anon6789

It’s my pleasure. Every week I get new great stories to tell. Last week was my first time with a vulture, so I got to learn how they behave when a new human comes poking around them. I get to see animals up close that I didn’t even know we have in my state like minks, flying squirrels, and the other week we had a brown thrasher, which is kind of like a roadrunner.

I work with really amazing and caring people, meet all kinds of nice people and kids that find hurt animals and want to see them get better, some real weirdos as well.

We had a little boy find a bumble bee that was missing a wing and he took it to his parents, and then they brought it in and he dropped it off to us. We treated it the same as any other wild animal. We gave it fresh fruit, soft bedding, and while bee wings are too delicate to work on (we do repair butterflies though!) we gave that bee the best end of life care possible and we were sad when he passed. It may sound silly, but in a world with a lot of anger lately, to be in a group of people that can see love and compassion in a bee can feel like a really great place to be.

If you want more animal stories and cool anatomy stuff, it’s a bit more niche, but I post on !superbowl@lemmy.world every day. I post cute and humourous stuff of course, but much of the content is sourced from rescues like the one I work at or wildlife photographers, so there’s a serious and respectful undertone to it all, and I can answer lots of questions. I’ll sneak in non-owl related stuff from my personal animal care experiences too when I can tie it in.

It’s all good. Last week there were a lot in a bad mood since they were being weened. Their free ride is coming to an end. 😁

I’m a volunteer at a wild animal rescue. Squirrels have babies twice a year, and whichever ones end up displaced for one reason or another end up with us.

We’re starting to wrap up for the year, but at the peak of both breeding seasons we have over 200 baby squirrels in our care, and depending how big they are, we need to take care of them 3 or 4 times a day.

They get fed, weighed, a good general inspection to look for any health problems, and their enclosures cleaned out. We give them hammocks and toys and things to build up their squirrel behaviors.

They’ll eventually graduate to an outdoor enclosure with a lot more room to move around and/or we release them back to the environment where they resume their lives as nature intends.

As a larger and stronger than average person, squirrels are quite impressive little critters. They are extremely fast and agile, and you just can’t appreciate it until you start to handle ones that aren’t cooperative! They barely seem bound by the laws of physics. They can move any direction, in any orientation, stick tone everything with those tiny claws, have insane bursts of energy, and even ones with their eyes barely open have insane upper body strength to climb anywhere. When they are angry, they will hiss, spit, lunge and bite like the scariest of feral cats. They have sharp, reinforced teeth that can bite through our leather gloves if they really want to. They are no joke!

But they are also soft, loveable, and adorable critters that need a helping hand sometimes.

Here’s a recent photo I grabbed while feeding one. You can make out those biceps and cannonball shoulders under the fur, and this one is on the small side, so it’s a wimp compared to the big guys.

All us volunteers start our education on squirrels, as there are so many and they are pretty safe as far as wild animals go since they’re small and typically not too aggressive.

I’m looking to get vaccinated for rabies next month so that next year I can work with the foxes and raccoons and the rest of the rabies prone species. My main ambition is raptors, but we don’t get near as many of those as other animals, and they’re all amazing in their own ways, so I just want to be able to work with all of them.

I think that’s a good basic summary of everything. I’m far from an expert on any specific topic, but if you have any more questions, feel free to ask. It’s a great job, and nearly anyone can do it if you have a few hours a week to do a shift (ours are 4 hours) and it’s an indescribably positive experience for the most part. I recommend it to anyone who loves wild animals.

A lot of them are cool. But when they are dicks, they go all out. They intimidate me more than a lot of the larger animals.

Squirrels are not typically considered a vector for rabies. They can have surprisingly bad attitudes and can do some damage to you though.

Source: I handled over 200 squirrels this month. 🐿️

Article says there’s a pepper ball launcher and a glass hammer, so this thing is mainly for surveillance and mild distractions, which is much better than I was prepared to read.

"Currently, an officer’s job is to run toward gunfire, alone, with no support or intel—basically a standoff. With our drones, they’re not alone; they know what the suspect looks like, what they’re doing, and we take point around every corner.

“We usually find the shooter before they do and keep them occupied. Every officer who’s seen this live has said they want it.”

If this actually encourages them to do their jobs, great. If this is just a kickback to private industry and further militarizing schools while police still sit cowering, than I know where they can dock those drones…

That makes sense. Thank you for explaining it. I’ve only played with Hyundai’s and Subaru’s smart cruise and lane assist, and it doesn’t take long to know it’s nothing like what I’d picture FSD to be. My car is a 2008, so I’ve only got basic CC.

Thank you! That at least makes it better than most subscriptions since it should add some value to resale if it’s transferrable. The buy it outright price pays off vs the sub in about 4 years too, which isn’t too bad either.

Good points. I do feel like I remember that the Full Self Driving was a paid upgrade and I’ve seen enough stories of Tesla locking people out of things via update. For something like FSD, does it throw you off any driving it after the trial ends, like do you get reliant on some of the upgraded features and then forget ever when they get turned back off? Having something as a potatnetial aid or safety feature that is potentially sometimes there and sometimes not seems a bit weird. Something like VW’s speed limiter would just make you slower, but if you get used to the car steering/braking and then another day it doesn’t, that seems a bit questionable. You sound like you pay attention as you dont like it especially anyway, but just for your average Joe.

Not directed at OP, but just in general about this story, but for the number of times I feel I’ve seen this story posted in the last few days, I have some critiques and additional info that doesn’t seem provided by these articles being shared. For anyone else curious:

This appears to be old news. I don’t follow electric cars because I live in a NIMBY complex where we will not be having means to have any kind of charging in the foreseeable future. Looking this up to see what exactly is being paywalled by VW, I see forum posts from at least as far back as last August.

What is being limited is the electric motor. Basic is 150 kW, the optional is 170 kw of power. People on the id3 forums say this is essentially taking the car from the electric version of 205 HP to 231 HP.

You can do a one month free trial, an annual subscription, or a lifetime purchase, but I didn’t see if this was tied to the purchaser or the car itself. I’m not in UK so I don’t care enough to look that up.

People on the forum are also saying some leases bar the upgrade and that the insurers there wish to know if the car is “upgraded” and there is a slight premium for having it, so some may wish to forgo the added power rating and associated fees and premiums.

I have no real opinion as I have no skin in the EV game, but I am generally anti-subscription, especially for what sounds like a software setting.

I hope this helps anyone else trying to see what this story is all about. Again, no shade on the people sharing this, I just wish some articles/posts would have a little more context for those less familiar as this community is generalist and not a car/EV one where we should probably expectedly be more versed in the topic.

I stumbled on DBZ to start my anime journey like a lot of people probably did, so associating big with filler isn’t an unfair assumption.

Seeing something so big in both story size and fan base hyped up all the time also feels unrealistic for most things, but One Piece to me lives up to its reputation.

If you’ve watched it already first, in my opinion I don’t think you need to go back to read it. I can’t think of anything significant they’ve skipped like in some adaptations of manga.

I’ve gone back to reread things like Golden Kamuy where some stuff was too graphic to put in the anime or if the anime was well behind the manga like MHA was, but One Piece is wholesome so nothing got skipped and I imagine it prints money so it’s only one partial arc behind for the most part now.

That’s a bit why I waited until I was a huge chunk into the reading to start the anime. I could just enjoy the animation and to see how previous events tie into where I am in the reading. The anime feels pretty true to the manga. Continuity feels great, and I really wonder how much was planned to play out this way 30 years ago or if Oda is just that good at not painting himself into corners with plotlines.

With the huge online fandom, it isn’t hard to search up what chapters events take place in if you want to reread a section. I think if you really want to get deep into it and work on your own theories and such, doing an arc and taking a break to roll it around in your mind and to go back to key events and hint drops, that feels very doable.

There’s only 2 arcs that drag on a bit, but I think it’s paced nicely and there’s good delineation between key events.

I dislike fights in manga since I can’t seem to visualize it clearly, so I like a bit of jumping back to watch the anime and get an experience like what you seem to describe. Since so much is out already too, you can watch some of the anime to get the voices and outfits in your head too, which I always find helpful too.

You naturally know what works for you though, but One Piece is truly top notch and it would be sad to see someone skip it for its size. It is almost all solid gold material, and while there is absolutely some stuff less interesting than others, it really isn’t much, and there is no filler in the manga. The anime has filler between arcs, but it’s easily skipped if one desires and slower parts of the story drag even more animated than read, but I think that’s true of any story.

It’s not a race and you can wait to start whenever, but I’m glad I’m caught up and don’t have to risk having the ending spoiled in a few years when it wraps up.

I never wanted to jump into something that big because it felt too daunting. I had seen maybe 3 episodes on Toonami like 20 years ago but that was it. I gave the first couple of chapters a read since we liked a lot of the same stuff.

I was hooked right from that start. I read a ton of it, and then picked up the anime from the start around when I reached Fishman Island.

That was a little over 2 years ago, and I’ve been caught up on the manga for months, and the dub anime since last week.

It hasn’t been anywhere near the only thing I’ve read or watched, but it’s always just been that good I haven’t wanted to put it down for long.

My SO is nowhere as into this stuff as I am, and she cannot believe she’s just watched 1100+ episodes of the same thing. She’s needed more breaks than I did, but she is kinda bummed there’s no more at the moment.

I had held off on the Gunslinger series from Stephen King forever for similar reasons and it turned out the same way. Some things are so loved for good reason, and the time goes by way faster if you agree than for something you find mid.

Nice article here on why a kill switch is unnecessary. It goes into the supply chain of parts, control over maintenance and IP, and associated systems tied in with the fighter’s advanced features.

Its development was in coordination with (at the time in the 90s), and while a lot of funding was the US, it was built as something for us and our allies, even if those relations are strained now. There are a lot of countries that make things for the F-35, and if a killswitch were discovered, I can’t imagine it would please any of those countries and they could cease supplying parts or services the US needs in turn from them.

To reiterate, there is no evidence to date that F-35s in service anywhere feature some kind of dedicated capability that can be used to fully disable the jets at the literal or figurative touch of a button. What is true is that Joint Strike Fighters are subject to particularly significant U.S. export and other governmental controls. Virtually all F-35s in service worldwide are dependent in critical ways on proprietary support from the U.S. government and contractors in the United States.

“You don’t need a ‘kill switch’ to severely hamper the utility of an exported weapons system, you just stop providing support for it and it will wither away, some systems very quickly,” TWZ‘s own Tyler Rogoway wrote on X yesterday. “The more advanced the faster the degradation.”

I’m no expert on this, but it all sounds pretty reasonable. If anyone understand better, please feel free to correct anything I’ve said!

To be fair to the zoo, everything they are asking for aside from the horses is available from RodentPro. I don’t like the idea of taking public donations like this because I’d worry about some weirdo poisoning something.

Animals with known medical histories will sometimes get “reused” after they expire. Time, money, and effort was put into these animals that didn’t make it, and in the wild, they would have served this purpose anyway. But those animals aren’t pets either.

Really the only news here is the public solicitation. I don’t think it’s the best look for the zoo, I don’t know their financial situation, but I can’t imagine they will be flooded with animals to make it worth the people this will turn off. The only thing we ask the public for is donations to buy food, canned or bagged commercial pet foods, or donations of fish that people catch.

*Kristi Noem has entered the chat…

They unfortunately do.

Canada

Brazil

Australia

Mark Rober’s Experiment

You’ve never seen animals flattened way onto the shoulder, well outside the lines or in the middle of the lane where the car should have gone right over it?

My biggest gripe with the rise in violent talk is that it comes off like those commenters trying to get other people riled up into do that violence for them.

If you feel the justice system has failed and there is no other recourse, than that is one thing. But I keep seeing all these comments saying “why aren’t you out there doing anything about it?” and my first thought is always “well I haven’t seen your face on the news…” As far as I’ve seen it’s still all right wing nutters doing all the violence. If you aren’t out there doing something dangerous, why are you here telling others to go do that thing while you sit at home?

You’d call someone a hypocrite if they were on here every day telling other commenters they should feed the homeless, but you found out they don’t volunteer or donate or whatever. But I got to scroll past a bunch of keyboard warriors on every political or news thread throwing tantrums about why “nobody is doing what must be done.” Justified or not, if people start going after others, it’s going to go badly for both sides. If you won’t put your money where your mouth is, why are we all forced to read it?

If you’re serious, spouting off about it on a public forum is pretty stupid. If you’re not serious, you’re making the rest of us look stupid to anyone checking out this platform. I feel that’s a pretty fair assessment without judging your opinions or anyone else’s. We’re all wrestling internally with where our limits of tolerance are these days, but we can talk with each other productively about it, or we can rant and rave like a bunch of violent cavemen, but I know which one of those environments I’d rather be in.

I think it’s just less talked about because it seems to be going on so far from most English speaking places.

I’m not super familiar on any details, but of course there is a wiki for Buddism and Violence and there is plenty of current day stuff going on.

People are always going to eventually act their worst when enough refuse to back down on their personal beliefs, no matter their religion, or lack thereof for that matter. It’s sad seeing all the discrimination in the comments.

Hah, I figure I do bother some people with my block of posts, but 1) I put all my posts up and breakfast so people have all day to ask me questions and I have all my down time at work to answer them so you get quick replies before you forget you even asked something, and 2) if seeing 3-5 owl photos is a row is that big a deal, congrats on having no real problems! 😜

I really do feel that way I do it is an advantage for anyone who develops a real interest in the content. It works for me in a way that it isn’t a burden to do it every day, and you get my mostly undivided attention to reply to you.