Vertandor
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vertandor.bsky.social
Vertandor
@vertandor.bsky.social
220 followers 590 following 450 posts
Alto (on hiatus), Packers fan, gamer and sometimes geologist. She/her. Partial to tea, sci-fi, and chocolate. Lives in the Castle beyond the Goblin City.
Typos - model's own.
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vertandor.bsky.social
Oh joy, the train is stuck at Cricklewood while they literally turn it off and on again because three out of five engines gave up 🫤
Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks, sat in a diner says "Well, Audrey, to be perfectly honest, I'm tired and a little on edge"
November 9, 2025 at 5:19 PM
vertandor.bsky.social
Current status: cat on my lap

#NotMyCat
A dark brown cat in loaf-format on my lap, looking away from the camera. She's called Chomsky.
November 8, 2025 at 4:14 PM
vertandor.bsky.social
Happy Halloween! No pumpkin to post, but have some autumn leaves and ladybirds 🌱 🎃 🍂
A collage of four photos: Top left: a branch of an acer with bright red leaves. Top right: small scarlet crabapples on the bark and leaf-covered ground. Bottom right: a ladybird with black shell and four orange spots, on a grey stone. Bottom left: a ladybird with red shell and many black spots nestles on an acer leaf.
October 31, 2025 at 1:04 PM
vertandor.bsky.social
if you see this, quote with a robot that isn't from "Star Wars," "Star Trek," "Doctor Who," or "Transformers."
The mechanoid Kryten from Red Dwarf (played by Robert Llewellyn), holding a matter transporter paddle
October 30, 2025 at 3:11 AM
vertandor.bsky.social
Happy birthday! 🎂🎉
October 25, 2025 at 6:14 AM
vertandor.bsky.social
This elegant floof in our garden last week #notmycat
A white cat struts elegantly across the grass next to a wooden fence.
October 22, 2025 at 8:41 PM
vertandor.bsky.social
Managed to collect most of the remaining tomatoes (2.5kg!) from the garden without coughing too much, so taking that as today's win 🌱
A close-up of a bowl of tomatoes, ranging in colour from striped green through orange and bright red, both smaller plum toms and bigger round ones.
October 12, 2025 at 4:39 PM
vertandor.bsky.social
Cheese
Several slices of different types of cheese arranged on a round wooden board, with crackers, a pot of butter and a small bowl of salad. It's bloody delicious.
October 2, 2025 at 6:56 AM
vertandor.bsky.social
My favourite kind of autumn day, bright and warm in the sun, tempered with a cool breeze. Leaves starting to turn and fall.
Happy autumn equinox!
A cluster of dark burgundy-red crab apples on the branch, nestled in the dark green leaves. A group of cream-brown flat-topped wild mushrooms growing amongst grass and fallen leaves/bark. One of them has a large circular "bite" out of one side.
September 22, 2025 at 1:32 PM
vertandor.bsky.social
What the hell?!
AI can get in the bin
#DestroyDismantleEngulfInFlames
A screenshot of Jason Mantzoukas on Taskmaster, saying "Destroy, dismantle, engulf in flames"
September 15, 2025 at 4:52 PM
vertandor.bsky.social
Timeline cleanse: another of this year's accidental self-seeded plants has bloomed in the last week - marvel of peru 🌱
A close up of a marvel of peru flower (Mirabilis jalapa) showing five petals of peachy-orange streaked with magenta, against green leaves A wider shot of a marvel of peru plant im flower (Mirabilis jalapa) The flowrs are peachy-orange streaked with magenta, against green leaves.
September 10, 2025 at 2:08 PM
vertandor.bsky.social
A white cat, with black ears/hood stares at the camera
September 9, 2025 at 8:17 PM
vertandor.bsky.social
One for the greenfingers of Bluesky: anyone know what this plant is please? 🌱
It's self-seeded and not one of my usual cast of weeds/unintentional plants, but kind of pretty #gardeners #bloomscrolling
Close-up of a cluster of orange-red flowers, with thin daisy-like petals, each a couple of cm across. A shot of the whole plant, a rosette of green, thin keaves, rounded at tne end. A long flower stem sprouts from the centre with the cluster of orange-red flowers at the end.
August 30, 2025 at 12:21 PM
vertandor.bsky.social
Some recent shots
Photo looking down on the FiftyFen building site in London. A church tower is propped on engineered stilts, large cylindrical rams hold the piled sides of the deep excavation open, and lots of construction workers and equipment are doing their thing A different view also looking down on the FiftyFen building site in London. A church tower is propped on engineered stilts, large cylindrical rams hold the piled sides of the deep excavation open, and lots of construction workers and equipment are doing their thing
August 29, 2025 at 7:18 PM
vertandor.bsky.social
Also: mini sunflower! 🌱
A small (roughly 6cm across) yellow sunflower with a dark brown centre, sprouting on its plant.
August 15, 2025 at 7:18 AM
vertandor.bsky.social
Behold ma triffid* in all its splendour! 🌱

*self-seeded tomato, sprawling
A large, sprawling tomato plant in a raised garden bed. Bamboo arches and twine attempt to hold it up, mostly sucessfully. A close up of one of the vine clusters, green-striped unripe tomatoes of varying sizes.
August 15, 2025 at 6:54 AM
vertandor.bsky.social
A falcon, wearing the traditional leather cap that covers their eyes. Someone has put googly eyes on either side of the hood, giving our raptor a somewhat quizzical look
August 5, 2025 at 5:54 PM
vertandor.bsky.social
Includes excellent Terry Pratchett definition of competancy (couldn't run a whelk store) - I normally default to the "furious cup of cat" for ai and automation, but this works too.
Screenshot from the New Scientist article (Feedback, 23 July 2025, updated 25 July 2025): "Readers of Terry Pratchett may perhaps recall that he was fond of conveying that characters were incompetent by suggesting they couldn’t even run a whelk stall. So did Claude manage to clear this bar? Short answer: no. A longer answer would list all the spectacular blunders it made. For instance, when taking payments via the service Venmo, it “for a time instructed customers to remit payment to an account that it hallucinated”. It often undersold items, and it offered a 25 per cent discount to Anthropic employees, who, of course, made up basically all of its customers. As a result, it made a loss: Claude, it seems, couldn’t run a whelk stall."
July 25, 2025 at 11:47 AM
vertandor.bsky.social
Happy #SummerSolstice

Couple of pics from the garden before it gets stupidly hot again - fresh picked raspberries and the purple flowering thyme 🌱
A close-up of a small thyme plant, with clusters of bright pink-purple flowers Some raspberries in a bright green colander
June 21, 2025 at 5:57 AM
vertandor.bsky.social
Laptop off, work phone left on desk.
"Bangers" playlist activated.
Refreshment incoming.
A can of Beer (Bevertown Neck Oil IPA) and a pack of hot honey cashews on a kitchen worktop
June 13, 2025 at 4:33 PM
vertandor.bsky.social
They're here... ST:TNG tea cups may be one of the more niche bits of memorabilia I've ever bought, but I love them
<Squeals in geeky delight>

By the way, does anyone have recommendations for a good Earl Grey tea blend?
A photo collage; one photo is of a set of four Bodum glass tea cups with black handles, in a presentation box. The second is a still from Star Trek: The Next Generation, showing Patrick Stewart drinking from a very similar cup. The third is artwork from the presentation box with the Enterprise at warp, and the caption "The Picard Cup. Bistro tea cup, set of four"
June 7, 2025 at 6:09 AM
vertandor.bsky.social
These new fangled cyber swans will never take off...
A floating spiral aerator - a cone shaped beige body with a pokey-up exhaust, mounted on two green fibreglass pontoons. It's moored in a lake, because it is being used to reoxygenate after a significant sewage leak and fish kill incident last week.
June 2, 2025 at 8:19 PM
vertandor.bsky.social
Oh no!
André Previn (70s tux-wearing edition) looks off camera in disbelief
May 21, 2025 at 8:42 PM
vertandor.bsky.social
I suspect of these, Cameron is closest 😬

Take the fictional characters quiz and post the first four you know:
openpsychometrics.org/tests/charac...
Bernard Lowe from Westworld. Tuvok from Star Trek: Voyager. Cameron Frye from Ferris Bueller's Day Off Violet Parr from The Incredibles.
May 19, 2025 at 9:46 AM
vertandor.bsky.social
Yeah, the blog states all the things they'll rely on it for, and then deploys the wishy-washy resonse to any criticism "It's also important to emphasise that as a predictive model, the England Peat Map should not be used as a stand-alone justification for action at a given site."
I'm skeptical...
A screenshot of the Natural England blog on "A new peat map for England" How will the map be used? It will help us calculate peatland greenhouse gas emissions more accurately. Emissions from degraded peat soils are currently estimated at about 2% of England’s total, and 3.5% of the UK total. It will improve our understanding of peatland condition and help us to plan conservation. 80% of England’s peatlands are currently degraded, making this an area in need of urgent action. Better data allows us to make more informed decisions about how to manage our landscapes, such as for water security and food security. Peat-dominated upland landscapes filter most of the UK’s drinking water, while the fertile Fenland soils in East Anglia are vital both for farming and as a store of buried carbon. The map will support Defra commitments on cleaning up our freshwater assets, turbocharging nature’s recovery and protecting communities from flooding. Peatlands play a critical role in environmental services by absorbing and cleaning our water, capturing carbon and providing a home to a wide range of specialised, rare and threatened species. While the map has not been specifically designed to inform Defra’s consultation on heather and grass burning on moorland in England, open until 25 May, it may be of interest to those wanting to input into the consultation. Reply in the same blog to someone raising concerns on the accuracy: Natural England 13 May 2025 Thank you for getting in touch Mark, and we’re sorry to hear that the peat map appears to be incorrect for your land. This is a significant new dataset, and while robust, it won’t show 100% of England’s peat. While the models are the most accurate picture of England peat resources to date, some areas of peat will have been missed, and there will be places where the map predicts peat but where it may not actually occur. As we say in the blogpost, our models have an overall accuracy measure of over 95% for the extent of peaty soils, and of 94% for vegetation and land cover. Levels of accuracy are described and explained in the final report and the accompanying user guide. It's also important to emphasise that as a predictive model, the England Peat Map should not be used as a stand-alone justification for action at a given site. It is not a regulatory mechanism and wouldn't be used by itself without first-hand verification of the situation on site. While the map may have local uses, it is also designed to be a national tool, which will give us a detailed (if not perfect) overview of the location and features of peat across the country. This information will help government and others to make decisions at landscape, regional, and national scales about how to manage our peatlands and peaty soils. The process for updating and improving the map is in development but will include the opportunity to provide new peat survey data. If you have new peat survey data you believe we could incorporate into the map to improve its accuracy, please email us at peatmap@naturalengland.org.uk.
May 19, 2025 at 7:01 AM