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Read: Ashland & Vine by John Burnside ★★★★ 📚

Now I was beginning to wonder if she had just been bluffing. Maybe there wasn't even a Wes, though I'm not sure about that. She'd had a look in her eye, a mix of apprehension and pride, like you see in certain types of pit-bull owners, and I really didn't want to test her story.

Film student Kate, bit of a mess, starts listing to an older woman Jean's stories of her family and life. American history, WW2, Vietnam, culture & counter culture is only a bit of it. Relationships, death, grief is another. Tempted to re-read this immediately.

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Likes 📑 llamafile by Aaron Davis.

I am also not exactly sure which models I should be using. From that perspective, it was a useful reminder to be clear about what my purpose is. Ironically, having waited an hour for a response to a task associated with a series of documents, I was left wonder if this is what it felt like using punch cards?

Not sure where this will take me, but it is interesting to at least tinker.

I got quite confused trying to hook up llama with WordPress studio. Gave up in the end.

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Read: The Ghost of the Mountains by Kulbhushansing Suryawanshi ★★★★ 📚

Our review of the world’s studies on snow leopard populations had found that less than 10,000 of the estimated 3 million square kilometres of the snow leopard distribution range had been surveyed by researchers using rigorous scientific methods. The total snow leopard habitat in the state of Himachal Pradesh alone was 25,000 square kilometres.
The largest area to have been surveyed was a mere 1,500 square kilometres in the Gobi in Mongolia.

…..

We decided to take the challenge head-on and estimate the snow leopard population for the state of Himachal Pradesh – an area two and a half times larger than all the previous surveys put together. An area the size of Belgium covered in some of the tallest mountains and deepest gorges in the world.
The survey would test us to our limits. Not only our physical ability to walk such a large and mountainous area to collect the necessary data but our ability to think through technical problems of study design and analysis.

A personal history of studying snow leopards over 20 years. Interesting in surprising ways. Connects the conservation efforts to politics, tourism, & local people. Nicely personal. The changes over time are especially powerful.

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Read: Ubik by Philip K. Dick ★★★ 📚

Instant Ubik has all the fresh flavor of just-brewed drip coffee.
Your husband will say, Christ, Sally, I used to think your coffee was only so-so. But now, wow! Safe when taken as directed.

I am Ubik. Before the universe was, I am. I made the suns. I made the worlds. I created the lives and the places they inhabit; I move them here, I put them there. They go as I say, they do as I tell them. I am the word and my name is never spoken, the name which no one knows. I am called Ubik, but that is not my name.
I am. I shall always be.

Long time since I’ve read any pkd. Plenty of twists & turns between life & half-life, psychics & anti-psychics. Great sucker punch at the end.