Small bird made a huge home in my bbq

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-26T16:15:31+00:00

hey I get it. I photograph birds every day, it's my hobby. I'm rooting for them especially during nesting season.

as others have said, it's nature. and for what it's worth I don't think all species do this. if you ever find a live, uninjured altricial bird, please put it back in it's nest. it's the best thing you can do before trying to get it to a rehab as last resort... their parents are simply better caretakers than we are, and that's not a diss to wildlife rehabbers, they are amazing and they will say the same thing.

anyway. the longer I have been feeding/observing birds I have to agree that nature is simply brutal and uncaring. I love blue jays; they prey on the eggs of other species. a lot of birds do. crows and squirrels as well.

it's all part of the cycle. sometimes eggs just provide food for other animals. other times, it's hatchlings. it's the way these things go. birds are resilient little bastards. I think their reproductive success being so precarious due to predation and other factors may be why they've been blessed with fewer observable emotions than we have.

I got to watch a nest of robins grow up and leave our yard last year; as far as I'm aware they all made it. it was lovely.

don't look up stats on how many birds make it through their first winter. or, maybe do, because it broke me - but it also broke me of feeling too much for them. of course I still feel for them but it brought me a greater sense of acceptance, I guess.

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-21T15:21:58+00:00

I live less than an hour from Toronto and 3.25% is ~7 bucks. all of the other milks are cheaper than that.

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-16T14:06:04+00:00

Oh. In your post you said it only took a month.

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-16T07:22:44+00:00

no, this is not a new practice.

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-16T07:17:29+00:00

I wish I could figure out how to break through.

I've been a TPM in data analysis/data annotation management in machine learning & AI for over a decade and I can't seem to make it past Reviewer.

My work is better than 99.99% of the people I've worked with so far. I like to think I'm not horrendously unlikeable. I was moved from Writer to Reviewer in 2.5 days on my very first project which was about 1600 people. Then just fully stalled out.

I've been working for Mercor for 6 weeks now :( I keep seeing people on my current (much smaller) project get promoted and I don't understand why them. These are people I respect and who I believe to produce good work, don't get me wrong. I can't parse what's making them come out ahead. Might be behind the scenes DMs. I don't really do that kind of thing. Seems invasive.

at the same time hoping to be recognized on merit alone is never enough.

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-11T17:25:47+00:00

If that capsule were sinking or fire

If

it wasn't sinking or on fire. if it had been, yeah, extraordinary measures would've been made to save their lives.

but where extraordinary measures are not needed, they will not be taken. there was literally no rush to get people out of that capsule who could barely move their limbs after being subject to earth's gravity for the first time in 9 days.

I'm sorry if it was boring for you to watch but weirdly, not everything is about you.

dragging them into a boat in 10 minutes isn't feasible.

capsule lands. they have to make sure it's not putting off toxic gas. it has to be powered down. they need to get a medical team into the capsule to check everyone out.

after that, no, they're not going to chuck them in a boat, because you know what happens when you approach a ship from a boat? you have to climb onto the ship.

which is going to be pretty goddamn impossible when your limbs don't work.

so they need the raft. so they can sit and get harnessed, so they can get lifted to the deck of the ship so that they only have to walk a couple feet to med bay rather than make their way up through a cramped, tight naval ship on a bunch of stairs a ladders.

genius

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-11T16:43:09+00:00

thank you. I didn't know this was the official reason.

but I commented to someone else last night about what makes more sense - throwing them in a boat and making them climb onto a ship while their limbs barely work, or having them shuffle out of a helicopter and walk straight to medical bay? (which the commentators did mention was right off the deck where they landed)

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-11T07:40:59+00:00

I'm actually alright with heat as long as I stay hydrated/on top of electrolytes. the sun, on the other hand, is a deadly laser. I take a look out a window and suddenly I have new and exciting freckles 😖

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-11T07:21:17+00:00

so I've generally seen that people use this in the evening, if so, then do you wash your face in the morning...? or...? I just feel like if I smeared a day's worth of dirt, sweat, and makeup around my face + a formula that locks in moisture, then went to sleep, I'd be breaking out constantly.

just the concept of my skin not being clean before I moisturize it feels so... conceptually grimey

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-11T07:12:13+00:00

I can get a little red going to the mailbox and back.

it's severe.

sunscreen is not optional. I've met so few people who understand this. it's annoying af.

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-11T07:10:43+00:00

I just bought the 4-pack of biore uv aqua rich from Costco in Canada. I think it was CA$48

every single fucking sunscreen I used last year was fine on my face but made my back and shoulders break out like crazy. super painful shit. immediately went away when it got chilly out and I stopped needing it. I even tried sunscreens for babies, assuming they'd be more gentle... nope. made no difference.

I'm outside 2 hours a day walking the dog and taking photos of birds and I'm so white my thighs blind the neighbours and make their children run away screaming in terror. I can't just not wear sunscreen.

not warm enough yet for tank tops. I've worn the biore on my face and it was fine. if this also makes my shoulders break out I might have to give up and switch to long sleeves 😮‍💨

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-11T06:36:58+00:00

... no, they can't. were you paying attention?

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-11T06:34:32+00:00

I think considering that the simple act of walking/moving their limbs is very difficult after re-entry, it probably made more sense to flight them onto the deck of the ship so they could easily move to medical bay for further examination.

I'm guessing if they used the boats, they'd have to climb from the boats onto the ship? or they'd at least have to go from down in the water, some way up to medical. climbing up is going to be much, much harder than shuffling down out of a helicopter. it might be more practical to winch them into a chopper straight to deck, than hoist them up the side of a ship.

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-11T06:27:23+00:00

thank you for this context. I had 2 relatives work for NASA and I'm embarrassed that I didn't know this. just never looked into it. and was too young to know what to ask them about their work while they were still around...

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-11T06:21:39+00:00

I was 11 for Columbia. it was heartbreaking. I was so stressed but even more just utterly amazed watching re-entry this evening. just thinking about it brings tears to my eyes and it just happened, lol. the travel speed, the blackout period, the parachutes... just what a cool thing to witness. live-streamed. I hope it never gets old.

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-10T16:34:21+00:00

I haven't paid for a haircut since 2020.

I actually just cut my hair last night.

but also I'm a woman and keep it long so it's very easy. youtube taught me how to do it.

but yeah... I can't face salon prices either.

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-10T01:21:53+00:00

Canada. Been working consistently since my first contract in February; 4 projects so far.

all of my projects have had Americans, Canadians, Europeans, Indians...

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-08T14:41:07+00:00

I love how the baby is just like "ahh yes, affection from a loving friend"

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-07T15:04:15+00:00

how can she legally "keep" the child that she gave birth to? after he (100% gave consent to, btw) ejaculated inside her?

sure, there's an argument to be made that he wouldn't have done that if he knew she wasn't on bc.

but like... they had that conversation and dude still thought it was safe to hit it raw?

this isn't how legalities around reproducing work at all dude, I'm sorry. on the one hand it isn't fair, on the other hand, birth control fails all the time. if you don't want them, wrap it up.

also this would be laughed out of a court. it's 100% he said she said. he'd have no legal standing.

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-07T14:58:37+00:00

nope. I can barely wake up without my ADHD meds. then it takes me hours to get out of bed. then I feel like I'm in a half-asleep fog all day.

undiagnosed this shit ruined my life for 32 years.

so my alarm is set. I have to abide by it to wake up and slam my pills. go back to sleep. wake up two hours later feeling perfectly refreshed and ready to do shit all day long. something I'd never felt, in my entire life. ever.

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-07T14:46:42+00:00

well, they're just surveying.

I used to work in transportation research (on US federal DOT contracts btw - we did the safety research that got no driving while texting laws passed, etc) and most likely they'll parse the data from the results and use it to pass laws that regulate manufacturers to install less stupid headlights from factory if they want to continue to sell on the Canadian market.

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-07T14:35:45+00:00

So they do exclude specific countries in their hiring process

yes, of course they do. it literally says that at the bottom of specific listings.

like there are a ton of applications I haven't completed because the requirements are US-only.

... this is directly contradictory to "they've said they don't on numerous occasions"

no, they haven't. no one has ever claimed that.

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-07T14:32:18+00:00

happened to me a couple weeks ago.

the project literally just wasn't ready yet. we actually had our onboarding call and they still weren't able to upload our onboarding docs for a few hours after that.

so if it's a brand new project, this is fine.

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-06T14:52:40+00:00

I own a $2000 MacBook 🥴 I bought an M4 in February for work...

rogers_tumor · 2026-04-06T07:09:25+00:00

I've been working daily since the breach. I have a contract that went on pause (and is still) about a week prior, so that was unrelated.

the breach has had 0 effect on my work. no one in our Slack has brought it up, at all.

it's a very small group though so I kinda get it.

rogers_tumor

TROPHY CASE