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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️

@skwinnicki.bsky.social

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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · Feb 12

Hi new followers, I’m SK!

Do you know that trope where a character is eaten alive by a dark secret and is forced to publicly confess it? That’s how I feel about every cool fact I learn, and until I can get back to teaching again they’re all coming out here, so buckle up!

Thread of fave posts:

Picture of SK, a pale person with blond hair in a messy braid—a poorly constructed braid not an intentionally messy one, hidden below a ballcap and sunglasses reflecting the Allegheny Plateau forest around me. I'm dressed in a tie-dyed tshirt that says Konza Crew 2017, from my Master's work on grassland sparrows; the shirt includes outlines of a Grasshopper Sparrow, Dickcissel, and Eastern Meadowlark that I drew. I am holding a towhee, a large species of sparrow, in my hand before the bird was released back into the forest. It is hard to tell in the photo but the bird is possibly a bilateral gynandromorph, with black male-type plumage on one side of the body, and brown female-type plumage on the other side of the body.

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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 1h

I feel like I wake up feeling briefly rested and happy then I remember the state of the world and my mood just shrivels and I’m instantly exhausted.

SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 1h

You know how you can sometimes hype a dog up for the mundane (or even something they don’t really like) just by acting excited?

I feel like I need someone to do that to me daily so I’m tricked into being hyped about being conscious.

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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 19h

My father likes to do the "what would we do if we win the lottery" thought experiment all the time. I'd absolutely stay in my current role, but with way less anxiety about making rent and buying groceries. When I was unemployed I did this work for free anyway.

SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 19h

oh yeah I'm thinking about a world that has an established UBI, so if the wage and working conditions don't improve people just don't work at all, so it's in businesses' interests to not take up those exceptions if they want labor

SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 20h

And I also feel like that could be solved with a combination of:
-automating more dangerous work (if UBI keeps people well regardless, wouldn't need to worry about replacing jobs)
-fair pay structures (more dangerous work truly required? okay then compensate those workers the absolute most)

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Reposted by SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️

ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social · 23h

All the life goals, right here

www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Nobel committee unable to reach prize winner who is ‘living his best life’ hiking off grid

Fred Ramsdell was among those honoured with a 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine but might not know because he is somewhere in Idaho and uncontactable

www.theguardian.com

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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 23h

I know my perspective is skewed because most of my friends are scientists who definitely aren't working for a paycheck per se (not going to get rich in academia or NGOs or government work)-- definitely in it for the love of the game. But could use more time for rest and art and community.

SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 23h

to be clear, I very much hope they can return to their important work too and that they'll be paid for it

but I fundamentally think we could all work fewer hours (including big stretches of no work at all) and the world would still be full of innovation, progress, and beauty

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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 23h

"but if people didn't HAVE to work, we'd have no innovation or progress"

yet here I am watching all my furloughed colleagues who legally cannot work resting, making art, working on side projects, being productive in other ways that matter...

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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 23h

My ~45 min walking commute obviously sucks in the rain, but the drought in Ohio is so bad that rain is such a blessing I can't even be mad to spend the day damp

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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 23h

Finished the first 100-episode campaign of this podcast last night, then went back and listened to episode 1 and that was so fun.

Because players continually gain experience, tools, and power throughout a DnD game, the contrast is especially hilarious.

Also, so well done, so many feels in this pod

SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · Aug 31

Thank you all for the recommendations! I started Not Another D&D podcast as I cleaned my house today and I’m enjoying it so far, and I’m excited that I have a bunch of other ones to try when I run out of episodes!

SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 1d

A staple in my family! Haha

SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 1d

Unfortunately the easiest way to encounter Ovenbirds in town is doing windowstrike surveys, they are especially prone to fatal windowstrikes. I find so many that way, a visceral reminder that they're in town. bsky.app/profile/skwi...

SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 12d

Really big migration night but a low morning cloud cover = record-setting numbers of dead beautiful birds

The campus volunteers already walked this way, so these three warblers died in the last few hours.

Two American Redstarts (including a mature Halloween boy) and an Ovenbird.

CW for dead

Hand holding three dead warblers. One is a mature male redstart, a black bird with bright orange patches on his wing, armpits, and tail edges, with a white belly. The next is also a redstart, a young gray-brown bird with a white belly and throat and light yellow where the other one has orange. The last is larger, an Ovenbird, a green-brown bird with white chin and belly and black spots on its chest.

SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 1d

They're so good. So much tinier than photos suggest, so good at hiding in shadows, but so worth it when I finally spot them.

SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 1d

I know that I'm bad at finding Ovenbirds on command (they're my sister's favorite, so I fail to find them when she's asking for them), but I'm quite confident I could get them when they're singing in the spring. Gonna have to start leading public Ovenbird walks I guess.

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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 1d

This post brought to you by my receiving a very kind email from folks who are looking for their first-ever Ovenbirds and wanting advice.

They're there, I saw one this morning, but not in a great look for a beginner sort of way. Tricky little creepy friends always, but especially in the fall!

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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 1d

The tiny urban park behind my house is a great place to spot Ovenbirds-- I had at least one there daily for a full month in the spring, and for about three weeks this fall, I'm consistently reporting them.

But they're never easy to spot per se, so my reports are frustrating others looking for them.

SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · May 4

I've been seeing Ovenbirds in my backyard park for about two weeks.

I've been hearing Ovenbirds singing in my backyard park for about a week.

But until today I hadn't seen one singing, grateful this very cooperative one obliged (cooperative for an Ovenbird, anyway!)

#birds

Small green-brown warbler with white on its chest, belly, and throat, dark stripes down its chest, a big dark eye, a pink beak, and stripes on the top of its head. It is perched in the brush, opening its pink beak to sing "teacher teacher teacher!"

Same Ovenbird, now a little less obscured by vegetation, and you can better see the dark brown and caramel orange stripe on the top of its head.

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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 1d

This book was obviously horrible, but so weirdly comforting at this point. Like someone captured the chaos nightmare so I feel less alone.

SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · Feb 10

I read this book review yesterday and was intrigued enough to read the book this evening, and…. oof.

The spiraling stream-of-consciousness that mixes the mundane with the indescribable horrors is haunting. The protagonists repulsively frozen and familiarly human.

Gonna sit with me for a while.

Photo of the cover of Irmgard Keun’s After Midnight. With a quote from the Sunday Telegraph reading I cannot think of anything else that conjures up so powerfully the atmosphere of a nation turned insane'

SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 3d

Thank you!

SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 3d

It is! I was so surprised it got to my house so quickly, just couldn’t say no to such a versatile piece of clothing in a color I like so much!

Meant to wear it with pants but it was too hot out so I taped the bottom and made it into a dress

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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 3d

This one was the same way (we ordered the tickets over a month ago), which is why I had to make plans with other people because I knew I’d not go without that, it’s a pain! But good to get there I guess.

SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 3d

We did! Although it’s way too hot out for an October faire

SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 3d

Thanks!

SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 3d

Saw the original on the way there

Highway billboard, blank with white and red text reading “Hell is real,” visible over some construction barriers.

SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 3d

My father buying very Ohio coasters at the Ohio Renaissance Festival

Black coaster in the vaguely heart-liked shape of Ohio, with the words “Hell is Real” in all white and caps except for the H in hell which is in red. This is a reference to a famous religious sign on the highway between columbus and Cincinnati Ohio.

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