family health music

Gary Numan Rocks!

Hubby and I saw Gary Numan in concert at First Avenue in Minneapolis last night. Gary Numan rocks! He is such a stellar performer that it was worth wearing earplugs, standing on a hard floor for three hours, and getting beer accidentally spilled on my shoe. (Why is the floor not covered in anti-fatigue mat, I wonder?) We went with a friend who happened to look down over the crowd at one point during the…

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history reading

“Nobility is expensive, nonproductive, and parasitic”

I checked my first book out of our new-to-us public library a couple of months ago. It was “The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman, a very good book, whose title accurately describes its contents (what would happen to nature and the human-built environment if humans were suddenly gone), but it took me foooooorever to read. I’ve been too busy moving stuff into the household and painting and such. Truth be told, I’ve also gotten into…

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history pragmatic historian technology writing

My Websites Are Being Used to Train AI – Is That a Good Thing?

If you spend any amount of time online these days, you’ll hear about two things ad nauseum: The meltdown of Twitter and the wonders of AI (artificial intelligence), specifically text generated by tools like ChatGPT or Google’s Bard. I haven’t had a chance to use ChatGPT because it’s always overloaded with users when I try and I’m not inclined to pay a subscription for a service that I want to test. Google’s Bard has a…

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