A local park, looks especially awesome in fall when it’s foggy. Some pics from last year.

Yeah, for a decent entry level camera it’s around a thousand bucks, and lenses tend to go for close to that as well. If you do decide to go for it at some point, something like Sony A6100, is a good starter. I started on the older A6000 model, and it served me pretty well.

That’s how I started originally. I’d just walk around and if I saw something that looked neat, I’d snap a pic with my phone. And then I figured getting an actual camera might be a good pretext to get out of the house. The lockdowns kind of sealed the deal since I started getting cabin fever with nowhere to go. :)

Thanks, I find processing the photos tends to be half the fun. There are a lot of blackbirds around here, and they’re very feisty. Sometimes they’ll even attack hawks, and dive bomb people if they pass to close. But they’ll also eat seeds right out of your hand. And titmouses definitely look neat. I like the color scheme, and the mohawk is very cool. Apparently they do come to Ontario, but I’ve yet to see one myself.

It’s definitely a fun hobby, although a bit pricey in terms of gear. And I very much agree, just being around nature makes you feel better and allows you to think clearly. I was between jobs for a couple of months a few years ago, and I spent the whole summer going to the park. I’d get up around 6 in the morning, leave my phone at home, and go spend the whole day at the park. It was the happiest I can recall being in my adult life. Completely disconnected from everything, and just vibing.

I started with plants, but moved on to birds and occasional critters like chipmunks. Birds definitely take a bit of patience to get nice shots I find. I post some of my stuff on here https://pixelfed.social/Yogthos

I got into doing nature photography over the pandemic as a way to get out of the house, and it’s been amazing for my mental health. It forced me to get out and just live in the moment really paying attention to the environment around me. I’ve realized how little we notice of the world around us normally. I’ve also found martial arts are a similar experience in a sense that you’re really just focused on the moment and forget about everything else you’ve been thinking about.

The all-caps delivery really frames your thesis beautifully.

Generative AI is just the tip of the iceberg. For example, Huawei AI targets industry upgrades as opposed to chatbots. This has applications in medicine, robotics, research, hardware design. Letting your biases blind you to what’s actually happening with technology leads to myopia.

I’m just pointing out that it makes little sense to talk about how technology will develop in the next 5 years while ignoring the biggest factor that will drive the direction of technological development.

It makes no sense to think about the future of technology while ignoring one of the biggest technological developments to date. Whatever you think of AI, it’s necessarily going to shape every aspect of technological development going forward.

One example I can give you off top of my head is that traditional user interfaces will likely be going away. There’s no need to have a complex UI the user has to learn to navigate when you can just use language to describe what you want. You will just ask the agent to find whatever information you need, and present it in a specific way to you. Think of it as having a personal secretary who compiles information for you, and makes presentations.

Wouldn’t Texas be at the top of the list of states most likely to exit?

The knowledge that western domination over the world is crumbling, that neolibarlism is becoming discredited, and that the capitalist system is imploding. Meanwhile, there’s plenty of positive news coming out China every day. China is building infrastructure, transitioning off fossil fuels, and improving the standard of living for its people. China is showing what an alternative cooperative model of development looks like, one that’s not based on constant war and exploitation.

That’s highly dependent on the instance I find.

I literally explained all this to you in detail already. You’re like a chat bot spewing nonsense that is grammatically correct, but lacks any actual meaning upon closer examination.

The point is they haven’t even tried doing this. But you keep on braying here pretending like you have clue. It’s adorable.

🤣

Google exists, spend some time educating yourself if you genuinely care about understanding the subject. If you’d like me to tutor you, then feel free to send a dm and pay me for the effort.

So you’re admitting that you have no clue how the US legal system works?

The Congress has WAY more tools than just impeachment to check illegal executive actions. Impeachment’s the nuclear option, but daily oversight is where real accountability happens. Let’s just take a look at a few tools dems could use.

Trump admin officials like Wilbur Ross repeatedly ignored subpoenas about the citizenship census question. Dems could’ve jailed officials for contempt ,like the GOP did to Lois Lerner, or sued for enforcement. They folded. Trump’s family separation policy violated asylum laws. Congress controls the purse. They could’ve defunded ICE/CBP’s ability to implement it. Instead, they funded it more. Trump’s emoluments violations (e.g., foreign govs. paying at his hotels). Pass a bill explicitly banning presidential self-enrichment. When Dems did act (e.g., suing over border wall funds), they won which proves that legal avenues exist.

Claiming “Congress can’t do anything” ignores history. When Bush pushed torture, Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act. When Obama overreached on immigration, courts blocked him. Weakness is a choice, not a constraint. Even without majority control, minority parties have real power, which dems are not using. They can force subpoena votes, sue in court (like Dems did to block Trump’s border wall funding), leverage Senate filibusters, and rally public pressure. Republicans proved this by stonewalling Obama’s Supreme Court pick for 10 months with only Senate control. The tools exist, and the lack of oversight reflects political opportunism as opposed to institutional impossibility.