take a sick day, the team needs me there!
me during slow work weeks: I can't take a sick day, it's so slow at work anyway it would be a waste
This movie fucking rules. If you haven't seen it, do so ASAP.
First, they said postponed; now the meeting is canceled. That means no flu shots next year.
“'It’s a six-month production cycle,' Dr. Offit said. 'So one can only assume that we’re not picking flu strains this year.'"
Fundamentally, that's a form of mass murder.
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/u...
I think a lot of people don't quite understand the impact of these bills on queer kids. On the more extreme end, for a lot of kids it's the possibility of severe mental-health struggles and suicidal ideation - but I also think something could happen on a smaller scale where kids, because they cannot be themselves, would rather choose to not be anyone. If I hadn`t been able to change my name, I don't know ifI would choose to go onstage for the school play, if I would choose to be in my poetry club. There's a whole bunch of kids who don't get to thrive because they're stuck in this place where they're suffering and there's not really a way out of that" -Jude, 18, he/they, Louisiana
18-year-old Jude on laws banning gender-affirming care:
"On the more extreme end, for a lot of kids it's the possibility of severe mental-health struggles and suicidal ideation - but I also think on a smaller scale, kids, because they cannot be themselves, would rather choose to not be anyone."
Why is the USA the only country in the world with bird flu H5N1 ripping through cattle herds?
Because in the United States, it’s legal to feed chicken shit to cattle.
That’s why. That’s literally the reason
www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt...
before you even enter the building, you'll already be stepping out on the wrong floor
Wow this is a beautiful poem. I feel like this poem should have been used in school to teach me about line breaks. Also emotionally gutting—thinking about ways to not just tell my trans friends and acquaintances they're not alone these days, but how to actively do things to make them less alone.
Lol me and my clone would be the two most gullible fools anyone ever saw. Just reassuringly squeezing each other's hand every time one of us got ripped off or taken advantage of. I could trust my clone with my life to be honest, but not to be smart.
I don't think I've ever cried at a video game before but @thatpetrie.bsky.social and I just finished Chants of Sennaar and the ending did really choke me up 🥲
I enjoy a puzzle video game, I delight in a wholesome video game, but I live for a wholesome linguistics puzzle video game ❤️
Ridgeline chart showing the distribution of global daily air temperature differences from the pre-industrial reference period (1850-1900), for every year between 1940 and 2024. Each individual year resembles a hill, shaded in a darker shade of red and further to the right for warmer years. The trend is clearly towards warmer years, with 2024 standing out as first year above 1.5C.
NEW: 2024 has just been confirmed as the warmest year on record, and the first to breach the 1.5C threshold.
We used a ridgeline (Joy Division inspired) chart to visualise daily temperature anomalies since 1940.
2024 clearly stands out with 100% of its days above 1.3C and 75% above 1.5C.
Talking w/ @thatpetrie.bsky.social about high school writing teachers we didn't deserve who taught us (or tried to teach us) the most about how to write, which it turns out is how to think through stuff. S/O to the English teachers; even if your kids didn't become pro writers, you made a difference.
I had just taken this off my TBR list bc of my New Year's resolution to not buy any new books until I finish all the ones I already bought, and then this quote post both entices me to put it back on the TBR... And reminds me that libraries exist and I should use them 📚❤️
Counting, This New Year’s Morning, What Powers Yet Remain To Me by Jane Hirshfield The world asks, as it asks daily: And what can you make, can you do, to change my deep-broken, fractured? I count, this first day of another year, what remains. I have a mountain, a kitchen, two hands. Can admire with two eyes the mountain, actual, recalcitrant, shuffling its pebbles, sheltering foxes and beetles. Can make black-eyed peas and collards. Can make, from last year’s late-ripening persimmons, a pudding. Can climb a stepladder, change the bulb in a track light. For four years, I woke each day first to the mountain, then to the question. The feet of the new sufferings followed the feet of the old, and still they surprised. I brought salt, brought oil, to the question. Brought sweet tea, brought postcards and stamps. For four years, each day, something. Stone did not become apple. War did not become peace. Yet joy still stays joy. Sequins stay sequins. Words still bespangle, bewilder. Today, I woke without answer. The day answers, unpockets a thought from a friend don’t despair of this falling world, not yet didn’t it give you the asking
I count, this first day of another year, what remains.
—Jane Hirshfield
2025 facts? I call these 2025 SIGNS! This is going to be a very good year. I love odd-numbered years anyway (I turn an odd-numbered age).
…what are you looking at?
Today I looked up what a "spinet" is after years of not knowing, so:
What is the weirdest Christmas carol that gets stuck in your head. Not your favorite, but the one you aren't sure where you learned it from and you don't know what half the words are or mean.
Sweet fancy Moses
Golden-Age Batman, pre-Robin, brandishing a gun.
A guide for which versions of Batman are cops and which ones aren't.
Golden Age Batman, pre-Robin: Not a cop, even though he shoots people. Has an antagonistic relationship with the Gotham PD.
Move over, blue whale. This 300+ year old 34m coral is now the largest animal* known. Hopefully its depth, as described, can keep it going 🦑🧪
*colony of animals
Hashtag dang, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke (MP who ripped the bill) is my new aspirational role model, what a hero
