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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family fiber art home projects

Presto-Change-O! A Fiber Arts Room

Work continues in the house. The latest project completed this week was the transformation of a bedroom into my new fiber arts room. I’ve never had a room devoted solely to my fiber arts storage and activities. Instead, in our old house, I tucked things in corners and used an open hallway for both sewing and my office desk. At one point, I had a floor loom in the dining room, but I could never…

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home observations

Waking Up the House

In a new house, I’m forming new habits. One thing I’ve found myself doing every morning is opening curtains and blinds room-by-room. I refer to this as “waking up the house.” While I used to open curtains in the morning in our old house, there weren’t as many to open (just a couple) and I didn’t open them one after the other, like I do in this house. I just have to let the daylight…

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