Worth every watt

baking stuffed butternut squash with gorgonzola and walnuts with the light of the rapidly setting November sun and 13kw of solar panels

Built partly because I now have a stronger than previous urge to remove the webapp, and yesod dependency from git-annex since that whole stack is full of LLM code now.

(LLMs are boosting my productivity in a way I suppose...)

`git-annex transfers` is a little addition to #gitAnnex that shows a live view of every upload and download being made by any git-annex process in the repository. With progress displays.

It also has json output, which could be parsed and used to build a git-annex dashboard display or other things.

#gitAnnex now builds with botan for faster hashing (and also because I no longer wish to use the cryptonite haskell library)

Wish my dad could have seen this.

When I’m in the Yellow Springs area, I often like to visit the glaciers...or, rather, the deep gorges left behind when their meltwater rushed across the earth and scoured deep crevices into solid rock. Clifton Gorge is the most famous example of this, but I prefer a slightly lower awe factor combined with a much lower human factor.

Which is a long way of saying, I most often visit Indian Mound Reserve outside Cedarville instead.

Right beside the road, Cedar Cliff Falls is the most striking feature of the park. The large cascade resulted from a dam created for a no-longer-present mill, but the falls still roar at all seasons and coat the surrounding area in waterspray-ice during cold spells.

Looking downstream from Cedar Cliff Falls, the bridge across the gorge is architecturally striking with its angular contrast to the organic landscape. Like the falls, this is only steps from a parking area.

You have to hike further, though, if you want to really delve into the gorge itself. About half a mile downstream, the sounds of moving water reverberate off the surrounding rock, enclosing you in a chamber of fern- and moss-coated nature.

If you’re craving early spring wildflowers, your best bet is even further downstream, with Snow Trilliums on one side of the creek and Skunk Cabbage on the other. That, though, is a story for another season and for another post.

In the meantime, how about sitting by the falls and creek for a while in the ambient nature video below?

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nothing like a nice clean #solar power graph to put things in perspective: coffee, water heater, and EV charging all clearly visible and nothing else of any real consequence

debian has a git-annex update in unstable and testing but not yet stable

termux package updated too

still waiting on other updates

Thanks BTW to Forschungszentrum Jülich who support git-annex development including security fixes.

So I found that git-annex security hole 2 weeks ago, and spent an entire week fulltime developing a patch, which needed to be 2000 LoC unfortunately with UI changes and some very tricky stuff. And which I backported to a bunch of old versions.

Then I disclosed to distros@ and set a 1 week period until public disclosure. That made last week's security events extra interesting, including needing to release git-annex to deal with them. I was not able to test the big patch as much as I'd hoped, though I did get I think full test coverage on Friday.

Had 4.5 hours of sleep last night. It's been quite a ride. fingers crossed

Unfortunately I will shortly be changing git-annex in ways that will require considerable numbers of NEW packages in #Debian. Not maliciously, just dealing with the ongoing supply chain attack against my dependencies.

pypi builds updated https://pypi.org/project/git-annex/10.20261026/

#gitAnnex security fix released!

Version 10.20261026 fixes a cross-repository data exfiltration attack (CVE-2026-112818)

I hope distributions will update promptly. In the meantime you should avoid running git-annex in any new git clones from anyone else.

https://git-annex.branchable.com/security/cross_repository_data_exfiltration_via_special_remote/

(If there was ever a bit of haskell code that could use an example in its documentation and doesn't have one, it's coercionToPlatformTypes. Luckily I have access to actual Artificial Intelligence, aka a type checker or I would never have figured it out.)

I did contact the new maintainer and ask wtf earlier, and they used an LLM to respond to me (without disclosing it, a pattern of behavior) and doubled down on the nonsense.

I have forked the #haskell magic library after a new maintainer gummed it all up with LLM slop

Compare the LLM generated code with my code. These 77 and 4 lines of code do essentially the same thing, except mine is twice as fast, avoids ifdefs, and doesn't have large nonsense comment blocks about encodings.

https://git.joeyh.name/index.cgi/haskell-libmagic.git/tree/Magic/Operations.hsc#n46

https://github.com/philippedev101/magic-haskell/blob/f52a3628626644d68e1cd1d2c36e98f78693bda5/src/Magic/Internal.hs#L157

In the LLMs's defense, my code contains the first use of System.OsString.coercionToPlatformTypes that I can find on the internet, so it had nothing to steal the good way to do it from.

When I was a kid, I spent hundreds of hours scooping fish out of our creek with a bucket. In the process, I figured out there were biggish minnows that survived when brought home and dumped in my stagnant goldfish pond, smaller minnows with black stripes that couldn’t hack the lower oxygen levels of a pool, vertically flattened fish that someone told me were baby bluegills, and weird sculpins that sat on the creek bottom and lived much longer than the others when removed from water.

(Yes, I was a cruel child.)

When I started trying to ID the fish in creeks near me three-plus decades later, I was expecting to find four species max. Over the last two weeks, I’ve instead IDed double that number, have learned a lot about what they do underwater when I’m not chasing them down with a bucket, and invested in an awesome field guide. But first…

How do you find fish in creeks?

The traditional methods involve netting (or shocking) fish out of the water, but I wanted to see what their lives were like in situ. To that end, I started out snorkeling… only to find that process very hit or miss (and cold as the season progressed).

Enter an idea I didn’t expect to work yet did:

• Step 1: Look for fish. I skipped this step at first and had a 33% success rate. After starting to wander along the creek to see where the fish were actually hanging out before sampling, my success rate went up to near 100%.

• Step 2: Screw a cheap tripod-plate to the bottom of my underwater camera for stability. Change the Settings>Video>Video Bit Rate to Fine (so the images will be good enough for screenshots). Start the video feature while the camera lens is in the water but the screen is out of the water (because otherwise the screen silvers and you may end up wasting your time on out-of-focus or even not-recording sessions). Then carefully place the camera pointing at where the fish were (before they swam away), weighing down the tripod plate with a rock or two if the current is strong. Direct sunlight is a boon but not absolutely necessary.

• Optional: Stir up the bottom just a little in front of the camera. On the one hand, this can often attract fish who come hunting in the cloud. On the other hand, this will make the water muddier and your footage less clear.

• Step 3: 18 minutes later, the video has ended so you can take your camera out of the water. My batteries will manage two to three drops like this, so it’s worth picking another spot, preferably in a slightly different habitat (think pools, riffles, and overhang hiding spots), then repeating steps 1 through 3.

• Step 4: Back home, open the video in an editing program. (I run Linux and use Kdenlive, so if you use more conventional software the following details might not be spot-on for you.) Scan through until you see a fish, right-click on the image, then click “extract frame.” This will give you a much higher-quality image than a screenshot. The results still aren’t glamour shots, but they’re good enough for ID.

• Step 5: Upload all the fish to inaturalist, where a vibrant ID community often provides IDs within 24 hours.

Not willing to invest all that effort? The video below includes a bunch of footage from Forked Run State Park with the most boring bits compressed or removed. Watch along and see how chill the fish get within a minute or two of having the camera placed in their habitat, then notice the few times I pulled out the camera early based on scared fish zipping in all directions.

What have I learned?

Those big, fast, pool-agreeable fish were probably Creek Chubs. In my videos, this species flits in and out of the frame quickly, and they seem able to handle both stagnant conditions and life further upstream better than many other fish. They also look very variable (losing their black line as they age), so I’ve been starting to ID them based on behavior rather than visuals.

Those little, black-striped, sensitive fish I saw as a kid…could be almost anything, even young Creek Chubs! So many creek fish have a stripe, possibly as a way to break up their silhouette and avoid predators.

But if you keep sampling and are lucky, you might notice that some of the larger fish actually have maroon stripes (male Western Blacknose Dace, right) or two stripes (Southern Redbelly Dace, left).

Then there are the sunfish (the vertically flattened ones), not all of which are bluegills. The ones above are Green Sunfish, which handle muddy water better than most.

In addition to their shape, I’ve noticed that most sunfish are really flirty with the camera. They typically swim up so close, in fact, that my camera struggles to focus on them! My current hypothesis is that they’re territorial and think the camera lens is reflecting back an enemy fish, the same way a cardinal might obsess over his reflection in your window. But please correct me if you think I’m wrong!

Finally, while I haven’t seen any sculpin yet, darters are a different bottom-dwelling category that seem common here. I often don’t even see darters when I put down the camera, but scanning footage often turns at least one up.

Since darters don’t have swim bladders, they naturally rest motionless on the stream bottom until they dart out to grab tiny critters for lunch. Perhaps their tendency to sit so low is also why most (except the Johnny Darter pictured above) are very sensitive to sedimentation?

Regardless, most darters (and many other creek fish) turn very brilliantly colored during breeding season. Something to look forward to in the spring!

Digging deeper

I’m still at the bare beginning of understanding creek fish, so I figured it was time to invest in a field guide. And luckily, there’s an Ohio version that I adored the moment my copy arrived.

A Naturalist’s Guide to the Fishes of Ohio includes every species in the state with information on range, habitat, and an in-depth description. While I’d like more pictures (especially of juveniles and non-breeding coloration), the images that are present have definitely helped me start to get a handle on what I’m seeing. If you live in my state and are interested in non-game fishes, the paperback version is a must-buy.

Subscribe now

^{Affiliate disclosure: The links in this post are affiliate links, which means I’ll get a few pennies if you click and buy. But I only recommend items I use and love!}

finished repairing the buried water line (at each bisection point, ouch!) and house is back on it in time for winter

pressure tested with no leaks!

Legitimately a bit worried about the Internet Archive at this point. I hope they can find their way past the founder's syndrome and survive longterm.

4, 56, 66, 115, 155, 156, 230, 237

#Lost

ghc finally bootstrapped, via hugs and microhs

https://github.com/andreabedini/ghc-bootstrap

They used LLM assistance. It's worth noting that microhs has itself had a lot of LLM generated code over the past year or two.

Everyone is Black

by Maggie Hess

Sci fi

main characters – Marmalade, Crow, September, Laughlin, King Belch, Charlie

The loneliest thing in the world is a school with a No Blacks sign at every turn, and you the only black person you know. At least no one seems to notice my skin color, which perplexes me every day, and scares the heebee geebees out of me. Going to this school is like being tortured, although I probably shouldn’t say that, since I could be tortured in reality if King Belch knew I was black. See my skin is the color of milk chocolate, everyone acts like it is the color of a pale peach, so I guess no one knows that I am black, and if they knew what would happen to me? I see in the news people getting thrown in jail and even killed for having dark skin. So I guess you might understand why I am feeling lonely because I am the one person I know who has dark skin, and no one talks to anyone in this world where I live. But it isn’t the fear that bothers me the most really, it is that I am alone and that I don’t know anyone like me.

The strange thing is everyone seems so nice, and it makes me want to really talk to someone, like to really share with them what is happening on my mind. I probably would kill for a friend, I mean I really don’t want to hurt anyone, but I have seen so many people like me slaughtered like poultry, that I guess I have been desensitized about killing I’d say. I guess my real point is I want a friend, and it seems I would do about anything to find one.

I was thinking about all of that, which is my status quo, when something really big happened right in front of me. There is this wall that I walk along on my way back home from school. It actually is the Separation Wall that King Belch had built between North and South. We are at the very tip top of the most Southern part, so we have this huge wall in parts of our district. I was walking towards where I saw a guard snoozing under a tree, but I had to squat behind a bush suddenly because a mercenary of sorts scathed the wall – apparently he had a rope – and the guard jerked awake, but the mercenary stabbed him with a knife before the guard was able to shoot him.

Out of the pocket of the mercenary I saw some folded paper fall near the growing pool of blood. Then the mercenary ran off, without realizing he left the paper behind. And so when I finally got my heart out of my throat where it seemed to be beating, I went quickly towards the dead guard, snatched the paper note, and ran the rest of the way home.

This is what it said.

Charlie, you are the most beautiful black soul. You are black to your core and it is the reason everyone sees your true colors, and it is why they are trying to kill you, and it is why I love you. Wear your hood and your pale peach gloves. Travel by night to the trestle brook. No guards go there. Stay in that place, eating rabbits and fish. In no certain time, the Underground will find you. Good luck, my beloved. You may kiss another. - Love Crow

So the mercenary was named Charlie? If I was reading it right, the mercenary was Charlie. More importantly, the mercenary was black, like me. There is another like me in this world! But why didn’t I follow the bandit? They could give me answers about myself. How else would I ever find out? And now what?

When I got home, I do not remember laying down, but awoke from such vivid dreams with the paper note tucked deep into my pillow case.

Morning in school seemed different. Murmuring hallway voices seemed more excited than usual, for some reason unknown to me. I really don’t talk to anyone in school and never get in trouble, which is why it surprised me to be called to the guidance office, where I met two – not one – counselors.

“Marmelade,” the woman with curly brown hair reached out her and to shake mine. Then immediately the man with wavy sandy hair. “We wanted to make sure to introduce ourselves to you.” Said Laughlin, the man.

Then the woman, September, explained they were working together in the school because they both were new to the job, and actually were students of counseling school still themselves.

It was strange, I rarely felt I could trust anyone, but they were both warm and kind and seemed so open minded somehow, that I almost wondered if I should be honest and share when they asked me questions.

“Are you involved in any extracurricular activities or sports?” September inquired.

“Sometimes I swim independently, but I also really like writing creatively, but there is no class or group for that here.”

“That is interesting to hear, considering current strictness on creativity.” Laughlin directly mentioning the regime of King Belch shocked me, and I wondered if I had made a mistake, and if they’d both turn on me and report me for artistic behaviors.

But instead September asked me if I wanted to join a small writing group she had been “cooking up.”

“It is not a school sponsored activity. To be honest it is just me and Laughlin. We would be the only other two writers in the group. We meet at the pier by the pond between the trestle and the wall, on Fridays after s

Everyone is Black

by Maggie Hess

Sci fi

main characters – Marmalade, Crow, September, Laughlin, King Belch, Charlie

The loneliest thing in the world is a school with a No Blacks sign at every turn, and you the only black person you know. At least no one seems to notice my skin color, which perplexes me every day, and scares the heebee geebees out of me. Going to this school is like being tortured, although I probably shouldn’t say that, since I could be tortured in reality if King Belch knew I was black. See my skin is the color of milk chocolate, everyone acts like it is the color of a pale peach, so I guess no one knows that I am black, and if they knew what would happen to me? I see in the news people getting thrown in jail and even killed for having dark skin. So I guess you might understand why I am feeling lonely because I am the one person I know who has dark skin, and no one talks to anyone in this world where I live. But it isn’t the fear that bothers me the most really, it is that I am alone and that I don’t know anyone like me.

The strange thing is everyone seems so nice, and it makes me want to really talk to someone, like to really share with them what is happening on my mind. I probably would kill for a friend, I mean I really don’t want to hurt anyone, but I have seen so many people like me slaughtered like poultry, that I guess I have been desensitized about killing I’d say. I guess my real point is I want a friend, and it seems I would do about anything to find one.

I was thinking about all of that, which is my status quo, when something really big happened right in front of me. There is this wall that I walk along on my way back home from school. It actually is the Separation Wall that King Belch had built between North and South. We are at the very tip top of the most Southern part, so we have this huge wall in parts of our district. I was walking towards where I saw a guard snoozing under a tree, but I had to squat behind a bush suddenly because a mercenary of sorts scathed the wall – apparently he had a rope – and the guard jerked awake, but the mercenary stabbed him with a knife before the guard was able to shoot him.

Out of the pocket of the mercenary I saw some folded paper fall near the growing pool of blood. Then the mercenary ran off, without realizing he left the paper behind. And so when I finally got my heart out of my throat where it seemed to be beating, I went quickly towards the dead guard, snatched the paper note, and ran the rest of the way home.

This is what it said.

Charlie, you are the most beautiful black soul. You are black to your core and it is the reason everyone sees your true colors, and it is why they are trying to kill you, and it is why I love you. Wear your hood and your pale peach gloves. Travel by night to the trestle brook. No guards go there. Stay in that place, eating rabbits and fish. In no certain time, the Underground will find you. Good luck, my beloved. You may kiss another. - Love Crow

So the mercenary was named Charlie? If I was reading it right, the mercenary was Charlie. More importantly, the mercenary was black, like me. There is another like me in this world! But why didn’t I follow the bandit? They could give me answers about myself. How else would I ever find out? And now what?

When I got home, I do not remember laying down, but awoke from such vivid dreams with the paper note tucked deep into my pillow case.

Morning in school seemed different. Murmuring hallway voices seemed more excited than usual, for some reason unknown to me. I really don’t talk to anyone in school and never get in trouble, which is why it surprised me to be called to the guidance office, where I met two – not one – cou

Everyone is Black

by Maggie Hess

Sci fi

main characters – Marmalade, Crow, September, Laughlin, King Belch, Charlie

The loneliest thing in the world is a school with a No Blacks sign at every turn, and you the only black person you know. At least no one seems to notice my skin color, which perplexes me every day, and scares the heebee geebees out of me. Going to this school is like being tortured, although I probably shouldn’t say that, since I could be tortured in reality if King Belch knew I was black. See my skin is the color of milk chocolate, everyone acts like it is the color of a pale peach, so I guess no one knows that I am black, and if they knew what would happen to me? I see in the news people getting thrown in jail and even killed for having dark skin. So I guess you might understand why I am feeling lonely because I am the one person I know who has dark skin, and no one talks to anyone in this world where I live. But it isn’t the fear that bothers me the most really, it is that I am alone and that I don’t know anyone like me.

The strange thing is everyone seems so nice, and it makes me want to really talk to someone, like to really share with them what is happening on my mind. I probably would kill for a friend, I mean I really don’t want to hurt anyone, but I have seen so many people like me slaughtered like poultry, that I guess I have been desensitized about killing I’d say. I guess my real point is I want a friend, and it seems I would do about anything to find one.

I was thinking about all of that, which is my status quo, when something really big happened right in front of me. There is this wall that I walk along on my way back home from school. It actually is the Separation Wall that King Belch had built between North and South. We are at the very tip top of the most Southern part, so we have this huge wall in parts of our district. I was walking towards where I saw a guard snoozing under a tree, but I had to squat behind a bush suddenly because a mercenary of sorts scathed the wall – apparently he had a rope – and the guard jerked awake, but the mercenary stabbed him with a knife before the guard was able to shoot him.

Out of the pocket of the mercenary I saw some folded paper fall near the growing pool of blood. Then the mercenary ran off, without realizing he left the paper behind. And so when I finally got my heart out of my throat where it seemed to be beating, I went quickly towards the dead guard, snatched the paper note, and ran the rest of the way home.

This is what it said.

Charlie, you are the most beautiful black soul. You are black to your core and it is the reason everyone sees your true colors, and it is why they are trying to kill you, and it is why I love you. Wear your hood and your pale peach gloves. Travel by night to the trestle brook. No guards go there. Stay in that place, eating rabbits and fish. In no certain time, the Underground will find you. Good luck, my beloved. You may kiss another. - Love Crow

So the mercenary was named Charlie? If I was reading it right, the mercenary was Charlie. More importantly, the mercenary was black, like me. There is another like me in this world! But why didn’t I follow the bandit? They could give me answers about myself. How else would I ever find out? And now what?

When I got home, I do not remember laying down, but awoke from such vivid dreams with the paper note tucked deep into my pillow case.

Morning in school seemed different. Murmuring hallway voices seemed more excited than usual, for some reason unknown to me. I really don’t talk to anyone in school and never get in trouble, which is why it surprised me to be called to the guidance office, where I met two – not one – counselors.

“Marmelade,” the woman with curly brown hair reached out her and to shake mine. Then immediately the man with wavy sandy hair. “We wanted to make sure to introduce ourselves to you.” Said Laughlin, the man.

Then the woman, September, explained they were working together in the school because they both were new to the job, and actually were students of counseling school still themselves.

It was strange, I rarely felt I could trust anyone, but they were both warm and kind and seemed so open minded somehow, that I almost wondered if I should be honest and share when they asked me questions.

“Are you involved in any extracurricular activities or sports?” September inquired.

“Sometimes I swim independently, but I also really like writing creatively, but there is no class or group for that here.”

“That is interesting to hear, considering current strictness on creativity.” Laughlin directly mentioning the regime of King Belch shocked me, and I wondered if I had made a mistake, and if they’d both turn on me and report me for artistic behaviors.

But instead September asked me if I wanted to join a small writing group she had been “cooking up.”

“It is not a school sponsored activity. To be honest it is just me and Laughlin. We would be the only other two writers in the group. We meet at the pier by the pond between the trestle and the wall, on Fridays after school, only if it’s not raining.

That sounded exciting but my nerves were jumping all around.

“Make sure you bring something to write on!” Recommended Laughlin, just before he deposited me back in my boring, cold, awful class.

I had no idea what the teacher was saying. My head was spinning with amazement and a strange happy feeling that I may have found 2 friends.

Fortunately the teacher didn’t call on me.

I skipped all the way home that evening.

“Marmelade,” the woman with curly brown hair reached out her and to shake mine. Then immediately the man with wavy sandy hair. “We wanted to make sure to introduce ourselves to you.” Said Laughlin, the man.

Then the woman, September, explained they were working together in the school because they both were new to the job, and actually were students of counseling school still themselves.

It was strange, I rarely felt I could trust anyone, but they were both warm and kind and seemed so open minded somehow, that I almost wondered if I should be honest and share when they asked me questions.

“Are you involved in any extracurricular activities or sports?” September inquired.

“Sometimes I swim independently, but I also really like writing creatively, but there is no class or group for that here.”

“That is interesting to hear, considering current strictness on creativity.” Laughlin directly mentioning the regime of King Belch shocked me, and I wondered if I had made a mistake, and if they’d both turn on me and report me for artistic behaviors.

But instead September asked me if I wanted to join a small writing group she had been “cooking up.”

“It is not a school sponsored activity. To be honest it is just me and Laughlin. We would be the only other two writers in the group. We meet at the pier by the pond between the trestle and the wall, on Fridays after school, only if it’s not raining.

That sounded exciting but my nerves were jumping all around.

“Make sure you bring something to write on!” Recommended Laughlin, just before he deposited me back in my boring, cold, awful class.

I had no idea what the teacher was saying. My head was spinning with amazement and a strange happy feeling that I may have found 2 friends.

Fortunately the teacher didn’t call on me.

I skipped all the way home that evening.

That sounded exciting but my nerves were jumping all around.

“Make sure you bring something to write on!” Recommended Laughlin, just before he deposited me back in my boring, cold, awful class.

I had no idea what the teacher was saying. My head was spinning with amazement and a strange happy feeling that I may have found 2 friends.

Fortunately the teacher didn’t call on me.

I skipped all the way home that evening.

I looked up the electric rates in McAlester OK, and it's $0.14/kwh. Which is pretty high. Also it produces 100% of its power from fossil fuels.

Average bill is $140 so there was some cherry picking in this story but of course they would have higher than average bills in the summer. Doesn't make it any less grim that this is happening to so many people. At a time when we could so easily solve this.

Climate change is shit. Not will be, is.

https://archive.is/zxM83

"The last three months were about three degrees above average [...], tens of millions of people can’t afford to pay for the air-conditioning that helped keep them safe in the deadly heat"

"one in six U.S. households is already behind on its utility bills"

timezones are technology people. hack

Implementing a daily updated solar noon matched timezone is still on my todo list. (Well it will probably be 365 separate timezones.)

I am the weirdest of timezone weirdos -- I live in a house with 2 timezones.

My longterm bet tho is hyperlocal timezones perfectly matched to solar noon with automatic conversion.

Re leap seconds being deferred now until there's a leap hour --

Imagining the future point where noon is say, 45 minutes before solar noon, and heading toward 60 minutes in a century or two, the obvious thing to do then would be to adjust the time zone back an hour. This would be done here and there a bit at a time, but it would eventually happen almost everywhere.

So there would be no point in ever updating #UTC.

It was a very overcast day on Raccoon Creek Saturday. The sky stayed so dark that crepuscular critters (like the beaver above) were out and busy quite late into the day.

The crickets were also singing even at noon. And unbeknownst to me, I photographed one of them!

This Red-headed Bush Cricket looked so unlike what I thought a cricket would be that I was surprised to come home and discover it was a night singer. (In case you’re curious about those club-shaped things coming off its face — they’re sensing organs and have nothing to do with how it sings.)

Now for the real question: was it Red-headed Bush Crickets I accidentally caught on my ambient creek video? Here’s a video (not by me) of that species calling. What do you think? (And did you catch the pack of coyotes halfway through?)

I’d also love to know whether you find ambient nature videos like this fun to put on in the background while you’re puttering. They take a long time to upload on our rural internet, but I enjoy making them and they’re worth the effort if you like them too. Please let me know in the comments!

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Last week, my mom brought me to one of my favorite childhood haunts — the Jett Gap Ford (36.673236130134796, -82.36705163921813) on the North Fork of the Holston River. In the 1980s and 90s, we used to play in this low-water spot where tractors and trucks still sometimes drive across the river. I was always intrigued by the critters in the water, especially the snails on rocks.

Imagine my surprise to return to the ford and realize one of those snails is quite special!

Enter the Spiny Riversnail (Io fluvialis), one of the largest freshwater snails in North America and one that almost became extinct due to the impoundment of rivers within its small range. In addition to the shell’s spines and size, the pointy bottom tip gives the species a very marine feel (at least for those like me who know nothing about snails).

The Spiny Riversnail was reintroduced to the North Fork of the Holston River in the 1970s and 1980s and has apparently gained enough of a foothold since that I found copious shells washed ashore just upstream from the ford. Snorkeling, I’m pretty sure at least one of the living snails I found grazing in the riffles was a Spiny Riversnail.

What are the other species? I have no clue! Maybe next visit I’ll dig a little deeper and find out…

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(But save this for a rainy day — the weather right now is too beautiful to waste in front of a screen!)

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I stopped for an overnight at the Breaks Interstate Park while traveling along the Virginia-Kentucky border last Thursday. Arriving tired then having to get back on the road relatively early meant my explorations were few. Still, the views were worth it all by themselves!

Birds were also copious. Wild Turkeys were busy eating grass seeds by the side of the road all afternoon, and the Overlook Trail (as promised on the brochure) was quite birdy. In addition to the Blue-headed Vireo pictured above, dawn treated me to a pair of Peregrine Falcons calling and swooping overhead.

Several trails were closed for a prescribed burn, so I took the only remaining route to the valley bottom. Camp Branch Trail is a mile round trip…easy as long as you don’t mind the steep climb on the way back. This area would be perfect for packing a lunch and spending all afternoon, especially since you have to drive a few miles from the main heart of the park to get to it (likely meaning fewer visitors than at the busy vistas).

I camped at site B-32, which was delightfully secluded (at least during the shoulder season when no one had booked the neighboring sites). All night, the breeze flowed in one side of my tent and out the other as the thousand-foot difference between ravine bottom and ridge top tempted air to move. In the end, I think it was this constantly flowing air that I’ll remember most.

As a bonus, here’s a video of my other camping morning of the trip: Yatesville Lake. I updated my previous post with some bonus photos at the end in case you want more pictures from my lovely vacation week!

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Interesting to see what people are getting up to with vibe coding and then reverting that in the next release without any indication of what bug it introduced.

In other news, replaced a git-annex dependency and sped it up by about 400%