David Ramos

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(Some) residents are performatively angry after Takoma Park's mayor bars applause during a public meeting. Reminds me of how in my neighborhood, older, reactionary folks are angry that they can't see the names/faces of other attendees in online meetings, bc they can't bully them. wapo.st/4aQtzPr

Texas airspace closed after military reportedly downs US drone by accident Federal Aviation Administration bars flights around Fort Hancock after reported use of anti-drone military laser

On the plus side, it looks as if the Army’s new counter-drone laser can in fact shoot down drones and not just party balloons. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Bike racks are an unusual object; I’d posit that they’ve reached their highest form in the staple/U and cannot be improved on.

Had to skip a lunch-and-learn w a bike rack vendor because most of their products suck and should not exist, and I just couldn’t be in that room. The average cyclist knows better than the average planner, architect, LA, or engineer.

Historic Floodplain Meadows in the Landscape: Investigating Anthropogenic Habitats Important for Nature Conservation, Carbon Sequestration and Flood Attenuation - Environmental Management In contemporary river valley floors, floodplain meadows are associated with rare grassland plant communities that are important for their conservation value. This article outlines a desk-based method ...

It is freshwater Friday, so a good time to flag our recent open access article with @floodplainmead.bsky.social on using a historic landscape approach to identify former meadow habitats with origins in the early medieval period: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Better to knit into a town, or surround a commercial street.

Was trying to find eyedrops this morning. Sprawling university campuses, where the only retail is contracted-out fast food, are lacking in services. Quality is terrible. Whole categories are missing. There’s a drugstore at the edge of campus but that’s a mile away.

book w photos

book w translucent paper

book w translucent paper

book w cyanotype

My MFA thesis was a book that I printed myself, where the paper choices and their format were inseparable from the message and its delivery. That was two decades ago—I think that we were the last cohort of RISD GD grads that mostly produced their own books.

I note that my institution's thesis specifications doc does not actually state a page size. Wondering if I can get away with running the doc, which will be a PDF read only on screen, in a horizontal format so it isn't stupidly difficult to use.

“Another train coming”

Railroad crossing signal

At College Park, the Purple Line signals are live and the railroad crossing lights appear to be under test.

Providence, R.I., Is Used to Snow. But Not 36 Inches in a Day.

Record snowfall in Providence. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/u...

Picture of the area where Hickey Run used to flow through what is today Langdon Park.

Picture of the area where Hickey Run used to flow through what is today Langdon Park.

Picture of the area where Hickey Run used to flow through what is today Langdon Park.

It’s interesting watching Hickey Run try to reestablish itself through Langdon Park after a snowfall. (In my dream, someday, there is a stream running through this park again.

@jburchdc.bsky.social @imagineterrain.bsky.social

Curious what other people like. I never got into Evernote, but am liking Obsidian for notes and an increasing share of writing.

The storm has passed here in DC, and the clouds are brightening. I do appreciate the light that snow reflects into indoor spaces—soft, cool, and bouncing off of ceilings and the upper parts of walls that are normally left in shadow.

How far back in time can you understand English? An experiment in language change

From: www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-ba...

A man takes a train from London to the coast. He’s visiting a town called Wulfleet. It’s small and old, the kind of place with a pub that’s been pouring pints since the Battle of Bosworth Field. He’s going to write about it for his blog. He’s excited. He arrives, he checks in. He walks to the cute B&B he’d picked out online. And he writes it all up like any good travel blogger would: in that breezy LiveJournal style from 25 years ago, perhaps, in his case, trying a little too hard. But as his post goes on, his language gets older. A hundred years older with each jump. The spelling changes. The grammar changes. Words you know are replaced by unfamiliar words, and his attitude gets older too, as the blogger’s voice is replaced by that of a Georgian diarist, an Elizabethan pamphleteer, a medieval chronicler. By the middle of his post, he’s writing in what might as well be a foreign language. But it’s not a foreign language. It’s all English.

This opening is giving M.R. James vibes. (Come for the ghosts; stick around for the linguistics.)

One NOAA tide gage is forecast to see major coastal flooding from the coming Nor'easter, during the 1 a.m. Monday high tide cycle: Lewes, DE. This would be the 8th-highest water level since records began in 1919, ~1.3' below the record set in the 1/23/16 Nor'easter, and ~0.7' below Hurricane Sandy.

Ok, it’s high tide right now, predicted at 2.74’,
a spring tide and the highest tide this month, but the Washington Channel gage is reporting even higher water, 4.49’.

Water is extremely high in Lower Beaverdam Creek (and a turbid brown) and in the Anacostia.

Very cool!

^ Somehow

Someone, one of my classmates convinced a teacher to show us _Reservoir Dogs_, back when the film was newly out on VHS. We got to see about 10 minutes of the film.

I could build both of these—I see that there is a NWS weather API—but, time. Someday, if I don’t find a good option first.

Would appreciate a website/app that simultaneously provides temps in Fahrenheit and Celsius, and mapping software with dual scales, simply as a way to learn other systems.

From the washingtondc community on Reddit: Is This Normal? Former DCCA President Escorted Out While Questioning Months-Long Membership Freeze by Current President Explore this post and more from the washingtondc community

Perfectly normal things happening at Dupont Circle Citizens Association meetings. www.reddit.com/r/washington...

A feature, not a bug. Law enforcement and secret police, alike, want to monitor all of our stuff.

[Into the Woods spoiler]

Like killing off half of the characters of "Into the Woods" under a falling, second, giant beanstalk?

Made my way up to where the Potomac Interceptor sewage pipe broke late last month just north of Cabin John, Md. The C&O Canal between locks 12 and 10 is being used to divert sewage around the broken portion; it’s essentially an open-air sewer at this point.