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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.

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A few weeks steady at $8.98 for a dozen eggs.

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I’m going to learn to fly this de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver (developed by Thranda for X-Plane 12). Pretty cool that the software includes a paint scheme generator. Cloudy day at Downsview, Toronto. #XPlane12 #FlightSim #ThrandaDHC2 #macOS

Auto-generated description: A purple and orange small propeller plane is parked on a wet tarmac under a cloudy sky.

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This Black Phoebe chirped it up while catching insects mid-air in our backyard today. This is the first time we’ve had a Black Phoebe stick around long enough for a photo #BlackPhoebe #BirdPhotography #Fujifilm A small, brown Black Phoebe bird is perched on a thin branch amidst a background of brown twigs and thick wooden elderberry stems. The bird has a dark head, gray body, and white wing markings. The setting appears natural, surrounded by dry foliage with a wooden fence in the background.

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First bloom of our nectarine #Yarden #HomeOrchard A close-up of a budding nectarine tree branch with clusters of pink blossoms against a blurred background of a metal shed.

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Welcome to Superb Owl Sunday. Though I’ll throw an Eagle in too. #SuperbOwl #SuperbEagle #BirdPhotography two juvenile great horned owls in a nest high upon branches, with an adult owl sandwiched between. They’re watching the photographer closely. In the distance, two well-camouflaged great horned owls sit on a branch deep in a winter dormant tree, staring toward the photographer The white head of a Bald Eagle peers down, perhaps curiously, at the photographer through out of focus willow leaves. You can just make out its brown shoulders.

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Backyard nectarine is at first pink #Yarden #HomeOrchard A close-up of a tree branch with a single pink flower bud about to bloom. The background features more branches, a wooden fence, a metal shed, and a partly cloudy sky.

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. #SilentSunday #Fujifilm #SOoCA far off coyote trots across a sloping coastal meadow with many white flowers, framed by a calm Pacific Ocean and few scattered clouds.