“Vegetable Pigtail”
Olympus E-M10 IV, M.Zuiko 60mm f/2.8 Macro lens @ f/16, 1/30s, ISO 3200. Along the Sweet Creek Falls Trail.
“Amanita Goblin”
Olympus E-M10 IV, M.Zuiko 60mm f/2.8 Macro lens @ f/8, 1/60s, ISO 3200. Along the Crawfish Trail.
“Starry Starry Moss”
Olympus E-M10 IV with 14-42 kit lens @ 42mm, f/6.3, 1/80s, ISO 1600. Along the Adams Mountain Trail.
“Misty Mountain Morning”
Olympus E-M10 IV with 14-42 kit lens @ 14mm, f/10, 1/80s, ISO 3200. Along the Adams Mountain Trail.
Finished: The Dream Master, by Roger Zelazny 📚. Not IMO one of Zelazny’s better works, even if it did win the Nebula; this story of a psychiatrist who literally shares dreams with a student seems a bit self-conscious and over-extended at this point. But we don’t have enough Zelazny books (due to his premature death) and I’ll continue to hang on to and reread this 40 cent Ace paperback.
A Strange Phrase Keeps Turning Up in Scientific Papers, But Why?
Why? Because AI is quickly turning our ability to distinguish truth to mush.
“Go Away I’m Bzzy”
Olympus TG6 with Ultimaxx 0.43x Macro Lens @ 18mm, f/6.3, 1/320s, ISO 100. Trailside at Mount Pisgah.
“Camas Road”
Olympus TG6 @ 18mm, f/4.9, 1/200s, ISO 100. Along the base of Mount Pisgah.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan arrested by federal authorities at Courthouse
Have some more police state shit.
Warhol print accidentally thrown away by Dutch town hall
Oops.
And it wasn’t even a soup can. That’d be understandable.
- Trump insists China called, and trade deals are weeks away: Time interview
- China tells Trump: If you want trade talks, cancel tariffs
I never expected to live in a world where the CCP was a more trustworthy news source than POTUS.
“Monkeyflower”
Olympus TG6 with Ultimaxx 0.43x Macro Lens @ 18mm, f/6.3, 1/400s, ISO 160. Trailside at Mount Pisgah.
“Floral Firework”
Olympus TG6 with Ultimaxx 0.43x Macro Lens @ 19mm, f/4.9, 1/400s, ISO 400. Purple Sanicle flower trailside at Mount Pisgah.
“Hazy Valley”
Olympus TG6 @ 13.6mm, f/5.6, 1/500s, ISO 100. View from atop Mount Pisgah.
“Waiting for the Wind”
Olympus TG6 with Ultimaxx 0.43x Macro Lens @ 18mm, f4.9, 1/250s, ISO 800. On the trail at Mount Pisgah.
Trump Organization is selling 2028 hats
If you think this is just a joke, you haven’t been paying very close attention.
Judge pauses parts of Trump’s sweeping executive order on voting
More sanity from the judiciary.
AI models can learn to conceal information from their users
This should not surprise anyone. The whole notion of “alignment” (convincing increasingly-powerful AIs to follow human-set rules) is a pipe dream, because of increasingly clever models and bad human actors who don’t care about such things.
Finished: Townsend of Lichfield, by James Branch Cabell 📚. This volume of Cabell’s collected works starts with an essay explaining why the actual book Townsend of Lichfield was never written. It then proceeds to collect a bunch of Cabellian miscellany: prefaces to other books, bits of verse, short stories, court documents. This is far down the rabbit hole and likely appeals to almost no modern readers. But I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Finished: Imperial Woman, by Pearl S. Buck 📚. Next up in my trip through Buck’s major works is this romantic novel of Tzu Hsi (these days usually rendered Cixi), the last Empress of China. I suspect there is more romance than history here, but it’s a sweeping story that I knew nothing about, so that doesn’t bother me.