PlanktonPunkt Designs puzzles available in CreateJigsawPuzzles
link to order print on demand PlanktonPunkt Designs jigsaw puzzles (printed in China)
PlanktonPunkt Designs POD products in Printify
link to order PlanktonPunkt Designs print on demand wares from the source
PlanktonPunkt Designs POD products in Etsy
A link to order from a selection of PlanktonPunkt Designs print on demand wares from Etsy
Hi all! I just realized that PlanktonPunkt Designs now has 111 active print on demand listings on on Etsy, so to celebrate that, I am having a spot sale of 25% off Dandelion Sipper Glass (16 oz) on my sales channel on Etsy until end of November 3rd, 2025, everybody welcome!
https://www.etsy.com/shop/PlanktonPunktDesigns
The dandelion design is based on photos I took in Finland this summer – I thought dandelion flowers would make a good design on something.
Today, while walking with my mobile ready to snap a picture or even a video, I noticed a number of hummingbirds, not as a flock but a hummingbird or two every now and then. More than I could photograph. Aside from being fast, the little birds are well camouflaged when sitting among the green leaves of a tree. Also, they are small, which means my camera’s resolution will not be sufficient for a good picture or a video. Hummingbirds are migratory, moving south for winter and flowers. I don’t know if they stay here in Berkeley for winter, maybe they are just passing through, but some were singing.
A photo of a hummingbird and a bottle brush plant, October 19th, 2025, Berkeley, CA
Monday’s rain had apparently inspired little green shoots to peek from the ground. Hopefully this was not a false start. The best part of the winter is the greenery as the rainy season ushers new growth.
Skipper butterflies were still around, though this time I did not see a swarm. There were also occasional Monarchs and smaller white butterflies.
I was lucky enough to be aiming for a red bottle brush flower, when a hummingbird flew to feed. Quick switch to video mode captured a few seconds of hummingbird and red flower.
A short video of a hummingbird and a bottle brush plant, October 19th, 2025, Berkeley, CA
I have now added the 100th active listing to my my PlanktonPunkt Designs shop on Etsy, so to celebrate that, I am running a 20% off sale until the end of October 15th, 2025.
Everyone is welcome to browse, maybe you’ll find something that interests you!
Sometimes you need to take a break and appreciate the small things
So, I got a temp job as a scientist starting late September and have been busy. But I am planning on keeping posting, even if the intervals between content get lengthy.
About a week ago I was walking around taking snapshot and videos, and was impressed at the amount of butterflies fluttering around, multiple species of them, multiple places. I am still trying to process my videoclips (I have quite a few of them taken this year) into YouTube videos, but here is a little sample at lower resolution.
There was a bush (or a cluster of them) with yellow and pink flowers, which seemed to be very popular with small brown and quick butterflies. I had seen them occasionally around, but their numbers had been increasing towards autumn. They look like online photos of skippers, which are common in California and North America, and though I would not presume to identify the exact species with 100% certainty, an Umber Skipper or a Fiery Skipper seems a possibility.
I think this swarm was from the latest brood that had eclosed and was preparing for winter and / or having a mating season. I have some earlier clips of similar-looking butterflies, but those were difficult to obtain because the insects were skittish and quick to fly. The butterflies in this swarm seemed to be more interested in feeding, occasionally chasing each other, but I could get close to this specimen without it flying away. Maybe they were preparing for winter or for laying eggs.
Pure speculation, since Winter in California is the rainy season, with new green shoots, so it may be a good time for new caterpillars to hatch. On the other hand, maybe the adults were preparing to hibernate through the wet and cold.
A skipper butterfly in pink inflorescence, October 04, 2025
Long time no write. I got employed (at will, contract until the end of November) and have been working since last week’s Monday. Still learning the ropes, enough of that.
Federal government
Secretary of War, Hegseth, had called all generals, 1-star and up for an all hands meeting. This includes those who have ‘active situations’ going. Very unusual. The rumors online ranged from imminent intensification of WWIII, invasion of Venezuela, an alien arrival, a complete reorganization of US military, or mass lay offs to clean out our top heavy military organization chart. The official explanation was pep talks telling the armed forces to merit base up, go on diet, and concentrate on learning how to efficiently win wars rather than having rainbow events and PC talk. It is generally thought that the pep talks were a cover for something else, though what that might be is unknown to public.
The mass lay offs in military would have dovetail nicely with the threatened imminent mass lay offs of Federal bureaucracy in general, due to government shutdown, because congress cannot (again) pass a budget, or as the case has been for quite a few years, a continuing resolution. Trump has been itching to take a machete or a flamethrower at our bureaucratic jungle and to cut our budget deficit (our current Federal debt has ballooned since the summer 36 trillion to today’s over 37.5 trillion and keeps rising)or at least the funding to his political opponents. Instead of putting the Federal workers on furlough with back pay when the continuing resolution has been passed, the president proposes to simply fire the non-essentials (or a fraction of them) to reduce Federal complexity and expenses. Considering the recent increase in debt levels, methinks, this is an opportunity for a political purge, any savings would be incidental.
The immigration enforcement (Feds) vs antifa + their affiliates (supported by democrat jurisdictions) situation seems to be verging towards civil strife of the Irish Troubles type. Basically the central government (the new establishment) is bringing rebellious city states and provinces back under control, task complicated by the democrat (the former establishment) outrage over having lost their control over the central government. Meanwhile, I suspect the people would be more interested in what either of the parties would be doing on the rapidly rising cost of living and the employment and housing crises.
Digital ID
Vietnam froze about 86 million bank accounts, they can only be unfrozen if the account owner gets a government digital ID and provides a proof to the bank.
In UK, Prime Minister Starmer told the folks that everyone must get a digital ID, soon it will be illegal to work without one. ‘Ministers have ruled out’ that welfare payments or healthcare would need digital ID. I suspect them of being economical with truth, what with Tony Blair Institute for Global Change clearly stating its usefulness for accessing benefits.
This is, of course, ‘to combat the illegal immigration’ (much encouraged by successive Labour and Tory governments alike.) Exactly how the UK government believes forcing digital ID on people who do not use even paper IDs is going to help, but I think the digital ID for legitimate, as in taxable, work and other economic activity will collapse what is left of UK finances. Or the people will revolt (though at this point I think that less likely than finding metabolically active extraterrestrial life.) In any case, immigrants without ID could presumably still access welfare and healthcare, even if they cannot work legally.
While I unfortunately did not find a reference, I recall that during COVID, Sweden discussed banning cash, but the government retreated when they realized that large enough fraction of of their economy functioned on informal basis to sink the rest of the economy(sarskillt utsetta omraden would have exploded or become even less governable than currently. While the White Hall may know their people better than I and are banking on them being hopelessly obedient (rebels having left during 17th and 18th century), lots of White Hall mandarins are clueless elites that live separate from normal life and consequences of their actions.
I also read about digital ID already existing or being rolled into various EU countries. The same source also mentions online access. Omitted was the potential barring of online access.
In South Korea, there was a big fire in a government data center, which crippled many of the government services, including things requiring digital ID. The fire started from a lithium battery (the batteries were being replaced because they were getting old) and it is unknown how much actual data the South Korean government lost.
While I was anticipating hackers having a fiesta with people’s IDs online, and rolling blackouts and other such infrastructure misery making them unpracticable (the Indian Aadhar system has reportedly led to deaths by starvation due to lack of access to government social security), I had forgotten about the vulnerability of the data centers. TietoEVRY, which is a major PPP contractor for various data base services to Finnish government (including the election vote results, at least once in collaboration with Scytl when still known as TietoEnator) managed to years ago (when it was known just as Tieto) totally mess up multiple Swedish databases. Considering this and the South Korean example, I expect any digital ID to result in Kafkaesque nightmare for the subjects and massive confusion and potentially paralyzing dysfunction to the governments. But perhaps that is not a bug but a feature – maybe it will allow greater variety for financial oppression while reducing the citizens’ ability to defend themselves against the governmental predators, the profits of which are then calculated to outweigh the cost of national collapses.
Local news
California has on November 4th special elections about redistricting. The cost estimates range from 250+ to 280+ million dollars, that is over quarter of billion dollars to invest on Democrats (maybe) taking Congress (and US budget.) Nevertheless, as a California tax payer, I am annoyed. I have gotten two mailings of official election information. I suppose that is my tax dollars at work.
War and Troubles
Drone attacks and air space violations of NATO countries are intensifying. Involved parties: at least Poland, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Estonia, Hungary, Romania, and, of course, Russia and Ukraine. I probably have missed countries – these days the news come too fast for me to follow. Also who did what to whom is unclear, including to many of the targets. Meanwhile, I am more worried about cyber attacks and domestic terrorists.
Of domestic terrorists: someone set (or attempted to set) the concert bus of Ice-T in fire while he was touring in Portland, Oregon. Many thought that happened because someone mistook it for ICE vehicle, though now the official explanation is a random act of vandalism. I don’t know if this was a contributing factor for Trump’s orders to sent National Guard to Portland to protect ICE there. Maybe the generals were called in to take marching orders for intensifying civil troubles. Meanwhile, some dude got 19 years for terrorism for setting a police vehicle on fire in UC Berkeley campus. UC maintains a police force separate from City of Berkeley. I wonder what Janet Napolitano, a former president of the UC system and a former Secretary of Homeland security would think about the current happenings.
There are many other items I could write about, but there is no time.
I had recently seen two interesting news. One was about an ant species that must clone males of another species to produce hybrid offspring for worker caste. The other was about the possibility of there having been life on Mars.
The ants are haplodiploid relatives of wasps, females are diploid, males are haploid. In Messor ibericus species the queens can produce two types of male offspring, one of their own species, other from a related species Messor structor, with which they have been estimated to have a common ancestor about 5 million years ago. The queens mate with both types of males, because ibericus males are needed to make new queens, whereas structor males are needed to make hybrid workers. The structor male genome survives because the queen can somehow clone haploid offspring from sperm (though the mitochondria of the ova come from ibericus.) It should be noted that the ibericus-born genetically structor males are morphologically different from wild structor males, which the authors of the study hypothesized to result from differences in mitonuclear environment, from differences in brood rearing conditions, or from genetic differentiation of the ‘cloned’ lineage of structor males. This case is interesting, because it stretches the concept of biological species to have genomes of two species, separate but intertwined by sexual reproduction to maintain the colonies of the species lineages.
Little black ants in Finland, crawling in and around their hole in the ground. Not connected to the ants discussed above.
As for life on Mars, NASA scientists published a paper on speckles on Mars rock, which on Earth would have formed by metabolism of accumulated microbes. I do not know enough of mineralogy to follow the paper, but the NASA press release was much more accessible. The speckled rock was found in area that had contained long ago liquid water. While alternative processes have not been totally excluded, the most likely ones were. This biosignature is the strongest evidence that Mars has some time in the past hosted life. This implies either life evolving easily in multiple locations or if life evolves rarely, panspermia, i.e., life spreading in space, and it has been speculated that life on Earth and Mars being related. Also, considering the prevalence of lithospheric life on Earth, I would not consider it impossible that there still exists (microbial) life deep underground in Mars.
As mentioned in the previous Restless Times posting, France just changed their prime minister.
But so did Nepal. Their parliament burned, and the prime minister fled on helicopter. People were teed off by the government decision to shut down all social media because the companies refused to censor content that Nepalese government did not like (no, I don’t have any details) and then the pro-social media demonstrators were met with a hail of bullets, and then it turned out that the number of teed off citizens exceeded the government firepower and willingness to use it. Some people are suspicious about the social media companies’ unwillingness to censor in Nepal, after all, the social media have been over the years been weaponized for color revolutions and some interests may have wanted the Nepalese government out. However, the people of Nepal have probably been thoroughly disgusted by their leaders and corruption so I think the uprising was organically powered, with social media companies merely allowing the people to egg each other on.
Also Samoa is changing their primer minister, though that event is more orderly.
In Qatar, Israeli airstrike is claimed to have taken out Hamas leadership. There are dissenting reports. The news have within the last decade become a fun-house mirror maze, where people hear what they are supposed to think and then are left to figure out if anything happened let alone in the manner the news present the events.
Gold prices are shooting up. I am waiting to get some money to buy gold and silver. The physical metals, not the futures. Currently, as I type, I read that each silver ounce in the COMEX vaults has been overbooked by 36 times, i.e., there are 36 paper contract ounces to each physical ounce, which means that in case of a panic, the first / strongest to assert their claim will get the nuggets. Whether the rest will get even the cash value of their paper metals will depend on whether the vault on which you have claims has money to cover the debts. In other words, the same logic as in Resolution Weekend.
Europeans are busy with military exercises. There were at least six simultaneous ones within Finnish territory, including joint force exercises and urban warfare exercises, and Finland also participated in the CBNR exercise in Sweden. Poland had massive exercises, and aside from Quadriga exercise, Germany has moved a panzer brigade to Baltics. The French and UK orders regarding hospital readiness in case of mass casualty event I may have already mentioned earlier. I had so hoped that the United States 2024 election results would have brought peace, but depressingly it looks like this will not happen.
Especially now, as Poland shot down Russian drones in Poland’s air space, and consequently, Poland is invoking NATO Article 4.
Also Belarus says they shot down stray drones (either Ukrainian or Russian) and warned Poland about the arriving drones. However, there are too many reports for me to follow but it sure looks bad.
In Vilnius, there were LNG rail car explosions. In the report I read, they were attributed to OHSA violations, but the cause is still being investigated.
Other unrest:
Indonesian finance minister has been removed, after demonstrations in multiple provinces.
Government troops to deal with violent crime in Brussels, Belgium, and possibly in Chicago, IL, USA (national guard).
Secretary of War Hegseth gave a speech to military in Puerto Rico telling the soldiers that this was not training but to end poisoning of the American people.
Economy will not improve, either. Layoffs are increasing, but the hirings (at least in the USA) keep getting revised down. On Tuesday, I saw in LinkedIn feed a discussion about even recruiters finding new careers (sorry no link or screenshot.) I have been actively looking for a job since last year, and based on my job listing feeds the job market has been getting crazier by month.
Needless to say, I am doubtful about the idea of getting a job. At least a job matching my skills and work experience. Why I get advertisements for ‘CDL-A drivers needed’ is anyone’s guess, I don’t have a commercial trucking license, but based on recent news, maybe that is not a hard barrier in California.
Despite prepping being understood as something done by ultra patriotic rednecks hoarding spam and ammo in their remote homestead/bunkers, there are many practical things that can be done by urban professionals and digital nomads, and many are already doing it without realizing what it is.
Preparedness is not about hoarding survival items. Though it is good to have a set of survival tools, whether it is a power bank + backup memory for your laptop, snow chains for your vehicle or a pressure cooker, the exact set of the tools you need depends on what you can use. If you have a garden and can can fruits, thumbs up and power to you! For someone like me, living in a second floor studio, survival gear means having portable electronics and their backups.
Having said that, I think everyone should have a bugout bag (a shameless PlanktonPunkt Designs commercial included at the bottom of the post.)
Bugout bags are preps for emergencies when you need to move fast and have no time to pack. Even if you have not one waiting in a closet, everyone should know what should go into their bugout bag and where the items to toss in are.
Again, the exact contents of the bugout bag depend on your exact needs and where and how you are bugging out. My bugout bag is for sudden international air travel, because I used to travel back and forth to manage my affairs in California and Finland. I have never needed to escape war, civil unrest, impending sanctions, natural disaster or such calamities, but I have had family emergencies that have required me to quickly pack my bag and hurry to airport. Even quick changes in work plans may need a sudden departure.
I believe my plan for a bugout bag to work for any person who needs to be ready to travel fast by air.
Generic rules:
What to pack into a bugout bag?
Most items people carry are not necessary, even I tend to carry maybe 1/3 of the volume of items that I never use during the trip. And I miss rarely needed items that I left out.
Below is a list based on my experiences, but everyone should tailor the contents of their bag according to their personal and bugout needs.
1. Absolute travel essentials
Valid passport(s) – everyone should have one or more
multiple credit and debit cards for different banks and credit card companies
banking tokens and/or keylogger devise
cash, preferably in multiple denominations.
The passports should be kept behind a zipper in easy to reach compartment. The one under which the air tickets are issued should be in easier to reach place like handbag or coat pocket, the spare for emergencies (like having lost the primary passport) in a more secure location like inside the carry-on luggage.
The multiple debit and credit cards and cash should be divided between your luggage, handbag and pockets, so that if you lose some not all is lost.
Cash is essential for those situations when ATMs and credit cards do not work, whereas credit cards are essential for those situations, where cash is not accepted.
The easiest way to transport cash is debit card. I usually start my travel with some dollars, but when I get into another country, I withdraw cash from an airport ATM. This saves the time that would be spent dealing with banks’ currency exchange counters or Forex dealers. Also, ATMs are common and open 24/7, whereas banks and currency exchanges typically are not.
Banking tokens and key-logger can be kept deep in your carry-on luggage (or in your handbag), they are essential if you need to move funds between your bank and credit card accounts, e.g., to buy new plane tickets or rent a vehicle or stay longer in your hotel room.
In case of extreme hurry / emergency, everything else is expendable, but you will need a valid ID and cash to travel and with cash, the rest of the travel gear can be bought under normal circumstances.
Also good to have:
driver’s license (useful for renting cars in the destination)
medical insurance card
Driver’s license and medical insurance card are kept safe deep inside your carry-on luggage in case they are needed. Driver’s license is for renting a car in your destination, so that can be closer to zipper than the medical insurance card.
2. Medical kit: your prescription medications, common travel ailments and first aid.
If you have a medical condition, your prescription medications would go to the absolute travel essentials, but it is good to have a first aid kit for travel ailments and mishaps.
Prescription medicines should come with the prescription, which should be kept with boarding passes and passport for the security screen and can go inside your duffel bag afterwards.
My selection of travel medicine and first aid kit:
head ache pills (non-drowsy, ibuprofen and aspirin; aspirin doubles as clot preventer for long flights)
stomach ache pills (famotidine)
allergy medicine (non-drowsy like loraditine)
cough drops (I prefer eucalyptus)
zinc, quercetin and multivitamin (against airborne infections)
hydrocortisone ointment (against insect bites – those can also happen in urban environments)
aloe vera antibiotic ointment against burns and scrapes
pocket hand sanitizer
pocket pack of tissues
earplugs and chewing gums
All ointments and liquids should be under 100ml and all containers together should fit into a resealable plastic zipper bag of maximum 1 liter size.
To avoid hassle in security screen, put the resealable zipper bag on the top of everything under the duffel bag zipper, preferably on the top of spare clothing item. This will also reduce the likelihood that your bottles are crushed and tubes squeezed, and if they do, only your spare clothing suffers.
Also the pills and tissues should be kept close to the top of the duffel bag – if you cut your finger or your head begins to ache you don’t want to begin excavations into your carefully packed bugout bag.
Chewing gums and earplugs can be carried in pockets. Chewing gums should be put into mouth just before boarding – chewing will help against air pressure in ear drums during takeoff and landing.
Earplugs are essential, if you want to sleep in crowded (noisy) environments.
3. Essential electronics
For me, those are work laptop, personal laptop, two mobile phones, minitablet with SIM card slot, spare portable memories (USB sticks are usually enough for short trips), power cords and adaptors, international electric socket adaptors (important!), and earbuds with microphone
Two laptops are good – if one fails the other can act as a backup until a replacement laptop can be bought. Ditto with mobiles. Assuming availability of Wi-Fi, laptops can be used for checking travel connections and other essential data even when you are in a country not covered by your mobile phone subscription.
Minitablet with SIM card slot is an international travel essential – rather than buying a mobile phone for every local network, buy a prepaid SIM card for host nation network. This saves time and money, and is lighter to carry.
If you are traveling abroad (or your bugout bag includes international option) an international electric socket adapter is a must. It may take time to find one in your destination country while your electronics are running out of battery. Bring a cord and an adapter for each devise you have. If possible have adapters that can be plugged into power cords, and you can switch cords with plugs for local sockets (which is what I do when traveling between United States and Finland.)
All files should be backed up into USB sticks (or other memory) in case one of the electronics fails or is lost. The USB sticks should be carried separate from the laptops and mobile devises – if laptops are in carry-on luggage, the USB sticks are in your handbag, or in a wallet in a pocket.
Earbuds are not strictly speaking essential, but considerate for other passengers plus not all airlines any more offer free earbuds for watching movies.
4. Personal hygiene (comb, dental hygiene, make up, sanitary napkins)
If there is time, always use the airport amenities for personal hygiene and visiting toilet. Cramped airplane toilets are miserable places to take care of your hygiene, especially 8 hours into trans-Atlantic flight.
I don’t recommend packing a razor into a carry-on luggage.
5. Spare clothing
3 – 5 changes of underwear and 3 shirts. Depending on the number of changes and anticipated delays while in transit and after settling in your destination, i.e., the length of time before you can shop for fresh clothing or do laundry, you should have multiple changes of underwear and T-shirts or long sleeved shirts depending on your destination weather.
1 extra sweater or heavy college shirt – no matter where you go, sooner or later it will be cold.
Spare pair of trousers or a spare skirt in case something happens to what you are wearing. Alternatively, or additionally, a small travel sewing kit for emergency repairs.
In case of a wintery destination (Alaska, Canada, Nordic countries), extra pair of long johns, an extra pair of woolen gloves, two pairs of wool socks. You should have your knitted cap and another pair of gloves on you or in your pockets.
If space or weight does not allow too much extra weight, the extra trousers/skirt can be ditched.
While some spare clothing can be transported ‘on person’, so to speak, heat dissipation will set limits to that. Don’t exhaust yourself or get a heat stroke just to pack extra spare clothing. You can usually buy more in the destination.
6. Notebook, pen, pencil and pocket book
Notebook and ink pen are essential. Notebook for memos, appointments, ticket details and other important information into format that does not require electricity, pen additionally for filling immigration paperwork and other forms. Unless you have everything essential memorized, it is a good idea to write it down ready to be used in emergency without internet access.
While not strictly speaking essential, I like to travel with at least one pocket book to keep myself amused without need for charging stations and to reduce eye strain from screen time.
PlanktonPunkt Designs Commercial:
I am selling print on demand duffel bags within USA, on sale for September 2025. This above version with Cladonia cup lichen pattern and “Survival September 2025”-motto is available in PlanktonPunkt Designs Printify and Etsy shop spaces (clicking the mock up image takes to Printify store.) I also have notebooks and accessory pouches available for US customers. Apologies to the rest of the world, but being a solo operator still learning the basics, the international regulations are overwhelming, so unfortunately, USA only for now.
A short, promotional YouTube video that doubles as a commercial.
If you are bored with the selection available in local shops but do not want to pay for specialty sodas, you can always mix juice concentrate into carbonated water. Additionally, this does not require any complicated equipment so it will work in economic crises (such as we are currently living) and more advanced SHTF circumstances.
This is an ad video to my Etsy listing for Spring Blooms, Autumn Colors Ceramic Mug, also available in my Printify store. (In both shops for US only, sorry. The regulatory complexity for international trade is too much for me to handle.)
A recent credit card outage in France was blamed on botched payments system update. The reason for ATM failure in Scotland was not clear from the same post.
My thoughts:
Beginnings of the Zapad 2025?
Considering the banks are claiming it was just a botched update, my paranoia instinct would tend to cyber attack (private or foreign public sector) or frenzied preparations for Central Bank Digital Currencies supposedly becoming to EU this October.
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It is speculated that French government will collapse in this budget crisis. Belt tightening proposals include removal of two holidays: Easter Monday and May 8th (celebrating victory of WWII) to ‘increase the productivity’ by making people work more for the good of the country (who decides how the extra profits are used?). Aside from reducing the well-being of working people, I think this to be an arrogant display of cultural insensitivity, especially the claim that Easter Monday does not have any religious significance.
There is also chatter that France is going to need IMF bailout next week.
Meanwhile, French government is demanding that the hospital system be prepared for mass casualty event by March 2026.
I have low expectations for the quality of life during the next few years.
Update Sep 08, 2025:
The French prime minister Bayroy has lost the confidence vote, and will reportedly submit his resignation to Macron on Tuesday.
PlanktonPunkt 