Hexanimo

Man, the Red-lipped Batfish is weird. It looks like someone made it in the Spore Creature Creator.

The Tonkin Snub Nosed Monkey is cute. It’s sad they’re critically endangered.

It’s been years since I watched a nature documentary and it’s nice learning about animals I was unaware of before today.

I like this a lot.

The monster at the top reminds me of Randall from Monsters Inc.

I switched over to NewPipe a couple weeks back after consciously tolerating ads on the official mobile apps for years. This is what pushed me over the edge:

I was watching a 30 minute video a friend had shared and a (skippable) 4 minute ad played probably a little before the 10 minute mark. It was a variant of an ad I had seen before, but I’ve been interested in the product, so I let the ad play all the way through. But now for the rest of the video, all the ads I was getting were several minutes long and all were unskippable. The interval of actual video content became shorter as well, so I was effectively watching more ads than the content I was trying to view. I decided to finish the video just to experience how ridiculous it was. Immediately installed NewPipe afterwards.

I have a hard time thinking it wasn’t a coincidence that the ads became unskippable partway through the video after watching one ad all the way through. Obviously, I can’t say that for sure. But I sure as hell am not tolerating that ratio of ads to content. I feel guilty for not sending ad view pennies to the creators I enjoy, but this YouTube “experiment” made the platform unusable for me.

I have no experience agriculture patents, but couldn’t Monsanto make it illegal for someone to modify “their product” without their explicit permission?

They don’t really make the STI at all anymore. Supposedly Japan will see a 4-door with the STI badge later this year (Sport#), but it sounds like it’s really just a manual WRX.

There’s demand for sure, but Subaru really doesn’t seem to care at this point ☹️

Have: a stage 2 '05 Impreza WRX STi in moderately good repair.

Want: a stage 2 '05 Impreza WRX STi in good repair with an ethanol sensor and new tune to enable selectively running E85.

Hi from Interstellar on Android

Although the festival will not take place as an official event – and will not be promoted under its usual name on tourism platforms – officials expect visitor numbers to remain high when cherry blossoms bloom in April.

Preparations are underway to handle the influx, with officials planning to step up security and establish temporary car parks and portable toilet facilities to reduce pressure on neighbourhoods.

That’s very close to spider in Spanish, araña.

West Coast perspective:

• Siskiyou Pass is both the biggest change in elevation and steepest grade on I-5
• the grass is literally greener on the OR side. CA is known for its golden grass that is much dryer (hence the Golden Gate. As a child I was disappointed that it is painted orange and not gold)
• Agricultural Inspection Station mentioned in another comment (only when traveling into CA)
• not a huge cultural difference between upper NorCal and Southern Oregon though

Further north…

• crossing the Columbia, the biggest river in the region, also has one of only several interstate draw bridges in the US. Prepare to be stuck in traffic if you’re remotely close to rush hour
• No sales tax in OR means there are large malls immediately off the first OR exits. Likewise there isn’t a single Best Buy in Vancouver because everyone drives across the river to dodge sales tax for big ticket items

The inspection station I pass by is still there, but it’s been literal years since I’ve actually been stopped or even seen it manned. I don’t make the trip regularly and have always been in a sedan, so maybe I’ve just been lucky. Though my guess is that funding cuts have hit them badly.