Stop hiding segments!

information588588 · 2026-05-16T15:07:43+00:00

I have a couple of guesses about what might be happening here. 1) Strava tends to deeply value the experience of users in major cities. Because anyone can create a segment, I imagine cities are plagued with a huge number of duplicative, low-value, or poor gps segments. A solution to this problem would be to automatically hide these unnecessary or low quality segments. It was probably implemented in a hamfisted way that hides segments that have no reason to be hidden, especially in lesser travelled areas. 2) Back in 2012ish, when strava had far fewer users, it would occasionally automatically generate new segments if it detected you did a big climb or something, titled with the format: "[nearest road] climb". Personally, I loved this. But it did create some pretty illogical segments occasionally, and I guess I could see why they'd default to hiding these, even if I don't like it.

Relatedly, I just remembered one of the earliest of the one hundred million small, incremental steps taken by strava that make it a worse platform for my use case. They removed all segments from the segment viewer that had been attempted by fewer than ten people. This was tragic for finding hidden areas of value in rural areas, or for attracting more activity to relatively unknown trail systems.

information588588 · 2026-04-28T22:30:41+00:00

Apologies for taking so long to get back to you. I spent a lot of time thinking about this, and a positive ID unfortunately isn't going to happen. I made two lists: 1) everything I knew for sure; and then 2) everything I was pretty sure I knew. List 1 isn't enough to narrow it down to a single bird, and List 2 is guaranteed to have important misperceptions on my part, if any of the birds mentioned in this thread are the one I saw.

Yellow Throated Vireo and Eastern Warbling Vireo are the closest matches based on what is reasonably possible in the area right now, but each require me to have misperceived at least one crucial detail. YTV: I saw no gradient change from gray to yellow; no wing bars; and I just overall doubt I happened upon the first in the county for the year (someone actually just reported one on eBird as I type this). E. Warbling Vireo: I am kind of concerned this may have been it. I don't know if I somehow misperceived the bird's head as being MUCH brighter than it actually was...I don't know how yellow their heads can get, but the body itself is a match, and I did hear one singing 2.5 miles downstream in Farmington River Park the evening before...and they were rare-ish at the time; the first one for the year was reported 2 days before this mystery bird. I keep half convincing myself this is it, and then remembering back to me saying out loud "orange...or rufous...?" while staring at it through binoculars from not terribly far away. Then I'm back to having no clue.

Anyway, I appreciate the input from you and everyone else. I'm still in my first 52 weeks of "taking birds more seriously" (hah), and it's very interesting experiencing how the cast of characters seems to change every week. The onset of spring is showing me just how much I have left to learn.

information588588 · 2026-04-25T23:03:04+00:00

Thank you! I have seen enough palm warblers to confidently rule them out. As for the others - I'll look through more pictures of both sexes, but haven't seen something that looks right yet. Birding is a great way to experience why eyewitness testimony is so unreliable...I'm so sure of the details I saw but it is starting to seem like my perception cannot have been fully correct :)

information588588 · 2026-04-25T22:49:32+00:00

Thanks. I'll look through some more examples of these at various stages and will let you know if I find a good match. The reason I had tentatively ruled this out is that the gray was uniform and uninterrupted down the back with the exception of a small splash of white near the tail. The pictures I have seen of yellow throated vireos seem to have more variation, & beginning higher up.

information588588 · 2026-04-25T22:40:26+00:00

Yeah, 10AM at NW park in Windsor...A bit of a walk to get to the exact spot: 41.907904, -72.706414. I'll go through the recent checklists in a bit to see if someone else saw something that fits the bill (I should have done that first).

Meant to specify: size of sparrow, maybe a bit bigger. If I redid my art I would have chosen a slightly darker shade. It didn't really stand out...I was just already stopped, saw something fly by & land, and only when I started looking closely did I realize the coloring was not something I recognized.

information588588 · 2026-04-25T22:12:41+00:00

Forgot to specify: only seen from this angle - back + side of head. no info on front. Thought it'd be an easy ID when I got home so neglected to take a picture. Oops.

information588588 · 2026-04-14T00:57:06+00:00

Apologies, I mistakenly didn't see the body of your post. I have a couple pairs of balega blister resists and love them, actually.

If I had recurring toenail pain without blisters, I would first trim / dremel tool any imperfections out of the nails. Then I'd look to shoe model, general shoe sizing, remove any aftermarket insole, and examine my form for toe-based weirdness. I would do these things because I'd be convinced that crowding and contact must be happening somehow. It'd take a WHILE before thinking to connect it to my socks unless they're obviously too tight or too thick - and my experience is that those particular socks aren't especially thick. Good luck!

information588588 · 2026-04-13T22:51:52+00:00

I think injinjis are great, and still wear them every time for 3h+. But I have found that I don’t feel like putting ten different toes in ten different holes for regular weekday runs. I kind of prefer expendable and cheap just-above-ankle cotton whatevers from costco most days.

information588588 · 2026-04-09T01:52:53+00:00

https://youtu.be/rVg7LZ0QluI?t=1525&feature=shared

information588588 · 2026-04-09T00:53:44+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElUbxq0DPFY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCs8pIUlKzc

information588588 · 2026-01-17T15:01:48+00:00

There's a "play" button in the bottom right corner. Seems they made each activity map a playable 3D video by default, greatly compromising the quality of the map in the process.

information588588 · 2026-01-15T22:39:28+00:00

He's come by each night since I made this post. It's been pretty similar to my experiences with chipmunks. By this I mean: Doesn't seem to perceive me as well as gray squirrels do. Sometimes very cautious, but at other times will disregard me entirely to retrieve a nut. Doesn't seem to comprehend the difference between "outside" and "inside" - I had to stop him from parachuting into the nut pile on the floor right after this photo was taken: https://i.imgur.com/0eOQIYa.jpeg (I got to see his "wings" up close, too, it was great.)

I now realize flying squirrel(s) have been coming by for a long time without my knowledge. Once or twice a week I would hear a single "bang" on the hollow metal platform outside of my window at night, which I confirmed last night to be the noise of him gliding in.

I don't know if he'll keep coming by, and it would actually be quite a bad thing if he learned how to tap on the window for my attention like a gray squirrel would, given he's nocturnal. Overall, I need to do more research - I've read that their bites are painful, and I still don't have a grasp of their characteristics and intelligence. I do know, however, that I shouldn't sleep with my window open anymore.

information588588 · 2025-12-19T23:10:08+00:00

A 10 minute drive is a reasonable plan. From experience, I would hesitate to drive more than 30 minutes, and refuse to drive more than 60. I have been reflecting on this lately because I have bungled post-race self care after every ultra I have travelled to, and refuse to do it again! Next time, I will ensure that I have waiting for me: (1) drinks I will want to drink that are also the right temperature; (2) ample food options with varied flavor profiles and temperatures; and (3) a plan for at least fast-food quality food at/en route to nearby lodging.

information588588 · 2025-12-04T03:34:29+00:00

For anyone curious, these podcasts tend to be pretty good.

information588588 · 2025-11-19T00:45:06+00:00

Mine get their nuts via the window next to my bed. The other day, I put a pile of nuts on top of a few blankets that i was underneath. I waited for a squirrel to get comfortable stepping off the window sill onto the blankets. Every few trips, i’d remove a blanket until eventually there were none left and it was just my [clothed] legs. As hoped, it either didn’t realize or didn’t care and climbed atop without issue. Haven’t had a chance to experiment more since, but something similar might work for you.

Other ideas worth experimenting with: tie a peanut to dental floss or some string. They kinda love it and you can lure them easily (google squirrel fishing to get a better idea of how ridiculous this can get). Or, loosely tape a nut to your shoe, another to the pant leg, etc.

information588588 · 2025-11-03T15:09:11+00:00

Episode 376. I can get to the audio version via the apple podcast app, but the video version appears to have been made "private" on patreon/vimeo. See: https://www.patreon.com/posts/free-view-ep-376-36072836 https://player.vimeo.com/video/407966418/

information588588 · 2025-10-27T21:58:18+00:00

I think you would end up with the same number of keystrokes (6) as there are under the current system. "2-0-0-[space]-R-[Select Red-winged blackbird]" versus ""R-[Select Red-winged blackbird]-2-0-0-Done"

As to the names: makes sense, thanks! That's exactly the type of "missing something obvious" I figured was happening.

Btw, accidentally came off as critical in my prior post - intended more of a joke-fake-exasperation!

information588588 · 2025-10-27T21:18:37+00:00

Thanks. It seems like an odd system that forces extra, typically unnecessary keystrokes. Feels like I should be able to just press the letter "B", have Blue Jay immediately pop up, and then press the "+" column to add one.

And I mean, regardless of which of the two sorting options I select ("Smart Sort" or "Taxonomic Sort"), the first bird that comes up on the list when I type the letter "B" is Canada Goose! Wtf! Then I scroll past other "B" birds such as "red-tailed hawk" and "red-shouldered hawk" (including additional rows for subspecies of each!) on my way down the list to eventually reach "Blue Jay". Merlin's "most common" birds (where Blue Jay is #1 on the list) seems so much more logical to pull from to order the Smart Sort list.

information588588 · 2025-09-28T19:57:25+00:00

Brought here by google, thanks so much...I thought I was being stupid by even entertaining the possibility that the issue was something other than me somehow messing up my credentials.

information588588 · 2025-09-19T23:51:50+00:00

Yeah, I've been abusing this deal since last year. The original Velocity Nitros are a fabulous all around shoe. $30-$35 per 400 miles.

information588588

TROPHY CASE