This is cool: researchers have developed a “soft” robotic lens that can change its shape …

This is cool: researchers have developed a “soft” robotic lens that can change its shape in response to electrical generated by eye movement. Potential not just for replacement lenses, but also contacts or glasses that adjust to distance, or even zoom.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/15/researchers-just-created-robotic-lens-that-can-be-controlled-by-eyes/

On Wandering.shop

Literally confusing hawks and doves.

Pigeon on a spiky tree branch surrounded by leaves.

Pigeon on a spiky tree branch surrounded by leaves.

Usually #iNaturalist’s AI is pretty good at narrowing down to a genus, but sometimes it can get confused. Like this #pigeon sitting on a silk floss tree branch. It was “pretty sure” it was a *hawk*.

Um, nope!

I can sort of see that with the first image, but the second one makes it blindingly obvious!

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/30408488

#birds #nature

On PixelFed.Social

@KelsonV I just realized it’s literally confusing hawks and doves.

On Photog.Social
Expanded on K2R

Apparently their neighbors reported them for renting it out as Airbnb or similar (which the …

Apparently their neighbors reported them for renting it out as Airbnb or similar (which the city doesn’t allow). Then they painted the house bright pink with giant 😜 and 🤐 emoji on it. Now the neighbors are complaining about the mural, but the city says it’s on private property 🤷‍♂️

Honestly I’m surprised – it sounds like the kind of area that would mandate specific shades of beige paint.

(LA Times, paywall)

‘Emoji house’ feud erupts as frustrated residents urge Manhattan Beach to take action.
Bright pink house with screwball emoji on it.

On Wandering.shop

#EmojiHouse #weird #LosAngeles #California


(conversation includes link to The Guardian article) It made international headlines?

@OldBrushNewPaper It made international headlines?

Oh, of course it did. It’s a weird story with emoji. 🤦‍♂️ 😂

On Wandering.shop

@OldBrushNewPaper It’s not really the kind of area where people would respond with better murals, though. I could see that happening in neighboring Hermosa Beach, but Manhattan Beach is…how should I say this…stuffier?

On Wandering.shop

Wow, I should have gone looking for the Easy Reader to begin with. (It’s one of the two local papers in the area.) The owner comes off a *lot* worse with the additional background of how she allegedly treated the last long-term tenants.

More detailed article on the Emoji house from a more local paper.
The Emoji House war: A neighborhood feud erupts in El Porto

Susan Wieland had been away for a work conference since the end of May, but neighbors sent her the photo. Even so, upon returning to her home in the El Porto neighborhood of Manhattan Beach on the night of June 8, she wept when she actually saw her neighbor’s house. The house, a two-level…

– Easy Reader News

On Wandering.shop

Mandating removable batteries, hell yes! Standardized batteries across the board? I’m not sure …

replying to post about possible regulations

Mandating removable batteries, hell yes!

Standardized batteries across the board? I’m not sure we’re there yet. Battery life and charging speed are still things the industry is trying to improve, and if we lock in a particular size/shape/etc., I can imagine that making it harder to make better batteries for the next generation of devices.

On Wandering.shop

@GreenandBlack There’s a brutalist office building-turned-hotel near my workplace that tried to jazz things up …

@GreenandBlack There’s a brutalist office building-turned-hotel near my workplace that tried to jazz things up by adding color and banners during the conversion, but this is so much better!

On Wandering.shop

@GreenandBlack I should’ve said “tried to spruce things up.”

On Wandering.shop

You would have to create a new user if you want to set up on another server…

@natharari You would have to create a new user if you want to set up on another server. But you don’t need to set up an account there to interact. That’s the great thing about Mastodon being federated. I mean, we’re on different servers right now!

That said, there’s something to be said for joining a smaller community when you find one that fits. When I was on mastodon.social, the local feed was just too big and fast to follow. Here on wandering.shop I still take a look there from time to time.

On Wandering.shop

@natharari And depending on what you want to do, there may be a use case for juggling IDs on several servers. I have one here that I use for most stuff, and one on photog.social that I use for photography. Other people will split one personal account and one project-related account. Or have an account that they want as their public face, and a locked account for more private stuff.

On Wandering.shop

@natharari My experience has been that adding more mastodon accounts is essentially the same as adding more social networks. I’ve had four since I first started (not counting bots and test accounts), and found it was hard to juggle more than two at a time.

I’ve also found that Tusky does a good job of handling multiple accounts on one phone app.

On Wandering.shop