Kyle Nessen

The only thing worth photographing*

Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Is people. Particularly people you love.

This subject, in my view, leads to the greatest contributions in photography for most of us. And as a photographer, it is the only subject I feel an obligation to engage with.

Now, there’s an asterisk in my title, as I don’t want to discount anyone’s authentic interests. Perhaps landscape photography is your passion? Wonderful. Enjoy your predawn hikes and large format cameras. Nature photography? I also dabble.

I've Been Sleeping On Chinese Models

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I came across this Hacker News post today:

Kimi K2 1T model runs on 2 512GB M3 Ultras

While I can’t wait for the day that I can self-host my own LLM server, that’s not what caught my eye. In the comments, there was a lot of discussion around what a great writer Kimi K2 is. This immediately caught my attention, because I have been paying way more than I’d like to have access to reasonable Opus limits in Claude Code. I’ve found from all of the models that the top three US labs, Opus was consistently the best writer for my use cases. Specifically, I just finished my master’s thesis, and relied heavily on the model to help me craft the document, hence the heavy Max Plan that I had to shoulder to get me through.

Monarchs Avoid Arid Regions During Migration?

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Like many in the monarch community, I have been fascinated by the data coming in from the Cellular Tracking Technologies (CTT) BlūMorpho tags. In particular, this image that has been making the rounds on social media has captured (maybe too much of) my attention:

Monarch tracks from 2025 season. Credit CTT

Each one of those lines is the path of an individual monarch butterfly during the southern fall migration. For those who are not initiated, the CTT tags are tiny bluetooth devices that emit a unique signal when in sunlight. Any cellphone within range that hears this signal can then report that detection back to their database. It works the same way as AirTags do, except we are tracking butterflies instead. The New York Times did a story on this project recently, which is excellent if you want to learn more.

About

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a biologist and educator specializing in monarch butterfly conservation and bringing technology to ecological questions. I earned both my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, with my graduate research challenging conventional wisdom around how monarch butterflies respond to strong wind events.

My work focuses on applying cutting-edge technology to understand natural systems. I use drones, GIS, and remote cameras to study monarch butterflies, plants, and other pollinators. I’ve developed wind simulation methods for habitat planning and established drone programs for conservation research.