A Skid Row pigeon couple loses their home.

Two pigeons perch amidst the wreckage of their home.

Los Angeles’ homeless crisis affects so many, including the wildlife. Last night, two pigeons lost their home when a sidewalk shop’s sign collapsed, leaving the couple’s home roost vulnerable and exposed to the sidewalk on 5th Street, which sees a lot of pedestrian foot traffic at all hours, particularly during the day time. Since the structure collapsed during the nighttime, the birds were forced to stay there, for the night, because other pigeons claim the signs around them. These pigeons seem to not know where they might go, next, but it’s doubtful that they’ll stay here, because of the risk of threats from below. Pigeons usually prefer to have a safe and secure, secluded roosting spot, where they’ll return on a daily basis, typically in the late afternoon. The birds are likely devastated, at the loss of their home, having made grand plans to build a nest and rear some young, behind the shop sign, now that their meals had become regular, on an ongoing basis. 

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A work in development: The Pigeon Costume Parade children’s story.

I was brought up on a lot of children’s stories, being that my mother taught second grade, and she was primarily in charge of my early years in education. I imagine cute storybook-like lifestyles and lives of the pigeons, and one of them is The Pigeon Costume Parade, where a townsperson knits costumes for the town’s pigeons, and they have an annual costume parade. Here’s a mockup cover for the story.

A preliminary look at the concept cover of my children’s book idea.

Here’s one take on the book’s beginning:

 Here’s another set of concept images: not as linear as ChatGPT (above), but I like the illustrative styles pictured in ImageFX’s Imagen 3 generative image renders, here.

Now, the challenge would be coming up with a coherent illustrative style, in order for the story to make sense, visually, but the ideas are well done, with Imagen 3, by Google Labs. I think that the illustration styles have specific names for the styles, and I could, potentially, narrow down the artistry by refining the prompts, in a linear chat.

Update: Over the weekend, I was able to complete the book. I went with ChatGPT, since that was the most familiar platform that I was using to generate images in a consistent illustrative form. In subsequent editions, I’ll perhaps go for more detailed renders, from different engines, if possible. For now, you can check out the first edition of The Pigeon Costume Parade on Apple Books.

The Pigeon Costume Parade is now available on Apple Books. 

My next idea, for this book, is to look in to manufacturing plush doll toys of the costumed pigeons, for collectors and for children. Here are some early concept renders of that idea.

A felted pigeon doll, wearing a cow costume. 

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The Library Pigeons are returning to their daily perching spot.

 It had been several months, since I updated news about the Downtown Los Angeles Central Library’s pigeon flock, and there had been some unfortunate turns of events, in that the flock slowly began to migrate out of the area, eventually fully abandoning the perching spot, up on one of the library’s walls. My guess was that some of the new birds who had joined the flock had some attachments to where they came from, and they began to stray, slightly, from the flock’s flight formations, eventually leading them back to places where they came from, and the library pigeons, who were homed there, for years, followed them, possibly for adventure. 

The other day, I saw several pigeons return to their library wall perch, one of them, I call Ruffles, because he always has ruffled feathers around his neck. They came for a meal, which I offered them, and Ruffles ate out of my hand. 

Here’s a video recapping some of the closeup photography I got to do of the birds eating out of my hand. I had posted the photos, previously, but they ended up being still photos, instead of Live Photos. Here, you can get a sense of the action of the birds eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, with live moments interspersed with the still images that were captured. 

iPigeon.institute is about to reach 400,000 views!

 It seemed like just a little while ago, I was waiting to hit 300,000 views patiently, and now, we’re on the brink of reaching 400,000.

Now, granted, a good portion of views has been, recently, in part, inflated ghost views (I commonly find short periods of just minutes in which 1,000 or so hits come in to the blog, and it happens almost daily. Sometimes, I check, and the numbers of views roll in much more organically, which is more pleasing, since it implies that someone is browsing and reading the blog, or looking at pictures, or something. 

Here’s a list of the most popular blogs that people have clicked on, in the past week.

The recipe for iPigeon Udon Noodle Soup is #2, with over 50 hits, and it’s an old blog post. Man, I must have made that Udon noodle soup really good that night.

Thanks for reading! 

My hit counts, as 400,000 becomes imminent.

Is click work for real? Some perspectives on task-based earning opportunities.

 It happened again, to me. In the course of seeking employment, I came across a platform with a contentious air about it; namely, it ended up involving me needing to put up my own investment funds in order to earn money, this time, in the form of commissions, from having completed a click work task. 

Part of the marketing materials from the click work platform I joined.

What is click work?

Given its surface features, click work seems like the ideal remote freelance work opportunity - daily earnings made from completing tasks that require no formal education or training, that is to say: it’s easy work. Sure it is, it just involves clicking. Such is the basic premise behind many an online platform, yet I’ll refrain from naming the one I’m involved with, for privacy reasons, namely, since I’m more a believer in the platform’s premise, despite some aspects of the initial selling points having gone unfulfilled. For example, the marketing material said that there would be no investing involved; this was partially untrue: I was “paid” commission money ($67 USD) that I could withdraw, upon completing the onboarding and training process, although I was instructed to bump up the balance in my work account, which started with a $0 balance, up to $100, which, it was claimed, is the minimum balance required to do tasks. 

The tasks, I would come to learn, were micro-investments (micro, for starting with $100) which earn a commission, starting at 0.5%, going up to 5%. The larger commission tasks would invariably put the user’s account in the negative, which I encountered, during the course of continuing training on the platform, further. At this point, I was instructed to contact Customer Service (CS) to deposit more money, in the form of USD, converted to Bitcoin, which I then withdrew, from my account, in to the company’s Bitcoin wallet - a trusting move, and, as I’d discovered, several days out, upon starting with the platform, one that would summon the chagrin of many an other click work platform inductee, who had gone on to write an article decrying the inferred iniquities of said click work platform(s), such as in this article I came across, serendipitously, just this morning. The similarities between what this author describes and my situation are uncanny. Going on, to research the contextual subject matter of the platform potentially being a scam, like this author writes about, and, which is the viewpoint and perspective that several other authors, and even the FTC, make out of the features described, here, to be hallmark features of an inevitable scam.

The image is blurred to ensure privacy for the platform.

I even consulted with ChatGPT and Gemini about the click work platform’s premises and claims, and they both strongly advised me that it was a scam. Now, granted, I had the same inclination, having recently been scammed, myself, with a credit card number processing and Bitcoin wallet transfer operation. Yet, this being the case, I came in to this opportunity fully aware and wary of promises. Despite this, I suppose I was feeling a bit adventuresome, and, being that click work is sometimes referred to as gamified, it resembles a game, or gambling, loosely, on one hand, although I felt that the platform deserved some credit, since, for one - I had been duly walked through the onboarding and training process, in this case, and the support personnel and onboarding representative were very responsive and intelligible - two features which I consider, subconsciously, perhaps, even, to be characteristic of well-run businesses. After all, for every one person who can see the bright side of the click work economy, there are dozens of naysayers and jilted participants who distrusted the entirety of the platform, particularly at the point at which it was discovered that personal financial investment was required, which, as I’ve stated, is where I happened to differ, in this case. 

Fayrouz Eldebani’s blog article, Click Work - It’s Complicated, featured on superrr.com.

By the way, the last link I just posted, “Click Work - It’s Complicated,” which is in support of click work for women and for other potentially disadvantaged worker demographics, I found, is a highly intelligent and insightful blog article that goes in to issues of feminism and post colonial work economy, as they pertain to click work. The article discusses click work as an accommodation of certain work-life balance traits of the subject demographics discussed, rather than that click work enterprises necessarily take advantage of people. I found that I could relate to the women and domestic workers, as such, myself, given that I’m committed, on a daily basis, to ensuring that the local pigeon flocks get fed - the ones that I can cover, and care for, at least. 

Sure, it’s frustrating to see an account balance go in to the negative, thus requiring a personal investment, in order to reap the profit and returns, or commissions. Perhaps, even, some of the platforms involving click work recruiters contacting people, truly are scams, as a basis. So far, I find some promise in the platform I became acquainted with, with some short term benchmarks to come, which I can update on, when the time arises. What I would offer, as a suggestion, should one come across a click work opportunity, as a job-seeking, vulnerable person, is to take account of one’s own limits and boundaries; for example, “do I have a reasonable amount of savings I can put in to such a thing as this,” as one of the questions one might ask, and know, of one’s self. Fortunately, the platform I’m involved with involves a spread of up to 300% of the user’s work account balance, and I find, so far, that having several hundred dollars available, perhaps $1,000, or so, is sufficient to cover most any circumstances encountered, in the course of completing a batch of 40 tasks, as the costs rise, at times, during the course of completing the tasks, and thus require reinvesting money. It takes some trust of the company that the user is involved with, and some common sense, as to what can be afforded, and risked, in such as situation, given that, at least, in my case, the funds are real, withdrawable funds that go back in to my own Bitcoin wallet.

A look at the history of the transactions in my work account, along with the commission payments. 

Right now, I’m stuck on this $956 transaction, with a negative $524.56 balance, which I had to do some work on, in order to clear the transaction. I had $431.44 in my account, at the time I encountered that transaction. The profit for that transaction will be $76.48 once I clear the transaction, though. Not bad, given my usual experiences with investing. 

All in all, I see the situation as that, for the potential of the proclaimed earnings to be real, it is, somewhat a gamble, but, I suppose, in my case, I was somewhat up to the challenge of discovering whether or not things work out as stated. One of the techniques I’m planning on employing, moving forward, is keeping my initial work account balance at $100, to start, and withdrawing funds, mid-batch, should I get a “rush” order, which comes with a higher (5%) commission, although it puts my account in the negative, requiring me to deposit more funds - once I complete the transaction, I’m planning on withdrawing funds, again, so the 300% limit threshold doesn’t become unmanageable. I’m still learning the platform, but since I was able to withdraw real Bitcoin funds in to my own CashApp Bitcoin wallet, I have some confidence that the platform works, and is functional, at least, for as long as the site stays up, and for as long as I stay in touch with CS and my onboarding agent. I think that the AI Chatbots are perhaps biased towards erring on the side of caution, lest they stir up controversy for users, with what ends up being poor advice, because, of course, it’s easily foreseeable that a scammer could potentially shut down a site, or deny functionality to a user, and steal their funds. For all I know, perhaps other platforms paled in comparison, with their policies regarding order limits on dollar amounts, or there may have been something else wrong about sites that other people encounter. I find that the site I’m on has very responsive customer service, and the onboarding experience flowed smoothly, as well - all good signs, so far. 

In essence, the concepts at play seem to mirror that of Liquidity Mining, in Decentralized Finance. Here are some basic concepts pertaining to Liquidity Mining, from Google Search AI Overview:

I deposited the money, the next morning (today), and I completed the transaction that had gotten me stuck, previously. Here, you can see the $956 balance, plus the $76.48 profit I had received.

This is where I ran in to a snag with the company. They denied my withdrawal, because they have a policy that says I have to complete a full batch of orders on the day I want to do a withdrawal, which they didn’t tell me about. Since I don’t want to put any more money in to this, I guess I have to chalk it up to that this whole thing I got involved with was a gamble, which I lost money on.