Big bird sighting

[altivo]

No, not the big yellow kind. We saw a Northern Flicker this morning at our suet feeder. Gary spotted it first and didn't know what it was so he called me. I haven't seen one in the wild since about 1966 so it took me a minute and a pair of binoculars to recognize it. I expected to see them around here when we first moved in, but I'd long since given up ever spotting one. Sibley reports that their population seems to be declining, and perhaps it is. My father confirmed seeing them all the time when he was a teen (in the 1920s.) Of course, that was true of the Eastern Bluebird 25 years ago, and they've made an impressive comeback for no clear reason. Both are insectivores of great appetite, so perhaps it has taken this long for them to recover from the effects of DDT. Hard to say.

Snow all day today, but it was warm enough that melt kept pace with accumulation and we ended up with about the same amount we had on the ground yesterday. Only it's crunchy now, and so are many of the roads. Nasty driving.

Department of minor but perpetual irritations: We ordered five new computers at work last week, and they arrived on Friday. Today I started to set them up. These were ordered with Windows XP and not Vista, thank you very much, and they did arrive with XP SP2 pre-installed. They were Dells, and I specified just enough customization that they were probably assembled for us rather than stock from the warehouse. XP needed more than 50 security patches. MS Office needed more than 40. Is it any wonder that some of us have the impression that MS software is riddled with bug holes and security leaks? I'm not pleased at having Google's spyware toolbar thrust at me again and again, either. Microsoft wants to install it. Dell wants to install it. I'm not convinced that it could possibly have enough advantages to make it worth letting Google record and report on everything I do. Read the EULA, that's what they do, they say so up front. Of course, you can turn the reporting off, supposedly, but only if you also turn off all the "advanced" features. Without those, it's nothing but a window for typing in a Google search, and it's easy enough to make a shortcut for that.

[EDIT, 27 Feb: OK, while setting up the second machine I realized that the attempts to reinstall Google's spyware "tools" originates not from Microsoft as I had thought, but from Sun when Java updates itself. Which still leaves the question as to why anyone should be so insistent on getting this stuff onto people's machines.]

Comments

[octatonic.livejournal.com]

I've used XP for as long as its been around and I've
never been unhappy with it. Vista is sorta XP cubed.

I'm experimenting with Unbuntu Linux.

As for the boids, you should have a camera on you
24/7.

As for the DDT Myth.

*eats some and has you over for dinner*

^.~

[altivo.livejournal.com]

If Windows is your primary background, then Kubuntu rather than Ubuntu is probably a good bet. I hope your computer is fast and has lots of RAM (but if you run XP and like it, then probably the hardware is up to Kubuntu too.)

DDT is no myth. The problem is environmental persistence. It doesn't go away for a long time. That has some obvious effects: pests develop resistance to the stuff once it is ubiquitous in their environment, predators high on the food chain accumulate it in their own bodies because it is in their prey's body, and even after you completely stop manufacturing and using the stuff it hangs around in the environment for decades.

[octatonic.livejournal.com]

Rachel Carson was a fraud. DDT is safe. I
will come to your house and eat spoonfuls
of it and, like the guy that followed Carson
around on her book tours, live to be 80.

More deaths have happened because DDT was banned
than from its use.

The science supports this.

The media myths do not.

However I still @hug the pony and won't
slip DDT into the area even if Nixon
and Dick Cheney are urging me to do
so.

XD

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I make no claims about whether DDT is safe for humans. My point is that it is not safe for many non-human species that I value, including beneficial insects and birds of prey.

[jmaynard.livejournal.com]

The Windows Server 2003 R2 I installed last night needed 54 patches. People giggle when I call Windwos a gaping collection of security holes masquerading as a web browser, but I'm quite serious.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately most of them haven't given that much thought to issues like security. Their reasons for continuing to use Windows are much simpler: "I'm used to it," or "Everyone else uses it," or "It came for 'free' with my computer" (right.)

[shadowtxhorse.livejournal.com]

Dont forget to use the decrapifier on it as well since it came from Dell.

http://www.yorkspace.com/pc-de-crapifier/

[altivo.livejournal.com]

No need. These were ordered from the state and municipal government division and came without preinstalled garbage (other than Windows itself, which I rate in the garbage category.) The only pre-installed "extras" were the usual Dell drivers and documentation files and the aforementioned Google toolbar and desktop. When the machine is started up, the first thing you get is a question about whether you want the Google junk. Responding in the negative causes it to be erased. The irritating thing is that the Microsoft Office installation tried to put it back (that had nothing to do with Dell, I am installing office from Microsoft's own CDs using a volume key) and when I caught them and deselected it, they tried to force it on me again through the medium of Windows Update and Office Update. In every case, taking the defaults would have gotten Google's crapware installed.

[calydor.livejournal.com]

That really begs the question of why the Dell, umm, I mean why the hell Google's programs are in Automatic Updates. I thought MS and Google were competing at the moment?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Evidently the "competition" is not that exclusive.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

See edit inserted in the post. Today while doing the second machine I realized that it is the Java updates that keep trying to install Google Toolbar and Google Desktop rather than Microsoft's updates. So Sun is the culprit, apparently. But why?

[calydor.livejournal.com]

Well, Sun and Microsoft have been fighting for ages over Microsoft's changes to the Java language; maybe a deal was struck between Sun and Google as a kind of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" solution? I assume you've got the J2SE package from Sun, as do I ... odd that I haven't had any trouble with this.

[soreth.livejournal.com]

Up here by Seattle, the flicker population is large enough that if I keep my eyes open, I'll see at least one or two a day at any given suet feeder in the suburbs. :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I think your flickers are a different subspecies, the "red shafted" rather than the "yellow shafted" (which has to do with the color of the underwings, something only the very sharp-eyed observer sees.)

However, a friend who lives just a couple of miles from me says she sees flickers regularly in the summer, just not often at this time of year. She has more open pasture and abandoned orchard, where we have largely an oak grove of tall, century-old trees. She reports that they gather on the ground to eat the large ants that nest in her old pastures.

[soreth.livejournal.com]

The wing undersides I see are orangey, so I suppose that makes it difficult to say. :)

They're probably red-shafted, though.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

What are those birds like grilled? *perfectly innocent cat question*

I'd imagine that any kindof pesticide would effect them due to being anteaters.