February 2021 brain dump

Yet another brain dump post. (brain dump: snapshot of the internal state of a knowledge database for transfer or archiving purposes).

I am changing the format of the brain dumps to be more journal like instead of a list of links as in the previous versions.

Birding

At the end of 2020, my partner purchased a Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary Lens for Canon EF so she could do some wildlife photography while at her new job. I have been borrowing it on my days off from work to take photos of birds. I have since become completely enamored with birdwatching. If you told me 2 years ago before the COVID-19 pandemic that I would become a birder I would not have believed you.

I have turned birding into a project for 2021. The plan is to get 52 good print quality photos of birds and make a standard deck of playing cards with photos of birds on the faces. Each card will have some information about the birds to help people identify them in the wild. Afterward, I will get the deck printed and send them to my friends and family as gifts.

I thought it was going to take me a year to get all the photos but I have already gotten 35 print quality photos, seen 57 different species of birds, and taken close to ~3,000 photos. At this rate, I should be done by end of March 2021

I have been tracking the species of birds using my iNaturalist account. I have been posting the best photos on my Instagram feed (@funvill). Follow me to keep up to date with this project.

I have been using iBird Pro and Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab as my field guides for helping identify birds. I found this website to be a good source of bird photography how-tos and guides.

Some of my favorite photos so far are:

• Hooded Merganser catching a gunnel fish
• Juvenile bald eagles fighting
• Juvenile bald eagles hunting and catching ducks
• Pelagic Cormorant catching a gunnel fish
• Northern Flicker watching me watching him
• Belted Kingfisher looking majestic.

Pen Plotting

Plotter Twitter pen pals is a project where people send each other drawings made from a plotter. I have been getting more interested in plotters and CNC over the past few years and this kind of project speaks to me. To find good plotter designs follow the hashtag #plottertwitter on Twitter.

• PlotterFiles - A website for user-created pen plotter files and SVGs.
• A list of vertical white board potters

Art

• A good introduction to generative art and design with some suggestions on software and tools.
• sphericons models that can be used with a CNC or a 3D printer. Sphericons Rolls in a Wibbly Wobbly Way
• Quote Clock a series of quotes with the current time in them.
• Cities made from layered paper and papercraft. Artist Ayumi Shibata

Other

• What are some good utilities/tools that you don’t think other people know about?. I always like these crowdsourced lists of tools. They are good for discovering new tools.
• How to Rebuild our World from Scratch is a book with all the knowledge, designs, plans that you would need to rebuild society.
• Line to map - Draw a line on the screen and a matching map contour will be produced.