Born and raised in Scotland, currently living in New Hampshire. Author of several books, mostly on meditation and Buddhist practice. Fan of Scots language. Learning #dansk and #svenska. Dabbler in #Pali.
Not to tread on too much @thisismyglasgow's territory, but yesterday as I strolled with my 92-year-old dad along Great Western Road in Glasgow's west end, I took a photograph of this lovely Art Deco building, which I've seen a million times and often wondered about. It turns out it was originally Walter Hubbard's bakery and tearoom. As you'd expect it was built around 1930. The new signage doesn't do the building any favours, and the side has been much messed-with. Still, it's magnificent.
The last photo I will share of the aurora: This doesn't look spectacular, but you can clearly see the Big Dipper standing on end, right in the middle of the shot.
It's extraordinary how far phone cameras have come. This exposure took several seconds, yet because of the digital image stabilization, the stars are pinpoints rather than blurry streaks. Hats off to the engineers involved!
There are some amazing photographs of the aurora on Mastodon. Bear in mind that a lot of these are enhanced, even if the photographers "forget" to mention that fact. I just looked through the comments on a photograph taken from the Isle of Wight. The landscape almost looks like it was taken in daylight. This tells you it was a very long exposure, and that the human eye would have seen something very different, with not nearly as much color. Why is this important? 1/
"European intelligence agencies have warned their governments that Russia is plotting violent acts of sabotage across the continent as it commits to a course of permanent conflict with the west."
We are already under attack by Russia.
"... explosion at a munitions factory in Wales that supplies shells used by Ukraine ... a Czech arms depot storing weapons for Kyiv was destroyed ... A huge fire at a factory in Berlin...
Just today I've started using the term "billionairism" to signify that the morbid accumulation of wealth is a form of mental disturbance, even illness, and also to signify the detrimental effects billionaires' addictions have on society and the planet as a whole.
Microsoft Word's grammar suggestion is to change "Take as long as you need" to "Take if you need."
How can a grammar checker be so bad? How can a company so inept become so rich? How can such a rich company fail to invest in the software it foists on its users? (These are rhetorical questions.)
Apart from a few comma suggestions, almost all the recommendations are as bad as this.
A really fascinating article on the evolving way Europeans understood Buddhism. Europeans encountered Buddhism in several different countries, but thought they were dealing with different religions in each. Voltaire was an admirer of the Buddha, although he called him Sammonocodom (Samana Gautama).
I’m about to see a doctor because I injured my back badly last night. My blood pressure is 120/80. Exactly! The nurse said she hasn’t seen that in years 🙂
So, will the radical conservative justices on the Supreme Court decide that the president can legally have them executed? I tend to think not all of them will, but nothing would surprise me.
Perhaps instead of "artificial intelligence" we should call it "simulated intelligence" or even "counterfeit intelligence."
The product is like counterfeit money: it looks like the real thing and you might even be able to pass it off as the real thing, but you're foolish if you think it is the real thing, and the consequences are probably going to catch up with you eventually.
I head from a fiction author who was told by Ingram-Spark that if she mentions a business name, brand name, or famous person in her novel without seeking permission from the entity being named, they won't be able to publish her novel.
In this wonderful world of fiction no one's boyfriend (with a vague resemblance to Brad Pitt) will pick her up in his new Tesla and take her to Starbucks before heading to a Beyoncé concert.