Paul Ganssle @pganssle@qoto.org

Just did a local patch to fix a bug in an upstream package I use to generate my talks... to fix some slides where the take-away is "you probably shouldn't be locally patching just to fix bugs."

Ah, so we're at that stage of the talk preparation process...

I've really enjoyed the Wikipedia article on Monkey Patching:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_patch

Takeaways:

1. Monkey patching is sometimes also called duck punching.
2. The "monkey" probably comes from "guerilla"
3. This is an easter egg waiting to happen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_patch#Examples

For now I can switch over to CC search: https://search.creativecommons.org

But it's a bit of a hodge-podge of random stuff, not curated high-quality photos.

I really liked Unsplash and I'm not one to jump ship whenever a company does something I don't like, but the whole reason I used them was for ease of use and license compatibility...

WTF? Unsplash switched (apparently silently) from being a repository of CC-0 stock photos to using some semi-proprietary license that is not compatible with CC licenses!

Anyone have a good replacement and/or an archive of the photos released in the CC-0 days?

I also saw this hawk on the way home. I'm thinking red-tailed hawk.

#birding

Went to feed the geese at the river this morning and I saw this bald eagle!

It was tough to take a picture of it, but I got a reasonably clear one.

#birding

Excuse me, Mr. Goose, you seem to have a little something on your beak...

#birding

More #birding photos, some Blue Jays that stopped by the feeder the other day.

Apparently Fiji just changed their DST and end dates, 1 month before the predicted date (I say "apparently" because I can't find the order officially announced anywhere).

Clearly someone in the Fijian government needs to read https://codeofmatt.com/on-the-timing-of-time-zone-changes/

I feel like there's a good chance that there will be a lot of inconsistent clocks between November 7th and December 20th, and on January 16th, considering how long it takes for tzdata to propagate to all systems.

#timezones

The 2020b release of the time zone database is available for download, and so I've updated the PyPI `tzdata` module to 2020.2:

https://pypi.org/project/tzdata/

If you're a zoneinfo user on Windows, now is the time to update! (Everyone else, update your system package!)

#python

Before anyone asks: The silver stuff on the walls is insulation. Despite having 3 spare rooms (maybe overcompensating for the cramped NYC lifestyle we previously have), I put my office in our semi-finished basement.

Putting up LED strips to improve the lighting in my #workspace; the strips are long enough to run 4 of them along my ceiling and 3 joists to reasonably hang them on. What do y'all think, should I double up the middle one, the one in front of me or the one behind me?

This is just west of Hartford, by the way.

Anyone know what kind of bird this is at my feeder?

Pictures don't really capture it well, but it's got some yellow-brown feathers on its back and head, very muted (I suspect this bird is a much brighter yellow during breeding season) a brown beak, white underbelly.

They seem to like thistle seeds.

#bird #birding

This account is basically now a birding account, sorry.

Two new birds at the feeder today (and yesterday): northern cardinal and an all-brown bird (or at least brown on the top parts, that I could see) with white-outlined wings. Not sure what that one was, none of the bird ID sites are showing me anything that looks exactly right.

For birds that molt, I do wish these bird ID sites would have a little table or breakdown. They have pictures labeled "nonbreeding male", but I'd really like it to say, "Between July and December males look like this, otherwise they look like this".

#birding

Customers today so far:

- Tufted titmouse
- White-breasted nuthatch
- European starling
- Black-capped chickadee
- Downy woodpecker
- Squirrel

Pictures are squirrel with tufted titmouse and tufted titmouse from yesterday.

#birding

Put up a bird feeder in the back yard last night, I've already seen three (non-squirrel) customers:

- Bluejay
- Downy woodpecker
- Black-capped chickadee

#birding