Larry "lahosken" Hosken 🇺🇸 👀

@lahosken.bsky.social

324 Followers 190 Following

Coding, encoding, and decoding in San Francisco USA. Mostly on https://hachyderm.io/ but I check Bsky a few times a day. He/him https://lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/self/contact/ User №246748

chart tracking three values over the past 60 days. the red stat, tracking new reported COVID cases in SF, started near zero and has gradually ramped up to low-but-noticeable. The purple stat % of positive PCR covid tests started low, but then trended upwards to the pretty-safe line; for the past few weeks it has bounced above and below the pretty-safe line. The green COVID-in-wastewater stat started out a little above the pretty-safe line (eek!), strangely trended down to safe levels during the same stretch of time the %positive PCR tests stat trended up. Lately, it's bounced high again; but it's a very bouncy stat so maybe don't panic quite yet
zooming in on the American Gothic squirrel couple. they look kinda blurry; this was probably asking too much of my phone's zoom function, sry
screenshot of raddle, showing potential clues with answer-so-far highlighted in green. at first it looks normal. but then you realize where you expect to see the same word highlighted in green all over, instead in some places the word is "pipe" (one of today's endpoints) and in others the word is "loose" (one of yesterday's words, i bet)
paint on sidewalk. there's lady's head with a patterned background. the hair's paint looks worn down, but IRL it's in good shape with a lot of glitter, sorry
sidewalk chalk art: a sidewalk square filled with some squiggles
image meme: the Thanos "Perfectly balanced… …As all things should be" meme. two frames, first with Thanos balancing a two-bladed knife on a finger; then speaking to someone,
paper taped to wood. on the paper is a drawing of Percy, the SF Pursuit mascot emitting a red "❗️" and carrying a red herring
patch of sidewalk covered with little chalk drawings. Kind of an optimistic cartoony line art look, idk i'm not an art expert
sidewalk chalk art: two hearts placed point-to-point to suggest a ∞ infinity lemniscate symbol. Within one heart is written Infinite; in the other, Love
book cover art for _Face with Tears of Joy_. subtitled "A Natural History of Emoji". Author Keith Houston. art shows four faces with tears of joy. The first face is ASCII art-ish (maybe using a non-ascii comma?). The second face is pixellated. The third is a flat art style. The fourth looks like a 3-D highlighted style. We are reminded that Keith Houston is also "author of _Shady Characters_"
sidewalk chalk art: zooming in on the symbols
aerial drone photo of "human banner" on a beach. Depicted in a combo of cloth and humans, an image of a file folder labeled "Epstein". Underneath that, the words "Files to trials" and people holding a big USA flag
screen shot of the replied-to post, which embeds a Deleted post. thus the mystery: what was in the deleted post that could have possibly led to this?
sidewalk chalk art: Pretty scuffed (alas) but still recognizable Sonic the Hedgehog. And if that's Sonic, then the orange blob next to him should be Tails the fox, right?
screen shot of toot by computer security whiz Wendy Nather. Has text and a picture. The text: "YES I put baked potato chips on top of my baked potato, because nothing is real." Photo indeed shows a baked potato with potato chips on top (and maybe some sour cream?)
sidewalk chalk art: zooming in on skateboarding pet. I'm not 100% sure whether it's a cat or dog. It's definitely sticking its tongue out tho
shiny new signpost with not-yet-operational pushbutton hooked up to flashing lights by a Ped Xing sign with solar collector on top. not shown: the little cannisters holding bright flags which people carried across Hillway hoping that drivers would notice them. SFMTA was very quick to take down this guerilla safety equipment, though it's taking them several days to install the official stuff
patch of sidewalk with some chalk drawings on it. there is a circle with the words 'good luck circle' (all caps) inside. There is a larger, more chaotic shape with the 'bad luck circle' (all caps) inside. Also a small stain, like maybe somebody spilled coffee? Gee, I hope that's not blood; that would make the Bad Luck Circle pretty grim
sidewalk chalk art: lady eating an éclair and sipping a canned beverage. There's some Chinese text which, alas, I don't understand well enough to enter
stalled bus pulled over by the side of the road. the bus' exterior is wrapped in ads for an 'AI App Builder'. See, the joke is that a lot of these AI companies meter their services as 'tokens' and it's a hassle when you run out. And buses used to use tokens. Hilarious, right? OK, maybe you had to be there
yellow flowers
street, normally a few lanes in each direction, but today traffic cones reduce it to one lane each; there is fresh asphalt, still soft enough to stick to your shoe if you walk on it, as it turns out
cover art for book "The Pacific Circuit" by Alexis Madrigal. suggests intermodal freight containers hovering over some houses. says it's "A globalized account of the battle for the soul of an American city."
it's the UFO from that "I want to believe" poster from the old-time-y X-Files show, but it's in Impact font to remind you that this is a meme and furthermore the "believe" has been replaced by a coinage "Bolive"
graph charting three measurements over the past 60 days. two measurements have stayed low the whole time: number of positive PCR tests and % of positive PCR tests. The green line, COVID in wastewater has generally been higher (though below the 'pretty safe' line. A couple of weeks ago, it shot up to about 50% over the safe level. since then, though it's wobbled, it's stayed at about the same level
strip of front yard in front of vehicle parked in house driveway. the yard strip has some decorations. closest to the viewer is a horse-skeleton Hallowe'en decoration, the kind that inexplicably has ears. It's been painted black and augmented with ghostly white hair where some horses have long hair: the mane plus feathering on the lower legs. Also the eyebrows. (I forget if there was also a tail, dang.) Next a painted-plaster-statue showing a kinda-cartoon-y looking duckling hatching from a pastel-painted Easter egg. Last we have a wrought-iron planter shaped like Cinderella's carriage painted bright pink and carrying various flowers and ferns and such. Didn't make it into the photo: there's a concrete-looking sea serpent which would be the standout detail in almost any other yard, but kinda faded into the background in this context
GUI for creating art with letterforms. It's dominated by a large rectangular "canvas" on which is rendered many many letter a's (and a smattering of other letters). The letters are in a variety of fonts and sizes. There are some dendrite forms, that if you squint, you realize are actually made up from many many tiny letters. The right-hand side is a toolbar. There are arrows to send a letter up,down,left,right. There are big Flip, Mirror, Rotate Left, Rotate Right buttons. More buttons: Typing mode, Snap to Grid, Hide B-Boxes, Cursor Follow, Font 1, Font 2, Font 3, Font 4. A spreadsheet-ish grid with columns Font, Cell X, Cell Y and rows with some French(?) names: Parisienne, Nompareille, Mignone, Petit-texte, ... Grosse-Nomparelle. Controls for page size and margins. Under the canvas is a wide shallow toolbar with a grid layout of individual characters. (Keeping in mind that the right-hand side toolbar has a "typing mode", I guess depending on mode, one might need to use a GUI to choose letters vs typing them?)
sidewalk chalk art. a human-ish figure rides a tricycle. the trike has 'monkey bar' handles. the humanish figure might have a halo or a space helmet. they are sipping from a beverage through a straw. a bulbous figure on a tether bobs behind, reminiscent of a balloon