Archiving my Twitter, Facebook and other social network activity
LOTR rewatch: The way the palantir network compromises Saruman and Denethor shows the danger in who controls the algorithm that manages your newsfeed.
Pippin picks it up, starts doomscrolling, and can’t put it down. Literally.
Aragorn plans out his post, gets on *just* long enough to make his point, and gets the hell out, knowing he’s made an impression.
Waiting at home for a video link is in some ways better than waiting at the doctor’s office, because you’re *home*, but there’s always that nagging suspicion that the email with the conference link has been lost and they’ve been waiting for you to connect for the last 10 minutes and will just move onto the next patient.
It has now been an hour since the front office called to do check in over the phone. No message has arrived with the link to video chat with the actual doctor.
*yawn*
So it turns out the zoom link was buried in a message from way back when I scheduled the appointment, and they marked me as a no show. Rescheduled with another doctor at the practice who has an open slot this afternoon.
The appointment info in their portal said that directions would be sent in a message…but not that they already had been.
I think Koffing is supposed to look like a magnified grain of dust or pollen…but it looks an awful lot like a coronavirus, too.
I don’t have a clever caption for this one, but thought it was cool that I caught the Croagunk *right there* while trying to decide what to do with the frog statue.
Incidentally, the frog statue is a Pokestop. And so is the historical cabin in the Sneasel picture.
#Pokemon
Turtwig has found a new friend.
#Pokemon
(I had such a hard time trying to get it to face the right direction, which is why it’s still a little bit off. At least I didn’t need to worry about the real turtle wandering away while I set up the shot.)
Finally made it out to the botanical gardens up in the hills for a hike. They’ve actually stayed open this whole time by requiring reservations to limit the number of people on the grounds at a time. (Also face masks, distancing, and closing off benches and some sections.)
Ironically there were more people there than I usually see. The limits must be against an increased demand due to the fact that they were actually open!
#nature #signs #bench #trail #closed #hiking #mask #photo
So he disassembled & reassembled the dead Nexus 5x that got stuck bootlooping 2 years ago. Plugged it in. Waited. It actually powered on enough for us to get it into recovery mode!
Unfortunately I should have left it in fastboot mode, because now that I’ve downloaded an image to install, I can’t get it to power up again at all.
The beach is closed now, along with the bike path and the sidewalk I was standing on. ALL of Los Angeles County’s beaches are closed.
Neighboring Ventura County just re-opened some of theirs with distancing rules in place, and while Orange County has resisted closing their beaches, they had so many people show up at the coast this weekend that some cities are thinking about closing them after all. (Well, maybe only on weekends when non-locals might show up. 🙄 )
Thinking back to the last “normal” weekend in southern California before it became clear that covid-19 was spreading locally & closures started.
After a busy Saturday & Sunday morning, I went out for a calming photo walk at the beach.
Not many people were there. I’m not sure if it was just not warm enough yet, or people were starting to keep their distance already, or if they were just all at the other end where there was a kite festival.
#photo #beach #SocialDistancing #california
While some cities have only closed playgrounds and sports facilities at their parks, Manhattan Beach has closed them all outright. Polliwog Park has a large pond year-round that attracts ducks, geese and coots, plus gulls and pigeons stopping in. The park has been literally wrapped in caution tape for a month, and the ducks that normally stay in and around the pond have come out to the edges by the sidewalks where people can still walk by and feed them.
Domestic mallard on iNaturalist
Domestic mallard On iNaturalist
Wild mallard iNaturalist
Expanded on K2R
This is fascinating: A college theater production of a rarely-performed classical Greek tragedy was interrupted by the pandemic.
It’s been transformed into a one-night only automated performance featuring video clips of the actors (each sheltering in place at home), collected by TikTok and iMovie and assembled by the director to be shown in an empty theater.
No one on stage. No one in the audience. A tragic story no one will see.
No one will ever see this play, and no actors are coming either. But the show will go on.
Seeing a lot of these signs in front of restaurants when I go walking in the neighborhood.
Most people have been really good at maintaining social distancing while out. The group in the distance seemed to all be one family.
Except for runners. Runners passing me from behind (where I can’t see them to move out of the way myself) have a 50/50 track record of dodging around vs. just zooming past at a distance of a foot.
Despite everything else going on, it *is* still #spring.
On PixelFed.Social
Blog Post
Went out for a walk this morning. Found a note from one of the neighbor kids for the 9YO, written in chalk on the sidewalk in front of the house: “Hi ___! From ___”
Saw several more as I walked around the block. Apparently he wanted to say hi to all the kids he knows.
Finally recovered enough from the flu to get out for a walk in the neighborhood (while that’s still an option).
I think this first bird (possibly a goldfinch?) was trying to practice social distancing, though the crow in the third photo seems to be doing a better job. The house finch was such a bright red that I thought it had to be another kind of bird until I looked at the photos.
#photo #birds #nature #finch #HouseFinch #goldfinch #crow
So, California has issued a statewide stay-at-home-unless-absofuckinglutely-necessary order.
https://covid19.ca.gov/stay-home-except-for-essential-needs/
The 9YO is already climbing the walls.
And I’m still recovering from the damn flu, so I’ve basically missed the window for any trips outside except for groceries (and maybe a chest xray if this very non-covid-like cough doesn’t clear up)
LA County order earlier today specifically said neighborhood walks were OK as long as you kept your distance. The statewide one doesn’t.
Back in my college theater days, I remember one of the teachers remarking that what sets theater apart from other types of events is the audience. A sporting event with no one watching still counts for the rankings and records. A play without an audience might as well be a dress rehearsal.
Well, sporting events are being scheduled without fans…and my old college just announced that this quarter’s performances will be done without audiences.
Though I guess they do still count for class credit
There were a zillion of these tiny clams, around maybe 1cm in size, in a band parallel to the ocean where the beach was still wet. Closer to the ocean it was just water and sand. Apparently these “abundances” are relatively common, happening once or twice a decade.
In Strange Sight, Tiny Clams ‘Absolutely Carpeted’ Stretch of Sand in Newport Beach
