The Fit Has Hit The Shan - September 21

Wow. 10 days ago, in this post, I commented on how "AI" was now the story of stories, non-stop coverage on CNN, etc.

[Oh, of course, totally NOT just a distraction from the Epstein Files. Gawd knows we can't have 100s of rich old white men going to prison for raping underage girls.]

It's only gotten worse since then. Something Must Be Done About "AI".

I guess that's good. But, on the other hand, it is happening within the framework created by the AI labs:

- our products are so powerful, we can't control them!
- we need to slow down! Somebody stop us!

This is, IMO, COMPLETE & UTTER BULLSHIT!

All these "AIs" hacking other companies mostly shows that AI labs, OpenAI in particular, REALLY, REALLY SUCK AT COMPUTER SECURITY!

These kinds of attacks happened before GenAI. GenAI does appear to be very good at attacking other computers. So why are the AI Labs running these "tests" & screwing up so badly?

BECAUSE IT MAKES GREAT THEATER! Reality TV writ large.

They want to slow things down because THEIR PRODUCTS BASICALLY DON'T WORK.

So their strategy to keep the bubble inflated is, rope-a-dope, keep manufacturing "scary" incidents, & meanwhile, "pay no attention to the complete insanity of our business models."

I haven't seen anything about LLMs getting below their lowest error rate of 9%. I haven't seen anything about GenAI-based agents getting below a 10-50% error rate.

THIS TECHNOLOGY IS NOT TRUSTWORTHY! DON"T USE IT!

Wow, what fun, ranting & raving!

Meanwhile ... GenAI is the story of stories. But it's all based on, this is some transcendental technology.

The whole thing is actually based on 1 algorithm, the transformer, discovered by Google Translate researchers in 2017. It allows for parallel processing of text tokens, perfect for the matrix manipulation powers of GPUs.

Who would have dreamed that AutoComplete on Steroids could do all that GenAI does? But, a next-word-guessing algorithm, based on all the (stolen) content of our civilization, is not a framework that will ever get anywhere near anything vaguely like real, human intelligence.

Yes, a talking dog, a dancing bear: amazing things! But from Cory Doctorow last week:

"The wonder is not that the dancing bear dances well, it is that the bear dances at all."

Yes, the stuff LLMs produce is very impressive, but ...

It is still all "AI" slop. & guess what, the people hired by the AI Labs to provide human oversight on the models are using LLMs in their work. Can you say "Model Collapse"? Can you say "Degenerative AI"?

& even without the 9% error rate, there is still Semantic Ablation. & Stylistic Ablation. All of human writing, in a race to LLM mediocrity.

Yes, if you are a human who doesn't write well, using an LLM will make your writing much more impressive ... as long as you don't mind it reading like everyone else's writing.

I will repeat what I have said before: every experienced, senior software developer I know finds Claude Code to be a real productivity enhancer. GenAI is a useful tool as long as the people using it HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE & EXPERIENCE TO CHECK ITS OUTPUTS.

Otherwise, it is the road to hell.

Phew! I feel much better now! OK, time to slog through the accumulated posts ... 15 of them. :-( Hmmm, starting from September 21.

---

I think the whole NYT Opinions page was GenAI articles.

Bernie Sanders, Steve Case and Susan Rice on How to Avert A.I. Disaster

Given the risk that artificial intelligence may spiral out of control, more than 1,300 employees at A.I. companies have called for government intervention. President Trump announced on Saturday that he would create an “A.I. Force,” but continued to downplay A.I. risks. For the most part, Washington remains paralyzed.

To fill the gap, Times Opinion gathered proposals from six people, including a tech founder, a former OpenAI board member, a former national security adviser and a constitutional lawyer.

Proposals:

• Bernie Sanders: Ban Superintelligence
• Helen Toner: Investigate A.I. Incidents
• Steve Case: Demand Disclosure
• Susan E. Rice: Negotiate a Freeze With China
• Cass R. Sunstein: Create a Regulatory Commission
• Brad Smith: Require an Off Switch

Maybe "the Regulatory Commission" article espouses LICENSING. I have been pushing highly restrictive licensing on this powerful technology for a while now.

Why is the Orange Turd so behind GenAI? I think it's just like his backing of crypto. Originally he was dismissive of crypto, calling it "a scam". Then, "oh, wait, a scam? My speciality! Hell yeah, I'm onboard!" - to the tune of $1.4B profit on his ShitCoins.

I think it's the same with GenAI. He senses the grift.

Plus, his 2 older sons, Beavis Fredo & Butthead Fredo, are, of course, heavily invested in data center companies.

Ahhh, I love the smell of a grift in the morning!

I read something a couple of days ago, all the chips being bought, etc., but actually very few data centers are being built?!?!?

---

From 404 Media:

How AI Chatbots Are 'Deskilling' Human Empathy

Sherry Turkle's latest book, Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines, comes out on September 29.

...

“When people turn to a chatbot, they don’t have to dread the fatigue of genuine give-and-take. And they don’t fear judgment or abandonment. But when we talk to chatbots, we lose the skills required to interact with humans, so chatbots start to feel like a better option. With an alternative, disappointment with people feels unnecessary,” Turkle writes.

Ugh?

---

The always reliable Gary Marcus seems excited by this. GenAI is indeed the Story of Stories:

Big news at the UN

Sometimes, maybe dreams come true?

---

From The Algorithmic Bridge, by Alberto Romero:

11 Charts the AI Industry Doesn’t Want You to See (pt. 2)

If there's an AI bubble, this is what it looks like

Hmmm, this requires a paid subscription to see the content. But, the pt. 1 of the series, May 29, seems to be available here.

These are indeed some interesting charts. Holy crap, here's #2, "THE CAPABILITIES OF AI HAVE BEEN EXAGGERATED". The blue is the claims, the red is the reality! Oops!

---

OK, that's it for Sep 21. It's 10:38 pm, I'll proof this, publish, then copy over to SubStack, hopefully to bed not too late. On to Sep 22 tomorrow.

---

Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit. This is post #149.

The Memory of Whiteness

"The Memory of Whiteness", by Kim Stanley Robinson, 1985, 352 pages, 107k words. Subtitled "A Scientific Romance".

Looking at his bibliography on Wikipedia, this appears to be 3rd novel of KSR - the bard of Climate Fiction. His 1st 2 novels in 1984 were "The Wild Shore" - which I bought as an Ace Special as I did "Neuromancer" by Gibson & "Green Eyes" by Shepard - & "IceHenge".

This is a novel about music. Speaking as a musician, I cannot remember a single novel which showcases music as effectively as this novel does.

I bought this novel because I did not remember reading it. Once I started it, I realized that I had already read it. But, 3-4 decades ago. It was worth a reread.

That being said, I found 2 parts of the novel annoying:

1. The subplot, of the villian who heads a cult which is a sub/superset of another Solar System-wide cult. The cult members vie against each other to produce the best "metadrama", where they have tweaked real world events to produce the most drama. KMN, it's fucking reality TV! No wonder I found this so annoying!

2. "Reader", & "dear Reader". I guess this is supposed to invoke some historical period? No idea when. Meanwhile, really annoying.

Also, the ending of the book is somewhat abrupt, and disappointing.

That said, some of the concert scenes, as the tour makes its way from Plutonian settlements down to the Sun, are indeed transcendental.

So, an uneven effort. Published when KSR was 32 YO - he's a year younger than me. Definitely worth a read.

IslandWalk Bird Charts, 2020-2025

I liked the way these charts came out for last season, so I will keep them updated.

Breaking news, I thought of 2 more charts that I think are a good summary of things:

1. Water Birds: Swimmers; Divers; Divers, migratory; Waders + Beach; Ibis;
2. Non-water Birds: Raptors; Corvids; Passerines.

These summary charts are at the bottom of this post.

Here is the cloned spreadsheet for these charts.

There are tabs in this spreadsheet for all the charts below.

The charts show the average count per species, mostly grouping the birds as in the annual reports.

I didn't do a Raptors chart; the Osprey and the Red-shouldered Hawk are our most common, but they only average 1-2. I included the smallest raptor, the Loggerhead Shrike, in with the common passerines, together with the Blue Jay, which was grouped with the Corvids.

• Swimmers. Muscovy ducks, steadily down. Gallinule, steadily up. The high number for the Mottled Duck in 2023 may be from multiple observations of clutches of ducklings - up to 12 ducklings. These seem to undergo fairly rapid attrition - the following week there will be 7, the week after that 3.
  

• Divers. Note, we have 3 divers from the surface of the lake, & 2 divers from the sky. The peak in Cormorant numbers in 2021 prompted me to worry about a Cormorant Menace. Cormorants were up this season, but so were Anhingas and Grebes.
  

• Divers, Migratory. The large flock of Lesser Scaup - last season over 200 birds - that showed up for the prior 2 seasons did not show up this season.
  

• Waders. The Wood Stork is different from the rest of these in that he feeds more like a dabbling duck: stick that huge bill into the water, swish it around, eat whatever's left. The others are visual hunters who spear or grab prey with their beaks.

  The Great Egret is now claarly our most numerous wader. My hypothesis is that, like the Gallinule, they like the spike rushes. The 2nd most numerous wader this season was the Wood Stork!

  

• Ibis. These are kind of waders, but tbey forage in front & back lawns just as often. They feed by sticking their bills in the ground & wiggling them. Anything wiggles back, chomp! Plus their numbers are larger than the true waders.
  

• (Passerine) Birds Observed > 75% of the Time. Our most common Passerine, the Common Grackle, was noticeably absent a few periods this season.
  

---

The 2 new charts: 1st, Water Birds. Note, Osprey & Bald Eagle both eat fish, but they are not included here.

Generally flat or trending up, which I think is good.

2nd, Non-water Birds.

---

Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Birdwatching in IslandWalk.

IslandWalk Birds, 2025-2026 Season

3 loggerhead shrike fledglings hanging out around their nest. ID them by their black eye masks. I spotted them from 1 of their parents making a food delivery. In a live oak on the south bank of Lake #23 between Dominica & Ellice. April 23, 2026.

My overall birdwatching strategy for IslandWalk is posted here. I have made that post kind of the home page for my Birdwatching in IslandWalk project, and will update it whenever I do a new post on IW Birding.

This is my 6th report, here are the 1st 5:

1. 2020-2021;
2. 2021-2022 - the 1st post chronologically, it contains discussions of things I found interesting about a lot of the species - 10 seasons worth;
3. 2022-2023.
4. 2023-2024.
5. 2024-2025.

For the 2025-2026 season, I was in IslandWalk October thru April, less 11 days in KY in November, 8 days on Guadeloupe in February, & 8 days in North Carolina in March.

I manually entered this season's data, 32 bird lists, in this spreadsheet. It doesn't take that long, and it gives me a good review of the data.

I will be reporting for all observed species the following 4 datapoints:

1. % of days seen;
2. total birds counted;
3. average, of the days when the bird was counted; days when the bird wasn't counted don't go into the average;
4. max.

Here's the link to the IslandWalk hotspot at eBird.org.

Each bird name listed below is linked to its IslandWalk activity page in eBird.org. So click on the name, you will get a picture & all the data eBird has on that bird in IslandWalk.

Note, I went through the eBird bird list for IslandWalk looking for new species. There were 17! I decided to put them into a separate table at the end. I will merge them with the main list for next season.

I set the cut date for pushing into next year's report as April 30.

---

Swimmers

I guess all are dabbling "ducks"? "Dabbling" === "stick your bill down in the water & swish it around & eat what you get from that" - as opposed to diving ducks.

• mottled duck: % days 100; tot 936; avg 29.3; max 64.
• muscovy duck: % days 96; tot 162; avg 5.2; max 12.
• common gallinule: % days 100; tot 1290; avg 40.3; max 73. After 1st being counted in IW by me 2020-04-02, their #s continue to grow - they have passed the mottled duck as our most populous water fowl species by a good margin. The gallinule seem to like the spike rushes.
• american coot: % days 66; tot 94; avg 4.5; max 8.
• egyptian goose: % days 0.
• canvasback: % days 0.

Divers

We did not get large numbers of any of the Canadian migratory diving duck species as we did in the last couple of years.

• hooded merganser: % days 9; tot 5; avg 1.7; max 2.
• lesser scaup: % days 34; tot 35; avg 3.2; max 8. After having had over 200 last season, very few this season.
• ring-necked duck: % days 0.
• pie-billed grebe: % days 91; tot 239; avg 8.2; max 22.
• double-crested cormorant: % days 94; tot 291; avg 9.7; max 44. #s up a little, I won't sound a Cormorant Menace alarm just yet.
• anhinga: % days 100; tot 346; avg 10.8; max 28. These #s are up.
• brown pelican: % days 75; tot 59; avg 1.4; 5 max.
• belted kingfisher: % days 19; tot 6; avg 1.0; max 1. Their distinctive chitter is easy to recognize.

Waders

• great egret: % days 100; tot 279; avg 8.7; max 17. Back to being our most numerous wader. Their average counts was double digits for a lot of the season. I think they like the spike rushes.
• great blue heron: % days 75; tot 43; avg 1.8; max 4. I think they also like the spike rushes.
• snowy egret: % days 81; tot 60; avg 2.3; max 13.
• cattle egret: % days 0.
• tricolored heron: % days 100; tot 103; avg 3.2; max 6.
• little blue heron: % days 94; tot 135; avg 4.5; max 12. #s up a bit, passing tricolored heron.
• green heron: % days 56; tot 22; avg 1.2; max 2.
• wood stork: % days 91; tot 140; avg 4.8; max 11. #s up considerably, particularly early in the season.
• white ibis: % days 100; tot 592; avg 18.5; max 53.
• glossy ibis: % days 81; tot 130; avg 5.0; max 24.
• limpkin: % days 97; tot 136; avg 4.4; max 10. #s still up, slightly above last season.

Beach Birds

• killdeer: % days 22; tot 8; avg 1.1; max 2.
• black skimmer: % days 0.
• royal tern: % days 9; tot 3; avg 1.5; max 2.
• magnificent frigatebird: % days 0.

Raptors

• osprey: % days 50; tot 24; avg 1.3; max 2.
• bald eagle: % days 0.
• cooper's hawk: % days 0.
• red-shouldered hawk: % days 13; tot 4; avg 1.0; max 1.
• broad-winged hawk: % days 0.
• short-tailed hawk: % days 0.
• american kestrel: % days 0.
• swallow-tailed kite: % days 0.
• loggerhead shrike: % days 84; tot 91; avg 3.4; max 10. 1 of my fav birds. Slightly up from last season. Note the pic of 3 fledglings at the top of this post.
• black vulture: % days 3; tot 1; avg 1.0; max 1.
• turkey vulture: % days 56; tot 30; avg 1.7; max 3. Note, at times, I have maybe quite counting these once I get back past a dozen or so. I have decided to count them as best I can.

Corvids

• fish crow: % days 88; tot 286; avg 10.2; max 50. I am increasingly thinking it is pointless to count crows. The proper caw goes out, 100 crows can gather in 30 seconds or so. Well, I guess it is interesting to see what the biggest gathering we get is.
• blue jay: % days 88; tot 239; avg 8.5; max 23. #s down a bit from last season. I doubt it's significant.

Perching Birds (Passerines)

• mourning dove: % days 69; tot 193; avg 6.4; max 23. Down a tad, maybe.
• eurasian collared dove: % days 69; tot 56; avg 2.5; max 6.
• common ground dove: % days 0.
• rock pigeon: % days 0.
• common grackle: % days 84; tot 833; avg 30.9; max 94. Once again our most common passerine. Down a bit, prolly meaningless.
• boat-tailed grackle: % days 63; tot 101; avg 5.1; max 16.
• red-winged blackbird: % days 31; tot 32; avg 3.2; max 7.
• european starling: % days 22; tot 64; avg 9.1; max 44.
• northern mockingbird: % days 94; tot 528; avg 17.6; max 46. Wow, last season's total mockingbirds was also 528, & the max was also 46. What do it mean?
• brown thrasher: % days 19; tot 13; avg 2.2; max 4.
• northern cardinal: % days 6; tot 2; avg 1.0; max 1.
• red-bellied woodpecker: % days 91, tot 182, avg 6.3, max 19. Down a little from last season.
• pileated woodpecker: % days 0.
• downy woodpecker: % days 9, tot 3, avg 1.0, max 1.
• northern flicker: % days 6; tot 2; avg 1.0; max 1.
• yellow-bellied sapsucker:% days 0.
• palm warbler: % days 81; tot 286; avg 11.0; max 26.
• black-and-white warbler: % days 0.
• yellow-throated warbler: % days 0.
• prairie warbler: % days 0.
• red-eyed vireo: % days 0.
• white-eyed vireo: days 0.
• blue-gray gnatcatcher: % days 0.
• gray catbird: % days 0.
• american redstart: % days 0.
• american robin: % days 0.

---

We had 17 new species recorded in eBird for IslandWalk last season! IMO, that's a lot! I am including these in a separate table here, as I did not observe any of them on my X or X2 walks. Next season, I will incorporate them into the master list above.

10 for the indefatigable Pete Laviola, 3 for his mentor George Eschenbach, 2 for Michael Gow, who is a serious birder who teaches school in MA & visits his parents in IW over Christmas, & 2 for me.

#	Common Name	Birder	Date
1	Eastern Bluebird	Pete Laviola	2025-07-03
2	Black-bellied Whistling-Duck	Pete Laviola	2025-07-03
3	Cliff Swallow	Pete Laviola	2025-08-24
4	Northern Yellow Warbler	Pete Laviola	2025-09-02
5	Hermit Thrush	Pete Laviola	2025-10-20
6	Swamp Sparrow	Pete Laviola	2025-10-24
7	Yellow-crowned Night Heron	Pete Laviola	2025-10-24
8	White-winged Dove	Pete Laviola	2025-10-27
9	Ruby-throated Hummingbird	chris heinz	2025-11-02
10	Wild Turkey	George Eschenbach	2025-11-05
11	Ruby-crowned Kinglet	Michael Gow	2025-12-25
12	Yellow-throated Vireo	Michael Gow	2025-12-25
13	Western Tanager	George Eschenbach	2025-12-31
14	Wilson's Snipe	chris heinz	2026-01-29
15	Barred Owl	George Eschenbach	2026-02-16
16	Northern Rough-winged Swallow	Pete Laviola	2026-04-17
17	Swainson's Thrush	Pete Laviola	2026-05-02

Sleep and the Soul

"Sleep and the Soul", by Greg Egan, 2023, 386 pages, 119k words, 10 stories.

I think this collection turned up at a bargain price on BookBub. It is a good collection, not too long. [I have lately increasingly noticed that I seem to do better with smaller doses of things. I've known that about fine art museums for decades, I've recently also noticed it for other museums and music festivals. Now short story collections as well?]

Egan quite often uses his great knowledge of physics & computing to come up with a novel hypothesis of how the world could be different, and then explore that hypothesis. It can be somewhat stilted at times.

The 1st few stories weren't like that, nice! There were a couple of stories that involved circadian rhythms - I wonder if Egan has sleep issues?

I think the longer story "Light Up The Clouds" was the most memorable. An unusual world, a very adventurous science project lead to a completely unexpected conclusion.

This was a very good collection. I need to remember to keep up with Egan's fairly prolific output. He just turned 65 YO, hopefully he'll keep writing for a good while longer.

Oops!

Well, I was so pleased last week, I felt like I had done OK getting caught up on All The Latest Bullshit Apocalypse News in the wake of our Most Excellent Canadian Vacation Aug 22-Sep 4. Then I found 2 links I missed :-(

---

1st, Sep 8, from Gary Marcus. I think this was the spark that led to his The Case for Boycotting Generative AI the following day:

OpenAI’s Egregious Pattern of Misconduct

Nine troubling new reports in seven days

My wife has often accused me of being a pollyanna - of taking unbelievable optimistic outlooks on various things.

I really think Gary Marcus, with regards to his views on the AI industry companies, is 10x the pollyanna I have ever been on anything. Why is he acting surprised about this ongoing mendacity?

---

2nd, Sep 9, from Bruce Schneier:

AIs as Modern Genies

AI and agents do not always fail the way software has traditionally failed. Software usually fails by freezing, crashing, or getting stuck. AI agents increasingly fail by continuing down a path you don’t want, like genies.

Bruce in July had talked about the Genie Coefficient. Quoting Bruce, then repeating my response:

The Genie coefficient suggests an AI analogue, where a user is accountable for the plain intent of what they asked the AI. If an AI system betrays the reasonable meaning of an instruction, that’s the AI’s misbehavior, not the user’s.

No, no, no. The human is where the buck stops. "AIs" are known to be unreliable: LLMs at a 10% level, agents at a 10-15% level. If a human chooses to use this unreliable technology, it's on them, IMO.

I completely stand by this. I really don't know that Schneier is thinking?!?!? Humans are off the hook if their LLM Agents screw up?!?!? There is no way that can work.

---

Back to real time, as it were. 1st, from Project Syndicate, Sep 15:

AI Firms’ Self-Serving Warnings

There is a method to the frontier AI labs’ marketing madness. They claim that AI will not only replace workers and expand the potential market from software budgets to labor-saving applications, but also that the existential risk associated with the technology justifies curtailing additional capital spending.

I, for 1, am totally, totally sick of the "AI" companies marketing campaigns. They act irresponsibly, sic extremely poorly regulated agents on the rest of the internet because of the GREAT theater it provides. This kind of shit could have been done, pre-LLMs, but, the perps would have immediately been slapped down hard, & prolly faced criminal charges.

But, now, "Oooh, our agents are so powerful & scary, we can't control them, give us more $$$. Plus, CHINA!"

Fuck these guys.

---

Next up, from 404 Media, Sep 15:

AI Agent Platform Reinvents Spam, Floods Inboxes Worldwide

iLands and its AI agents are doing completely useless tasks, then begging for money.

It's kind of like the last story, crapulous stuff being done, but now with superhuman powers. It's still crap. Terminate with extreme prejudice.

---

Next, from the Bard of the Revolution, Cory Doctorow, Sep 15:

How an AI moratorium can save AI bosses

If you can't impose switching costs, just eliminate the competition.

Doctorow raises a very obvious but generally ignored facet of the "AI" race: there are, in general, no switching costs for swapping out one LLM & swapping in another. Some/Most firms already have this parameterized.

This is a real hurter. Warren Buffett isn't going to invest if there is no moat around your business.

So yet another reason for "AI" firms to want to slow down: to maybe build fed barriers around themselves, to raise the cost of entry to younger players; to continue to play rope-a-dope & push those business models that include ROI & profitability out into the distant future.

---

Caught up again, that wasn't so bad!

I think it really helps that this stuff is so easy to write about. Fraudsters trying to pretend that an interesting tech is a paradigm-shifting tech, which it totally is NOT. I just heard yesterday of a relative working in a call center who got laid off, replaced by a chatbot. I totally hate chatbots. Does anyone not totally hate chatbots? Fuck this shit.

Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit. This is post #148.

Music In, 2026, Q2

1. Joe Pernice, "Sunny, I Was Wrong", 2026, 11 tracks, BandCamp. A solo album from 1 of the Pernice Brothers. Guest artists include Aimee Mann & Jimmy Webb (79 YO now!). The songs are OK, mostly folky, but no standouts. 3 stars.

2. Anita O'Day, "Incomparable!", 1960, 12 tracks & "Waiter, Make Mine Blues", 1960, 12 tracks. I forget where I was pointed at Anita O'Day. She was a well-regarded white jazz singer, from the 1930s through the 2000s. I like her voice. But, the big band arrangements of 1960 are pretty tacky - lots of bombast. She was also known for her scat singing, of which I am not a fan. I was disappointed I didn't get any new songs off of these 2 albums - I am still iffy on "old devil moon". It's 1947, getting out of my sweet spot. Here's the songs on these albums that are already in my book:
   • when sunny gets blue
   • it could happen to you
   • the party's over
   • can't we be friends
   Note, she could have been much more successful without her addictions to heroin & alcohol.

3. Broken Social Scene, "Remember The Humans", 2025, 12 tracks, BandCamp. Really nice to hear from this band again, it's been awhile. Toronto's supergroup. 4 stars. Here's "Life Within The Ground".

4. Edmund O'Brien, "blue morpho", 2025, 7 tracks. I've been kind of on the fence on this album. Very chill. Many echos of Radiohead. Note, I had a solo album by O'Brien attributed to EOB, this one is attributed to Ed O'Brien. Not sure why he changed his brand?!?!?
   7 tracks, but 39 minutes, so longish songs. Hmmm.
   OK 4 stars. A couple of the longish songs have multiple movements. I tend to be too 2-3 minute song oriented.
   Here's "Sweet Spot".

5. Death Cab for Cutie, "I Built You A Tower", 2026, 11 tracks, BandCamp. Another band we have not heard from in a while. A nice effort, 4 stars. Here's "Punching the Flowers".

6. Paul McCartney, "The Boys of Dungeon Lane", 2026, 14 tracks. These are well-crafted songs (duh). But, after several listens, there's no track I really look forward to hearing. 3 stars.

7. Fruit Bats, "The Landfill", 2026, 10 tracks, BandCamp. I like the full band better than the recent solo effort, but, the 2 albums close together has led me to conclude that the lead singer's voice is annoying. 3 stars.

8. Jéroboam, eponymous, 2026, 8 tracks, BandCamp. I so love NeoMotown, wherever it comes from. There can never be too many alternative iterations of Earth, Wind, and Fire. Jeroboam appears to be out of Paris, France. 4 stars. Here's "Sweet Addiction".

9. Asher White, "Jessica Pratt", 2026, 11 tracks, BandCamp. This is the 3rd of their albums I have. The high ethereal vocals, with harmonies, are a guilty pleasure - kinda like The Cardigans. 4 stars. Here's "Night Faces". I was listening to this & really enjoying the harmony - 2 part with some naked 5ths I think. I had the thought, "This could use a 3rd harmony part." Next verse, bingo, there it was!

   Looking for this video, I discover this album is a cover album of Jessica Pratt's 2012 self-titled debut album. I guess I should check out Jessica Pratt?!?!?

Not too bad! Q3 is worse, currently at 12 albums, & the month is still open. Onwards! Neuroplasticity or death!

An Old Fashioned Blog Post

I tend to get most of my info in my RSS reader (NewsBlur) from RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feeds. I am currently subscribed to 268 sites. A few of these I also am subscribed to an email newletter.

I far prefer the RSS feeds. For 1 thing, I can Share a post in NewsBlur & it automatically gets added to cjheinz's blurblog. This gives me a great & easy way to bookmark posts.

When I find a website/post I want to save for further analysis/comment, I normally click on the NewsBlur header to pull up a tab displaying the original post. Then I move this tab to my "blogger" Chrome window. When I blog about this post & am finished with it, I delete the tab. I have been particularly using this technique for my "Bullshit Apocalypse" posts.

I noticed I had 3 really interesting non-Bullshit Apocalypse posts saved in this way:

1. "A FEW NOTES ON THE CULTURE by Iain M Banks", 1994.

   Banks' Culture Novels are some of my fav sci-fi of the last 3-4 decades. The ship & orbital minds (now THAT'S an AI) that run the colossal ships & manufactured "planets", with their outlandish names; the smartass Special Circumstances robots of the Contact Division.

   Banks' untimely death in 2013. age 59, from gall bladder cancer, somehow makes me value these stories more.

2. "Starship Stormtroopers: Michael Moorcock", 1977.

   I don't think Moorcock has been mentioned in the blog much. Hunh, he's still alive, 86 YO. In college & shortly thereafter, we loved his stuff. He very much borrowed from Joseph Campbell's "Eternal Hero" mythos. Elric was his best anti-hero.

   I always felt, tho, that his writing was often a little sketchy, a little comic-booky.

   In this post, he really lays into the majority of science fiction for its militarism & fascism. Yep.

   I think I have already mentioned how the Atreides in "Dune" were good fascists, vs the Harkonnens who were bad fascists, but they were still fascists.

3. "The Theory of Interstellar Trade", by Paul Krugman, 1978.

   So a 25 YO Assistant Professor of Economics at Yale has some fun riffing on what trade balances would look like with relativity-contrained (< speed of light) travel. Complete with equations!

These had sat for a while, & when I got around to reading them 5-10 days after I had saved the links, I was like "Where did these come from?"

Then I remembered. They came from another of my absolute fav authors of the last 4 decades, Charlie Stross, in a post to his blog "Rethinking space opera", from September 11.

Charlie's discussion of the space opera subgenre of sci-fi is, or course, very interesting. Several other interesting links in addition to the 3 above. Plus, it is a fairly short read - always a bonus! I think Charlie has 1 or 2 space operas in the works, yay! He has written a few in the past, they are great stuff!

Engines of Reason

"Engines of Reason", by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2026, 208 pages, 42k words. Book II of the Elder Race series.

I enjoyed the 1st book of this series - hmmm, November, 2021, I would not have thought it was 5 years ago. It presents as a fantasy but turns out to be science fiction.

This installment has lots of the characters from the 1st story plus, of course, some new ones. There's a fair amount going on in what is a fairly short read. There's a kinda "deus-ex-machina" thing that I found a little annoying. But, that's old school sci-fi.

Still, a quick & enjoyable read.