We're about seven hours out of N'Djamena. It's blazing hot, the air conditioning doesn't work and we've already lost one tire.

But I did see some excellent birds on our lunch break.

Binoculars to Binomials is a class about birding and data visualization. We use eBird and code in JavaScript and spend a lot of time with spreadsheets.

But it was never meant to be a technical thing.

At its heart, the course is about noticing, and cultivating care.

1/8

Switching gears from 'fuck fuck fuck I need to get a new passport and an visa' to 'fuck fuck fuck there are a lot of birds in Chad' 🪶

Down to the last 2 🎟️ for this in both cohorts.

It's now or never!

(...or maybe in the Fall)

American Woodcock demonstrates 'distal rhynchokinesis,' the ability to flex the end of its bill. This allows it to grab earthworms it encounters when probing in soil. Other shorebirds, including Dunlins & Sanderlings, can bend their bills in this way. 😃

I suspect the last few tickets for my upcoming online course will disappear this week.

Maybe one of them is yours?

Spring is the absolute best time to pick up birding & I guarantee the course will change the way you think about data & the natural world.

jerthorp.me/learning

A stranger passes a phone to your child.

'Here,' he says, 'talk to your Dad.'

nytimes.com/2024/03/29/tec…

There are only 3 🎟️ left in each of the upcoming Spring cohorts for my Binoculars to Binomials course.

If you're a coder who's been thinking about taking up birding, come join us.

If you're a birder who wants to get more out of bird data, come join us.

jerthorp.me/learning

Ever wondered about the anatomy of GenAI ? Amazing work, X-raying the LAION-5B dataset ! Always a fan of Jer Thorp

Somehow, I did a TED talk. So happy it’s out in the world. Biodiversity for the masses!! Everyone, get gardening.

ted.com/talks/rebecca_…

‘Models all the way down’ , excellent new work by Jer Thorp Jer Thorp & Christo Christo Buschek will go in all the syllabi, symposia, and feature in the critical literature about and hopefully regulation of foundation datasets. Lots to explore here. ✅✅✅
knowingmachines.org/models-all-the…

Here's the DER STANDARD piece based on research by Christo Buschek and yours truly:

derstandard.at/story/30000002…