Mokka mit Schlag

I’m in process of doing my usual New Year’s batch of host changes, DNS reroutes, software upgrades and the like. If you notice anything wonky on any of my sites, please drop me an email. Thanks.

Overall 2024 was a slow year. I didn’t travel anywhere I hadn’t been before, and I lost a month of prime rarity season in New York to a bout with pneumonia that put me in the hos[ital for over a week. But there were still some interesting birds to be found the rest of the year.

I finished the year with 364 species total (surprisingly 19 more than 2023, perhaps because I traveled to the West Coast a couple of times for the first time since quarantine) but no life birds. (Harris’s Sparrow was new on my ebird life list, but I did see one on Long Island years ago before eBird was a thing.) I did pick up some species for my state and county lists though.
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When I was a young child I believed in God for the same reason I believed in the president or England: other people told me and seemed to act as if there was such a thing, so it didn’t even occur to me doubt it. I also believed in Santa Claus until maybe the age of 8. Fifty years later, I’ve seen lots of evidence that the president exists. I’ve been to England. I even believe in a lot stranger things like neutrinos and mitochondria, mostly because almost everyone who seems to know anything about these things believes in them and tells me I should too. It also helps that believing in them doesn’t seem to lead to any obvious contradictions or problems.

On the other hand I don’t believe in string theory because some people who seem to be smart and have deeply investigated these topics either don’t believe or actively disbelieve. I’ll even say I don’t believe in quantum gravity. I don’t disbelieve in quantum gravity, but there are enough contradictions and problems with every quantum gravity scheme anyone has ever proposed to make me cautious.
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If you’ve ever watched a YouTube video you’ve likely heard way too much about VPNs (mostly though not completely useless for privacy purposes) and DeleteMe (possibly a little helpful for keeping your offline information out of some white pages type sites). However, did you ever wonder where these sites and many other marketers and spammers get your information from in the first place? There are actually many sources, but one place most people don’t think of is the stores you’ve shopped at. These days almost every online merchant you’ve ever registered for an account with freely sells your personal information to anyone and everyone. I don’t know any way to keep them all from doing it but you an reduce the scope of the problem. Here’s how.
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2023 was a decent year, especially here in Brooklyn where I added eight birds (almost 9) to my county list. I still haven’t left the country since quarantine, but I did make two trips to New Orleans and two to Arizona, so there were a few life birds to add. I finished the year with 345 species total (20 fewer than 2022) and 6 life birds (all in Arizona).
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I continue to be amazed at the number of “pro” photographers who continue to not understand crop sensors and the importance of pixel pitch, especially for wildlife photography. After watching a number of YouTube videos about rumored upcoming Canon cameras, every single one talks about the full frame sensor as an advantage, and this is exactly wrong.
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