Johnny Cash, “Satisfied Mind” 🎵
Let the machines talk to the machines
Finished reading Sacasus’ “AI as Christian Heresy.” His final paragraph clarified something that’s been banging around in my head: What would it mean to render to the machine what is the machine’s? To regain a sense of what it is to be a person, coupled with a subversive practice of the same, within a techno-economic system whose default settings incline us to forget this vital fact about ourselves and our neighbours?
Excellent quote on Todd’s blog on how the rich (and genAI users!) are harmed by lack of pushback.
Robin Sloan’s magic postcards are cool. I’ve always thought QR codes are a great technology for the interface of physical and digital. Once I homebrewed a beer and attached a label with a QR code linking to this hidden page on my site and gave them to friends. Turns out no one noticed!
Economic theory tells us the stock market is a future earnings prediction machine. But have you ever seen anything more wildly distractable as the stock market? If it was actually pricing the future, it would not flail about with every bit of breaking news.
Projects update: The Green Man’s Patch; Firewood
The Green Man’s Patch That, by the way, is the name Rachel and I have settled on for our yard/garden/micro-homestead/thing. Thanks to John for the “patch” inspiration. All the serviceberry trees are now planted. The one to the right is in the former location of an ornamental sand cherry tree we planted several years ago in our normie yard period. I kept a chunk of the sand cherry trunk to see if I can carve something from it.
What is home?
This morning, Rachel and I were talking about home. We often talk about plans and projects, and what we’ve built here over the years; sometimes, though, we talk about home in its hidden sense, the feeling that lies behind our patch of ground in the plain light of day. What is home in the hidden sense for you? Does it align with your patch of ground? When the two senses of home align, that is a sign of an integrated life.
One of the prettiest dogwoods I’ve ever seen, across the street from the credit union.
Rachel got a nice picture of our chives in bloom. Edible and pretty!
A survey of the fruit on the Green Man Micro Homestead (just made that up! maybe a bit overstated?):
- Concord grapes. This will be the third year of grape harvest. The first harvest was great. The second, not so much, probably due to 1. too much rain and 2. not enough pruning.
- Strawberries. We’ve scaled up the strawberries this year, using a milk crate vertical growing method that allows for many more plants than we’ve had in the past.
- Serviceberries. New this year. Two of the three trees are now planted. We may get a bit of fruit this year from the two larger trees but I don’t imagine it’ll be a lot.
- Gooseberries. This little guy struggled in the front yard for the first two years of his life. Rachel moved him to the back and he seems much happier. Still, it might take another year or two for there to be any harvest.