reading technology

A Thriller About Forensic Accounting … Really, I Mean It

It has been a tough haul reading books this year. It took me a couple of months to read one book, The World Without Us, so it was a pleasure to find a book that I could read quickly. The book I found was Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow. What attracted me to the book was that it was billed as a thriller about a forensic accountant. That might not seem like the most…

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health

Eczema Update

I’ve been struggling with a bad eczema flare recently – months of vesicles and itchy patches encircling most of my neck. At one point, the rash was so solid it looked like a sunburn. I also developed eczema in my ears on and off over the past year and a patch in my scalp in December. Most of the time, I tough it out with my various moisturizers, calamine lotion, witch hazel, Vitamin E oil,…

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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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