1. This computer came with a space on the toolbar for temperature updates, with the option to show the first two or three words of news headlines in different categories. Well, you can Google it; one of the first things people did was to turn off all the news categories. If we want to look down at the toolbar and see the official temperature from the nearest Weather Service station, we do not want to see Microsoft's idea of "news" in the place where the temperature reading ought to be. So...Microsoft removed the option of seeing only the temperature in the place where the temperature reading ought to be. Microsoft wanted to show people more of their idea of "news." So...I just looked down at the toolbar. I've turned off the temperature reading a few times already, but it keeps popping back on. I left it as long as I looked at it and saw temperatures. Just now, I looked down and saw unwanted words. So I closed the space. Microsoft's idea of news is not mine and I'd just as soon not see any of it. Temperature readings were fine as long as they were temperature readings only. If Microsoft wants to keep that interactive window in the non-Microsoft browsers and programs people actually use, they'd better bow to the will of the people and make sure the little box for temperature readings on my toolbar shows numbers only. If it's not a temperature reading, block it.
2. Book review posts are now waiting in a nice neat queue, but it's taking me some time to read all that's been written about Hemileuca lucina. Interesting species--if it is a species. Do I know it well? Have there been years at the Cat Sanctuary when it was more numerous than our local species of maia? Or, given that the few consistent variations among adult maia and lucina are the effects of environmental factors, primarily diet, are what I've seen a form of maia that mimics lucina because it eats some of the same food? Lucina actually is healthier if it eats a different kind of leaves than maia, and vice versa, while the caterpillars are young; as they grow bigger both types often move to native black cherry trees, in which case they will grow up looking just alike. There are slight consistent differences in the adults but they're overlapping ranges rather than yes/no questions; the way to be sure whether a Hemileuca is maia or lucina is to know what it preferred to eat in the first weeks of its life. I suspect mine were maia because they came from a woodlot with oak trees rather than a meadow with meadowsweet. Some experts say the true lucina type is very rare, has a small range, is threatened within that range, and needs protection--but then some of those experts also showed confusion about the difference between lucina and menyanthevora, which looks just like maia and lucina but turns out to have enough different DNA to qualify as one of the six "true species" some scientists now think should be recognized in the genus Hemileuca. Anyway a lot's been written about lucina, whatever it is.
3. Aaand...drumroll...I've received the printed copy of The Dog Who Wooed at the World. It's quite a long book and deserves a slow, careful reading. Don't wait for my review. Buy your own copy at your favorite bookstore! (It's too new to have posted successfully at my Bookshop. It'll be there, but there's no real need to wait.) It'll take me a while to decide how much to say about this book. Let's just say it's a box of delights, with lots of stories about animals wild and tame, I know how diligently Laura Lee Cascada worked to edit all of these stories into their best form. If you give five stars to one new untested book each year, this is likely to be your five-star book for 2024. Tell your bookseller to order a dozen copies and display it; person will be glad. Of course a lot of different people's stories don't have the narrative connection or the charming voice of James Herriot's books, but for all people who wished James Herriot had written more books, this is what they want to read next.
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