Laura

A view over a rural scene dotted with winter trees, as the early winter evening casts a grey sky orange yellow, illuminating hard frozen ploughed fields

Ladybird Artists Advent Calendar, window 9
‘Evening Snow’
Artist: SR Badmin

Every facet of generative AI has made my professional life worse, without question, but THIS specific aspect has been driving me NUTS.

Clients, who have made me toil for weeks over indescribably small details, are now approving & producing in-house commercial artwork that looks like a fever dream.

Mont Sainte-Victoire

Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1906
https://botfrens.com/collections/43/contents/13513

A small greenish bird perches on a branch, holding a fluffy bundle of white nesting material in its beak.

This female Northern Bentbill was busy building her nest at @casabentbill.bsky.social #CostaRica

#birdoftheday #nestbuilders #birds #nature

It is telling how this group of people clearly thinks of the tax money we pay them out of our often meager, hard-earned income as free cash to do things that they, personally, want.

sitting next to a sweaty guy on a plane who just finished a workout at terminal 8 while wearing a shirt, tie, and suit

= The WHITE HOUSE In one of the most profound and consequential acts of history, Mary heroically accepted God's will with trust and humility: "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word." Mary's decision forever altered the course of humanity. Nine months later, God became man when Mary gave birth to a son, Jesus, who would go on to offer his life on the Cross for the redemption of sins and the salvation of the world.

ok it’s legitimately funny that they can’t even throw red meat to Catholics without falling into heresy

Congestion pricing improved air quality in NYC and suburbs | Cornell Chronicle Cornell researchers tallied the environmental benefits of New York City’s congestion pricing program and found air pollution dropped by 22% in Manhattan, with additional declines across the city’s fiv...

In addition to all of the other benefits already reported about NYC congestion pricing, "In the first six months of the program, air pollution – in the form of particulate matter 2.5 micrometers and smaller – dropped by 22% in the Congestion Relief Zone (CRZ)"

news.cornell.edu/stories/2025...

Hummingbird from behind - in green

🪶 Textures and 🎨

📍 Southern Oregon

#BirdPhotography #WildlifePhoto #NatureLovers #Hummingbird #FeatheredFriends #NaturePhotography #birdsofbsky #ecobluesky

Still Life with Pomegranate and Pears

Still Life with Pomegranate and Pears, 1890
https://botfrens.com/collections/43/contents/12928

This kind of bottle-shaming is a not-so-subtle way to push women out of the workforce.

alt-text: screencap from a dropdown menu with "English" selected, beneath it is "English, middle (1100-1500)" and "English, old (ca.450-1100)

Trying out a new PCP's office, and their "preferred language" dropdown on the intake form is time-traveler inclusive.

Trump: "I'm delighted to announce this afternoon that the United States will be taking a small portion of the hundreds of billions of dollars we receive in tariffs... We're going to use that money to provide $12B in economic assistance to American farmers"

You killed their business with the tariffs

A close-up of part of a Christmas tree with some traditional glass baubles and decorations, the sort produced by Woolworths in the 1960s and 70s and kept forever in shoeboxes in the loft

Ladybird Artists Advent Calendar, window 3
‘Baubles,’ 1964

Artist: Frank Hampson

appreciate Kagan saying 'when I was a young lawyer and the unitary executive theory was getting its start--'

it gets absolutely lost that all of this 'this is how things are done, have been done, must be done' yadda yadda bullshit is *brand new bullshit*

none of this shit is set in stone

We're half a decade into studies finding that improving airflow in classrooms will reduce disease transmission enormously, and that bleaching surfaces etc. does very little. And yet nothing changes. Waves of flu and colds wash over schools, and the schools pretend it's an act of God.

Are you already have holiday decorations? My chocobo will bring you another one anyway. 🎄

#FFXIV | #FF14 | #FFXIVART

Northern lights over Colpoy's Bay, Ontario for the #BlueSkyArtShow theme #Sky

#EastCoastKin #photography #longexposure

Gambel’s Quail watches over the covey

Screaming into the void… 🪶

A pastel sky after sunset is reflected in a still lake below. A small line of geese are silhouetted against the water, swimming towards the left. There are some interesting cloud patterns on the right.

It's Snow Goose and sunset time

#ArtAdventCalendar #birds 🌿

Bronze plaque saying "A Letter to the Future. Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it. August 2019. 415ppm CO2"

TIL about a memorial ceremony in Iceland in 2019 to mark the end of a glacier, changing the place name from Okjökull to Ok (jökull = glacier). Uncompromising wording on the bronze plaque:
"This is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it".

Angel with golden hair. Wings & costume in various shades of glorious purple.

👀 Berry Pomeroy church #Devon

Angel by Veronica Whall - 1926

#StainedGlassSunday #AdventAngel
#VeronicaWhall

Tiny black and white bird running on the surface of the ocean to take off. The water is really glassy.

Scripps's murrelet. These little guys breed in the Channel Islands off of California. 🪶

Bequest of Lillie P. Bliss, 1931

The Manneporte near Étretat - 1886
https://botfrens.com/collections/41/contents/103334

A view over a ploughed field towards an ancient barn topped with snow. There is a hard hoar frost tracing cobwebs and making the going hard for the corvids in the field

Ladybird Artists Advent Calendar
Window 7
‘Frost’
Artist: CF Tunnicliffe

Inversion over the River Awe

Dragon's lair

A sky filled with clouds at sunset

#BlueSkyArtShow #sky #clouds #EastCoastKin #photography

I recently wore a KN95 mask on a long flight and I was amazed by how much better my nose felt afterward

As I look for humidifiers after mine kicked the bucket, I'm reminded that one of the reasons the data suggests masks works against respiratory infections is they simply help keep our nasal passages moist.

Stay humid my friends.