I slept well… or as well as I could. My carpal tunnel
nonsense *really* hurts if I sleep on my side, and my back *really*
hurts if I sleep on my back. But the pain kicks in over different timescales. I
get an hour on my back before that pain kicks off, whereas my arm gives me (at most) two
minutes on my side.
I got up at half past six, made toast and had my usual
look at the Internet. Again it was one big squabble with people posting rants
based on factually incorrect premises.
I posted a few more A.I. piccies to Facebook last night…
and that had caused offence. It is common knowledge that the data centres that
house the A.I. systems are massively energy-intensive and are going to cause
irreversible environmental damage…
The trouble with “common knowledge” is that for
all that everyone knows these things, it is usually factually incorrect. I did
a little finding out… the whole process of creating an A.I. image like the ones
I posted up last night used less electricity than running an electric kettle to
make a cuppa. On the other hand moving data around the internet (like when
reading this blog) has a much larger environmental impact than generating a
few images. Creating a few caricatures of me and my dogs has a tiny fraction of
the carbon footprint of the phone or computer people are viewing them on. But
is it about the (totally exaggerated) energy costs? I found myself
thinking back to when I used to do oil painting in the style of Bob Ross. At the time there
were several people finding fault and criticising. Most of whom were
established artists who felt that the entire problem with the Bob Ross style of
painting is that with a little practise anyone can make a half-decent painting.
A.I. generated pictures are much the same.
And people were banging on about “Saint Princess
Diana”… her brother has
released a book which is very critical of the
King, and everyone was posting fond memories of the “Queen of Hearts” (which
bore little relationship to reality)… Anyone who’s familiar with Alice in
Wonderland would know that the Queen of Hearts wasn’t a particularly likable
character. Personally I don’t know very much about the late Princess Diana but
it’s a matter of public record that when she died in a car crash she’d not seen
her children in the preceding six weeks.
I Munzed. I Wordled. Starting with “could” I
didn’t actually get to “pager”. That’s a three-month streak down the
toilet.
I then loudly asked who wanted to go to the woods.
Bailey was there like a shot. She loves her walks in the woods. As we drove the
pundits on the radio were broadcasting from the annual conference of the
Liberal Democrat party. The Dribbling Democraps apparently are rather concerned
that despite having over seventy MPs, no one seems to know what their policies
are, or what they stand for. Historically this was always their position – to
be non-committal on everything. Like them or loathe them, the other parties
tell you where they stand.
We got to the woods. The areas near the car park were
thick with foragers all shouting at each other. Once we were past them we had a
near miss with the idiot with the boxer dogs. We’ve met them before. The dogs
are fine, but the idiot demands on a hundred metres exclusion zone round his
dogs and gets arsey when no one gives him that. He shouted at Morgan, then
nearly shat himself in terror as I came round the corner asking if there was a
problem. I’m told I can do a good impression of a scary tattoo-ed skinhead…
A hundred yards later we met the dogs with bells tied
to their collars (poor things), but with them behind us we then had a
good walk. Squirrels abounded (which the dogs chased) and the deer were
out (which the dogs completely missed).
As we walked I ran my birdsong app. Being up the woods
an hour and a half earlier than usual the birds were making a lot more noise
than they have recently. My app said it had heard a red-eyed vireo. Had it? Somehow I
doubt it.
We came home to an empty house. With “er
indoors TM” having a day in the
office we’d been left home alone. I made myself a cuppa, put a load of washing
in then cracked on in the garden.
I harvested quite a bit of dog dung. I mowed the lawn.
I cleaned out both ponds’ filters. And whilst I was having a filtration session
I put the new filter into the fish tank.
I had a spot of lunch and watched an episode of “Monster:
The Lizzie Borden Story” whilst looking at the fish tank. A few months ago
I put live plants in there. A few days ago I pruned those plants. But that was
nowhere near enough pruning; I gave them a serious trimming, and syphoned out a
lot of the muck which was across the bottom of the tank. Once I’d topped up the
water it didn’t take more than a minute or so for the muck to settle again. So
I syphoned another load of muck and topped up again… and did this four more
times.
And then I wasn’t so much worn out as in serious arm
pain, so I made myself a cuppa and had a little sit down. I wrote
up some CPD, watched more “Monster:
The Lizzie Borden Story” and then it was five o’clock.
I loaded the dogs into the car and we drove up to Wye
Downs where we joined in with a particularly good meet-up of the local
geocaching community. A mini kitchen was set up. Hot chocolate and hot dogs all
round (and sausages for the dogs), and we chatted until sunset. As we
chatted “er
indoors TM” and Pogo joined us.
Pogey is staying with us whilst “Daddies’ Little Angel TM”‘s
landlord has the mortgage advisors in. (No, I can’t see why Pogo needs to go
on a little holiday either).
We came home. “er indoors TM” fed
us all then went bowling. I scoffed second dinner whilst watching the last episodes
of “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story”. The show started well, but had
clearly been dragged out for about three more episodes than it needed to have
been.
I’ve had a rather busy day today…
