Using the Google Search App for Plant Identification

...e’s camera. It seems to work both with long distance shots, for instance a picture of an entire mature tree, or closeups of leaves. There are other plant identification apps out there that I have tested over the years but none have worked as well as Google’s search app. Google is sitting on way more data than any small-time app maker. Which leads to my disclaimer . . . While this search ability is amazing, I find Google creepy. Why? Let me list ju...

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Saturday Tweets: Post-Earth Day

...tment? https://t.co/WqAUMObsfJ — Rabi Abonour (@rabonour) April 26, 2019 A picture of LA if all the world’s ice caps melt away. pic.twitter.com/dNKFD70JNu — Scott Carney (@sgcarney) April 25, 2019 No One Is Prepared to Come to Grips With Unreality https://t.co/Do5GyefOuz via @Hmm_Daily — Root Simple (@rootsimple) April 26, 2019 Why Did a YouTube Bot Make an Unwatched Video of Our Blog Post? https://t.co/CksSPMd9NO via @Hmm_Daily — Root Simple (@ro...

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John Ruskin On Perfection and the Nature of the Gothic

...the end of his vain effort being merely that he would take ten years to a picture and leave it unfinished. And therefore, if we are to have great men working at all, or less men doing their best, the work will be imperfect, however beautiful. Of human work none but what is bad can be perfect, in its own bad way. The second reason is, that imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body,...

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An Opening

...red, were barely attached to the studs): During: And after: I don’t have a picture, but I removed the studs after confirming that the old header was adequate (it’s not a load bearing wall). The next step will be to fix the plaster (I’m hiring this out). When the plasterers are done I’ll frame the opening with molding I’ll fabricate in my woodshop to match the doorways in the rest of the house. A tip of the hat to the folks who do this dirty and da...

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Spider Bite!

My sincerest apologies for beginning your week with a picture of two festering arachnid bites, but that’s what Mondays are for. These particular arachnid bites belong to UCSD alumni pal Professor Nic, who is visiting us from Canada, the greatest of nations. The bites sent him to the very same Kaiser emergency room that saved Kelly’s life last year. Unfortunately, modern medicine lacks any kind of test that would reveal the scientific name of the...

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