Pleased to see my bank has a pending deposit (will post next week) for my Social Security payment.

Wondered if Musk's supermassive government hacking operation might have cut me off - so far so good

I paid into this program; I expect it to pay out as promised

Adobe has tried to talk up a price increase to their Photographer's plan with PR blather about a decade of innovation.

Having forced subscriptions (Oct 2017) to provide a stream of cash, they push cloud storage many don't need & up the price.

petapixel.com/2024/12/18/a...

Paul Krugman has left the NY Times, but he's on Substack (free for now) for anyone who (like me) wants to continue reading his thoughtful, informed and interesting take on economics.

paulkrugman.substack.com?r=18nbk9&utm...

My crow friends (sentries?) signaled an intruder! A very well fed, well groomed, coyote trotting behind the house. No idea why he lingered for several minutes, in spite of the crows' loud encouragement to leave.

He finally meandered into the woods and the crows stopped talking to me :)

I loved this article and think the points apply pretty closely to the genAI images that have flooded into Adobe Stock (most agencies do not accept genAI). So many just mangle reality as they try to replicate it. Visual bullshit??

stock.adobe.com/images/a-par...

stock.adobe.com/images/a-coz...

The solar panels have declared a snow day! There'll probably be a little something later??

It's very cold - even before it got dark - and not so colorful. I mentally daydreamed of the milkweed growing in the wild part of our garden...

Everything (almost...) is brown in the woods but warm sunlight changed the vibe from decay to intricate monochrome tracery

Life in the woods does its eternal thing as seen in frosty morning sun today. Crazy chaos elsewhere on the planet but this soothes me.

Links are key to a useful internet.

Facebook speeds to join MySpace by (among other things) hiding comments with links.

My town's FB page had a post asking about pipes by a trail. 3 comments; 2 "Most relevant". The hidden 3rd is (a) useful; (b) from a moderator; and (c) links to the town project.

Squirrel friends (?frenemies) make games out of eating - and scattering - the pumpkins. We've called them Fred and Derek ; or if only one's around, it's "Fred and/or Derek"

Squirrels continue to feast on our porch

The larger orange pumpkin we put out back but the squirrels dragged that off into the woods. But they were back for more...

This is sort of nose to tail farming! I believe the culprits to be squirrels, but they weren't around this morning to own up to their mess!

Three weeks ago the colors were spectacular, but fall doesn't hang around long :) South Natick Dam Park.

From a sunny corner of the back garden - Black cohosh seed pods mimic birds or insects - odd monsters if you squint