Patterns found online and carved by the mom-and-son team.
Category: Life
Instagram Getting Even More Hostile to the Web
Instagram is now requiring you to sign in to view public profiles. You can still look at (for example), my Instagram profile, but once you scroll down a few pages, it pops up a login form and you’re stuck.
A spokesperson said, “This is to help people see photos on Instagram and then understand how to get the best Instagram experience by being part of the community, connecting and interacting with the people and things they love”
Oh, please.
This isn’t to help people.
This is to help Instagram.
This is to force people to sign up for Instagram just so they can see users’ photos that they have posted publicly.
Admittedly, Instagram has always kept the web at a bit of a distance. When it launched, they only had an app. Later you could follow a link to a photo on the web, but it was a dead end. Eventually you could actually browse your timeline, search, and look at people’s photo collections on a web browser. (Edit: Though they’ve never let you link out from a photo back to the rest of the web, unless you buy ads.)
And now they’re moving to close themselves off again.
I wrote a few months ago about how I’ve been weighing alternatives. As Facebook exerts more and more control, it becomes less appealing to use. And that’s not even getting into the train wreck of “influencer” culture.
Since then I’ve mostly stopped visiting Instagram, either to view photos or to post them. When I do, it’s frustrating. I’ve been posting more at Pixelfed (lead dev @dansup shared a link to the article at the top) and Mastodon, or just bypassing social networks entirely and going straight to Flickr. You can look at my complete archives on all of those sites, incidentally.
I’m not at the point of deleting my account yet, but I’m thinking it might be time to pull back more actively. Pare down the list of people I’m following, at least, in hopes that it will be a little more welcoming and useful when I do visit. Though I did that with Tumblr and haven’t been back much anyway.
And maybe I should start clearing out my archive. If people are only going to see a dozen or two of my photos, I should at least make sure they’re good ones, right?
Squirrel Guard
I saw this squirrel running across the grass, then got my camera out and caught the first photo as it ran up the side of a tree and paused, looking at me as if assessing whether I was a threat or not.
Then it ran the rest of the way up to look at a gap in the tree, perhaps assuring itself that its stash was still where it had left it.
I walked around to see that there was a hollow between the two major branches, and the squirrel turned around and planted itself firmly, staring at me as if ready to defend its hoard.
My photos taken, I walked away.
Ten Shots
Off-duty cop fires ten shots at an unarmed intellectually disabled man and his family from twenty feet away, killing him and critically wounding his parents, because he pushed him in a Costco food line 3.8 seconds earlier.
No charges filed, because he had “no choice.”
- 10 shots at 3 unarmed people.
- 20 feet away.
- In a crowd.
- 3.8 seconds after being knocked to the ground by a man who was already 20 feet away by the time he fired.
And yet he had “no choice but to use deadly force.”
You’re seriously telling me there were no other choices?
It’s still not clear what started it. But the dead man had schizophrenia and was adjusting to a change in his medication, and his parents were trying to de-escalate the situation when they were shot.
Which the cop could’ve tried if he hadn’t started shooting immediately.
Update June 2020: His parents both survived, minus a few organs. The LAPD determined that the shooting “violated department policy.”
Update October 2021: A jury awarded the family $17 million in damages from the city of Los Angeles, finding that the officer was acting within the scope of his employment in the LAPD. And while Riverside County (where the shooting occurred) declined to press charges, the state of California charged him with manslaughter and assault.
Update August 2022: A preliminary hearing determined there was enough evidence for the former officer to stand trial.
Tenacious Tree
I finally stopped to take a photo of this tenacious palm tree. I’m not sure whether it was planted or if it just took root next to the support pillar back when the Green Line was new two decades ago. It’s clearly not actively maintained, judging by all the old dry fronds still attached, and I keep wondering if it’ll get taken out as part of the construction of the Crenshaw line (this is right next to the Y connector where the new line branches off, and the fences are part of the construction site)…but that construction’s almost done, and the tree’s still there.
That’s Not Federalism
So, does denying California the ability to set its own environmental standards fall under “states’ rights” or federalism? And is it pro-business to tell automakers that they’re not allowed to make deals with the state?
Your daily reminder that the GOP only cares about states rights when the states are trying to interfere with people’s civil rights, and only cares about federalism when, well, more or less the same, and is only pro-business when they like the business. And of course they’re only pro-family when the families look like theirs, and they’re only pro-freedom of religion when it’s their own religion, and so on down the line.
They talk a lot about conservative principles, but judging by actions, they’re just rationalizations.
Treetop Tomatoes
Is this the weirdest place I’ve seen a volunteer tomato? It’s certainly up there!
*sorry*
*ok, not sorry* 🙂
Originally posted on Pixelfed. Observation on iNaturalist.
Update: There’s also a black nightshade of some sort and a ficus growing out of the same tree, which you can sort of see in the medium-zoom photo.
Update Sep 13: Found a notice pinned to all the trees along this edge of the block: The construction project for the LAX people-mover wants to take them all out.
They do intend to replace them, but I guess the treetop tomato is not long for this world. 😢