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Mike O'Brien

@obrien.page
1.1K followers 803 following 1.7K posts

Full-stack fish ecologist. Richmond, VA culture leech living in Eastern Henrico. Small farm dabbler. obrien.page github.com/mhpob

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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 12/09/2026
The year is 1866. You're scavenging a battleground for resources. You find a human foot. Obviously, the next step is to say it's Bigfoot and start slapping it around area news desks.
MARCH 27, 1866.

PETRIFIED HUMAN FOOT.-Mr. Joseph Merryman, of this city, has placed upon our table a petrified human foot. It was thrown from the clayey earth in the vicinity of the memorable "Crater" by a party engaged in digging for leaden balls, where, probably, it had lain for untold years. It is of a large size, fully ten inches in length, and weighs several pounds, but retains a striking resemblance to the human foot, and doubtless, were the stony incrustation stricken away, the representation would be yet more perfect. The foot was evidently originally enclosed in some soft covering. The upper surface indicates this much, though the instep and toes are well formed. The heel and the under surface are exact.

That this petrification was once flesh and bone, the general appearances and character admit of little doubt; but it must have belonged to one of the men of the forest, whose grave was dug by uncivilized hands. Petersburg Express
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Nathan Yau @flowingdata.com · 03/08/2026
Datatype, a variable font that turns text to charts > franktisellano.github.io/datatype/ Maybe useful for small charts inline with text and tables?
franktisellano.github.io
Datatype — variable font that turns text into charts
An OpenType variable font that turns simple text expressions into inline charts. No JavaScript, no images — just type.
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 25/07/2026
Other angle: yesterdays.maprva.org/5896/
yesterdays.maprva.org
625 N. 26th Street – Yesterdays
Image from The Valentine, Edith K. Shelton Photograph Collection.
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 25/07/2026
Surprisingly little has changed!
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Dr. Stephanie @punkrockscience.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
I just saw a meme that said “get in losers, we’re reclaiming the emdash”. People. PEOPLE. Where are your STANDARDS? It CLEARLY should be “get in, losers — we’re reclaiming the em dash.”
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NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
If Odysseus had just given his sailors testosterone injections, it wouldn’t have taken him 10 years to get home.
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Skittle me timbers 🏳️‍⚧️ @adatedreference.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Yo what the fuck is up with outside right now
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 17/07/2026
Smoke has officially hit Richmond, VA
Graph of air quality through time with a very rapid spike at the end.
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Tony Damiano @tonydamiano.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
[news story 6 months from now] HEARTWARMING: Elementary school hold bakesale to raise money to pay heating bill, data center owner donates half box of Nilla Wafers 🥰
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404 Media @404media.co · 30/06/2026
Henrico County is a major hub for data centers in Virginia. Its officials said it expects a 25% rise in electricity costs next year, and advised workers to close the blinds and turn off their computers to make up for it.
404media.co
County With 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to ‘Conserve Electricity’
Henrico County is a major hub for data centers in Virginia. Its officials said it expects a 25% rise in electricity costs next year, and advised workers to close the blinds and turn off their computers...
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 02/06/2026
yesterdays.maprva.org/1207/
yesterdays.maprva.org
Hardgrove House – Yesterdays
Image from The Valentine, Mary Wingfield Scott Photograph Collection.
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 31/05/2026
Charles City Rd landfill is on fire. How fun. #rva
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 23/05/2026
🤣🤣
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 23/05/2026
The #RVA combined sewer overflow is ̶p̶o̶o̶p̶i̶n̶g̶ popping off today.
Map of Richmond, VA combined sewer overflow locations. Active overflows shown by a poo emoji. No overflows shown by a thumbs up emoji
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 21/05/2026
@subletteweather.com what would be the best place to find climatology info? Specifically average # days >90F over the past 10/20/30/50/100 yrs in Richmond/Virginia as a whole?
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
There’s no graceful way to get into or out of a kayak.
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 14/05/2026
The pizza and beer happy hour is pretty solid.
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 14/05/2026
I live down the street, but tap room was too pricey, then they pre-union busted. Better to pop down the block to Triple Crossing, a local business where they had better beer, at a better price, with food and a community atmosphere.
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 10/05/2026
Mazda
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 10/05/2026
Back in the days of good Sporcle, there was a "Misheard Lyrics" quiz where you had to figure out the song from incorrect lyrics. Two have stuck with me for whatever reason: Slow motion Walter, the fire engine guy Shamu, the mysterious whale
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 10/05/2026
K miles*
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 10/05/2026
I'm at like $140/y for a 12 yo, 200k car.
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Hildur Knútsdóttir @hildur.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
Icelandic authorities just rerouted a planned hot water pipeline so as not to disturb an elf hill.
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 09/05/2026
What's the point in paying for fast internet if every site needs to check if you're a robot first?
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Shannon Heckt @shannonheckt.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
A menhaden management board is considering implementing quota periods for VA’s reduction fishery in the Bay. Conservation groups say the fleet is scooping up the forage fish before they get further up the Bay, the fishery says they’re not. #valeg #vagov virginiamercury.com/2026/05/06/m...
virginiamercury.com
Menhaden board punts vote to increase Virginia reduction fishery quota restrictions • Virginia Mercury
The Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission Menhaden Management Board on Tuesday put off a vote on new potential restrictions for Virginia’s only reduction fishery in the Chesapeake Bay.
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Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
You can have dinner with anyone alive or dead. Pretty much limits your choice to having dinner with Schrödinger’s cat
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MapRVA @maprva.org · 04/05/2026
Interested in the different technologies surveilling you? Join us Thursday, May 7 in Shockoe Bottom #RVA; we'll survey and map all of the different surveillance types in the area: at least two different types of ALPRs and two different types of gunshot detectors! maprva.org/events
maprva.org
Events · MapRVA
We are geospatial enthusiasts in Richmond, VA who make our city better one map at a time.
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Dave Infante @dinfontay.com · 02/05/2026
methinks the danny doth protest too much
11:12
4 Messages
dannyavula
Follow
•..
FIRE STALEN NO. 19
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Liked by ever.leaning and others
dannyavula My administration is pro-labor, my... more 8 hours ago11:13
• Messages
TRUCTION CAREEN
RTUNIES
• HUNA!
District Cor
LUNA!
MID ALANTIC BEGON
MARORERS
Liked by ever.leaning and others
dannyavula My administration is pro-labor, my record at the City is pro-labor, my proposed budget is pro-labor, and the future of this city is pro-labor.
Today we honor the work and the people who make organized labor possible.
8 hours ago
New posts for you
n
Y
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ArtButMakeItSports @artbutmakeitsports.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
Buffalo Hunt, by John Dare Howland, 1868
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 29/04/2026
Flock Ravens are just happiness detectors.
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 29/04/2026
Wait, that graph on the top right -- it's fewer than 100 alerts/month, except on July 4th (fireworks) and New Year's Eve (celebratory gunfire), neither of which HPD pursues. That either really helps or really hurts their stats, depending on what point they want to make.
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Stephen Turner @stephenturner.us · 29/04/2026
In a DARPA program I just proposed to, they asked for a short abstract, then invited our team for an oral presentation and Q&A instead of a long full proposal. Presumably because everyone's writing proposals with AI (and contrary to some opinions here, frontier models can write great proposals) 1/
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Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · 28/04/2026
The release of the Wii is now closer to the fall of the Berlin Wall than to today
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Dave Infante @dinfontay.com · 28/04/2026
Henrico PD's own budget overview shows Flock's gunshot-detection devices produced ~2700 alerts in 2025, with ~740 "tied to" actual gunfire. Rough math puts the accuracy rate at about 27.4%.
Employing Crime-Fighting Technology

RAVEN (gunshot detection technology) • Between Feb. 2025 - Dec. 2025,
more than 2,700 alerts from Raven;
740+ tied to gunshots
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The Onion @theonion.com · 25/04/2026
Report: Every Place On Earth Has Wrong Amount Of Water theonion.com/report-every-place-on-…
Report: Every Place On Earth Has Wrong Amount Of Water
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inlandempire.place @inlandempire.place · 21/04/2026
To celebrate the launch of Yesterdays of the Inland Empire, five cities have been added to @oldinsurancemaps.net: Redlands, Ontario, Corona, Colton, and San Jacinto. All are circa 1907-8. There are many other cities around that time to be added. Let me know if you want one in particular!
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Charlie Gao @shikokuchuo.net · 23/04/2026
Just released mori 0.1.0 on CRAN — a new R package for shared memory across processes. Parallel R no longer has to mean duplicating your dataset in every worker's RAM. opensource.posit.co/blog/2026-04... 🧵 1/3
opensource.posit.co
mori: Shared memory for R objects
mori is a new R package for sharing R objects across processes via OS-level shared memory. Parallel workers get zero-copy, lazy ALTREP access to the same physical pages — share once, read anywhere.
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 21/04/2026
Whole neighborhood bulldozed for Ethyl Corps. I think the story is that the city got Browns Island in return.
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Eric Pedersen @ericjpedersen.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
(possibly hot) take: public libraries are the most consistently innovative and progressive institutions in the western world. Definitely beating out universities or tech companies
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 18/04/2026
TIL that the producer of No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom wrote the soundtrack to Mulan.
en.wikipedia.org
Matthew Wilder - Wikipedia
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 11/04/2026
theonion.com/de-blasio-we... This, but for Levar
theonion.com
De Blasio: ‘Well, Well, Well, Not So Easy To Find A Mayor That Doesn’t Suck Shit, Huh?’
NEW YORK—Clucking his tongue with mock disappointment, Bill De Blasio announced to New Yorkers that “It’s not so easy to find a mayor that doesn’t suck shit after all, huh?” during a press conference Tuesday. “Hey, you all gave it your best shot, but it looks like it’s a little harder than you thought to run a candidate who won’t be a national fucking disgrace, doesn’t it?” said De Blasio, smirking as he suggested that the voting public had perhaps gotten a little too big for their britches at the prospect of electing someone who would amount to more than a constant source of embarrassment for the city at large. “But, no, really, I hope you have a goddamn blast with Eric Adams or whatever asshole you end up going with, and I’m sure you’ll knock everybody’s socks off with some really incredible candidates during the next election cycle. Just goes to show that it’s not so easy to find someone who isn’t a total dickhead hated by everybody.” At press time, De Blasio had issued a joint statement along with Mike Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani that consisted of them loudly laughing for 10 straight minutes.
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Dave Infante @dinfontay.com · 10/04/2026
Not to put too fine a point on it here, but I'm an independent journalist with no budget who *doesn't even cover Richmond as my actual beat.* I started asking basic, critical questions about the RPD's surveillance system, and instead of sitting for an interview, the mayor convened a spin room.
richmond.com
Texts show Richmond officials planning to 'saturate the public narrative' with positive Flock camera stories
In text messages, Mayor Avula, police Chief Rick Edwards and others discuss how to turn the tide of public opinion in favor of controversial automatic license plate readers.
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 10/04/2026
528 S Pine St. It's seen some stuff. yesterdays.maprva.org/37066/
Man on stoop with his head between his knees. Graffiti behind him days "G.G."
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Dave Infante @dinfontay.com · 09/04/2026
remember, doing this for voting or w2s would be communism
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 08/04/2026
This is @dinfontay.com's office, right?
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 08/04/2026
What up, Riverbend Roastery? #rva
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Matthijs Hollanders @matthollanders.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
New pre-print! I cover a range of open capture-recapture models (single survey/robust design, multistate/multievent, in (Cormack-)Jolly-Seber variants) in Stan, and provide efficient log likelihood functions. I also introduce a method to account for unequal survey intervals in the entry process.
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MapRVA @maprva.org · 06/04/2026
Join us as we map Shockoe Hill Cemetery tomorrow! We'll be there from 6:30-7:30, mapping some famous "residents", and taking street-level imagery to allow people to take in the historic space from their own home. osmcal.org/event/4680
osmcal.org
Shockoe Hill Cemetery mapping with MapRVA
Shockoe Hill Cemetery mapping with MapRVA, 7th April 18:30 – 19:30 at Shockoe Hill Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, United States. Meet any time after 6PM. We plan to take some street-level imagery, place some photos…
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Mike O'Brien @obrien.page · 04/04/2026
MS DOOM
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OldInsuranceMaps @oldinsurancemaps.net · 03/04/2026
Last month I presented at #Code4Lib: www.youtube.com/live/6nBJ… While preparing the slides, 10 minutes was feeling really short (especially for a new audience) but I reworked some things and I think it’s actually the best introductory talk about the project I’ve given!
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