Signs of life all over the yard!
Blooms on the lilac bush:
Native honeysuckle
Rachel transplanted the gooseberry bush last year because it seemed to be struggling. Looks like it survived the move.
Principles of “The Pro-Human AI Declaration”, signed by a wide range of people and organizations:
- Keeping Humans in Charge
- Avoiding Concentration of Power
- Protecting the Human Experience
- Human Agency and Liberty
- Responsibility and Accountability for AI Companies
There’s a lot to like about this post: honesty about what life is like out here in the hinterlands, a recognition of the effect of geography on people, a broad-mindedness that seeks understanding between flyover country and the coastal elites. A unique (in my experience) argument worth considering.
There was a robin singing his heart out at 3am today. I guess he’s excited about a break in the rain too!
If you’re looking for American-made jeans, I’m happy with a pair from Dearborn Denim. I buy secondhand clothes where I can and then pay a bit more for items that are durable and/or repairable, e.g., jeans, boots. American made is a plus, since it’s generally better for workers and the environment.
The Mortise and Tenon folks have signed onto Writers Against AI: “The Prompt is not the Craft.” They’ve also created a site in support of the effort. I found a couple new writers to follow via the Voices section of the site.
Doing some work in the garden today, topping up raised beds with fresh soil. We pulled the last of the overwintered carrots, plus a close-up of those beautiful early crocuses.
Finished reading Radiance of the Ordinary: Essays on Life, Death, and the Sinews that Bind by Tara Couture. Wonderful, wonderful. One of the best books I’ve read in a while. 📚
I’m really looking forward to summer this year. At the old job, I was consumed with audit work from July through September. At the new job, however, the audit is much smaller, and I have very few tasks related to it. I’ll be able to help Rachel more with the garden!
Experience and argument
Tara Couture, writing about a place near her farm: There’s something mysterious there, attractive to animals of every ilk, but unknowable, too. The feeling of the ridge transcends the logical ‘glacier dropped it off’ explanation. If someone told me it was a stone dropped from a dragon’s mouth many eons ago, I would be more likely to believe them. When I was young, a Holiness preacher said, “A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.