I'm glad you're here.

Hello! Entomologist and crustacean biologist from Florida, USA! Also art and game development. AuDHD. has anyone seen my phone

[mossworm]

the partridge pea collective has become too powerful, so I have to cut holes in it to allow my other plants a chance to survive. that's a flag pawpaw in there

[mossworm]

just like the transformers eat...

[mossworm]

I use mspaint to map out ideas for quilts. The fabric section near me unfortunately has almost nothing orange that isn't branded, so I have to work around it.

[mossworm]

and I only cut myself once this time

[mossworm]

I use mspaint to map out ideas for quilts. The fabric section near me unfortunately has almost nothing orange that isn't branded, so I have to work around it.

[mossworm]

I made a pre-evolution for the lava rabbit guy. I am now thinking about making it into more of a mouse, but I do still like it as just a vague rock lump

[mossworm]

I started making these process recordings because genAI sucks, and I am responding by creating more stuff. It takes a long time to do pixel art and animation from scratch, but I think the right people will always appreciate the result. Anyway, here is a lava guy.

[ID: Seven minute video timelapse of myself drawing and animating pixel art sprites of a bipedal lava monster. "Free Duel" from Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories is playing. End ID.]

[mossworm]

it takes a few hours to do this for one creature, but I think the result is worth it. ice dragon aurora creature

[ID: short clip with looping two-frame animations of a pixel art dragon creature with wings resembling an aurora. end ID.]

[mossworm]

yes, you can draw this guy (or any of my guys)! I'd love to see it if you do! they have no name yet, and I'm probably going to change the tail.

[mossworm]

recorded myself drawing and lightly animating an airplane mimic creature. I use MS paint to draw and an open source program called Pencil 2D to test basic animations

[yanvcv]

Random (Yan)Dex final ver.

special thanks Zac for Guiro toad line idea suggestion and sprite help in it final form Venacava for Anomalocaris line fossil idea suggestion Tlefonman eye change suggestion in the Deep sea clamps Hornests for shading help in Sea slug Everyone which suggested names for the creatures Latenightagain for creating Quarantine Crystal and inspire me C3ll for being my gf <3 and everyone which gave feedback, follow the project since the start or/and just enjoys it really ^^

[mossworm]

it took about a dozen searches of things like "how to make paint casserole with real paint" and "paint casserole traditional recipe" to convince google AI there is a real thing called paint casserole

[mossworm]

orcawurm

[mossworm]

If I had a nickel for every time a taxonomy database technology org uncritically stuck its face into the genAI slop trough, I would have three nickels (TaxonWorks, iDigBio, iNaturalist), which isn't a lot, but in this situation I really don't think I should have this many nickels.

[mossworm]

Today, May 22, is International Biodiversity Day. I feel that I need to bring attention to something very niche but troubling. TaxonWorks, a developer workbench for taxonomists, now uses generative AI for its branding as well as for at least some of its features.

TaxonWorks is a web-based developer workbench created by University of Illinois’ Species File Group, ostensibly designed to help out the taxonomists racing to document Earth's biodiversity before it's gone (gee, I wonder why). They receive at least some of their funding from NSF.

Taxonomy and art are deeply connected fields, and this new logo business really feels like a slap in the face to both. As recently as a few weeks ago, their Bluesky also stated that they use Claude to vibe-code new site features. I don't know anyone in the field who would ask them for this kind of thing. I can tell you I would not use them, and I don't know who would.

They talk a lot on their webpage about supporting the community as a “digital companion” and about how you can “spend more time researching, and less time with the mundane”. That “mundane” stuff is usually called science. It takes a long time to do it right, but that’s how people trust the results.

Hopefully the TaxonWorks team reconsiders this path. As it stands now, I would certainly not give them money or use their tools.

[mossworm]

hey, fun fact. if you somehow lose the tutorial battle in pokemon colosseum, you teleport back inside the diner. you actually NEED to win to make progress. so, that's neat

[mossworm]

the kanji on the Team Snagem uniform says "theft"

[mossworm]

I hate having autism so much sometimes. I just had a nice conversation with my neighbor (she is a tailor! that's cool) and now I have to crouch behind the cabinets for a while because if I have to see a person and pretend to be normal for one more second I will explode myself like in Lemmings