February 25, 2025 a thought for today, A big crowd, but not a human being in sight. Yiddish Proverb

One of he uploads for yesterday was “and then there we three”. Obviously with all my talk of the cold weather this image was not shot recently...it was last spring. 

The next image upload was “3:00pm”. With the image I generated I didn’t show the “pm” part but I got the 3:00 on the dot. I waited for the second hand to get to the 12 and shot.  

The last upload for yesterday was “x”. That one is a hard one to find. I made an x in the snow and one in the street salt spry splashes on my car. I have an xray of my titanium hip but it is buried in some paperwork in my file drawers. 

Life today. With the bulletin, Ash Wednesday bulletin and newsletter ready to print I have to get started with “editing” the annual report. I have a few weeks before that is due. It depends a lot on when I get the information I need from the committees and that the computer and I continue to work well together on this project. 

Today is a food pantry day. Being the last two days we will be open this week it may be busy. Although we have found that the opening day is usually the most fast paced and full the entire time we are open. 

My first upload for today is “garden”. There isn’t much of an outdoor garden to find in Ohio in the middle of winter. So I chose my indoor house plant garden to use as my model for this image. 

Before I leave for the church I hope to get other things out of the way. I think I want to make some Rice Krispy treats if I have time when I get home. I also plan on working on Sweet Pea’s diet this afternoon. She is refusing most dog foods that I have been giving her. I have been doing some research of things I can make for her instead. I have also ordered multivitamins for senior dogs to supplement what I may come up with for her meals. 

We are having another day with the temps above freezing. I am hoping it sticks around and gets better. Spring is on its way,

The next upload for today is “y”. I use what was left of the yellow cornbread I had with my navy bean soup (and egg dumplings). 

The word today is standing.  Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them. Nathaniel Hawthorne.  Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army. Edward Everett.  If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up boldly and lone and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors. Abraham Lincoln.  The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind. William Blake.  As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved. Marcus Tullius Cicero.  Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all. Edmund Burke.  A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself. Robert Burton.  The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement. John Stuart Mill.  Nobody is poor unless he stand in need of justice. Lactantius.  The bow cannot always stand bent, nor can human frailty subsist without some lawful recreation. Miguel de Cervantes.  There is none made so great, but he may both need the help and service, and stand in fear of the power and unkindness, even of the meanest of mortals. Lucius Annaeus Seneca.  Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and you know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and you know Earth, you may make your victory complete. Sun Tzu.  Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  

The last challenge upload for today is “a wild animal”. We don’t have a selection of wild animals in this neighborhood so I selected this image of one of the monkey’s at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium that I took a while back.  

Article: This is another view of one of the most current subjects to discover in technology....AI. The title is: “Generative AI is most useful for the things we care about the least”. The tools used in the AI process “can produce text, images and videos far more quickly than any one person can accomplish by hand”. But some study has  shown that technology saves time “but it does so precisely to the extent that the user is willing to surrender control over the final product”. According to the article (and common sense) it “is probably most useful for things we care about the least”....creating creative control. If you “tell it” to make a “a panda surfing,” “a piece of toast that is also a car” – and the generative tool draws it”. But it loses the “countless possible iterations of the desired image”. Some of the thoughts about what it will look like are what will it be “watercolor painting or a pencil sketch? How lifelike will the panda be?” Once the image is “done” we will know how much of what we “typed or said” was to be accomplished in the final output. Was it exactly what we had in mind? Probably not because we didn’t or could not explain the minutia of what we had in mind. The “generative AI tool has “decided.”  In that line, the article suggested we could “ be more specific like saying: Imitate the style of Monet”. Making the decisions for detail and exactly what we want takes time, thought and consideration. The “overall effect on the viewer depends on all those considered brushstrokes together”. The way the article put it is “compared with skilled humans, it (AI) has a limited ability to understand what you want”. On the pro side of AI it can “make possible, above all, is low-effort, low-control expression”. Further in the article the author mentions that “for the first time in human history, the ability to produce writing, art and expression has been decoupled from the necessity of actually paying attention to what you’re making or saying”. A name has been given to what some say has come from AI to this point “amid the flood of low-effort content, which is also known as “AI slop.” This author suggests that eventually some things “could be replaced with mediocre automation, that online discourse will get even stupider, that people will isolate themselves in personalized cocoons of AI-generated media”. He asks “how important are the details” in what we are trying to share and live with. The article was ended with “when it comes to art, expression and argument, if you want it done right, it’s probably still best to do it yourself.” 

I am having rotisserie chicken for dinner. I ordered it in my grocery pickup last week and froze it. We’ll see it I order it that way again. 

Joy

                                   parking on a roof top