Tag: TODO: Blog Idea

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.

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#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. 🤦‍♂️ 😂

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@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?

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—

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

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The squawking of the feral parakeets

Four green birds in flight against a blue sky.

Green and red parakeet in a palm tree, grooming its leg.

Sometimes I’ll hear the squawking of the feral parakeets that live in town as they fly past. Usually I don’t have a camera with me, but one time I managed to catch four of them flying (not very detailed, as you can see), and once I managed to catch one that had stopped in a palm tree long enough for me to use the zoom lens.

#birds #parakeets #FeralParakeets #parrots #nature #FeralParrots

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I heard the squawking and went for my camera, but this is the best I could get. Still, you can at least see the green color and a bit of the red on one of their heads.

After they flew on, I saw a few others diving out of palm trees and wheeling back up in the direction they’d come from.

I’ve seen and heard the feral parakeets before, and managed to get some decent pictures a few weeks ago. I can’t be certain these are the same parakeet species as that one, but it seems likely since they’re introduced.

Previous observation of mitred parakeet: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/26590485

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TODO: Combine with this post and others.

Since I’ve been posting observations to iNaturalist I’ve *definitely* noticed more differences among plants…

Since I’ve been posting observations to iNaturalist I’ve *definitely* noticed more differences among plants, whether walking around town or hiking through nature. Even just differences between types of weeds.

Link: BBC on “Plant blindness”

Why ‘plant blindness’ matters — and what you can do about it

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Of course, I’ve also started noticing differences among local birds more, too. I used to basically classify them as:
– pigeon
– seagull
– crow
– um, small bird?

Plus occasional ducks and geese near the water.

Now I can at least tell pigeons from doves, sparrows from finches (most of the time), ducks from coots, and pick out mockingbirds and starlings. And most of the cranes I’ve seen turn out to have been egrets.

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@cs jokes that you know you’re getting old when you start paying attention to birds, and links to What’s the Difference Between Pigeons and Doves? on Mental Floss.

Heh. Fair enough. Though there are particular species found in Southern California that are named doves (such as the white-and-gray mourning doves that perch alone on telephone wires calling “Oo! Oo! Oo!” for what seems like hours on end) or pigeons (such as the gray-and-blue-green common pigeons that tend to flock in groups, perch on ledges and try to steal dropped french fries).

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I spotted some of these feral parrots in the grocery store parking lot today.

Green and red parakeet in a palm tree, grooming its leg.

Green and red parakeet in a palm tree.

Green and red parakeet in a palm tree, looking sideways.

Two of these parakeets flew across the grocery store parking lot into a palm tree, squawking as they went. I could only spot one of them once they’d settled, but I managed to get almost a dozen photos of it while it sat there.

On iNaturalist

Link: Feral Parrots Are Taking Over America!

“These birds, descendants of escaped pets, have managed to create thriving colonies in these cities despite the annual cold weather.”

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I spotted some of these feral #parrots in the grocery store parking lot today. Two #parakeets flew across the lot into a palm tree, squawking as they went. I could only spot one of them once they’d settled, but I managed to get almost a dozen photos of it while it sat there.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/26590485

#birds #parakeets #FeralParakeets #FeralParrots
#nature #wildlife #photos

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TODO: combine with this post and others

I saw a billboard lamenting that Los Angeles has the worst air in the US, but spends the most on clean air. Yeah…because it used to be a LOT worse. Compared to LA smog in the 80s – or worse, the 50s & 60s, today’s air is amazingly clean. (At least on days without wildfires.)

I saw a billboard lamenting that Los Angeles has the worst air in the US, but spends the most on clean air.

Yeah…because it used to be a LOT worse. Compared to LA smog in the 80s – or worse, the 50s & 60s, today’s air is amazingly clean.

(At least on days without wildfires.)

Who would have thought Salvador DalĂ­ could still get even *more* surreal?

Who would have thought Salvador DalĂ­ could still get even *more* surreal?

A museum has (with permission from the DalĂ­ Foundation) put together a life-size interactive video exhibit using deepfake editing, actors, real footage and audio from interviews to get his expressions right. As part of the interaction, he takes selfies with visitors, which you can have texted to you.

#art #video #ai #museum #wtf #SalvadorDali

Deepfake Salvador DalĂ­ takes selfies with museum visitors

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Sometimes I wonder, why is the Salton Sea worth saving?

Sometimes I wonder, why is the Salton Sea worth saving? It’s not like the Aral Sea or Lake Chad. It was created in an engineering accident 100 years ago. Until then it was a low area in the desert.

This article makes the case for restoration, or at least remediation. A century’s worth of agricultural runoff (which has made the lake too toxic for fish) has settled to the bottom. If it dries out, all that toxic sediment becomes wind-borne dust.

Dust rising: As California’s largest lake dries up, it threatens nearby communities with clouds of toxic dust

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@Alonealastalovedalongthe responds: Too Big To Fail : Lake Edition

Yeah, that’s…a pretty good description.

@mithriltabby wonders about bioremediation and just how salty it’s gotten.

Hmm, according to Wikipedia it’s currently around 56 grams per liter, which is saltier than the ocean, but not as salty as the Great Salt Lake. But it’s increasing by 3% each year.

Wikipedia: Salton Sea

I find it interesting that YouTube backyard/garage science videos span the full range of- here’s …

I find it interesting that YouTube backyard/garage science videos span the full range of

– here’s a cool experiment you wish you could do if you had the equipment/resources/training
– here’s a cool experiment you CAN do
– here’s an experiment you REALLY shouldn’t do, let me show you exactly why we have this safety rule/warning label (ex. here’s what happens if you unwrap a lithium battery!)

…often within the same channel.

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And I really want a specific term for that last subcategory.

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I think many people dismiss Russian propaganda because they think of old Soviet posters etc. But what’s there now is different. They play up to our preconceptions, exaggerating outrage we already feel and dividing us further.

I think many people dismiss Russian propaganda because they think of old Soviet posters etc. But what’s there now is different. They play up to our preconceptions, exaggerating outrage we already feel and dividing us further.

https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-uk-fake-accounts/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/russian-trolls-can-be-surprisingly-subtle-and-often-fun-to-read/2019/03/08/677f8ec2-413c-11e9-9361-301ffb5bd5e6_story.html

Who decided so many restaurants have to be as echo-y as possible?I don’t need …

Who decided so many restaurants have to be as echo-y as possible?

I don’t need it to be quiet, but it would be nice to actually be able to hold a conversation with the to-go cashier about how they lost my order.

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Yeah, it’s been a fun evening…

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At least losing the order wasn’t their fault. It’s a chain restaurant & the central order line didn’t submit the order to them. But just trying to establish that, and re-order, with a restaurant full of families here for an elementary school fundraiser, and everything echoing off the smooth walls, floor and ceiling to the point where I could barely make out my own words, never mind the cashier’s…

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@dantebrevity links to Why Restaurants Are So Loud Now (Boing Boing), which quotes How Restaurants Got So Loud (The Atlantic).

Thanks…I’d suspected a lot of that (cheaper construction, and encouraging people to finish up sooner and leave), but hadn’t really thought about the impact of open kitchens or the noise encouraging people to drink more.

But the part that comes down to visual aesthetics makes me think of the plants in Jurassic Park, chosen for appearance regardless of whether they’re good for the actual dinosaurs.

I may want to check out that search-by-noise-level app…

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It’s like…Sauron ran a Palantir botnet…

@hummingrain IIRC the palantir weren’t intrinsically evil either, it was just that Sauron was on the network and was really good at manipulating people by figuring out how to exploit their psychology.

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@hummingrain It’s like…Sauron ran a Palantir botnet that spewed out propaganda to convince Saruman and Denethor that his victory was absolutely certain, and Saruman decided to join the winning team while Denethor lost all hope.

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It’s weird: when Instagram first started running ads in the form of promoted photos, it …

It’s weird: when Instagram first started running ads in the form of promoted photos, it was actually better at targeting. I’d scroll through pages of landscapes, cityscapes and nature photos from people I follow, and the travel ads fit right in. I almost hit like of quite a few of them because the pictures were good.

Now? Big box stores and fast food. Crackers and cold medicine. Movie posters. Logos and slogans. It’s like they’re not even trying.

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And quote this post

Dreamed that Lily Potter had survived Godric’s Hollow, completely obliviated. Unable to find any clues …

Dreamed that Lily Potter had survived Godric’s Hollow, completely obliviated. Unable to find any clues to her previous life, she built a new one as a muggle. Harry found her in his late teens, and they tried to reconnect, but the curse had left her unable to form long-term memories of anything magic, including Harry. Knowing she had new holes in her memory terrified her. Her muggle husband wanted to help, and started trying to develop technology to enhance memory charms.

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Comparing Voldemort and Grindelwald

Voldemort’s basically about power: people follow him because they see they’ll gain in the power structure he’s setting up, or figure that if they get on his good side, he’ll protect them.

Grindelwald is a demagogue, telling people what they want to hear in order to get them to support him. He still wants to oppress people, but his power base is built on persuasion rather than intimidation.

#HarryPotter #FantasticBeasts

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But since both villains draw on WW2 parallels, both wizarding wars have a strong element of metaphoric racism. Grindelvald’s followers & Voldemort’s both believe their genetic group is superior and should be in charge.

And having said that, now I’m reminded of the line in Catherynne Valente’s “Space Opera” about how *all* wars are about deciding who counts as a person, and who’s just meat.

It tracks.

#HarryPotter #FantasticBeasts #SpaceOpera

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Whenever someone complains about newer Star Trek being “ruined” by social justice…

Yep. Whenever someone complains about newer #StarTrek being “ruined” by social justice or progressive issues, unlike the older series…I have to wonder whether they ever actually *watched* the show they claim to remember so fondly.

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