Bullfrogs

One of the best things about the Internet is that you have instant and unlimited access to bullfrog photos.

I used to have to bike for 53 minutes (22 if I took the secret route through a fence) to the library for cool stuff like this. I’d take home a whole stack of books on whatever subject I was obsessed with at the time, read maybe 2 or 3 of them, and then back down the secret route for more.

My only access to the Internet was a time-restricted dialup connection, which was an ironic combination. Opera’s Turbo compression feature helped, but forget downloads, videos, or image-heavy sites. I think that’s one reason why, to this day, I avoid watching videos when I see them, saving them for a later date that seldom arrives.

So I’d bike to the library, load up on books in the egg crate on the back of my bike, and download software to my flash drive with their faster connection, and then head home to explore the haul. I remember discovering Linux this way, starting with Knoppix, followed by a failed attempt at installing Gentoo, because I listened to the bittervets, and then all the flavors of Ubuntu 9.04.

In a way, I think the friction may have increased my enjoyment of these things, as well as forcing me to learn by having no other option—either I bend grub to my will so my PC boots, or wait until the next trek to the library.

Back to bullfrogs—we’re not certain if they sleep or not, outside of hibernation. Wikipedia’s section on feeding has a great line:

The bullfrog is able to make allowance for light refraction at the water-air interface by striking at a position posterior to the target’s perceived location.

This huge frog (up to 6"/15 cm long and up to 1.1 lbs/500 g) can compensate for tricks of the light when hunting in the water. Ribbiting stuff.