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When I was on the beach yesterday 3 Kakīānau | Black swan flew in and landed on the estuary. Here are two, with a Karoro | Black-backed gull in the background. 🐦

Two black swans on the estuary with a gull on the sand in the background.
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Crescent moon and Jupiter in the pre dawn sky above flax spears.

Crescent moon and Jupiter in the pre dawn sky above flax spears.
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So frustrating when every world map in Too HOT and HUMID to Live: Extreme Wet Bulb Events Are on the Rise cuts off Aotearoa New Zealand — either completely or mostly.

It’s not a great feeling when 5 million Kiwis are overlooked, ignored and forgotten about.

World map cuts off NZ, leaving only the southern tip.
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I struck a lucky shaft of rising sunlight at the estuary this morning, with this Poaka | Pied Stilt. 🐦

Pied Stilt - black and white long-legged bird in shallow water lit up gold by the rising sun.
Pied Stilt - black and white long-legged bird striding forward in shallow water lit up gold by the rising sun.
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I haven't read this yet but want to boost Sod's link about writing good alt text for images 🔗 :

Alt-texts: The Ultimate Guide is another hands-on article that I like, with tips and tricks for writing great alt-texts.

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I haven’t been for a proper walk on the beach for the last month. Now I’m finally over the ghastly flu, it’s time to get back out there. I hope not all the birds have gone away… Sunrise in 30 minutes, better get myself sorted.

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A very clear and very helpful post by Alan Jacobs about the true nature of Micro.Blog 🔗 :

I wrote about the Three Paths of micro.blog.

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I stayed up way too late last night, not being able to get this AppleScript (or any other technique) to work. Today I found the ‘missing piece’. I had a BBEdit text file with blog posts, each on its own line. I wanted to split that file into separate documents, one per line.

Screenshot of the Applescript.
Finder window with numerous files created by the script.
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Visited with my buddy Leo today. 🐈

Leo, an elderly Burmese cat on a colourful bean chair.
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Remember when blogs were fussily called weblogs?

While checking posts from my now defunct KnowIt blog I spotted this mention of MarsEdit 1.0 from 11 December 2004:

Ranchero Software's MarsEdit 1.0

… is a weblog editor for Mac OS X that makes weblog writing like writing email—with spell-checking, drafts, multiple windows, and even AppleScript support.

It works with various weblog systems: Blosxom, Conversant, Manila, Movable Type, Radio UserLand, TypePad, WordPress, and others.

Congratulations must go to Brent Simmons who has released Mars Edit today after a period of thorough development and beta testing. As one of those beta testers I'm thrilled to see this application released today. If you use a Mac and have a Blog then you owe it to yourself to at least test Mars Edit. … I use it every day.

Nearly 2 decades later and I still use MarsEdit every day!

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Too big for your boots, AI! I made my Micro Camp 2023 presentation video and then had the wonderful free Mac app Aiko transcribe the audio (brilliantly). Except this line at the end:

Text shows: Thank you for watching and enjoy your day!

Huh? I never said that! I edited my video, so transcribed again. Again it ended with that text which I never said!

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For my Micro Camp 2023 presentation I used Apple Keynote. I wondered about accessibility for those who can’t see the screenshots.

Keynote Help let me know I can add image descriptions, so that’s underway now.

Keynote Help tells how to add image descriptions to be read by assistive tech.
Keynote Help tells how to add image descriptions to be read by assistive tech.
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A MarsEdit tip for including MB usernames in Posts:

Micro.Blog automatically converts usernames to MarkDown links on posting. That can lead to confusion if posting from MarsEdit with HTML.

Published Post includes MarkDown instead of links.

To avoid that, in MarsEdit’s per-blog settings uncheck the option to Apply Preview Filter.

Blog settings with unchecked item about applying Preview Filter.
The post now appears correctly.
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Thanks to @Danielpunkass and @Manton for the kind words about me in Core Intuition 557:

…talk about Micro.camp …summarize some of the planned talks, and weight the pros and cons of … an all-online event.

I don’t feel any pressure at all…

Micro Camp Presenter Topics.

@bitdepth   @annahavron   @mandaris

Core Intuition logo.
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Apparently New Zealand Sign Language week finishes today. While I’m very interested in language and have learned various amounts of several I’ve never tackled Sign. I need to remedy that.

Meanwhile, here’s a start: My Name is Miraz.

Pictures show how to sign the words My Name.
Miraz spelled out in sign.
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I don't often buy reference books, but this seemed like a must-have: Fungi of Aotearoa: A Curious Forager's Field Guide by Liv Sisson. 📚

I realised I can read it in Kindle on my Mac to enjoy all the colour photos.

Book cover: Fungi of Aotearoa, showing two very blue fungi on a dark background.
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Same old stories:

The truth is that women are perennially and perpetually angry about male violence, but every time there’s a public explosion of that anger the news media will report it as if no one had ever noticed the problem before (it’s called “news” for a reason: amnesia is in its DNA).

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Heh, this came up today on my daily check of my blog’s Surprise me page: Kea gyms!. Next weekend find out why that’s a bit of random serendipity…

Screenshot of a blog post about Kea Gyms.
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Two — almost 3 — a.m. I seem to have mislaid my sleep…

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This was a gripping read: The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave. 📚

Hannah’s husband just doesn’t come home from work after his boss is arrested for fraud. She sets out with his teenage daughter Bailey to figure out what’s going on.

Recommended by alex ink.

Book cover: The Last Thing He Told Me.