we all know I have no life, so:

if you see this, post something orange from your gallery.

So amazing! Such good news. Yay science!

I've been carrying around a 50-cent piece as a good luck charm for a couple of years now.

I can't find it, and I've just realized that maybe the hotel maid thought it was a tip because I accidentally left it on the nightstand when I went out for the day.

I hope it brings her some luck...

They fixed the Jumanji escalator at the mall! (I cut through the mall to go to work.) It sounded just like the drums from the movie: BOOM ba da da dum boom (and repeat).

I'd like to think that means someone finally won the game.

Orange wall of straight rows of 404 mounted fossilized skulls of dire wolves.

Have you seen 404 fossilized dire wolf skulls today?

Now you have.

Lime green traffic cone with the word "STICKY" printed on its side sitting on the grass in a park. The cone is covered in tar.

View under the cone: grass and a wet black gob of tar oozing from the ground.

Went to the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles today. These green traffic cones all labeled "STICKY" are scattered about the grounds.

If you pick it up to peek underneath, there's genuine La Brea tar oozing up from the ground.

Super satisfying to poke it with a stick!

Lime green traffic cone with the word "STICKY" printed on its side sitting on the grass in a park. The cone is covered in tar.

View under the cone: grass and a wet black gob of tar oozing from the ground.

Went to the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles today. These green traffic cones all labeled "STICKY" are scattered about the grounds.

If you pick it up to peek underneath, there's genuine La Brea tar oozing up from the ground.

Super satisfying to poke it with a stick!

Dire wolves lived over 12k years ago. (I honestly didn't know they were a real species until today.) These skulls are on display at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles that has the largest collection in the world of dire wolf fossils.

Orange wall of straight rows of 404 mounted fossilized skulls of dire wolves.

Have you seen 404 fossilized dire wolf skulls today?

Now you have.

A large black spider with green mandibles on a succulent leaf.

A succulent plant with a large black spider.

Our little spider friend entertained the kiddies at Disneyland for a good 15 minutes...

Google says it's a phidippus audax or a Bold Jumping Spider.

A large black spider with green mandibles on a succulent leaf.

A succulent plant with a large black spider.

Our little spider friend entertained the kiddies at Disneyland for a good 15 minutes...

I Work Very Hard, And I Would Like To Try Cake By A Horse Hello. I am a horse. I work very hard at my job of being a horse. When humans say move the heavy thing, I move the heavy thing. When humans sit on top of me and pull on my head, I carry them where they want to go. The main food the humans give me is hay and oats. But I am thinking it would be nice to have a different food. I am thinking I would like to try cake. Yes, yes. Cake. I know all about it. When humans eat cake, it is in glad times. It is the food for a celebration, such as when a woman becomes 47. I have seen cake on the Fourth of July. When humans have a cake, they stand around it and clap hands and smile and say happy birthday at each other. Sometimes there are beautiful markings on a cake, such as balloons or a pink shape. Sometimes the top of a cake is on fire and a boy must blow on the fire with mouth wind. This is the scariest cake. I do not want this kind. But I will eat any other cake. Any cake that is not the fire cake that tries to kill the boy. Please understand: I do not get money for doing work. I do not get to go inside the house. All I am either doing my horse job or standing in my pen or eating food off the floor. I always do these things. But I have never once gotten cake and I would like it very much. I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children. I am more helpful to the farm. Children do not move the heavy things like me or let anyone ride on them. And yet they get cake. Maybe the humans will realize this. Maybe they will say, "You know who deserves cake? That horse. That horse whose back we are always on." Every day I dream about what it will be like if I get to eat cake. Here is what will happen. First, I will walk to the cake and putt my nose at it like hrrfff to make and stomping my hooves to make sure it is not a snake. Then I will trot in a circle to show that I am a horse and I am large. After that, I will nuzzle the cake to …

The horse op-ed is an instant classic. I can't tell you how much joy this piece gives me.

It should be taught in every introductory writing class in no small part because the horse arguments are so compelling. "I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children."

📌

This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset.

The. Rise. Of. Cognitive. Surrender.

Study finds that people who use GenAI chatbots rely on them 80% of the time, and develop almost no capacity to recognize when a chatbot is feeding them faulty information.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

We retired our fax machines and switched to efaxes at my job last year (we fax government offices and medical offices a lot). There's got to be a free or inexpensive efax service out there so you can skip kinkos if you want.

(And yeah, I can't see any advantage to AI research either.)

Serendipity is a perfectly legitimate research method!

It sometimes generates some fascinating questions that wouldn't have otherwise come to mind too.

And it's *so* satisfying! I'm still cackling at a plot detail for a WIP that struck me out of nowhere this morning while I was brushing my hair.

AI can't replicate this stupid little bit of giddiness that accompanies discovering the perfect solution.

I'm just here to tell you that Falling in Love (1984) starring Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro is an awful movie, but is a rare example of superb acting and great chemistry that still isn't enough to rescue the movie it appears in. 📽️

m.imdb.com/title/tt0087...

Dear marketing image of the lady doing upside-down yoga on my box of period supplies: I don't believe you.

Oh my god, the alt text is a gift. 😹

Such a good show. I remember watching reruns with my mom.

I cut through the mall down the block from the convention center on my way to work as usual, and today--
*droves* of 20-something bro-looking dudes. Just hundreds of them.

This is a bit unusual.

I had to look it up. Solar panel salesman convention.

Nothing against solar or bros, just interesting.

The Jetsons lied to us

An orange poppy in a flowerbed of purple and yellow flowers.

Some kind of small narcissus with white petals and a yellow cup in a flowerbed of purple flowers.

Spring flowers from yesterday afternoon.

I went to look up what time the No Kings protests in Boston started and this map made me happy.

Went to Project Hail Mary last night--so good!

(Don't want to say why I thought it good for fear of spoilers.)

What does it take to make a writer? I think I’ve worked it out but let me know if I’ve missed a segment.