This is in Phil Plait’s newsletter today, and it’s too beautiful and weird not to share. You can view it on the original site with full text here: Spying a spiral through a cosmic lens
This new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month features a rare cosmic phenomenon called an Einstein ring. What at first appears to be a single, strangely shaped galaxy is actually two galaxies that are separated by a large distance. The closer foreground galaxy sits at the center of the image, while the more distant background galaxy appears to be wrapped around the closer galaxy, forming a ring.
Check out Phil Plait’s newsletter here: Bad Astronomy
What the title says. I didn’t plan it out, it just happened while I was experimenting with brushes in Procreate. I am hoping to do more quick sketches like this going forward.
Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby) Weather: Cloudy, some sun, 11-16°C
Reifel Bird Sanctuary
Endless marshland and a hazy blue sky.
The weather was downright pleasant today. Nic wore shorts! I did not. Maybe next time the weather is nice.
We got to Reifel early and given the weather, it was pretty busy. Among the many people was local bird photographer Liron Gertsman, who I recognized as he and his groupies/friends walked past up and went to the top of the viewing tower. I spotted him due to his adorable baby beard. He probably won several awards while at the top of the tower for photography, these things just seem to happen to him.
Meanwhile, on the ground, we saw a good mix of birds. The shoveller numbers seem to be thinning, but we encountered many a YARG (Yet Another Random Goose) as they were scattered all over the place.
The tree swallows are back, looking like shiny little penguins and setting up home in assorted bird boxes. Marsh wrens were singing their little hearts out and a few of them appeared long enough for us to get some decent shots. The even harder-to-shoot golden-crowned kinglets were also flitting about and amazingly, several stopped long enough to make up for the hundred or so blurry or not-quite-there shots. It’s always nice to be reviewing your photos and encounter a good shot only a few photos in.
We saw two Sandhill cranes, though they were apart–one adult and one rather vocal juvenile. I wonder why the family is split up.
The drama this time came courtesy of a cantankerous coot, who took umbrage to a duck, stretched up to full height (and looking very chicken-like) and doing a kind of karate kick with one of its impressively freaky feet to a nearby mallard. It ended after that, but yeah, don’t mess with coots, I guess.
The geese were relatively well-behaved, and all of the ducks gave us good pose.
Burnaby Lake
Increasing green adjacent to Still Creek.
We weren’t at Burnaby Lake for too long for reasons, but the main objective–to find recently-sighted mountain bluebirds–eluded us. Instead, we came across a large murder of geese (that’s what I’m calling them) on the athletic field, except, upon closer inspection with both eyes and ears, these were not Canada geese, but the smaller and honk-free Cackling geese. We’d never seen a large group of them before. They’re kind of adorable with their short necks and stubbier beaks. And they don’t honk, they kind of peep-honk (it doesn’t sound like cackling to me).
There were chickadees here, too, but they were one of the birbs I failed to get any really good shots of today, alas. It was a fine outing otherwise.
I saw this on Mastodon and it is perfect. Context provided below.
Context: A few weeks ago, OpenAI released an update that allowed people to generate images, including in specific styles, if they so chose. One of those styles is Studio Ghibli, after the well-regarded Japanese animation studio. This, predictably, led to a bunch of people turning personal photos into pseudo Ghibli images, but others used the style for less tasteful purposes, to showcase terrorism and other violent acts.
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, changed his avatar on X to a “Ghiblified” version of himself. A lot of people–rightly, I think–took this as being Altman’s way of saying AI companies can appropriate (steal) art and art styles as they see fit and no one can stop them. It’s at the heart of much of the criticism of AI: that the output it produces is largely built off of stolen works, that the companies behind AI simply don’t care (or even feel entitled to the stolen works) and comes at great cost to the environment, too1Some of these costs are coming down, but it ain’t exactly efficient yet..
But yeah, for a beautiful moment in time, we turned everything into a Ghibli studio movie.
The original New Yorker cartoon, which also remains perfect:
It’s sad but not surprising that this is how NaNoWriMo ends. After dealing with moderator issues on their forums, the non-profit bafflingly chose to not just embrace AI, but accuse people opposed to it of ableism, showing a serious lack of insight into both accessibility concerns and creative writing. I wrote about it here.
The letter from the interim director suggested people were too cheap to donate, while gliding over the fact that over two-thirds of their expenses were for employee benefits, which is unusually high for a non-profit.
I stopped participating in NaNoWriMo years ago, but would periodically log into the site, check my profile, and ponder fiction writing in general. It’s a shame that it all fell apart like this.
We still have Writing Month, among other sites, still around. Onward with the making of words and the telling of stories!
Because they are beating me up this year. My nose is constantly plugging and drying out, my mouth and lips are dry, and I have a semi-permanent glob of stuff caught near the top of my throat.
Today, my stomach turned on me, possibly because the nasal spray I used to clear the stuffed nose may have gotten into my stomach, where it is far less effective. Or maybe it was something I ate. Or stress. Or aliens.
Anyway, I can never remember how long the symptoms persist, but other than nasal spray offering immediate, if temporary relief, it seems like none of the other miracle drugs do much.
Which is not a phrase I get to type out every day.
But today I do, because a visit to the urologist has resulted in a referral to get an ultrasound. From there, plans will be made (or not) for a camera that would further probe my innards.
You can probably guess what outcome I’m hoping for here.
It’s late and I am beat, so a short summary today.
I opted to run on Sunday because tomorrow’s weather looks worse and I’m going to have my hands full of icky strata stuff.
It was very mild again today, and I ran in a t-shirt and shorts. Despite some wind, it was perfectly fine. I did a 2.5K run again, partly because I was pressed for time. It also went fine and I very slightly improved my pace. I also did not have nearly as dramatic a fall-off from the first to second km. My stamina is improving slightly!
There were a lot of people out and aboot thanks to the weather, but no problems encountered with humans or non-humans.
In all, a good continuation of my road back to actual regular fitness.
Reflecting pond with train on the river trail, post-run.
Stats:
Run 913 Average pace: 5:55/km Training status: Productive Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW, short loop) Start: 3:12 p.m. Distance: 2.50 km Time: 14:51 Weather: Cloudy, some sun Temp: 16°C Humidity: 45% Wind: light to moderate BPM: 150 Weight: 171.6 Total distance to date: 6,407.5 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Switchback (these are old shoes and will be replaced soon™)
If I could go back to 1982 (age 18) and start over, with all of my current knowledge and memories intact, would I (obligatory time travel question)? Yes.
Do I have a favourite colour? No. I used to say red when I was a kid.
Do I have a favourite band? No. But the ones I listen to the most are: R.E.M., They Might Be Giants, Pink Floyd, The Alan Parsons Project, and ELO. Yes, I grew up in the 70s/80s.
Do I wish I had a full, luscious mane of hair? Yes.
Do I weep over the lack of #4? No, but I do wear caps (outside).
If I could go back in time and start jogging earlier, would I? I wouldn’t go back in time just to start jogging sooner, but if it happened due to Convenient Science Fiction Plot Device, I would do so.
Am I an optimist or pessimist? I lean toward pessimist, but never go fully cynical.
Has my opinion of “the average person” declined in the last few years, though? Oh yes. Yes indeed.
What do I think the world will be like in 100 years? Generally worse.
What do I think the world will be like in 200 years? For humans, probably better, for those still around, but not for all.
Will we ever land on other habitable planets? Answer unknown.
Aliens? Aliens!
What’s the most relevant lyric Morrissey ever wrote? “It’s so easy to laugh, it’s so easy to hate/It takes strength to be gentle and kind” (from “I Know It’s Over”)
Are people silly? Yes.
Am I silly? Yes.
Will this list go to 20? Yes.
Hot take on capitalism? It sucks.
Favourite food: I will never say no to cashew chicken.
