Columbus, Thanksgiving, and the Mess that is History

A repeat from 2022. I’ve tweaked some wording, and updated a time period. Otherwise it still stands.

So, today is Columbus Day in the US, or was until a few years ago, when Pres. Biden declared it also (or instead) Indigenous Americans Day. To in addition to Native American and Pacific Islander heritage month, apparently. In Canada, it is Thanksgiving, because they want to travel and celebrate harvest while the weather is still fall, instead of “Only one meter of snow to move before we can clear the ice and start the game!” season. OK, not all of Canada is as cold as the stereotype, but October is still generally nicer weather than late November.

Columbus Day used to be a day to celebrate the courage of the men who explored the world in the 1400s-1500s, telling other people what they found and literally putting the Western Hemisphere on the map. It is also a day for people of Italian ancestry to point to all the Italians who explored for other governments and say, “We did that!” Yes, the Vikings got to the Americas first, and the Basques, and possibly a few other individuals and small groups, but those people either kept things hush-hush to protect really good fishing, or their records were buried in archives for so long that no one remembered them, and then didn’t believe them. I don’t remember Columbus and the others being venerated as being saints and paragons of great behavior, but more for their courage and dogged determination.

Now Columbus is supposed to have been an evil exploiter (and con man) who encouraged the genocide of Native Americans. When I had a student tell me this, I was a bit startled and asked where that information came from. Howard Zinn, as it turns out, who copied a Dutch writer who cut and pasted bits of several of Columbus’ letters and journal entries in order to make the writer’s point about how horrible Europeans were compared to the Noble Savages or the New World*.

I’m not sure how much of Columbus’ sales pitch to Queen Isabella was fake, and how much was his not knowing what he didn’t know, and how much was rabid optimism that distances on the ocean were shorter than they appeared. He did find something, even if it wasn’t what he and Queen Isabella wanted. He discovered the Americas in the sense that he published information and told other people what he found, unlike the Basque fishermen. People saw and read his report, unlike the Viking sagas about Vineland.

Columbus was not a saint. He had lousy personnel management skills, based on what happened around him. He probably should not have left his men alone unsupervised in the islands, but . . . 20/20 hindsight, and let’s face it, the Spanish had just finished the Reconquista. They’d been primed for 700 or so years to assume the worst about “the other side,” and the Carrib Indians were not exactly pure sweetness and delight. When the surrounding peoples beg the Spanish to protect them, sort of like with Cortez and the Aztecs, you get the feeling that the accusations of cannibalism and other things had some truth to them. The Spanish, English, French and others were not nice. Good, sometimes, but not nice. Neither were some of the locals they met.

I like my history “warts and all.” No saints, no “the good guys were practically perfect in every way!” versions of the Noble Savage or Noble Non-European. Or Noble Non-male, or whatever the author is hawking. I want complicated people with the stories told as honestly as we can based on the data we have at the moment. We learn more, or old illusions get overturned by new evidence from new-to-us sources. I don’t like some of the updated stuff as much as I liked the older version, but if the data support a change, and the data are good, well, then I grit my teeth and adjust.

Let’s give Columbus his due. He was a brilliant sailor, a decent human by the standards of his culture, and showed what might be possible. He wasn’t a saint. Nor was he Earl of Hell incarnate. Native Americans were not all pacifists who lived in harmony with Nature until Europeans arrived to toss the serpent into Eden. Vikings were raiders and warriors and slave traders as well as explorers and farmers and literate. Let us give thanks for complex people, and for the world they made.

And keep your stick on the ice! 😉

*The letters were actually part of complaints Columbus had made to other officials, trying to get them to stop the practice. Later, Charles V opposed slavery, and did not want it in the New World (aside from judicial penalties of involuntary servitude.) Neither were successful with their attempts to rein in the Conquistadors and others.

Make Lovely Loam in Three Easy Steps

1. Clean gutters.
2. Wait 10 months, multiple dust and rain storms, and be sure that trees shed on the roof.
3. Remove loam from gutter once it overflows onto the front doorstep.

When I got up on the ladder yesterday and beheld grass growing in the roof trough, I knew I should have done this earlier.

I have been ignoring the house gutters for the most part. The rain a few weeks ago cascaded off the usual places, both otherwise things seemed fine. Then I saw the clumps of black dirt outside the front door. The gutter and roof trough had filled with stuff to the point that it had begun to overflow. Not rainwater overflow, but dirt and leaves and so on. This does not fix itself, so on Saturday I got the medium-sized ladder, a curved-bladed hoe, and tackled the problem.

That’s when I saw the grass growing in the accumulated compost on the roof. The trough is where the T of the house bends. The main north-south part of the house has a 90 degree bend at the front door. South of the bend is the family part of the house, north is the living room et cetera. The roof peaks over the length of the house (roof crest), and again over the bedrooms and bathrooms. Into this trough falls leaves, rain, and dirt when the wind moves the topsoil.

Over the last ten-eleven months, enough stuff had accumulated and started to decompose that it made a rich, black compost that could support grass. I used the hoe to very carefully scrape the debris down to within grabbing distance. Then I tossed it into the yard. Once I’d gotten as much out of the trough as I could, I climbed down, rested the hoe against the wall, and returned to the fray. I cleaned the gutter corner out by hand, tossing large handfuls of damp dirt, leaves, sticks, and sort of into the grass and other plants below. It only took about ten minutes to dig out, more or less. I’m sure I missed some stuff. However, I had places to go, and other chores to do, so that sufficed. It was no longer dropping dirt on the unwary (and the mailman).

It is supposed to rain this coming week. I’ll probably go up on the ladder again on Monday and clean out another place that tends to get choked. The rest will have to wait until after the trees shed next month. I don’t enjoy doing the gutters twice. About half of them can’t be reached with a water wand, and half of those need a special ladder to access. I don’t have that, so I clean what I can physically reach.

I keep reminding myself that it is a good shoulder and lats work out. And it protects the house and foundation. I still don’t love cleaning the gutters. (No, getting on the roof and attacking from above is Not An Option. Or so I have been told. Firmly. With great vehemence.)

Caturday: Solar Powered

I was blinded by the light! Or at least was seeing after-images after petting the cat the other afternoon. Now that the sun has moved to the correct angle, and it is cool enough that opening the back door won’t bake the house, Jase T. Cat demands to bask.

He really does glow in direct sunlight.

A Monarch Surge

It has been several years since this many Monarch butterflies have been seen in the central Texas Panhandle. It’s surprising, given the drought, even though at the moment there is plenty (a bit too plenty in a few places, still) of water. On Tuesday I counted thirteen monarchs, two Queens, and a few other butterflies just in the front flower bed. Wednesday had even more, with big orange butterflies visible in ones and twos all the way from Day Job to the house. There are Monarch reports from all over the city.

I suspect there are several things at work. One is the colder weather to the north pushing everything toward warmer climes. The first (brown) goldfinch appeared yesterday, along with a wren. The wren might be local, but I’m not sure. Hummingbirds have been in and out as well. It is October, and migration season is getting underway.

Butterfly on butterfly bush. Source: https://www.planetnatural.com/butterfly-bush/

Two, more people are planting native plants and butterfly-friendly things. Salvia, butterfly bushes, mist flower, and other varieties, along with fennel (swallowtails) and milkweed (Monarchs) encourage the insects to linger a little, refueling. The butterflies are about to rip the mist flower out of the ground, it looks like, there are so many of them. The house next door had mist flower first, that’s where we learned about it. RedQuarters has a very healthy stand, and it is covered in orange butterflies right now. Alas, the people who are repainting the next door house had to take out the mist flower and other plantings (some of which really needed to be removed or at least whacked back), so the butterflies are concentrating at RedQuarters. Other houses in the area also have butterfly-friendly plants, so we’re not the only stop available. One of the honeysuckle is also blooming again, attracting a few visitors.

Three, the migration moves from year to year. Part of it is weather, part of it is water, part of it is … We don’t know yet, but the butterflies do.

I’m savoring the sight of orange wings diving, fluttering, and gliding through my world. I tend to get wrapped up in my daily round, and it does me good to be jarred out by reminders that the world is a lot bigger place than just Day Job and RedQuarters. Chilly mornings, warmer afternoons, light winds, and a late-season surge of flowers make the world a better place. Beautiful, ephemeral reminders of other places and journeys bring smiles and excitement. The neighbor kids have been coming over to ooh and ahh at the show. That is very good.

The world isn’t safe. It isn’t easy (like gardening). But it can be very, very good.

Not Bad, but I’ll Keep Buying Human Albums

The Tube of You had a few AI enhanced or generated Goth and dark music channels that popped up on the sidebar when I was listening to Xandria’s “Rose on the Grave of Love.” Out of curiosity I clicked and listened. The graphics were nicely glamor Goth, and the music had the right sort of sound for symphonic goth music. The female vocals seemed to be a blend of several bands (Visions of Atlantis, Xandria, and Sharon del Adel of Within Temptation). The songs with lyrics tended to be on the stereotypical “dying trees, guttering candles, ashes of lost love” end of the spectrum, which goes with the general sound and the imagery.

It was not bad background sound-wallpaper. However, I would not buy it to add to my collection. In a way, the vocals were too smooth and almost sweet, unvarying in their tone and quality. Human voices, even after the use of AutoTune (TM) [blech], have rough spots and edges. If you listen to Xandria’s last two albums, you hear when the vocalists shift from “rock register” or speaking voice into head tone and back. That’s a human thing. There are little catches and flaws, timbre shifts. Sometimes the guys push it too far (I’m looking at early Twilight Force, here) up or down, and it comes through clearly in the performance. I might wince, but I know I am hearing a person. Sometimes it actually adds to the feeling of the music.

The albums I tend to listen to have more variety, fast and slow, ballads and otherwise, upbeat and more meditative. Thus far, the AI “albums” have been more steady state. Now, they are probably generated to get a certain mood or feeling, something for background during writing, perhaps. When I write, I need a certain mood set. Then I immerse in the work and stop consciously hearing the music, unless something jars me out of what I’m trying to write. Then I usually find a different song or album and dive in once more. If I’m actively listening, then I want the variety of tempo, mood, and sound.

One reason LLM/AI generated music seems to appeal is how homogenized pop vocals have become. I like to blame AutoTune(TM), but marketing also plays a role. If the computer sounds like the humans, then why not have the computer do it, with your lyrics, or computer generated lyrics on a theme you suggested, in the style you recommend? If you want to hear, oh, Cyndi Lauper doing a ballad about lost love in the style of folk-rock, the computer can probably get close (perhaps not with her, because her voice is distinct, but more recent singers? Oh yeah.) The channels on YT that I listened to owed a LOT to Nightwish and Within Temptation, without WT’s edges.

That’s also true of text. I’m mildly amused by all the cooking web sites that seem to be computer generated. Same template, same basic recipes, same chipper tone … Now, it could be that the software is shaping presentation, and people are basing their text style on podcasting and cooking shows. But the feeling is a little CG-ish. Longer things I’ve read that are computer generated have no “voice.” For summaries of legal documents, that’s not generally a bad thing, but essays and books need to read like an individual.

There are things LLMs and computer music programs do well. There are people who have used computer-assist programs to generate some very entertaining and listenable music. Too, I suspect having a song run through one of those programs to see “is this close to what I think it should be” will save time and orchestration costs, or instrumentation frustration. I’m not certain it will fully replace human composers and performers.

I could be wrong. I’m not Nostradamus, or a Futurist, or computer programmer.

Book Review: The Medium is Still the Message

Havers, Grant M. The Medium is Still the Message: Marshall McLuhan for Our Time. (Chicago: Northern Illinois University Press, 2025) Kindle e-book.

Short version: A thematic study of Marshall McLuhan’s work, bringing it forward to current media.

Long version: The Canadian philosopher of media and technology, Marshall McLuhan, is best known in popular culture for the aphorism, “The medium is the message,” meaning that the way information is transmitted becomes what is being transmitted, as well as shaping how ideas are presented (so that they fit the medium in use.) Havers picks up on McLuhan’s work, and considers various social trends and media in light of McLuhan’s broad body of lectures and writings.

The book begins with an overview of McLuhan’s life and influences, as well as his more important works. Then it digs into his concepts and how they could be applied to the modern (2025) media world. I have not read much of McLuhan’s work, since I am not a media critic or someone who uses non-text media in general, so this was a steep learning curve. Too, it has been a while since I read much philosophy. It helps if you are familiar with basic Catholic doctrine, as well as Plato and Aristotle’s major ideas (Plato’s Cave featured prominently in McLuhan’s thoughts about media). Havers is a good writer, so the difficulty is with the reader, not the book.

The essays then consider how McLuhan would weigh modern American politics. I found myself arguing with the book, and had to remind myself that 1) McLuhan was Canadian and viewed American politics through a very different frame of reference. 2) He did his best to remain outside and “above” the American political fray, so that he could be more objective as he looked at political use of media and social influences on politics. Since I am a fish in water as far as American politics [alas!], some of his ideas jarred. This is not a bad thing – one of McLuhan’s goals was to encourage people to take a more distant view of various media in order to consider what effects they might have on culture and society as a whole. That the entire “US Project” is based on the assumption that the populace are literate and read carefully, taking time to analyze and consider various ideas and political claims, was not something I’d ever thought about. It tends to explain some of the recent fractures visible in American culture and thus politics.

That lack of anticipation for the effects of various media is one of McLuhan’s major points and concerns. Gutenberg did not consider what would happen when books and other printed media became far more widely available, and literacy more common. To be literate means working with ideas and stories in a different way from oral and aural societies. Cultures with writing tend to be more linear in their view of time and events rather than cyclical (Judaism and Christianity as compared to animist traditions, for example). What happens when a print-centric culture shifts to more visual media? How does that affect memory, and analytical thinking, and social assumptions based on those? McLuhan worried that the inventors and popularizers of radio, TV, and movies did not consider those effects. This portion of the book ties in very well with contemporary arguments about the results of exposure to short-form, visual media that are absorbed without effort rather than grappled with. I grumbled mightily in 2020 because I found myself constrained by the software for remote-teaching. I had to shape the testing and study materials to fit the medium, not the reverse, and I resented it heartily. Still do.

The book ends with McLuhan’s ideas about the apocalypse, and what endings mean. He was not anti-technology or anti-media, nor did he desire books to vanish. He was also a devout Christian (Roman Catholic) who gently criticized some of the policies put into place with Vatican II. How faith deals with media should be a major consideration for organized religions, and something he felt was lacking. We live in Plato’s Cave, where we see flickers of truth shaped by various media. How do we get out of that cave, and see the actual real world of ideas and technology?

One point McLuhan and Havers both made was that we did not truly consider all the possible effects of technology before unleashing it on the world. The one exception I thought of might be nuclear power and nuclear weapons, but that is one out of thousands. Moveable-type printing, machines for making (and cleaning) glass bottles, canning food, cars, TV, hormonal birth control, social media, and now LLMs/AI were all released or unleashed without a great deal of serious thought about second and third-order effects. I suspect in part because we could not know at the start what might happen.

The book is dense but very well written. I had to read slowly, but I also was unfamiliar with many of McLuhan’s writings, so that required careful study.

I’d recommend the book to people involved with various media and advertising, people familiar with McLuhan’s work who wonder how he might have written or lectured about modern forms of media, and those concerned with how certain technologies are shaping society. It is worth reading and “chewing on,” so to speak, even if you disagree with his take on certain topics.

FTC Disclaimer: I purchased this book for my own use, and received no remuneration from the author or publisher for this review.

Tuesday Tidbit: Hunter and Son

In which Jude and Levi work in the woodlot.

Drip, drip, drip. Two cold drops found the gap between collar and skin, despite his black and silver braid. Jude twitched at the chill but did not stop. The heavy mulch bucket would grow no lighter. The ground gave a little, but did not squelch as he followed his son through the woodlot, carrying buckets of compost for the cherry trees, and a shovel. The woodlot’s oaks, walnut, elms, and other trees blocked some of the cool, wet wind, but did nothing for the wet dirt and leaves under his boots. A jay fussed, echoed by two squirrels that insulted his intelligence. 

“Dad, how much longer is it supposed to rain?” Levi skirted a mound of scat. “Raccoon.”

“Large raccoon, and no more for the rest of this week.” Which is what the forecasters had said the week before, and another inch had fallen, followed by chilly weather and skies the gray of lead. The days and tempers both grew shorter. 

“When will Claire come home?”

Their arrival at the cherry trees spared him from a rapid answer. They’d staged all the compost over the past week. Now they could fertilize the trees, protecting the roots for the winter as well. Jude tipped his one bucket onto the pile and set it aside as Levi added his pair. Then he handed Levi the smaller shovel and said, “Her uncle hopes Monday next week, after Mass.”

She’d moved in with her blood kin, Paul Schmitt and his wife, for the last three weeks. While the Commonwealth Child Protective Service considered her transfer of custody and adoption request, it was easier for her to schedule the interviews and lawyer meetings if she stayed in town. Too, Paul Schmitt had primary legal custody. 

“I miss her. Even if she is a girl,” Levi added. Girls were now icky. 

“Your mother and I do as well. So, you start here, and I will begin at the far end.”

Levi scowled at the mound, then started work. “Why doesn’t AJ help, sir?”

Jude had to smile a little, since his son looked the other way. “For one, he is having his check-up this afternoon. Two, he would stir and scatter instead of mulch.” AJ remained overly fond of playing in rather than transporting dirt, unless he transported it on his person, something his mother frowned upon. Getting it off the boy and onto the ground posed yet another point of difficulty. Jude adjusted his gloves and began moving the compost. Even with his weak hand, he still shoveled more than Levi.

A third-grade grumble muttered through the wet October air, then subsided. He’d learned, at last, perhaps, that grousing about farm chores did not make them disappear. Jude agreed with his son in general, not that Levi needed to know that. The quiet afternoon grew warm as they worked, and Levi quickly shed his jacket. 

Great God be thanked, the wet season had waited until after all but the last apples and nuts had been harvested. The farming year had been sufficiently rough without rain during harvest. Late frosts had caught the fruit trees, reducing the crop by a third. They had been due. Jude moved to the next tree. Yes, they could have carried the compost to each tree, then worked it in, but this seemed an easier way. The wheelbarrow would have been ideal, but it had sunk in the mud when he’d tested the soil’s firmness. Were the earth Elementals still fussing about the water Elementals causing problems? He checked on Levi, then returned to his own trees. Who squabbled more—Elementals or siblings?

“That looks like work,” a harsh voice observed from overhead. He straightened up and glared as a melanistic northern harrier landed on one of the branches just out of reach. 

“It is. No work, no eat.”

“For you, not for me,” the Familiar retorted, beak in the air. 

Jude caught a glimpse of Levi making a face toward the hawk, and ignored it. No amount of fussing, scolding, chastisement, intimidation, or other attempts at reforming Shoim’s behavior and curbing his attitude did any good. Jude contented himself with a glare and moving more compost around the roots of the cherry tree. He’d pruned them already. 

“Just so you know,” the harrier said in English, “there are some new people renting the second house on Grauer’s farm. Mrs. orchard-DeBoer told Mrs. Schwartz that the new people don’t understand the laws about trespassing yet.”

“I’m warned. Thank you.” Jude moved to the next tree. “How are the winds?”

“Just winds. The clouds are low but not full of rain at the moment.” His tone suggested that he anticipated change. Perhaps. 

An hour later, Hunter and son plodded back to the yellow farm house. Shoim remained in the woodlot, dining on a dimmer-than-usual dove, not that doves in general were known for intelligence. “I don’t like English,” Levi declared as they looked both ways twice before they crossed the private farm road between the woodlot and the home acre. No one should be coming or going, but this was Friday, and a full moon, a week before the eve of All Hallows. All things were possible, especially inconvenient or dangerous things. 

“You prefer speaking in German, or you dislike the class?” He lowered the shields on the home place as Levi opened the gate, then raised them after they passed through. Levi still didn’t have the strength to work the shields on his own. 

“Class.” He kicked at a bit of grass as his father opened the shed and they put the shovels into their places, then the buckets. “I want to read real books, not the stuff we do for school.” 

St. Wilborada inspire me, please. “Mrs. Richards has what she thinks are good reasons for what you are currently working on, Levi. I know it is not fun, but do your best, please.” He’d have tossed the books into the creek, were it up to him, save that they might poison the fish. They were either boring, preachy, or both. After two collisions with the teacher, Lucy had declared a truce and compromise. Levi could read fun books for free-choice book reviews as well as on weekends if he did his best with the assigned books for class assignments. Mrs. Richards had reluctantly agreed. “And check your shields.”

Levi scowled, looking rather like his mother for a moment, and his shields grew stronger. “Sorry, sir. I forgot.”

And he was tired, and young. “Thank you. It will get easier with time.” Already he did better than some adult magic students. Granted, Levi had his parents and Claire as role models and horrible warnings. 

“Yes, sir.”

They scraped their boots on the new scraper outside the mudroom door, then went in. Levi shucked off boots and jacket, then hustled deeper into the house. Jude moved the footwear to the proper place, and straightened the small jacket. With a bit of a wince he unlaced his own boots and put them beside Lucy’s work boots. His left hand ached from the damp, chilly weather, and his back muttered darkly about youth, foolishness, and increasing mileage. He went into the kitchen and started water heating for tea. A pork shoulder roast simmered in the large pot on the stove, sending wonderful, meaty scents through the house. His mouth watered. Surely Lucy wouldn’t notice if he took a slice to test the flavor.

“Mow.” Bauxite glared at him, yellow eyes intent as he lifted the lid on the heavy pot. 

“You’d tell, wouldn’t you?” he asked in his native tongue.

“Mraaaaat.” he took that as an affirmative that indeed, the black cat would apprise his lady wife of his lapse out of moral probity. Or she wanted more kibble. Jude added a little water to the pot, then replaced the lid and shook some cat food into Bauxite’s dish. The kettle had heated, so he made a hearty tea. Soft crunching sounds followed him up the hallway until he turned into the newer part of the house. 

(C) 2026 Alma T. C. Boykin All Rights Reserved

Responsibility and Its Discontents

I have been reading a book about the Canadian academic and student of media Marshall McLuhan. The author of the book carries forward some of McLuhan’s ideas to speculate how the concepts would apply to social media and now to LLMs and “generative AI.” One thing the author, and McLuhan, talked about was responsibility. Humans launch technology into the world, mostly without taking a lot of time to consider what the first and second-order effects might be. Nuclear technology is probably the exception, because it was known from the start that it could be very, very destructive based on the possible power output. Once launched, inventors and popularizers rarely take responsibility for all those effects. I’d argue that in many cases, the people are dead of old age before we as a civilization understand just what has changed. For example, Johann Gutenberg was long gone when the US, with a philosophy based on print culture and widespread literacy, was founded and developed.

Which brings the discussion to the tech-of-the day, the LLMs and various forms of “generative AI.” I intensely dislike the term Artificial Intelligence for the various computer programs and systems, because 1) they are not truly intelligent and 2) it gives people room to make assumptions that are not strictly true. Especially when advertising agencies, aka the Media, get into the story. Whatever one thinks of the various programs and their output, one element that appears over and over is that of responsibility. Who is responsible if ChatGPT™ or Grok™ or Google Gemini™ do something unwanted, or follow instructions in ways that the programmers or users did not intend? By implying that the systems are autonomous and are working as intelligent beings, the owners/programmers are saying, “It’s not our fault that the thing did that.”

(As an aside, I know that programmers get frustrated when people say, “I want it to do this, this, and that,” and either don’t know to mention or assume that the programmer knows that “it also needs to do this other thing, and present the data in the following formats for the following tiers of users.” As a user, I get frustrated when programmers (or sales departments) decide to change things to help themselves, or a specific set of users, and it undoes a function I liked or depended on. So users and programmers can have, to use the slang term, a history.)

Let’s look at when one of the LLMs left what was claimed to be a secure testing space and stole data from a different company entirely, by working through a third party internet presence. “Oh, it escaped and acted on its own! It’s ALLLIIIIIVEEEE!” At which point I have to ask 1) why do you think anything with an internet connection is secure? 2)What is it programmed to do that led it to do that?

Apparently, in one case, the program was supposed to generate results as quickly and easily as possible. So it went and found the data on someone else’s system rather than slowly* crunching the numbers. ** That’s not intelligence. That’s following the design standards and philosophy as the system was supposed to do. That it behaved in a way programmers and supervisors did not intend should not surprise anyone else. Tech does that, and people do that. Putting keywords into electronic documents in white font, so that computer programs that sort resumes will read it but the human won’t catch the extra info has been going for some time. Employers used technology to weed out people, so people found ways to unweed themselves.

Now we have several companies that sell access to the LLMs and various programs demanding that governments regulate the programs “to save the world.” To be blunt, they want to dump responsibility onto the government, any government, rather than admitting that yes, the created a complex program and it does things in ways they hadn’t considered, and so they are at fault when it comes to “misbehaviors.” That’s very human. We have been blaming someone or something else for as long as people have been people. The Judeo-Christian story of Adam, Eve, and the Serpent has parallels in other places. “It wasn’t my fault, Eve tempted me.” “The Serpent lied to me, so I’m not responsible.” “The devil made me do it!” “It was the beer.” “The instructor didn’t tell us that these mushrooms are toxic.” “I wasn’t warned that I might still hurt after the surgery.” “How was I supposed to know that …”

Now, given how often I’ve glared at a computer and wanted it to do what I desired and not what I inadvertently commanded, or desired the cat not to, well, be so cat, I get the various corporations frustration. For a lot of tech guys, the guts of programs and how they behave can be black boxes, even if they understand other parts of the process very, very well. And unforeseen consequences are not rare, either, especially when humans are involved. We are very good at using gizmos in ways the designer did not imagine or intend, sometimes with great results. In other cases we get the person or people who are the reason why we have so many strange warning labels on products. (Using a blow-dryer while soaking in the bathtub is not something that would cross my mind, but someone did, and so …)

However, when a company sets up an experiment without truly securing the test space (not isolating the machine from the internet), and then tells it to do the thing as fast as possible without specifying “yourself,” no one should be surprised when the experiment follows orders by “cheating.” Or by carrying out secondary commands that people would prefer had not come to light. That does not mean responsibility should be fobbed off onto someone else. It means the companies need to be more honest, and to get serious about what they say they are already doing. I am willing to accept responsibility for myself and my actions, as much as the laws of physics*** and of the computer systems that I use permit. The people behind the various LLMs and generative AI need to do the same, and man up when their machines follow instructions “the wrong way.”

There’s a 200 year old novel about a guy who used state of the art technology to create something, and then bailed out on it and refused to take responsibility for what followed. In his case, since the result wasn’t perfect and god-like, he left it to fend for itself. Mary Shelly was onto something. The guys at Anthropic, OpenAI, et al should take note.

*Slow by giant computer program standards.

**Which makes me wonder how often the programmers and designers did the same thing with their homework in college or even high school. Because creations mirror their creators.

***If, for example, I am decelerating below the speed limit and being careful, and am hit by someone being careless, I should not be responsible for hitting a third vehicle that I cannot stop in time to avoid.

A Florid Buffet

The first really strong cold front of the season has pushed through. It was … Well, when you combine the remains of a hurricane (Polo), with a cold front, the results will be interesting. I had more than enough interesting this past week for a while.

Where the flutter-bys hang out.

Behold, the buffet.

The mist flower is very popular.

At one point I coulted five Monarchs, six Queens (the duller ones), a bumblebee, and some very small moth-like butterflies.

The salvia has customers as well.

Yesterday I saw hummingbirds racing past, probably headed for the salvia in the back yard.

Monarch and Queen.

All day, as I was running errands and other things, I saw orange butterflies in ones and twos heading south. I’d say the migration is in full swing. Tomorrow should see even more, since it will be warmer with calm winds.

It’s Gotta Go Somewhere

There are few municipalities that can deal well with three-inch-per-hour rainfall events, especially within 72 hours of each other. As a result, the usual places were full of water after the second event, and the catchment basins overfilled. The dry lake near Day Job is not dry, as at least one person discovered (the tracks in the mud got deeper, and deeper, before the guy decided that reverse was the better part of valor and left mud all over the road.) The outside lanes of several streets were to be eschewed by anyone with good sense or a low vehicle.

The problem is that water has to go somewhere. Downhill, or into the soil, or yes, sometimes faster, sometimes slower. Rain falling on dry sand vanishes in a heartbeat. Rain on waterlogged clay will be around for a while. Water on roofs and pavement … will find a way to go down, or turns into an unplanned urban lake.

Once it leaves the sky, water does one of three things – soak in (infiltrate), run off, or sit until it overflows or evaporates. Soil (all but 100% clay) absorbs rain and snow-melt at varying rates based on how wet, loose, and/or sandy it is. The plant cover also influences absorption and run-off, grasses vs. trees vs. both, crops of varying kinds, plowed soil or soil with crops … People have come up with rules-of-thumb for all those variables. Ground that is already full of water can’t hold more, so the water runs off, or ponds, waiting to evaporate or eventually soak in.

Runoff happens slower or faster. Bare ground, rock, roofs and parking lots, they have fast runoff. Nothing can soak in, so it all goes away as fast as it can. Flat, well-grassed ground that is moderately saturated will have a slower runoff rate. If the runoff takes dirt with it, you get erosion of various kinds, from mild to “where the heck’s my house?!?” to “wasn’t there a road and valley here last week?” Runoff lubricates loose rock, especially loose sediment on a moderate to steep slope. That’s not really a problem for most of the High Plains, although there are places where sinkholes and rockfalls are indeed a problem.

However, flat land that’s 20-90% hardscape, with waterlogged other land, and fast hard rain means the water sits and rises, or flows a little and rises. welcome to “urban and small stream flood advisories” and water where people would prefer it not loiter, or even be. 1941 was one of the years that will live in memory, because people needed boats to get around some of the towns in the area. It is not fun, especially not for the people who wake up to discover that the lake “over there” is now over here, or their road is too deep to depart, at least for a few hours. However, that’s what happens when the water needs to go, and the only place to go is “spread out over everything.”

Solutions? Leave rainwater lakes alone, or deepen them into catchment basins, encourage less hardscaping and more green areas, permeable paving where that is an option (and does not contribute to groundwater pollution.) And patience. The rain and water will pass. Eventually.