This site is a great reminder that almost everyone visiting Hacker News has a set of skills which can be put to beneficial use for causes you care about - this is a small, simple, cheap site (and I mean that in a good way!) that attracts attention, awareness, and donations to something the author cares about. It’s easy for us, but it’s magic for most people. Don’t let your tech industry imposter syndrome fool you - we can do valuable things to forward causes we care about.
I've stopped using the word "cheap" to describe situations like this as the word has too many negative connotations. I tend towards "inexpensive", "cost-effective", or "low-cost". I find it better describes my intent to describe something as not costing much but not speaking to poor quality which I feel like the word "cheap" has come to imply.
This is a beautiful demonstration of how technology can be simple and powerful for amplifying a message at the same time -- no matter the silliness or seriousness of the message. Very "Old Web" vibes.
Anyone who's worked on random enterprise CRUD REST apps earlier in their career (myself included) knows the pain of wishing that you were doing something a little more helpful or positive for humanity.
I guess English needs different words for the German "Günstig" and "Billig". They both translate to cheap, but "Günstig" means something like cost-effective/affordable (but I guess not quite?), and is positive, while "Billig" is strictly negative.
Has that changed over time? Nearly fifty years ago, when self-serve gasoline pumping at gas stations was first coming into widespread use, I (native English speaker) was in Germany and remember a slogan I saw at gas stations to promote it: "selbst tanken ist billiger tanken" (sorry if I misspelled/mis-capitalized). So it seems Billig did not have such a negative connotation then.
That's something I've done a few times! Mostly from having lived in a wildlife shelter (LPO Ile Grande) for 2 months, since they have quarters for volunteers who wish to stay. Out of all the birds that collide and are unable to fly, you'd be surprised at how many recover, and I mean it's not as grim as some people make it out to be.
That shelter was especially interesting because it's near the nesting grounds of marine birds that are relatively rare in France or even Europe overall. Cargo ships in the English channel illegally dump oil waste all the time, and the oiled marine birds just float helplessly to the beach, still alive. People pick them up and bring them to the shelter where we literally hand-wash them with soap and put them in a bird drying station. The numbers could get overwhelming and we would have to make "bird washing assembly lines" on occasion.
It's a whole discipline with specialized equipment, passed-down knowledge and passionate people!
One brand of American dish soap, Dawn, has a duckling as a mascot, and has for some years advertised its grease-cutting capability (and gentleness on living things) by showing that it is used to clean oil off waterfowl who have been caught in a slick.
Years ago we found a large heron with a broken wing on the road outside our house in Wales. It had probably hit a power cable, and was hopping around dragging its wing. It was basically a homicidal needle beak, obviously not in the best of moods.
An elderly lady come out to see what the fuss was about, saw the bird, went back inside and then reappeared holding a block of polystyrene foam. She marched up to the bird, which very soon after found itself with a lump of foam on the end of its beak. That gave others the opportunity to wrap it in a blanket (bit big for a towel) and take it to the vet.
Modular cages through which air could flow freely, with heater fans pointed at them at the right temperature. After being exposed to soap, birds lose their vital layer of insulation (until they're dried) so you have to artificially maintain their body temperature.
I love this. The web used to be a place filled to the brim with people making sites about stuff dedicated to some niche thing that brought them joy. Glad to see that vibe still survives out there.
Edit: to be clear, this site is connected with an organization and probably exists to help promote it, but it still gives that “look, this is cool!” passion to me.
Is it connected with an organization? I don't see any evidence of that in the About page or anywhere else. The donations page says to find a local wildlife sanctuary and donate to that, then links out to two options if you really can't find one of your own. But I see no evidence that it's associated with either one of those entities it links to.
I've had to do this several times, it's really the best way to handle birds and bats that get into your home -- just toss the towel on top of it and pick it up. Another trick if a bird flies into your window and stuns itself, you can pick it up with a towel and place it in a (closed) cardboard box outside in the shade so they can recover without a ton of sensory input/stressors, you just have to make sure predators don't get into it.
(If you ever have to relocate a bat, don't just leave them on the ground, they can't take off from there and will almost certainly die. Put them in a tree or somewhere higher up)
As a PSA: if you’re in North America, do not handle bats. They are the primary rabies vector and due to their tiny sharp teeth, it is possible to be bitten unknowingly. Rabies is (almost) 100% fatal once you have symptoms. Leave it to the professionals who are vaccinated and know how to handle them safely. In the US, local animal control can usually help.
The consistency in the quality and sharpness of the photos isn't lost on me. There's obviously lots of curation in this collections, must be some work!
Owls are like the cats of the bird world. It's too bad they don't get to talk. I think they'd have a lot to talk about... night time hunting, the size of mice and other rodentia, hairballs/pellets...
This is the kind of project that always used to be its own website, but these days largely exists only on a social media platform where it's stuffed between other content and the usual barrage of ads.
Which is a roundabout way of saying: I love that this is a website.
Especially when you consider that places like Facebook or Linkedin are not even a website any more, once their web address takes you nowhere and they are useless without "signing in".
Readit News
This site is a great reminder that almost everyone visiting Hacker News has a set of skills which can be put to beneficial use for causes you care about - this is a small, simple, cheap site (and I mean that in a good way!) that attracts attention, awareness, and donations to something the author cares about. It’s easy for us, but it’s magic for most people. Don’t let your tech industry imposter syndrome fool you - we can do valuable things to forward causes we care about.
Also, it’s adorable!
Dead Comment
Dead Comment
Anyone who's worked on random enterprise CRUD REST apps earlier in their career (myself included) knows the pain of wishing that you were doing something a little more helpful or positive for humanity.
*Owl Web
Owl Rights Reserved (at the footer)
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22superb+owl%22&ia=images&iax=ima...
I guess English needs different words for the German "Günstig" and "Billig". They both translate to cheap, but "Günstig" means something like cost-effective/affordable (but I guess not quite?), and is positive, while "Billig" is strictly negative.
"Affordable" is the most frequent replacement. There's also "inexpensive".
That shelter was especially interesting because it's near the nesting grounds of marine birds that are relatively rare in France or even Europe overall. Cargo ships in the English channel illegally dump oil waste all the time, and the oiled marine birds just float helplessly to the beach, still alive. People pick them up and bring them to the shelter where we literally hand-wash them with soap and put them in a bird drying station. The numbers could get overwhelming and we would have to make "bird washing assembly lines" on occasion.
It's a whole discipline with specialized equipment, passed-down knowledge and passionate people!
An elderly lady come out to see what the fuss was about, saw the bird, went back inside and then reappeared holding a block of polystyrene foam. She marched up to the bird, which very soon after found itself with a lump of foam on the end of its beak. That gave others the opportunity to wrap it in a blanket (bit big for a towel) and take it to the vet.
Those old ladies are tough!
Edit: to be clear, this site is connected with an organization and probably exists to help promote it, but it still gives that “look, this is cool!” passion to me.
https://owlsintowels.org/support/donate/
Dead Comment
(If you ever have to relocate a bat, don't just leave them on the ground, they can't take off from there and will almost certainly die. Put them in a tree or somewhere higher up)
Owls are like the cats of the bird world. It's too bad they don't get to talk. I think they'd have a lot to talk about... night time hunting, the size of mice and other rodentia, hairballs/pellets...
Which is a roundabout way of saying: I love that this is a website.