• Writer, seeker, THINKer. unintentional worrier...

    If you like the baby skunk lovingly cradled by the balding vagrant above.

    Fake wooden shelves around a few of my mirror image print books. Stacked two deep. 274cm, or 47.2kg in Earth units.

  • About ME

    Academic qualifications and experience: I have a Bachelors degree in mechanical engineering (meh...) and a Masters and PhD in astrophysics (great!) I was a climatologist (interesting but meh...) for a couple of years after my PhD. Between the engineering and astrophysics, I qualified as a lawyer in the UK (OMG appalling...), and that was when I started screaming inside my mind. Given overlapping waves of recession, during my two years of proofreading and office gopher I did a lot of reading in the sumptuous toilet, and saved up dinero to go into astrophysics. At which point the screaming stopped temporarily. Unfortunately I had to find a job in the so-called real world, and that was how I found myself working in law enforcement. The screaming restarted....

     

    Nearly two decades later, I am a harmless drone in the British public sector, still silently screaming, but from behind a desk. I try to learn and think, and leave the building no later than necessary.

     

    Liz Gilbert explains that no artist should have a career to support his vocation. The idea is to not kill your art with the death of your spirit or the pressure to pay the bills. I no longer work night shifts, but when my morning alarm sounds I still wearily drag a persona from a drawer and force it on my tired body.
     

    What feeds my spirit is learning, thinking and writing. I sometimes pen haiku, and occasionally attempt to assemble a well-structured - or any - novel. Even if my future novels are awful, I will gladly self-validate the shit out of them.

     

    Lately I've been reading about Artificial General Intelligence, a fascinating field that, if it comes to fruition, will transform humankind. This little corner of the Web is where I try to fling up any interesting thoughts have.

  • Blog

    Thoughts, musings, ruminations.

    March 13, 2023 · Haiku
    Here are a few haiku I wrote during the frigid first half of the British winter. The ice-encrusted spiders web was a lovely surprise, and likewise my managing to skive the work Xmas party. Apparently there is a silver lining to the endless rail strikes! 18/12/2022: Silent and frozen— No birds...
    January 30, 2023 · Reading,Social Media,Jaron Lanier,Sam Harris,AI
    In episode #136 of the Making Sense podcast, Digital Humanism, the ever fascinating Jaron Lanier explains to Sam Harris the idea that, with the flattening of information by social media, people treat information as if it's 'weightless'. And it occurs to me that this is equally true of 'wealth',...
    January 28, 2023 · Introverts,Connection,Suffering,Donkeys,Lex Fridman
    Firstly, I should never glance at previous posts, because each seems so naive and superficial in retrospect. Oh well, hopefully I live and learn. I listened yesterday to episode #298 of Lex Fridman's podcast - his conversation with Susan Cain, who wrote the excellent book 'Quiet: The Power of...
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  • Contact me

    Perhaps the Strange Loops running through your circuits resonate with mine. Feel free to send me a message, or subscribe, or comment on a post if you feel like it.