Ian

just ordered a copy of @kristiedegaris.bsky.social ’s memoir,‘Drystone' - I’ve been excited and curious to read this for a while, and it’s nice to order a book from an independent publisher, Birlinn, that I’m not familiar with

The Good Pervert, by David Velasco A friend’s life, a brutal death

among the best things I’ve read in a while harpers.org/archive/2025... #pervert #art #writing

The Queer Lives of Frogs What frogs teach us about sex, science, and why biology is messier than we think.

did not expect reading this piece about toxicology and frog sex to be as riveting as it was ! #climate #🐸 #queer #biology

*while driving through krumville*

an eastern copperhead wrapped in a tight coil just off a trail and tucked into a thicket of poison ivy

my first time seeing a venomous eastern copperhead — it was coiled and not moving at all and definitely not a mushroom. spotted in the mohonk preserve a week ago. #🐍

two white mushrooms with pale yellowish gills poking out of a deciduous forest floor

a nice pair of lactifluus or lactarius of some kind. I’m still searching for a positive ID. any ideas? I think maybe L. piperatus or L. vellereus. Do you know these July-emerging #🍄 in a deciduous New York forest that ooze a whitish liquid from broken gills ?

I’m curious to hear if others have seen stuff like this at other subway stops, in other cities, and where, as well as if there’s been reporting about it I ought to catch up on… (21/21)

… I start to wonder: was this a version of a tool intended for deployment in places like subway stops for use by DHS in the mass deportation effort Congress recently funded? (20/21)

ICE Is Paying Palantir $30 Million to Build ‘ImmigrationOS’ Surveillance Platform In a document published Thursday, ICE explained the functions that it expects Palantir to include in a prototype of a new program to give the agency “near real-time” data about people self-deporting.

… or at reporting from @carolinehaskins.bsky.social ‬ @wired.com listing a September 2025 delivery date for a prototype of software due from a subcontractor (Palantir…) which I can imagine being on the other side of that security camera www.wired.com/story/ice-pa... … (19/21)

Inside a Powerful Database ICE Uses to Identify and Deport People The database allows filtering according to hundreds of different categories, including visa status, “unique physical characteristics (e.g. scars, marks, tattoos),” “criminal affiliation,” license plat...

When I look back at the excellent reporting that folks like @jasonkoebler.bsky.social at @404media.co‬ have been doing about the kind of data to which a rig like this might have access (lots) www.404media.co/inside-a-pow... … (18/21)

Maybe there’s a legal expert out there who can explain whether there’s any precedent for federal uses of surveillance in the subway by DHS like this, and how that fits in alongside use of surveillance by the MTA or NYPD? (17/21)

If none of the equipment being used belongs to either the MTA or the NYPD and instead belongs to the federal government or its subcontractors, how does that influence the legality of surveillance in the subway? (16/21)

The use of surveillance in the subway by either the NYPD or the MTA is a contentious subject with a long history. What about ICE — housed within DHS, a federal department that’s been around for just over two decades, and came about in response to 9/11? (15/21)

I kept thinking about it throughout the week and started to wonder whether what I saw was some kind of new, portable setup for running immigration-related facial recognition stings at subway stops — or anywhere with a lot of people. (14/21)

All I thought at the time was ‘that’s odd, never seen a group like that with a rig like that at a stop before.’ I walked toward the exit, and I turned to try to take a look at the screen, which was obscured by the column. (13/21)

The guy at the laptop seemed focused on whatever was on the screen. He seemed to be monitoring or operating the camera. (12/21)

The whole thing seemed very portable, like it could be setup or taken down within a few moments, and packed into a large backpack. (11/21)

In front of them was an odd rig I’d never seen with a subway crew before: It looked to me like a security camera, about chest height, mounted on a tripod with a wire running to a laptop, which was setup on a small portable table a few feet away and obscured behind a column. (10/21)

All but one were standing idly, although sort of focused, and they were all facing the turnstile and watching people exit the train. It was early afternoon, around 1pm, so it wasn’t crowded. (9/21)

I don’t remember any markings indicating whether they worked for the MTA, the NYC DEP, or some other department that I’m accustomed to seeing at work in subway stations. The absence is notable to me in hindsight (8/21)

It looked like what someone in a bad disguise or cosplaying in a construction role might wear. (7/21)

Underneath the vests, the men looked like they were wearing office clothes — chinos, polos — rather than, say, jeans, coveralls, boots with reinforced toes, or work shirts. (6/21)

On my way out of the station, I passed a group of five or six men wearing construction gear that looked so new it had never seen a day on a job site. The vests appeared to have visible creases on them as though they’d been removed from packaging and unfolded an hour before. (5/21)

I was in New York City taking the subway on Monday. I got off an F train at the Bergen Street stop in Brooklyn around lunch time. (4/21)

I’ve never tried to write a thread like this, so bear with me and let me know what you think. (3/21)

Maybe there’s someone out there who saw something similar and thought to snap a photo or ask what’s going on? Or maybe there’s even some good reporting out there documenting this kind of thing someone can link me too? (2/21)

🧵 a thread here about #nyc, the #subway, #surveillance, and #immigration … because I saw something and I want to say something about it, and ask if others have seen stuff like this, too. tl;dr is I wonder if I saw a tech test for a tool intended to accelerate and assist with deportations. (1/21)

a large black-staining polypore pokes out of grass at the base of a huge old oak tree - a puffy tangle of whitish bands

saw @blackforager.bsky.social making a fab looking pate with a black-staining polypore right after seeing this GIANT specimen at the base of a big old oak tree. this was another new-to-me sighting this season. shaping up to be a wet and bountiful mushroom summer in the Hudson Valley #🍄

a small grayish mushroom with a thin stipe and a cap shaped like a bowl with an irregular rim emerging from the forest floor

in other #🍄 finds recently, this singular long-stalked gray cup was a new mushroom for me - a thin stipe and a cap shaped like a bowl with an irregular rim

a cluster of tiny red chanterelle mushrooms emerging from a mossy forest floor and some decayed leaf litter

a friend asked about a favorite mushroom & my first thought was these red chanterelles, which fruit gregariously, are so smol & brilliantly carmine, a sign of summer starting to appear in july, and pack a kind of white peppery perfume on top of the typical stewed apricot chanterelle smell #🍄