Tag: photography

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Let us start October off on the right foot with an exciting new edition of the Pook-Emu Bee Links.

Oh no, whatever will I do?

1 | Reddit is killing RSS feeds and ending public API access because of AI bots (Sarah Perez for TechCrunch. Sep. 30, 2026.)
One may think that your favorite (I hope) feed proponent would be outraged about Reddit discontinuing its RSS feeds. To paraphrase the Reddit community: “Well ackshully….” Why in the world would I want to contaminate my feed collection with Reddit?

2 | Citi Bike user reveals outrageous ‘hidden tax’ slapped onto every e-bike (Aurielle Weiss for the New York Post. Sep. 26, 2026.)
These lunatics are complaining about the speed limit. The fees can’t be high enough.

Kitty

3 | Bronx Zoo welcomes adorable snow leopard cub threatened by extinction (Natalie O’Neill for the New York Post. Sep. 30, 2026.)
I too welcome the new snow leopard.

4 | Workers free kittens from shredder that could have ‘obliterated’ them in purr-fect rescue mission (Steven Vago for the New York Post. Sep. 28, 2026.)
A very timely kitten rescue.

Starcents

5 | Starbucks to close 250 stores: ‘Difficult decision’ (Anders Hagstrom for Fox Business. Sep. 24, 2026.)
I have never been a big burnt coffee fan, but there was once a time when Starbucks was clearing the bar many people

6 | Starbucks Japan releases new Pikachu Honey Cream Latte into the wild for new Pokémon collaboration (Oona McGee for SoraNews24. Sep. 29, 2026.)
I wouldn’t drink it because it looks like a year’s worth of sugar. But Starbucks did a surprisingly decent job of converting the Pikachu aesthetic into a drink.

Self-Hosting

7 | Radiology practices that own their imaging equipment less likely to face closure (Marty Stempniak for Radiology Business. Sep. 30, 2026.)
That checks out.

8 | Self Hosting Passwords (Chuck Carroll. May 20, 2026.)
He uses KeePassXC and Syncthing. He is a smart man. I hubly say that because I too use KeePassXC and Syncthing. With that being said, I would not necessarily recommend our combo to “normies.”

Photograph

9 | Sheep Tree (Jan Ulicki on Lens Culture. May 20, 2025.)
Great photo, baaaa.

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My throat is irrtated, my nose is stuffy, and I have a slight headache. It’s ragweed season. Unrelated: It’s time for our daily Pook-Emu Bee links.

Photo of a blue bench resting against a black cast iron fence next to potted shrubs in front of a restaurant.
I took this photo in what I think was Cobble Hill on the afternoon of August 23, 2026.

1 | Dating App Adds Feature Allowing Men To Filter Out Women Who Support Lindsay Clancy (The Babylon Bee. April 27, 2026.)
An all-timer from Babylon Bee.

2 | Iconic, stained glass ‘Watertower’ above Brooklyn Bridge Park dismantled (Mary Frost for Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Sep. 1, 2026.)
I’m a fan of the watertower. I am sure I have a photo of it somewhere. But fear not, it is only being taken down temporarily.

3 | This open-source tool was built for academics, and it’s the best productivity tool I own (Yash Patel for XDA. Sep. 1, 2026.)
Zotero is indeed great. Especially when combined with Syncthing for file sync.

4 | Review: Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet—Using a Little to Say a Lot (June for Fuwanovel. August 25, 2026.)
According to Steam, I played Planetarian in 2015. Count me as a fan, it’s an excellent short visual novel. Maybe I should review it since it is also relevant to the history of Insani.

5 | Dyson launches $499 toothbrush with built-in camera, AI technology (Bradford Betz for Fox Business. Sep. 1, 2026.)
GPTeeth?

6 |  Convicted cab driver rapist Gurmeet Singh stripped of US citizenship 15 years after assaulting passenger (Emily Goodin and Chris Nesi for the New York Post. Aug. 31, 2026.)
Now now. I’m sure Mr. Signh’s forgetting that he had brutally raped (not “assaulted” NY Post headline writers) a woman weeks earlier when he was filling out his Form N-400, Application for Naturalization, was nothing more than an honest clerical oversight.

7 | Delicate white blossoms on a tree branch (Doncoombez on Upslash. March 17, 2026.)
This photo appeared as a Brave new tab image on my phone. I liked it, so you can enjoy it too. While you’re in the area, enjoy my 2022 re-publication of a poem about apple blossoms.

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Pook-Emu Bee was off Saturday for the newsletter and off Sunday because I had work to finish, but we return on this fun Monday for our regularly scheduled links from around the web.

Almond milk in a milk pot on a portable induction cooker on a kitchen counter. Next to it we see a mug with mushrooms, a bottle of powdered peanut butter, cocoa, sugar, and a small bowl with the ingredients mixed together.
I made almond milk hot chocolate last night. Should I share my recipes? Add it to the to-do list.

Links & Commentary

1 | Teenage tourist stabbed in ‘unprovoked’ attack inside McDonald’s near Times Square: sources (Joe Marino, Amanda Woods, and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon. August 17, 2026.)
Note for tourists: Being anywhere near Times Square at 2:00 AM is a poor life choice. I would add that being anywhere Times Square at any time is a poor life choice, but baby steps to giant strides and all.

2 | Debian Turns 33 Years Old, Happy Birthday! (Marcus Nestor for 9 to 5 Linux. August 16, 2026.)
Debian was practically a newborn when I received my first video game console.

3 | Who needs a dedicated portable music player in 2026? (Kevin Boone. August 2026.)
I never “needed” a portable music player but this is an interesting article.

4 | From Argentina to El Salvador: How Latin America is breaking up with socialism (David Asman for Fox Business. August 14, 2026.)
As soon as I saw the headline, I thought “here’s a slam dunk USAID joke for Pook-Emu Bee.” For that reason, I was conflicted when the article noted the USAID angle close to its conclusion.

5 | “Putting my Hand on Your Heart”: Former Senator Kyrsten Sinema Accused of “Alienation of Affection” (Jonathan Turley. August 16, 2026)
The Sinema alienation of affection story gave rise to a thing I learned post back in March.

6 | Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s Wife Cami Clark Courted Jeffrey Epstein to Invest in Her Porn Company (Lucas Nolan for Breitbart. August 16, 2026.)
Sometimes the headlines write themselves.

7 | Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin (Viktor Eriksson and Joel Lee for PC World. August 13, 2026.)
I’m writing this edition of Pook-Emu Bee in Firefox with uBlock Origin watching over me, protecting me from any nefarious ads or trackers I may have planted to manipulate or track me.

Quotable

8 | The World Cup of Ink (Theodore Dalrymple for The American Conservative. August 2, 2026.)

Tattoos retained their superficial connotations of rebellion and non-conformity, but they also became—in a deeper sense—marks of conformity, as tends to happen with all fashions, no matter how outrageous they may seem at the start. By means of tattooing, one could rebel and conform at the same time.

Pretty Photo

9 | Between the Nets (Daniel Sofer at Hermosoawave Photography. August 15, 2026.)
Beach volleyball nets frame the boat (photo in the link).

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Pook-Emu Bee links are so real now that we’re delivering on Sundays.

Statue of Mary casting a shadow against the stone wall of a cathedral.
I took this photograph outside the Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Cathedral in Brooklyn Heights on August 6, 2026.

1 | Tracking Bees with a Stereo Camera (Al Williams for Hackaday. August 8, 2026.)
A fitting entry in light of today’s New Leaf Journal review of A Taste of Honey.

2 | RV Steelhead (Tugster: A Waterblog. August 8, 2026.)
Survey research of a survey vessel.

3 | Why some tech users are ditching Android for Linux phones (Maya Brooks for Northeast Times. August 6, 2026.) (HT Tux Machines.)
This reminds me that I need to write about my experiences with Ubuntu Touch… and by extension my return to LineageOS.

4 | Mamdani taps Israel-hating, anti-cop radicals for NYC school board (David Spector for the New York Post. August 8, 2026.)
The headline is accurate but it leaves out the weird overcompensating dude who wants to create race-segregated discussion groups (and pursued that agenda while working in DOE during the de Blasio administration).

5 | Most Googlebots are fake (Bobbie Chen for Digital Seams. July 26, 2026.) (HT Lazy Reading.)
I don’t doubt it but I will submit that to the best of my recollection, NLJ was never brought to heel by a bot falsely advertising itself as Googlebot. Most of the bots that hit NLJ aggressively enough to take it down had generic user agents. In one case it was Scrapy.

6 | Linux 7.2 Drops Ancient PROFIBUS Driver: Ported From SCO Unix In 1998, Unused For Years (Michael Larabel for Phoronix. June 25, 2026.)
I never heard of this driver but dropping it from the Linux kernel both disgusts and offends me. I’m switching to Windows 98.

7 | Linux gaming got so big that even GOG couldn’t ignore it anymore (Simon Batt for XDA Developers. August 7, 2026.)
I approve of the respect for Linux. With that being said, despite my having a collection of GOG games, I will probably stick with using Lutris since I use Lutris as a WINE front-end for some non-GOG games.

8 | Woke Canadian deported for slapping teens wearing MAGA clothing faces one final humiliation as she’s banished from the US (Eliot Force for Daily Mail. August 5, 2026.)
I wonder what her lawyer thought when he realized that he had so little to work with that he was going to have to go with her having engaged in unauthorized employment as being a positive equity.

9 | Have an Intel Mac or Old Windows PC? Revive It With One of These 20 Fun DIY Projects (Eric Griffin for PC Mag. August 5, 2026.)
Suggestions 1-3 and 6-7 are good. I’d throw in making a designated machine for retro games, albeit that is arguably a subset of 1 and/or 2, Starts grasping at straws toward the end, but points for creativity.

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Replied to AI-generated blog post images are not cool any more by Panagiotis Vryonis (blog.vrypan.net)
But AI-generated images in blog posts are no longer cool. Everyone does it. And with the exception when an image is a really good fit, it looks like a 2000 PowerPoint using animated transitions and WordArt.

I read an interesting blog post by Panagiotis Vryonis titled AI-generated blog post images are not cool any more. My first thought was “they were never cool.” But I read on to see his perspective. While I and many others serve as proof that asserting that “everyone does it” is flippant, he does offer a practical point (from a non-AI skeptic perspective) that enough people use AI images to illustrate blog posts that it has the effect of “look[ing] like a 2000 PowerPoint using animated transitions and WordArt.” Mr. Vryonis offers a sensible AI-powered alternative that is less ocularly offensive than many of the AI images and would not raise that same hard-to-suppress tendency to question whether what follows is genuinely authored by a human being (commenter cmc highlighted that issue well). But I like to be solutions-oriented, so I offer my own take on the issue.

Back before I launched The New Leaf Journal in 2020, I thought it would be fun to use my own photographs and public domain sources such as Project Gutenberg books for photographs and images on my site. As people who frequent my posts know, I have stuck to that approach for more than six years, although some of my articles are illustrated by screen captures instead.

Photograph of two pigeons on the asphalt, separated by a liquid stain of some sort. The pigeon on the left is white and black and we see its back. The pigeon on the right is standard gray with a green neck and we see it in profile.
My photograph of two pigeons in the street in Brooklyn Heights on April 10, 2026. Straight from the camera lens of my LineageOS-powered Google Pixel 3a XL (subsequently cropped and compressed for publication).

While some people may have reasons for not wanting to publish local photographs, I appreciate seeing writers put some work and a human touch into their illustrations. Because Mr. Vryonis also references using images with creative commons licenses, I will note I have done that in a small number of posts, using images from Wikimedia, Flickr, Pixabay, and Pexels with the appropriate licenses, but in general I try to stick to my original approach. I would personally recommend against using AI-generated images, both because the sort of flattening effect Mr. Vryonis describes and their tendency to give off an inhuman vibe about the post as a whole (deserved or not), but I do read some blogs that use them (see Marius’s contrary On Generative AI Imagery take on his interesting blog) and would not go close to so far as to say they raise the same questions as writing bearing obviously inhuman AI markers.

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Monday is a fun day. One reason Monday is a fun day is because it marks the return of Pook-Emu Bee links after the weekend. Speaking of the weekend, I published links and commentary to enjoy in Saturday’s Newsletter Leaf Journal 284.

Photograph of an intersection with a short red brick building with an American Flag outside and tall apartment buildings in the background.
My photograph of the intersection of Carroll and Bond Streets in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Taken on June 15, 2026.

1. Historic Carroll Street Bridge in Gowanus reopens after 5-year renovation (Aaron Ginsburg for 6sqft New York City. June 11, 2026.)

The above photo is from my walk to the re-opened Carroll Street Bridge. Why did I go to the Bridge? NLJ article forthcoming…

2. Brussels welcomes US-Iran deal and presses for toll-free reopening of Hormuz (Brussels Signal. June 15, 2026.)

Everyone is learning what is in this sure-to-succeed deal (or MOU) except me.

3. GentleOS, A Simple OS For Your Old PC (Jenny List for Hackaday. June 13, 2026.)

This looks worth trying. Maybe it is time for me to sharpen my VM skills.

4 & 5. Knicks fans set school bus on fire in Times Square madness: ‘I’m scared for my homies!’ ( Jennifer Bain, Jordan Donegan, and Katherine Donlevy for the New York Post. June 14, 2026.) & 63 people arrested, 4 stabbings and 1 shooting reported in NYC as Knicks fans go wild celebrating NBA Finals win (Fenix Suriel, Joe Marino, Jorge Fitz-Gibbon and Steven Vago for the New York Post. June 14. 2026.)

You would have thought that the violence after the first four games would have put the NYC government on notice for potential violence after the championship-clinching game. Maybe authorities just wanted to rekindle to 2020 vibes.

6. More than 75 data center build-outs worth $130 billion have been successfully blocked in the first three months of 2026 — bipartisan opposition mounts nationwide over fears of soaring power and water costs (Joe Morales for Tom’s Hardware. June 13, 2026.)

Many of the concerns raised by residents include massive electricity price hikes, egregious water consumption, and potential noise pollution, among others. However, there have also been reports that Chinese users have been amplifying these issues while posing as Americans.

Let no one doubt my credentials on the CCP propaganda beat, but one must be cautious of attributing potentially reasonable oppositions to one thing or another because the Chinese government may have its own reasons propagandizing.

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I am on a daily Pook-Emu Bee links roll. Today, I keep it doing with a third consecutive edition of the links.

Photograph of the Gowanus Canal from 3rd Street with Brooklyn Tower reflecting on the water.
I took this photo of the Gowanus Canal from the 3rd Street Bridge at about noon on June 8, 2026. While Washington DC has a shiny refurbished reflecting pool, note how the murky waters of the Gowanus Canal reflect Brooklyn’s tallest building (Brooklyn Tower).

1. Construction of jail in tony NYC nabe turns into potentially deadly ‘clown show’ with failling debris: records, locals (Nicole Rosenthal, Kevin Sheehan, and Katherine Donlevy for the New York Post. June 8, 2026.)

Boerum Hill is “tony” but that particular stretch of it was not “tony” even before the monstrous jail construction project (not least because the new jail is replacing a prior, smaller jail).

2. Federal Court Invalidates Trump’s $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee as Illegal Usurpation of Congress’ Power to Tax (Ilya Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy. June 8, 2026.)

Earlier today, in the case of California v. Mullin, the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a decision striking down the Trump Administration’s $100,000 fee on applications for H-1B visas (which are used by tech firms, research institutions, and other organizations to hire immigrant workers and researchers with a variety of specialized skills).

Ilya Somin

Far be it from me to issue corrections but the H-1B program, as I am genuinely confident Mr. Somin knows, is for nonimmigrant workers, not immigrant workers (the immigrant analogs for most H-1Bs are EB-2 and EB-3). Moreover, while it is technically for specialty occupation workers, the baseline requirement for H-1B is a qualifying degree, H-1B is far from the most strictly-defined work visa classification.

3. xAI is looking more like a datacentre REIT than a frontier lab (HT Ambient Irony)

Fair. But you can look like many things when you don’t run out of money.

4. Colombia’s Outgoing President Gustavo Petro Publishes ‘Heil Hitler’ Message (Christian K. Caruzo for Breitbart. June 8, 2026.)

This is fairly tame political commentary by his lofty standards.

5. GLP-1-related returns leave retailers reeling (Brandon Cosgrove. June 6, 2026.)

I still have at least one shirt from when I was in high school (a fairly long time ago at this stage). I think they should be giving me discounts.

6. The Jason Kidd Nets (Neil Paine at Basketball History. June 27, 2012.)

The New York Knicks’ Finals drought was so long that the most recent team from the New York Metropolitan area to have made the NBA Finals before the Knicks in 2026 no longer exists in its “Finals” form. Revisiting the Jason Kidd-era New Jersey Nets, which represented the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals in 2002 and 2003 (they were reasonably competitive in the 2003 Finals against the Spurs).

7.Trump: US Will Respond to Iran After Apache Downed (Sandy Fitzgerald for Newsmax. June 9, 2026.)

I don’t doubt Iran wants a deal but I’m starting to get this sneaking suspicion it’s not the same kind of deal we’re looking for. (Thank goodness the pilots were once again rescued (very creatively) and are safe.)

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Wherein I managed to successfully publish my “daily” Pook-Emu Bee links for a second consecutive day (what a twist!).

Photo of the wide intersection at 3rd Avenue and 2nd Street in Gowanus, Brooklyn. In the center of the photo on an island is what appears to be a multi-colored junk statue.
I took this photograph on the morning of June 8, 2026, on 3rd Avenue and 2nd Street in Gowanus, Brooklyn. I’m not 100% sure what is up with the random statue on the island.

1. Persona 4 Revival Broadcast Announced As Atlus Reveals New Mechanics, Editions, And Screenshots (Orpheus Joshua at Noisy Pixel. June 7, 2026.)

Let no one say I am not a long-standing Persona 4 fan, but $65 for a second re-master of the original Persona 4 is steep before you consider that Atlus will almost certainly release a DLC ($20? $25? $30?) with the extras from Golden. Persona 4 Golden, which is readibly available, is more than good enough for the uninitiated. I previously covered this critically important topic. (PS: I want to note that Atlus has released new versions of Persona 3, 4, and 5 in the ten years since releasing 5… speaking of which.)

2.Persona 6’s horror vibes aren’t convincing Japanese fans who remember Persona 5’s misleadingly grim “You Are Slave” teaser (Dorde P for Automation West. June 8, 2026.)

I vaguely remember the very vague Persona 5 trailer from 2013. Did people really think Persona 5 was going to be dark? I suppose so. With that being said, I would not remind a return to the darker tone of Persona 3 (notwithstanding the fact that Persona 4 Golden is my favorite of the modern Personas).

3. Knicks watch party to be held at Bryant Park after NYC axed planned event outside MSG (Chris Nesi for the New York Post. June 8, 2026.)

The New York Knicks’ Finals games will be on national TV. Anyone can watch with a TV antenna. You don’t even need cable or a streaming service.

4.Congress Throws A-10 Warthog Another Lifeline (Thomas Newdick for The War Zone. June 5, 2026.)

Warts and all?

5. Is hosting the World Cup worth it? (Sam Klebanov for Morning Brew. June 7, 2026.)

No.

6. A Prominent OpenAI Investor Appears to Be Suffering a ChatGPT-Related Mental Health Crisis, His Peers Say (Joe Wilkins for Futurism. July 18, 2025.)

Either that or he had just optimized social media posting by turning over his account to ChatGPT.

7. Noodle Bomb Craft Ramen Sauce Taste Test & Unboxing (Hans Lienesch at The Ramen Rater. May 29, 2026.)

A blog/video post on spicing up your ramen.

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I have more work ahead of me today. But once again, I refuse to let work stand between me and another edition of our regularly scheduled Pook-Emu Bee links.

1. Can an ESPN analyst revive the Scripps Spelling Bee? (Molly Liebergall for Morning Brew. May 28, 2026.)

The premise presupposes that the spelling bee needs to have big (it’s relative) TV ratings.

2. Hochul tries to dunk on Trump over Knicks fandom — but it totally backfires (Haley Brown, Mark Lungariello, and David Propper for the New York Post. May 27, 2026.)

I have an upcoming NLJ article planned that should help the Governor keep her New York Knicks NBA Finals history straight. (Aside: Why does this article have three reporters on the byline?)

3. Japanese government to allow desecration of flags on kids’ meals (Master Blaster for SoraNews24. May 25, 2026.)

Say what one will but the Diet is thorough.

4. Obviously AI, totally acceptable (Herbert Lui. May 5, 2026.)

My policy is … If you didn’t put yourself into it, I don’t want to read it.

I agree with Mr. Lui’s post in full. But I would add as an addendum that if the prose reeks of AI, I will probably click away regardless of the profundity of the insights (it’s not that, it’s [list of three things]…)

5. WordPress 7.0 (Gordon McLean at Happily Imperfect. May 22, 2026.)

I’m on WordPress 7.0 and hadn’t noticed the new “Connectors” option under settings. My life goes on well. But it is clutter so I’ll figure out how to make it go away later.

6. Your WordPress Site — From RSS Feed to Social Account (Matthias Pfefferle at ActivityPub for WordPress Blog. May 22, 2026.)

I looking forward to these new features making it to self-hosted WordPress.

7. This Is Your Reminder to Go Touch Grass (Absurd Pirate’s Internet Blog. May 26, 2026.)

Photograph of the Manhattan Skyline and Brooklyn Bridge Park from the Fruit Street Sitting Area in Brooklyn Heights. The BQE is the immediate foreground. The trees and grassy hill Brooklyn Bridge Park is in the middle. Off in the distance we can see the southern tip of Manhattan, a Staten Island Ferry, and the Statue of Liberty.
I took this photograph this morning from the Fruit Street Sitting Area in Brooklyn Heights. We see the BQE, Brooklyn Bridge Park, the East River, and Manhattan/New Jersey/Governor’s Island off in the distance. The orange just leaving Manhattan is the Staten Island Ferry. If you squint, you can also see the Statue of Liberty way out back. No fires in New Jersey today.

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Monday is here. So too after taking the weekend off are my Pook-Emu Bee links.

1. Maniac strangles 7-year-old boy in Brooklyn park: cops (Dean Moses for Brooklyn Paper. May 18, 2026.)

These sorts of troubling Brooklyn headlines are seldom about places I visit. That is mostly true in this case as well, but “Bush-Clinton Park in the Red Hook Recreation Area” caught my attention. I only walked by the park a few times (it is not where I typically stroll in Red Hook), but one of those walks led to my article on the unintentionally presidential name and the identity of “Bush” (surprisingly not known for certain). Returning to more serious matters, I hope the victims recover without too much trauma and the very clear image of the perpetrator leads to a quick arrest.

2. Plaintiff Can Sue Pseudonymously Because She’s a Criminal Defense Lawyer with a Gambling Addiction (Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy. May 18, 2026.)

Setting aside the legal issues, I agree with Mr. Volokh as a prudential matter that “I just don’t think that her desire to keep this secret should outweigh the public’s ability to supervise what the court does in this case—and indeed prospective clients’ ability to decide whether to trust a lawyer who has this problem.” (Emphasis added.)

3. Meet the Sad Wives of AI (Alessandra Ram for Wired. May 13, 2026.)

Everyone involved, including the author, should remember that the world is not San Francisco.

4. Shawn Kemp said Jack Nicholson smelled like weed during Lakers games (John Jefferson Tan for Basketball Network. May 16, 2026.)

While I understand that “The Reign Man” and I have different opinions on the subject of “weed,” I also appreciate that he recognizes it smells like skunk, which inspired me to write two 2022 Justin and Justina articles. See A Dialogue on Pot and Skunk Waterboarding and Dialogue: “Skunks” in Staten Island Conspiracy. Now if only I didn’t have to know what it smells like…

5. An iconic Oregon waterfall was put up for sale on Redfin. Lawmakers approved the money to buy it (Claire Rush for AP. March 12, 2026.)

Odd. You get them for free in Animal Crossing.

6. The PGA Championship Is Golf’s Democratic Major. It Just Doesn’t Know It. (Neil Paine. May 14, 2026.)

This turned out to be an on-point preview article for the 2026 edition.

7. Photoville 2026 returns to Brooklyn Bridge Park in May (Brooklyn Bridge Parents. May 11, 2026.)

I’m not seeing anything that tops Kevin the hamster from Photoville 2021, but the bug and apple series look cool.

8. Xteink blocks installation of custom firmware on some eReaders, launches a new Android-powered model (Brad Linder for Liliputing. May 2, 2026.)

Not mine! Of course, I still need to take it out of the box (I think mine arrived in December).

9. Spotify adds ‘Verified’ badge to distinguish human acts from AI (Laura Cress for BBC. May 1, 2026.)

Something tells me most human acts lacking big record labels will be passed over by Spotif-AI.

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I did not have much time to engage in my daily “feed reading” this morning. But I will not let that stop me from publishing my daily Pook-Emu Bee links.

1. Justice Department Files Case to Revoke U.S. Citizenship of Mastermind Behind Multimillion-Dollar Tax Fraud Scheme (USCIS. April 13, 2026.)

The marriage fraud allegations are a nice addition. It’s always who you least expect.

2. Meet the NYC teen behind Brooklyn’s new official pin — coming soon to a lapel near you (Katherine Donlevy for the New York Post. April 13, 2026.)

Although I am the internet’s leading chronicler of BLOB DYLAN, I do not approve the graffiti-train lapel pin. While I see the thought and skill that went into it, there are better ways to celebrate Brooklyn than (checks notes) Subway vandalism nostalgia. With that being said, having seen the state of things around Brooklyn Borough Hall, I am not surprised that Borough President Reynoso is on board (pun intended).

3. Toddlers at luxury NYC school locked out of community garden: ‘Second-class citizens’ (Katherine Donlevy for the New York Post. April 12, 2026.)

In the March 6, 2026 edition of the Pook-Emu Bee, I faulted the New York Post for locating a Columbia Street Waterfront District restaurant in Carroll Gardens. Here, I fault the Post for locating a Columbia Street Waterfront District community garden in Red Hook. While Van Brunt is Red Hook’s main commercial street, part of it is in Columbia Waterfront, including this part. What does the New York Post have against Columbia Street Waterfront District!?

4. Idol livestreamer psychological horror game announced for Steam. Investigate a disappearance by sending super chats and snooping through fan sites (Dorde P for Noisy Pixel. April 10, 2026.)

It looks mildly interesting. I will add it to the “new” visual novel to-watch-for-review list.

5. KTT x 80Retros GAME 1989 Orange (マリウス. April 12, 2026.)

Good mechanical keyboard switch review.

6. Ranking the top players in my server, part 2 (Cabbage at Cabbage Sorter. April 9, 2026.)

Cabbage rates the “top players” from her server in a Chinese dress-up gatcha game. I have never played this game and do not play gatcha games,  much less Chinese dress-up gatcha games (although choosing outfits is the best part of modern Pokémon), but her writing about the game is somehow entertaining. I could see myself writing a similar article if I played that game (or similar). Alas, I will leave it to Cabbage Sorter.

7. Yaezakura・八重桜 (Daniel Sofer at Hermosawave Photography. April 11, 2026.)

I conclude with pretty cherry blossoms. The trees are flowering hear in Brooklyn (before they leaf in May). This could be bad news for me.

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Another day ending in -day (that isn’t Saturday) means it is time for another edition of Pook-Emu Bee links.

1. Astonishing Find in the Czech Republic: Hikers Discover a 3.7 Kilogram Serbian/Bosnian Gold Treasure (Leman Altuntas for Arkeonews. April 8, 2026.)

While the current market valuation is primarily based on the intrinsic value of the gold, the historical significance of the discovery is expected to be far greater. Under Czech law, the fortunate hikers who stumbled upon this treasure may be entitled to a reward of up to 10% of its value.

2. The New York Times, Ladies and Gentlemen (Andrew Stiles for The Washington Free Beacon. April 8, 2026.)

The Times issued a correction after a headline in the print edition incorrectly referred to NATO as the ‘North American Treaty Organization.; The error prompted references to a 2016 Times profile of former Obama guru Ben Rhodes, in which he touted his ability to manipulate journalists who ‘literally know nothing’ about the subjects they cover.

3. People are licking Nintendo Switch game cartridges again after Japanese user compares taste to sakura buds (Carlos “Zoto” Zotomayor for Automation West. April 8, 2026.)

Maybe the internet was a mistake: Nippon edition.

4. Moto returns to the tablet space with the mid-range Moto Pad (2026) (Brad Linder at Liliputing. April 8, 2026.)

I’m still curious whether any future Motorola tablets will support GrapheneOS.

5. Gershwin on GhostBSD: A Retro Future Built on GNUstep (The Axis of Bozz. April 4, 2026.)

I should try a BSD at some point but there are already many things on my “to-do” list.

6. Delta Chat: Zero metadata, group descriptions, native audio/video calls and much more! (Delta Chat Blog. March 31, 2026.)

Native voice/video calls is a significant addition. But I am waiting for the return of markdown support.

7. Tulips・チューリップ (Daniel Sofer at Hermosawave Photography. April 4, 2026.)

It looks sunny outside so I present you with pretty tulips.

8. The Dead End Sign in Red Hook, Brooklyn (Nicholas A. Ferrell at The New Leaf Journal. April 8, 2021.)

Talk about a “this day in history five years ago” punctuation mark.

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Replied to Why your files are slowly dying by Wojtek PowiertowskiWojtek Powiertowski (behindtheviewfinder.com)
But even if you have copies everywhere there's a quieter problem that nobody warns you about. Your files are degrading right now and you probably don't know it.

Wojtek Powiertowski wrote a pair of interesting blog posts on backing up photos and checking photos for bitrot. Both posts are interesting and include valuable tips for protecting digital photo collections They reminded me of another potential photo issue.

Back before I knew better, I stored my Nikon D40 photos in the cloud, which is better known as someone else’s computer. Back in high school, I came across Picasa and used that. Picasa was killed by Google, so my photos were then on Google Photos. When I launched The New Leaf Journal back in April 2020, I wanted to use some of my old photos on site (my oldest ones were from 2006). My good friend, collegue, and photography expert, Victor V. Gurbo, informed me that the photos had become low quality. I checked, and sure enough I saw what he meant. The resolutions were greatly reduced. Pixels showed. Good enough for use on a non-photography website, but far removed from their original glory. Remember kids: Be careful about storing your photos on someone else’s computer. Make sure you read the ToC and keep your own backups (you can then follow Mr. Powiertowski’s tips for ensuring that your own backups are in good shape).

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I am writing an article about Marginalia Search. I wanted to check something on the search results page. Since Marginalia is good at turning up small web and vintage websites and articles, I decided to search for an old school unsung Pokémon. After thinking for about 15 seconds, I settled on Seadra. Seadra seems like a good choice for an obscure generation one Pokémon. It was a standard water-type Pokémon and final-stage evolution in generation one. It received a new evolution in generation two, turning Seadra into a middle-stage Pokémon (with a stat hit to boot). I will venture that very few kids back in my day focused their energy on evoloving Horsea into Seadra for their in-game teams. (Seadra did have a moment in the Orange Islands arc of the anime, however. I will submit for the record that I remembered the first Orange Islands gym leader used Seadra off the top of my head.)

I ran a search and saw what I wanted to see on the results page. Then I started scrolling through the actual results for the search query. The desciption for one result caught my attention:

Seadra Cosplay: A woman dressed in a vibrant blue and yellow costume, reminiscent of the Pokémon character Seadra. The woman’s hair is styled to resemble Seadra’s fins, adding an extra layer of authenticity to her cosplay. Her outfit features a flowing sk …

Seadra cosplay? I clicked the link. Sure enough, courtesy of Yerna Photography, there is a woman sitting a forest setting dressed as a Seadra. This photo is from 2019. I wonder how she became a Seadra fan. I will submit for the record that I have never understood cosplay despite being a well-documented anime fan. But in my non-expert opinion, here Seadra cosplay seems very well put together and thought out. I tip my hat both to the cosplay effort and photography and to giving what I consider to be an “obscure” generation one Pokémon a moment in the sun. (I wonder if she used Seadra when she was a kid.)

Cosplay aside, I like how the Yerna Photography site presents the photographs. On the Seadra page I liked to above, note the “Yerna Color Index” section which shows, and names, the eight most prominent colors in the image. Clicking on any colors takes the visitor to all photographs featuring that color. That is a great touch to go along with the standard metadata about the photograph and image description.

You never know what you will find on Marginalia Search…

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Replied to On AI in response to: A Positive Technologist Identity by Wojtek PowiertowskiWojtek Powiertowski (behindtheviewfinder.com)
Where I'd push back gently is on the implication that AI-assisted media is somehow lesser for being assisted. We've seen this pattern before. When photography emerged, painters dismissed it as mechanical reproduction, not real art, because the image wasn't made by hand. The argument was that the tool did the work, not the person. History proved otherwise. Photography didn't replace painting, it became its own art form and eventually pushed painting in new directions.

(See part 1 of my reply.)

Mr. Powiertowski writes that the point on which he would “push back gently is on the implication that AI-assisted media is somehow lesser for being assisted,” using early negative views of photography as an example. While my largely negative views of the current AI moment in the context of online writing and “content” are well-documented (including in links from A Positive Technologist Identity), I will note that I cited to Mr. Powiertowski’s “thoughtful” article as involving a “non-offensive” use of AI. My myriad critiques of common AI uses were not the central point of my original post.

In his gentle pushback, Mr. Powiertowski analogizes AI today to photography in its early days. “When photography emerged, painters dismissed it as mechanical reproduction, not real art, because the image wasn’t made by hand.” He noted, correctly, that the standing of photography as a field improved, and today it is viewed as an art-form distinct from painting and drawing (I am somewhat familiar with the context of his example thanks to my good friend Victor V. Gurbo).

I would respectfully suggest a different analogy to AI and writing than did Mr. Powiertowski. As I see it, AI is not akin to photography. There is no one “behind the camera” of AI and without going into the particulars of nineteenth and early-twentieth century critiques of photography, I am comfortable in drawing a category distinction between prompting a chatbot and using a camera to capture a moment before processing the image (or in Mr. Powiertowski’s words, which are backed up by his own aesthetic photography portfolio and Pixelfed profile: “The person behind the lens still chose what to point it at, when to press the shutter, and what story to tell”). If we are using photography as the example, I would compare and taking a photograph to using AI tools to re-touch or re-scale the human-shot photograph to prompting an LLM to generate an image and then editing the LLM image. Similarly, in the context of writing and AI, I think the issue is whether one drafts an article and uses tools like Claude or Grammarly for proof-reading and editing, or whether one prompts Claude to write the article. While I do not personally use AI in my writing or image publishing workflows, I think there are material distinctions inherent in different ways of using AI.