Lacci

The news has pretty much melted me

A very round white and brown shorebird stands on the sand with blurry ocean waves behind.

The news is terrible but I’m going to continue posting birds and frogs and flowers and the sky because looking at nature can help us keep going in the face of all the awful. Please take good care of yourselves

#birds 🌿

A bunny under a bridge throws a rope to pull in another bunny, who may have fallen off the bridge. A small crowd of onlookers has gathered, including a rat who is better at swimming

Daily bunny no.3244 to the rescue

-Zero Congressional consultation or approval.
-Zero preparation of public for need/consequences of war.
-Zero evidence of thought about "OK, what might the other side do?" Next month. Next year.
-Zero mention of anti-nuke agreement Trump voided, or Trump claim last year that nukes "obliterated."

Great listen on the rent strike being organized in the Twin Cities.

(Includes @taraghuveer.bsky.social saying “Minnesotans are built different.”)

Rent is due on Sunday, some relevant links in thread.

How Kansas Republicans weaponized the law to target 300 trans driver's license holders SB 244 was put into effect virtually overnight, causing chaos, panic and fear in the trans community.

New — I spoke to eight trans people in Kansas about the new state law that invalidated their driver’s licenses overnight, what’s it’s like to live there right now, plus details of two DMV emails exclusively obtained by The Handbasket that shed light on the law’s chaotic and cruel rollout:

Joe Dante and Hideo Kojima are close seconds but no director was more right about the future of war than Barry Levinson with the 1992 box office flop Toys.

BEHOLD the largest freshwater fish species in the world: the Beluga Sturgeon!

FINALLY got to see one in person at the Great Lakes Aquarium in Duluth along with the @garlab.bsky.social Team at the @mnafs.bsky.social @amfisheriessoc.bsky.social meeting!

What an incredible fish!

There are similarly colored (black and white) sea slugs on top of the cookies and cream dessert. Nudibranch species : Phyllidiella annulata, Hallaxa fuscescens, Dotted nudibranch (Jorunna funebris), Striped Phyllidiopsis (Phyllidiopsis xishaensis), Gymnodoris nigricolor, Fellow's Nudibranch (Hiatodoris fellowsi), Black Doris (Dendrodoris nigra), Black Spotted Nudibranch (Ceratophyllidia papilligera), Phyllidia scottjohnsoni, Trapania naeva, Bumpy Paradoris (Paradoris liturata), San Diego Dorid (Diaulula sandiegensis)

Cookies and cream and sea slug 🍪

A sanderling scurrying in front of s golden sunset

Got it. 🪶

The reality is that if your religion and religious leaders clearly aren't engaging with the moral questions in your life in a meaningful way and religious institutions are themselves clearly behaving badly that's a very common reason to ask, "What on earth am I even doing here?" and leave.

People might say that that's because of the decline of religion in public and cultural life, but I actually think that has it backwards. From what I've seen even in religious settings this has gotten worse and I suspect it's more likely the cause of religious decline rather than the result.

As a society we seem to kind of actually have a sense that this is important and a desire to do it but the cultural structures and institutions to actually have meaningful discussions are just absent.

I'm not saying everyone is going to be a PhD moral philosopher but thinking at a deeper level than people get tracked into thinking is kind of necessary. Actual regular people have to make decisions about how our society is going to function, in their life, on juries, voting, etc.

We need to find a way to have conversations as a society about ethics and moral philosophy that are actually based in something and not just vapid. Because this is actually one of the topics where kinda everyone needs to engage meaningfully with it if we want things to not be nightmarish.

I don't really know why people are so obsessed with the trolley problem except it's sort of a meme. I don't really know why it coming up with a stranger is usually an indicator that the interaction is going to end badly. But like it needs to just stop.

If you're thinking of bringing up the trolley problem in any kind of discussion you probably shouldn't. If it comes up and it is not clearly super relevant to the topic at hand or it's the first thought experiment to come up the discussion should probably just be over.

Few people who talk about the trolley problem know that it was invented by the philosopher Philippa Foot to compare to the scenario of a surgeon who kills one healthy person to use their organs to save the lives of five other people to explore why people think the situations are radically different.

The trolley problem is actually not considered a particularly central or important thought experiment in moral philosophy or ethics. It's just not terribly applicable very often and most uses of it you see muddle rather than clarifies the issues being discussed.

A Chestnut-backed Chickadee perched on one of the chains suspending a hanging bird bath. Its back is to the camera showing off its gorgeous namesake coloration. Its head is turned sideways with one eye looking towards the camera with a sparkle of light reflecting on it.

I wasn't quick enough to capture this Chickadee drinking from the hanging bird bath, but did catch it perched on the chain looking precious. 💕 #birds #BirdOfTheDay alt theme #NoBranch

This whole thing smells of bad-faith LessWrong chaff about having morals.

I'm sorry, but my read is pretty deeply that this is Anthropic using a mundane contract dispute to run marketing about AI alignment and safety.

They already dropped their "safety pledge" citing the tired old inevitably saw, partner with Palantir, and their products were already used in the […]

Netflix ditches deal for Warner Bros. Discovery after Paramount’s offer is deemed superior Netflix is ditching a deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery's studio and streaming assets after the WBD board deemed a revised bid by Paramount to be superior.

This really feels like an Orban/Erdogan situation in which the aspiring dictator is making sure his friendly oligarchs control as much media as possible

www.cnbc.com/2026/02/26/w...

I gotta say, being like "I support trans rights, BUT" while the government is making it impossible for trans people to *survive* is actively helping the government get what they want. And I don't think I've ever seen a legitimate critique follow, it's just repeating more anti-trans propaganda

I will vote for the presidential candidate who makes it a priority to break up this monopoly

A bumper berry harvest has New Zealand's weird flightless parrot in a rare mood for romance New Zealand conservationists have been fighting for years to keep the kakapo, the world’s only flightless parrot, from disappearing, with intensive conservation efforts.

Need some good news? Kakapo, New Zealand's endangered flightless parrots, are having a great year. #ornithology

YouTube video by AVshowreports Conn Organ, Bogan Amplifiers, Amazing Vintage Audio

some awesome "guys being dudes" content here, & jaw-droppingly amazing acoustic physics into the bargain

Someone's selling a set of these pipe speakers on marketplace (goddamn it), i did not know anything about them until i clicked on this video link in the listing.

"Hi-Fi" nerds > Audiophiles

An angry possum that appears like it was happily asleep in a pile of hay until somebody disturbed it.

Wearily: *screm*

I mean, Timecube.

Leo actually was in charge of the church's bishop selection group for the whole world under Francis, and they made some real progress under him in the US. It takes a lot of time though as bishops last a while. Francis set a mandatory retirement age and some other age policies which helped.