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It shouldn’t make any difference that Twitter renamed Favoritesā˜… as Likes♥. It’s a coat of paint. But labels do matter. Just like “friend” and “follower”, “like” and “favorite” (and hearts and stars) conjure up different expectations.

Twitter says, “You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favorite.” Paradoxically, I find “likes” to be more specific. The star-and-favorite model comes out of Internet Explorer*, and modern browsers still use stars for bookmarks. This made “favorite” seem a little more versatile, anything from a stamp of approval to a simple check-back-for-later.

“Like,” on the other hand….

After years of requests for a “dislike” button, Facebook finally admitted that “like” isn’t sufficient to respond to everything, and will be expanding to multiple reaction buttons. I know Twitter keeps trying to be more like Facebook, but c’mon — even Facebook knows people don’t want to “like” sad news.

*Microsoft didn’t want to call their bookmarks “bookmarks.” Nobody wanted to use the same terminology as anyone else back then. They tried to call links “shortcuts” too.

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When restrictions on pseudoephedrine were put in place a decade(!) ago and drug companies reformulated using phenylephrine, I noticed a marked decrease in effectiveness. It’s been worth the effort to ask the pharmacist for the real thing, which is still available behind the counter (at least in California), though you have to let the state track how much you’re buying, just in case they think you’re going to cross the Heisenberg threshold.

A new study confirms: phenylephrine just doesn’t work, at least not at the approved dosage.

Gee, thanks.

But hey, at least no one’s making meth anymore, right? Right? 😕

(via Slashdot)

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In addition to chips and candy, we have healthy snack options in the break room at work. In some cases it’s a matter of buzzword compliance: Sorry, but using non-GMO organic natural ingredients does NOT make potato chips, popcorn, Cheez-it clones and cookies “healthy” by any stretch of the imagination.

But in some cases it’s actually an improvement. Like fresh fruit. The fruit goes pretty fast, too…but not all at the same rate.

Bananas tend to disappear first, usually by lunchtime on the day it’s delivered. Then apples and pears. Oranges stick around for a few days, sometimes until the next week’s delivery.

It’s a clear pattern: People are picking fruit based on how easy it is to eat at your desk.

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I haven’t been to Comikaze Expo since their first year. It’s always been close to Long Beach Comic-Con, and I’d choose Long Beach every time. This year, though, LBCC was in mid-September, and Comikaze was Halloween weekend. And since we missed out on San Diego, it seemed like a good plan for a family comic-con.

Alas, the best laid schemes…

The kiddo and I have both been dealing with a cold all week, and last night’s attempt at trick-or-treating made it clear that going into LA and spending the day at a huge convention wasn’t going to work out too well. With or without cosplay.

But we tossed up a few Halloween decorations, and I managed to spookify one of my shots from our marsh hike a few weeks back, and J. had a chance to wear the Mixed Emotions costume (all the emotions from Inside Out) we’ve been piecing together all month.

Halloween Costume: Mixed Emotions (Inside Out)

Incidentally…yeah, that’s a Christmas display behind him. On Halloween.

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The full moon hung low in the east, rising pale yellow against a shadowed sky. A cluster of lights floated next to it, airplanes lining up for approach to the runway I was driving past. I’d glanced over just as I passed under their flight path.

Above the moon and the lights, a band of pink crossed the sky. Above that, it shaded into blue.

To the west, past a chain link fence, past the tracks being laid down for a rail extension, past the expanse of the runway itself, the sky was orange. Bright yellow clouds, the only clouds in the sky, shone with light from the sun that hadn’t quite set for them yet.

I drove on.

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Last weekend I returned to the Madrona Marsh Preserve to see what our late summer/autumn heat wave had done to the place. The fields of sunflowers I saw in August have gone to seed and dried up, and the pools have continued to retreat. I managed to get a third shot in the same grove as before, where trees grew out of a pool in spring, towered over low ground cover in summer, and now stand alone, waiting for winter rains to flood the grounds again.

The image above is a combination of spring, summer and fall (specifically May, August, and October) views at the same spot.

The higher parts of the preserve are covered with dry scrub, though volunteers have cleared a lot of it out. The broken tree limb I had to walk around in August has been cleared away as well. Deep into the wooded area we did find mud flats teeming with reeds, smaller plants, dragonflies, songbirds and insects. I don’t know if any standing water remains, since we turned back at that point. (Kids have boundless energy, but limited stamina.)

Over on Flickr I have about a dozen photos of the hike, showing the preserve’s current range from dry scrub to muddy grass.