Larkin (formerly Mer) Francis, PhD, MSW

I had some kind of post halfway formulated but then started imagining Gollum singing My Heart Will Go On and going I sees you I feels you and I smiled so hard that I forgot what the original post was

And different types of writing take different skillsets, which all require you to read those types of writing to learn them! I'm currently teaching students who are highly skilled in academic article writing to write grants and the skills are completely different

Every day of life under Trump is waking up to a headline like, “Wyoming is missing”

The internet, on scientists: They're secretive gatekeepers, they hoard esoterica/the truth, they don't want anyone in their ivory tower little clubs

Actual scientists: LOOK, WE FOUND A 300 MILLION YEAR OLD FOSSILIZED CLOACCAL IMPRESSION AND THE VENT IS HORIZONTAL! PLZ READ MY 67-PAGE PAPER ABOUT IT

#sciart 🔭

This is the face of a puppy who doesn't remember having explosive diarrhea at 3 am and is wondering why you don't want to play vigorously for hours this morning

Reminder that northern canada is extremely desolate but also filled with genuinely absurd fantasy terrain

A picture of three cybertrucks. One os normal cybertruck and the two children cybertrucks are green and kinda look like dumpsters.

Cybertruck expert here, when they start having twins it, counterintuitivly, means their population is under stress.

2 photographs of a biography of Marty Feldman. One has googly eyes added but it looks virtually the same.

Every time we see this Marty Feldman book it reminds us of that time we stuck googly eyes on it but all that happened was it looked even more like Marty Feldman. 👀

We turned away from the light when we invented a way to go online without the computer screaming in warning.

Continuing on the theme of bass players, my cousin is married to the bass player for Siouxie and the Banshees.

Neither of these facts is in any way useful to me other than for winning various 6 degrees of separation games 🙃

Taylor Swift's bass player was my chicken fight partner on high school orchestra trips.

(for those not aware, "chicken fights" don't involve actual chickens: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken...)

Google data center water estimates go public, residents in Roanoke and Botetourt react A proposed Google data center campus in Botetourt County could use between 2 million and 8 million gallons of drinking water per day, according to an executed agreement between the developer and the W...

one google data center in virginia

two million gallons of water per day

information only released under court order & risk of contempt

Can confirm!

I tell people that if the government is covering up the existence of aliens, NASA is absolutely not involved, because astrobiologists can't keep a secret to save their lives

Illustration of a deliberately crudely drawn kaiju incinerating a city with its breath attack. Text around the edge reads “don’t forget to breathe”

Don’t forget to breathe (nuclear fire upon your enemies).
#art #kaiju #inspirational

Checking on 1 day old #kakapo chick Waa-A3-2026 in Waa's nest on Pukenui/Anchor Island. We check the chicks twice in the first 4 days, and then less frequently as they get older. #kakapo2026 #conservation #parrots

If you have the means, please donate to the Trans Continental Pipeline right now. They are a Colorado based org that helps trans people relocate and they are overwhelmed with requests. Colorado borders Kansas, and TCP has the infrastructure to help get people out.

tcpipeline.org

I feel like a movie about this starring Matthew Broderick was on weekend reruns at least once a month in the 80s?
/s

(War Games made me hyperaware of how our neighbor's lawn service chemicals produced tons of 4-leaf clovers so I concluded they were probably radioactive)

Are AI-generated summaries suitable for studying and research? Despite didactic, ethical, and environmental concerns, the use of GenAI is on the rise in academia. For most applications, the jury is still out on whether and how they will benefit education and rese...

Tired of AI hype posts? You might like my sober assessment of whether AI-generated summaries are suitable for studying and research. Spoiler alert, they are not.

The text is primarily aimed at students and researchers, but has much broader relevance. So share freely!: www.tue.nl/en/our-unive...

If you're cold, they're cold

(please, for everyone's sake, do not let kestrels into your house)

Sound up 😂

this is the stupidest thing and it absolutely undid me

There is a glorious museum in Amsterdam devoted to him, and (when I was there) it's arranged chronologically. You could see the colors change as he got better and worse, and see the gaps when he was very bad.

I much prefer the art from his "better" periods, and wish he could have had more of that.

Nazgûl, the Czechoslovakian wolfdog, for the win:

www.npr.org/2026/02/18/n...

A calico cat and Belgian Tervuren loafing on a dog bed.

Four years ago today, I took this picture of Trinket and her best friend Opal (the neighbor’s indoor/outdoor cat who kept breaking into our house to spend time with Trinket). She taught Trinket how to “loaf.” #dogs #cats

Tell everyone it's made with naturally-sourced salt

(and I commiserate, as a fellow bread-maker who is not as skilled as my ambitions)

This is the main reason why I am loud about this at work. Just this semester I have had two nonbinary students tell me that I'm the first nonbinary professor they've had and ask me how I navigate being out at work.

The second #kakapo chick of the #kakapo2026 breeding season hatched this morning: Hine Taumai-A1-2026 on Ako's nest on Te Kākahu. We transferred the egg from Anchor two nights ago. This is Ako's first-ever chick, which is just a few hours old in this video. #conservation #birds #parrots