@coenwesterduin
Humanoid (allegedly). Ecologist with increasingly molecular inclinations @ Univ. of Oulu & Univ. of Eastern Finland. Amateur photographer, painter, and squirrel-whisperer. Occasionally updated blog on my research: ontheoriginofspecimens.blog
Insert symbol pop-up box from word showing that you still have to scroll to find the symbol you need because there is no search option.
Microsoft: Do you want Word to write ideas for you? We're spending a ton of money and energy on an AI for that!
What the people actually want: the ability to search for symbols by keyword/description
I wonder how many calories I’m spending daily on the cognitive dissonance created by thinking “this is exactly what I knew they’d do” and “I can’t believe this is happening” all day every day
recently my friend's comics professor told her that it's acceptable to use gen AI for script-writing but not for art, since a machine can't generate meaningful artistic work. meanwhile, my sister's screenwriting professor said that they can use gen AI for concept art and visualization, but that it won't be able to generate a script that's any good. and at my job, it seems like each department says that AI can be useful in every field except the one that they know best. It's only ever the jobs we're unfamiliar with that we assume can be replaced with automation. The more attuned we are with certain processes, crafts, and occupations, the more we realize that gen AI will never be able to provide a suitable replacement. The case for its existence relies on our ignorance of the work and skill required to do everything we don't.
it’s come to my attention that my tumblr post has been crossposted to bluesky, so I’m posting it on my account here #AntiAI #GenAI
One wonders what the stated excuse for Greenland will be.
An Arctic fox, white in her thick winter coat, standing amid lichen-covered rocks and brown leaf litter, looks off out of frame (where zoo staff was providing food to distract the curious foxes, giving me a few moments to take environmental samples for DNA studies)
Had a lovely visit to Ranua Wildlife Park recently, collecting samples for recognizing Arctic foxes from environmental DNA. We aim to create a method for quick&easy field detection. Many thanks to the helpful staff!
Text from Ranua here: ranuaresort.com/en/news/news...
#Science @uniuef.bsky.social
screenshot of a post on facebook from Alex Lamoreaux, depicting two versions of the "same" photograph of a bobcat in front of a pine plantation, one labeled original game cam photo, one labeling AI processed the markings have been altered on the AI photo, and the head changed and resized text says: Oh! A neat goose hybrid posted to ‘What’s this Bird?’ but when you zoom in on the photos the bill details have been too manipulated by AI photo editing to be accurately assessed for which species may be involved. Scroll on… A cool-looking Red-tailed Hawk that someone is wondering which subspecies it might be - right up my alley! But when you zoom in on the photos literally every feather group has been so heavily manipulated and altered by AI editing that it’s impossible to determine subspecies because the photo is essentially fake now; just a mashup of whatever AI thinks parts of a Red-tail should look like. Scroll on… WOW! That’s a remarkable trail cam photo of a Bobcat! It almost looks like a painting!… but the head looks oddly small…. hmmmm. After some prodding the original photo is produced and sure enough it had been so heavily altered by AI ‘post processing’ that the photo posted was essentially a digital mock-up with totally different proportions and fur markings. No longer the photo off the trail cam; it may as well have just been ‘created’ by AI from scratch. This stuff is killing me. My days on social media are becoming very limited. We can’t even trust simple, everyday photos of animals to be real. The wildlife community needs to quit editing with AI, and we need to start calling out photographers that are using it. Our reality is being destroyed all around us.
this field biologist does a great job highlighting the insidiousness of AI editing
these one-click AI edit buttons are incredibly appealing to many photographers, amateurs and professionals alike, and are framed as innocuous
this is worth sharing and educating people about
Infographic with AI slop published in Nature Scientific Reports
"Runctitiononal features"? "Medical fymblal"? "1 Tol Line storee"? This gets worse the longer you look at it. But it's got to be good, because it was published in Nature Scientific Reports last week: www.nature.com/articles/s41... h/t @asa.tsbalans.se
Extending Long-Term Avian Studies Alters Temporal and Climate-Driven Trend Conclusions | doi.org/10.1002/ece3... | Ecology and Evolution | #ornithology 🪶
Solid plan to get new people to join game evenings @alinaniskanen.bsky.social
Hömötiaiset munivat nykyään seitsemän ja talitiaiset kolme päivää aiemmin kuin viisikymmentä vuotta sitten.
"Tutkijoita kiinnostaa, millä keinoilla eläimet sopeutuvat nopeisiin ympäristönmuutoksiin", sanoo Emma Vatka, yksi uuden tutkimuksen tekijöistä.
A common scoter (Melanitta nigra), in mostly brown plumage with a distinctive light cheek, swimming in a slightly wavy blue lake, with some green water plants surrounding it
Since taking up birdwatching a bit more seriously last year, I am happy to have started recognizing so many more species in my surroundings.
The counter for this year: 123 species, of which 10% are species I had not (consciously) seen before. One of last weekend's additions: a common scoter. #birds
Finland's government continues to be complicit to the ongoing genocide. And all the while, war crimes are stacking up faster than anyone can investigate them.
Let the records and history books state that we all have known, all this time, and our politicians actively chose to do nothing.
yle.fi/a/74-20179216
"Israel is waging a war whose goals are difficult to understand from the outside"
Blatant wilful ignorance from minister Valtonen. Members of the Israeli government have openly spoken of their plans of ethnic cleansing. The Israeli army's actions speak for themselves.
So much more should have been done so much earlier. But so much can yet be prevented by action now instead of later, now instead of never.
What will it take to finally do something? When?
We will not be able to claim that we had not realized what was happening. [5/5]
Now, the only red line left is the blood-soaked ground of Gaza, which the Israeli forces have long since transgressed.
Any action that may finally be taken will be too late for the thousands that have been killed, for the untold many that have been physically and mentally scarred for life. [4/5]
The writing has been on the wall for years. Access to water, electricity and food have repeatedly been blocked. Medical staff, journalists, civilians constantly and purposefully killed. These governments chose to tolerate the crossing of every red line that was drawn. [3/5]
Which is all the more reason to demand justice in the here and now, for the creation of this hell on earth.
I utterly despise the inaction of the European governments that allowed these genocidal atrocities to happen and continue. This suffering was preventable. They could have prevented it. [2/5]
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
'An aid worker reported that children are telling their parents that they want to die and go to heaven, because “at least heaven has food”.'
I'm not much of a believer in an afterlife. [1/5]
THE SYSTEM IS RIGGED.
While floods, heatwaves, and climate and nature crises hit the rest of us, Bezos parties in Venice and Musk turns a year older and a few million richer.
This isn’t a glitch.
But people are pushing back & so should you 👉 act.gp/4ejxnsz
#TaxTheSuperRich
A great crested grebe (Podiceps cristatus) swimming in a lake, surrounded by water plants, the small head of a young grebe carried on their back just visible
A great crested grebe (Podiceps cristatus) swimming, the small black-and-white striped head of a young grebe carried on their back visible behind the parent's, with both reflected in the water.
Composite of two pictures of swimming grebes. Left: a raised "back", the parent using their wings to cover the young on their back. Right: a grebe carrying a fish in their beak, their back flat, with no young being concealed.
Aaah.
It's one of my favourite times of the year.
It's baby grebe and parent taxi time.
Useful for predator avoidance? Yes. Absolutely adorable? Also yes.
Note that the parents may conceal the young, but the clearly raised wings in the silhouette are a good indicator of carried offspring.
#birds
Perhaps a greenfinch, though could be a wood warbler, chiffchaff, or however many other Phylloscopus species there may have been in medieval Flanders.
I assume these have to be green woodpeckers; the red on the head is so striking, and they're obviously not black woodpeckers, nor does it seem a logical depiction of any spotted woodpeckers, which should have plentiful black and white patterns.
That looks like a coal tit, not a great tit. (And I /could/ be convinced the third medieval bird below, with the less saturated colours, is actually a coal tit too, but black patterning (neck, throat) still resembles a great tit more overall, even if e.g. lacking the breast stripe.)
Close-ups of many birds, and corvids especially, never cease to remind me that:
-They're wonderful.
-Birds really are dinosaurs.
-If they were bigger or we were smaller, they'd almost certainly eat us. (A notion further reinforced by their frequently murderous-seeming looks during ringing!)
A crested tit (Lophophanes cristatus) standing on a branch, black-and-white crest upright, staring into the camera with a distinctive red eye. Around its legs are several coloured rings including one made of aluminium.
Whenever you're close enough to a crested tit (Lophophanes cristatus) to see their bright red irises, you know it's a good day. ♥️ This particular beauty has some rings around its legs, meaning it has been breeding locally before - best of luck this year! (Cresties are Red-Listed in FI.) #birds
I often wonder about the backgrounds of the #birds in our study area, or the futures of those dispersing - but it's impossible to study these things in an open population in continuous Finnish forests.
As often is the case in biology, islands can provide a solution - as in this house sparrow study:
Ironic that the most dangerous actual epidemic unfolding under the Trump administration is, in fact, that of misinformation... Half malice, half ignorance; all incompetence, and fully unfit for the offices they hold.
Turns out krakens start life as adorable and mesmerizingly beautiful little things. Who knew? Wonderful footage of a wonderful creature. ❤️🦑
Biology sees plenty nuance beyond some artificial binary m/f divide already - nature's all over the place; it's people who strictly categorize. But then, since when has proof mattered to those still ignoring evolution, climate change, etcetera? Those wilfully looking away will never see anything.
I see crestie, I repost crestie.
Gotta help spread those handsome little creatures as far and wide as possible, hoping they find a happy habitat in your feed. 🐦 Just excellent #birds
