relsqui @relsqui@mastodon.social

most of the stuff I've been working on the last couple of days has been under the hood, apart from one of the most satisfying #gamedev gifs I've ever recorded

pro tip: stay out of their way. or, at the very least, get something else between you and them. #gamedev

I thought I was kidding about having given up on social media as a concept but it increasingly appears to just be true

I didn't even go out today, saw this one through the window and took pictures from my back porch 😂

nuttall's woodpecker today, I think! I see and hear them around sometimes but I've never been quick enough to get a photo before #birds

and in the spirit of being equally clear and direct: this is not an invitation to talk to me about free speech, politics, or computers (unless you have followup questions about using NFSN)

please don't make me delete the post this time

anyway, I would recommend NearlyFreeSpeech.NET for webhosting to anyone who's comfortable putting files on a server without a web interface, and especially if you have a low-traffic site that you only need pennies of bandwidth for, not dollars. I've been using them happily for years!

and it's very much in that same spirit that this isn't a milquetoast PR statement. I'm sure it's equally carefully and thoughtfully worded, but with a different goal: it is a clear, precise, and direct "fuck you" to the racists.

imagine the world we'd have if more people were willing to do that.

for context, NFSN's whole deal is making it really cheap to put something online. I won't quite say "cheap and easy," because it's very no-frills -- which is how it stays cheap -- but I've still always interpreted the spirit as making it very easy to publish things because that's an important thing to be able to do. they're also big advocates for online privacy and free speech.

easy to see why a bunch of racists thought it would be safe for them!

"Why are you loyal to NearlyFreeSpeech.NET?" because their response to a sudden burst of signups this month begins with this and gets better from there:

"So, a bunch of people suddenly discovered they care deeply about free speech immediately after a handful of racists faced even mild consequences for plotting a literal insurrection.

That does not reflect well on those people."

https://blog.nearlyfreespeech.net/2021/01/19/free-speech-in-2021/

the black phoebe on the left really wanted to get its portrait taken that day, it sat on the lowest wire right outside my front door and posed for several minutes.

I guess the green heron is kinda the opposite, it would probably have preferred not to be seen, on account of it was hungry

more bird friends through my phone camera and tiny zoom!

first photo is a small black songbird with a gray belly perched on a metal chimney (a black phoebe, I think)

second is a female goldeneye, a brown patterned duck with a severe beak and a huge yellow eye, swimming.

third is a group of four mallards, the common ducks with green heads and brown bodies, on the water

last is a black and white duck (bufflehead I think?) on the water, wings outstretched and head back like it's about to burst into song

oh I forgot to include the one I'm actually having trouble with, which is the duck on the left here. it hangs out with the mallards but doesn't look like a mallard. (not even a lady mallard, like the photo on the right.) best guess I've got from photos is lady redhead but I know those aren't common so I'm not confident in it. who knows #ducks?

I bought a tiny zoom lens for my phone -- it's just a cheap telescope and a cheaper plastic clamp. not expecting to take art photos with it, but I've been dabbling in birding and thought it might be handy for faraway IDs. I took it out for practice yesterday and mostly learned that distance is not usually the limiting factor (position/movement and lighting are) but still had fun learning to use the thing. #birds #photography