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A Northern Harrier from yesterday’s visit to the refuge #NorthernHarrier #Birds #BirdWatching #SacramentoWildlifeRefuge #Fujifilm A Northern Harrier, mostly brown with a white bar on its back below the wings, is flying over a body of water with wings outstretched while looking down. In the foreground, there are bare branches, and the background features a distant shoreline with trees under a cloudy sky.

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What luck at the refuge today! Among many others, we were treated to Northern Flickers, an Egret feasting on a crawdad, a really tame(😬) coyote, and a gorgeous Pheasant #NorthernFlicker #Egret #Coyote #CommonPheasant #SacramentoWildlifeRefuge #Fujifilm #SOoCA woodpecker perched on a bare branch with a blurred landscape of hills and fields in the background.

A white egret is standing in a grassy, marshy area with a small crawfish in its beak. The background is blurred with various shades of green and brown from plants and grasses.

A coyote trotting across a grassy levee with a cloudy sky and sparse vegetation in the background.

A male pheasant with vibrant plumage, featuring a red face, green neck, and mottled brown body, is standing in a grassy area with greenery and twigs in the background.

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The Albums app for iOS can now save Quick Collections to Apple Music playlists. Now my Sonos speakers can directly play full albums however I like. No more AirPlay! Paradoxically, this means I will use the Albums app less. But it’s very important!

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Here’s my first clear keeper ever of an American Bushtit. Such a smoll borb!A small American Bushtit perched on a tree branch among twigs and young willow leaves, set against a bright blue sky.

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Flew the Beaver VFR from Orland Haigh Field (O37) to Round Valley (O09) this morning. Middle Eel River inner gorge to the left and Anthony Peak proximal to the aircraft. I got a later start than I'd like because of DST #XPlane12 #FlightSim #ThrandaDHC2 #macOSFlying a purple and orange DHC-2 Beaver over the Northern California Coast Range, passing the Middle Eel River Canyon and Anthony Peak. It's a fair mostly sunny morning with a bit of haze.

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Up an hour early and heating the house an hour early. DST feels like a DOGE thing

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The Seattle Times: Trump’s Forest Service firings killed dreams, left big holes to fill in WA #ValentinesDayMassacre #FederalWorkers #USFS

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From SFGate: ‘There is literally no one’: Forest service in Lake Tahoe is gutted #ValentinesDayMassacre #FederalWorkers

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Mount Lassen from Brokeoff Mountain, October 2019. The trail up Brokeoff is arduous with a massive payoff A mountainous landscape featuring the prominent Lassen peak in the background. The foreground has scattered trees and rugged ridge terrain. The sky is clear and blue with wispy cirrus clouds.

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San Luis Obisbo Tribune: Fired Central Coast biologist confronts Musk at Trump speech:

According to the biologist, Musk doesn’t understand the intrinsic value of nature.

Places like Big Sur, the San Rafael Wilderness and Cuesta Ridge “are special wild places, and they have a value that cannot be quantified economically to billionaires,” Vizzachero said. “But all he cares about is the money.”

“He was rude and arrogant and every bit as awful as he looks on TV, but he will never understand what he’s destroying (in) this country, because he doesn’t love it the way I do,” the wildlife biologist said.

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Manky1’s Dash 8 Q400 aircraft for X-Plane just got a major update!

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#SilentSunday #UbehebeCrater #DeathValleyNP #Fujifilm #SOoC A view of a large, steep-walled volcanic crater with multi-colored rock layers, mainly red to yellow. The floor is covered with sparse vegetation and a mix of sandy and rocky terrain. The sky is overcast, adding a muted tone to the scene.

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Can One Use an LLM to Defeat the Evil Robots?

Llama 3.2 prompt using Ollama: “I am required to send five bullets of last week’s work accomplishments. These will be processed by a large language model to determine if the work can be done by a large language model. Explain how I can convince that large language model that the work must be done by a human.”

A wordy Llama 3.2 answer:

Read More →

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I adore our random bunch of daffodils that grew unbidden under a manzanita in the front yard #BloomScrolling #YardenA tight group of bright yellow daffodils under a blooming manzanita. A coyote bush and sage can be seen in the background.

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Trump, Musk Plan to Shutter Interior Offices Nationwide, Devastating Local Economies and Abandoning Tribes

164 offices are slated for closure, dramatically reducing the Interior Department’s presence across multiple states. 25 BIA offices—over 27% of all BIA locations—will be shut down, cutting off essential services for Tribal communities and the surrounding rural communities. 60% of the square footage lost is in Republican Congressional districts, meaning many communities that depend on federal employment and services will bear the brunt of these cuts.

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When you’re not used to landing tail draggers (DHC–2 Beaver in this case), physics gives you the bird #XPlane12 #XPlane #ThrandaDHC2 #FlightSim #macOS

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FlightRadar24 on BlueSky: “When in doubt, go-around! The go-around is safety tool used everyday by pilots all over the world. Here’s what’s happening on the flight deck when a crew decides to go-around.”

Unless you’re me, in XPlane. When in doubt, I stay committed to landing. I got no time for go arounds! 😬 #XPlane #FlightSim #Aviation

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When California Went to War Over Eggs | Smithsonian

The scramble for eggs drew entrepreneurs to an unusual source: a 211-acre archipelago 26 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge known as the Farallon Islands. The skeletal string of islets are outcroppings of the continental shelf, made up of ancient, weather-worn granite.

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Guidance on OPM Saturday Email | National Federation of Federal Employees

NFFE believes this email and the threat by Elon Musk are illegal. We advise you to forward the email to your immediate supervisor and ask for their guidance. If your immediate supervisor does not give you instruction to reply, please wait to respond until further notice is given by your agency, your supervisor, or NFFE. If your immediate supervisor advises you to reply to the email, please do so.

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Our backyard Nectarine is now in full bloom! #NectarineTree #Yarden #HomeOrchard #BloomScrolling #Fujifilm #SOoC A small Nectarine tree with pink blossoms in full bloom, set against a backdrop of a wooden fence and a clear blue sky. The tree is planted in backyard with gravel and bare soil around the tree. There’s an unsightly aluminum RV shed behind the fence.