Thoughts of Widdershins

So the latest thing is this Anthropic (for those unaware, that is the company that runs the AI "Claude") researcher who quit is now claiming AI will kill all humanity and we are "gambling with our lives." Here is the link to at least one of the articles online: LINK So, now what this post is about. I kid you you not, social media posts and comments on this show just how ignorant the majority of humans online are. I am sorry, but if you start basing your fear/concerns/whatever on pop-culture…

My apologies to William Shakespeare 😂 To publish, or not to publish, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler to dwell within The walled gardens of the mighty platforms, There to harvest likes and fleeting notice, Or to take up domain, server, and editor Against a sea of convenience, And by persistence build a place of one's own. To write, to host, no more. And by a host to say We end the tyranny of engagement, The heartache of algorithms, And the thousand manufactured urgencies That modern…

I am currently reading: The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions by Peter Brannen Our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth’s past dead ends, and in the process, offers us a glimpse of our possible future. Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the…

So I was browsing the fediverse and one of the ways I do that is solely by hashtags that represent things I am interested in or drawn to. So, I looked up #middleaged. But that got me thinking. I am 60. Am I "middle aged" or am I a "senior" now? So, somethings say middle age is roughly 40-60/65 and a senior begins at 55 and (from what I have seen) 60 at most places. So, I don't really know where I fall in. A lot of days, yeah, I feel like a senior. I'm tired often and naps are now essential, I…

I enjoyed AI the past few years. It brought a lot of my ideas to life that I would have given up on because to get it right would have taken years... The things I had it create were always to solve an itch I needed scratched... a planner, a project manager, and yes, websites. The first couple of websites it created were great. Until I realized that even with detailed prompting, they all turn out generic. Sure, they are crisp, clean and have some cool features, but for the most part, now anyway,…