Tag: animals
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Ruth and I stopped at Hanley Swan for a picnic lunch on our way home from our weekend of Argentine Tango classes. Within seconds our lunch had attracted a large flock of ducks from the little duck houses on the village's adorable duck pond.
But better yet: I managed to catalogue like eleven memorial benches around the pond and the village green, all previously unknown to OpenBenches (@openbenches@botsin.space): #46341, #46342, #46343, #46344, #46345, #46346, #46347, #46348, #46349, #46351, #46352!
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A slightly dried-up duck pond with ducks and cute like pontoon duck houses.
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On the window sill of the bar at the hotel where Ruth and I are learning to tango... this morning I made a squirrel friend!
At least now I'll have succeeded at something today even if I can't get the hang on not-treading-on-toes!
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A grey squirrel lies against the glass pane of a stone-framed window.
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![Scan of book pages with highlighted section reading "Children [who] treat very roughly young birds, butterlies, and other poor animals... with a seeming kind of pleasure... will by degrees harden their minds even towards men and... will not be apt to be very compassionate or benign to those of their own kind.](https://bcdn.danq.me/_q26u/2026/10/locke-john-some-thoughts-concerning-education-1693-1889-edition-pp100-101-978x480.jpg#30378)
Do not build the LLM torture factory
Sean Goedecke puts forward a few arguments why people shouldn't play at 'torturing' LLMs. I disagree with many of his arguments, but I agree with his conclusion because of a different argument: one made by animal rights activists for hundreds of years now: that people who 'practice' abuse are more-likely to go on to commit (further) abuse.
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Found GCAYFMG Mรฉs enllร de la via II (13) - Granja Fortuny
This checkin to GCAYFMG Mรฉs enllร de la via II (13) - Granja Fortuny reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. Retreived the cache from beneath its insect guardian (pictured). TFTC!
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Drinking a coffee while editing a podcast episode in the beautiful Ullswater valley, and this lovely little pied wagtail came by to say good morning!
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Pied Wagtail (motacilla alba yarrelli) atop a dry stone wall.
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Found GCBMA9M #03 Northmoor Loop
This checkin to GCBMA9M #03 Northmoor Loop reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs. QEF when the GPSr dropped me right on it.
AltA lamb hides behind a sheep in a grassy field.
The dog complained that I wouldn't let her go play with the lambs while I retrieved โฆ -
It's my final day in the cute garden office of the AirBnB we're living in, this week, and every time I step through the door I catch a glimpse of our small, sandy-coloured dog squatting in the garden.
Except the dog isn't even here. My brain keeps getting tricked... by this statue of a pig:
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Cold Giraffe
My mum painted a cold giraffe onto a postcard and sent it to me.
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Horse Gym
My current temporary home - and, necessarily, office - is directly next door to some kind of "horse gym": a contraption a little like a huge revolving door to encourage one or more horses to exercise by walking around it.
Every now and then my peripheral vision registers that there's a horse outside the window and, for the dozenth time, I look up from my work and glance around to barely catch it vanishing off on yet another lap. -
gradient.horse
Michail Rybakov's gradient.horse might be the second most-amusing use of a .horse domain name I've yet seen. Draw a horse and let it run wild and free with its friends in the gradient plains of your browser window!
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Gay sheep - what the FAQ?!
About 1 in 12 rams (and a similar proportion of ewes) show a strong preference for other sheep of their same sex. To save them from being destroyed by breeders, this German farm is rescuing them and adding them to their queer flock.
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Dogspinner
Dogspinner - by Lu Wilson and Flora Caulton - is the Monday morning distraction you didn't know you needed.
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Found GC2CWQ7 #036 Just Northamptonshire
I walked to a different COUNTY one morning before breakfast, just to get a geocache!
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How do birds hear the calls of species of bird other than their own? Is it like background noise that they can talk (sing) over, filtering out everything but the calls of their own kind, like how you can talk over the murmur of a cocktail party until the second somebody says your name? Or is it more like something they consciously observe and work around, like waiting for your turn to speak in a group conversation flitting between several different topics?
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Early springtime view of bare trees over green-brown fields under a sky dappled with clouds.
Either way: is such communication strategy an instinctive or a learned behaviour? It seems likely that at least part of birdsong communication is gained after hatching because birds from noisy cities are louder than their country cousins (although you wouldn't know it, to listen out of the bedroom window of my rural home, this morning!).
Just a moment's curiosity for the morning.
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Today, while I cooked dinner, I introduced my two children (aged 10 and 8) to Goat Simulator.
Within half an hour, they'd added an imaginative twist and a role-playing element. My eldest had decreed themselves Angel of Goats and the younger Goat Devil and the two were locked in an endless battle to control the holy land at the top of a rollercoaster.
The shrieks of joy and surprise from the living room could be heard throughout the entire house. Perhaps our whole village.