Posted on 12 April, 2026

#SilentSunday

Posted on 7 April, 2026

A narrow path through a grassy area with sparse trees and a mostly clear sky. Moorland beyond.

Kilpatrick Braes, the blackthorn here still in bud, later than others places I’ve been recently. Warm & sunny with a bit of a breeze. Few bumble bees out exploring the ground. Several butterflies, probably peacocks, rushed by. Lots of birds singing. Heard a green woodpecker a few times. Chiffchaffs mostly heard but saw a couple. More primroses opening, some mouse-ear cress. Larch starting to green & buds on a chestnut at the edge of the heather.

Posted on 5 April, 2026

john

#SilentSunday

Posted on 5 April, 2026

john

Walked round to the coop, sun is shining, bees out. An hour later, sleet, hailstones & snow!

Posted on 2 April, 2026

john

REVEIL 2026. I’ve just set up my page for this year’s Reveil broadcast.

The Reveil broadcast will again make a full loop of the earth over the Dawn Chorus Day weekend in May 2026.
We welcome new and established streamers to join in assembling a sequence of live sounds starting near the 0 meridian at daybreak on Saturday and returning 24 hours later, with a 1 hour coda.
reveil

I’ll be trying to broadcast from Victoria Park from 4:45 on Sunday 3 May. Hopefully no helicopters this year.

Posted on 30 March, 2026

john

Newspaper clipping reads:
The alarming bit was how out of touch the Al world was. "People would talk about how Al is going to bring all this wealth that will rain down - all we
have to do is figure out how to distribute it. But the Industrial Revolution already [promised] this, and we did not distribute the wealth globally. Why would this be any different? That attitude] was pervasive and hard to watch. If you take your eyes off your two smartphones and look around, San Francisco is a city that has enormous poverty."

Zoë Hitzig the whistleblower tells all Observer 29-03-2026 seems to be hind a pay wall? I read in the paper. A poets view of AI risks.

Posted on 30 March, 2026

john

photo of clipping from Guardian newspaper. Text: The Maven interface looks like a military-skinned version of corporate project management software crossed with a mapping application. What the military analyst building the target list sees is either a map layered with intelligence data or a screen organised into columns, each representing a stage of the targeting process. Individual targets move across the columns from left to right as they progress through each stage, a format borrowed from Kanban, a "lean manufacturing" workflow system developed at Toyota, and now widely used in software development.

AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is far more worrying -Kevin T Baker – Guardian 28 March 2026. Lots more worry about in this article, but this jumped out.

Lean Stand Fall

Posted on 27 March, 2026

john

Read: Lean Stand Fall by Jon McGregor ★★★★★ 📚

‘ You want, Robert said, ‘you want, wok?’ He was leaning towards Wiktor and Rachel, his voice loud and clear. Wok, wok, you want to work again?” Wiktor and the dancers all looked at him and shrugged once more, and Robert shrugged in return. He looked very pleased with himself.

Peter straightened his tie, and started speaking.

‘Will you wade with me in the water now Wiktor, will you wade in to your waist and wait while the waves rise higher and all around and we will lift we will wash and water the water is all around and up upon your shoulders now?’

They shrugged, and they laughed, and they came to a standstill.

Starts with a gripping description of an Antarctic disaster. Ends with an equally gripping depiction of a series of sessions of aphasia self help group. Beautiful book. Communication, language & its loss, unexpected changes in life & relationships.