A.C. Flory's Blog, page 5

Glencrow Summer by C. Litka

In the blurb for Glencrow Summer, the author describes the story as ‘…a leisurely paced, mundane slice-of-life fantasy novel set in a post-magic, Edwardian-era world…’ Well, I’d agree with the ‘leisurely paced part’; reading Glencrow Summer was like gently sinking into a warm bath on a cold day. It felt good. However, I definitely disagree with the ‘fantasy novel in a post-magic’ world bit!

To me, Glencrow Summer is a post-apocalyptic story without the apocalypse, and by that I mean the brutality and violence.

By the time the story begins, society is about thirteen hundred years into its Second Founding. In other words, thirteen hundred years after the possibly apocalyptic events that ended the First Founding.

Society is stable, the populous is comfortable, and the world is ‘clean’. There are vehicles that run on electricity, but most jobs are done manually, and there appears to be little in the way of high end technology. This lack of tech is explained as being a result of the Humanist revolution that ended the First Founding. Curiously though, the history books call the tech of that era magic, and magic is now banned.

See what I mean about the world building being post-apocalyptic?

We are introduced to some of this background in the first book of the series – Chateau Clare – but it’s not until Glencrow Summer that the characters slowly discover why the apocalypse happened, and why so much of their history has been either forgotten, or actively suppressed. That journey of discovery may not include space battles or dangerous acts of derring-do, but it is every bit as compelling as learning about Arrakis, the world of Dune.

I don’t know about you, but I believe that Dune continues to excite the imagination because its world is one of the main characters of the story. Yes, the plot is exciting, but what I most remember is the thrill of learning why Arrakis is so barren. And what role the giant worms play in the creation of ‘spice’.

Like Dune, the world of Glencrow Summer is one of the main characters of the story, and unravelling its history is intriguing. But, of course, no story would survive for long without human characters we can relate to, and the characters of Glencrow Summer are eminently relatable. They are people just like us. They have faults and virtues and individual histories that make them who they are, and that is why their journey of discovery becomes our journey of discovery.

I cannot tell you more because that would be like revealing who-dunnit on page one of a murder mystery. This journey of discovery you have to take on your own, but I promise it will be worth every moment. Oh, and the beautiful cover? C. Litka happens to be a fantastic painter so each cover is a Litka original!

5/5

Disclaimer: C. Litka was kind enough to send me an ARC copy of Glencrow Summer when I complained about not being able to buy books from Amazon any more. He didn’t ask for a review, and I told him I only review books that go above and beyond. Glencrow Summer does just that, and I’m more than happy to recommend it.

You can find this review on Goodreads here.

Cheers,
Meeks

For Want of a Pin!

Just a quick post to say we’re still here, we just didn’t have internet for almost four days thanks to a perfect storm of bad luck:

On Friday I decided to bite the bullet and change our ISP from Internode to Dodo.But when the old connection was closed, the NBN modem would no longer ‘speak’ to our router [the router makes it possible for the Offspring and I to both use the internet at the same time]. Then we discovered that our mobile phones weren’t working properly either. Our mobile phone carrier uses the Optus network and apparently Optus has been doing some kind of repairs or upgrade. That meant our phones would cut out after a minute or two, or not connect at all so we couldn’t even call tech support.On Saturday, we masked up and went into the nearest shopping centre to change our mobile phones to Telstra because their network works. Huge thanks to the very knowledgeable young man who got both of our phones up and running again.Most of Sunday was spent with Dodo tech support who couldn’t get our hardware to work. I may be unkind but I suspect the people in that call centre were not fully trained in tech support. I’ll leave it at that.Late afternoon Sunday I cancelled the Dodo plan and the Offspring found Aussie Broadband via the phone. We signed up, but again nothing seemed to happen.This morning, Monday morning, we rang Aussie Broadband and after a bit of too-ing and fro-ing, we decided to try resetting the router. I thought you just unplugged the power cord, but no. You have to use a pin and stick it into a teeny hole at the back of the router for 20 seconds :

Lights went off, lights came on and…

IT WORKED!!!!

I think I shrieked. Thank you Aussie Broadband!

Our router is a Dlink, but I have to assume that all routers have one of these well hidden reset switches, so if your hardware won’t talk to each other, try the pin trick.

Apart from that how-to trick, we’ve learned a number of life lessons as well:

make sure that at least one phone is working at all times,always keep a safety pin on hand because you never know when you’ll need to reset one of these blasted pieces of hardware,always keep some cash on hand.

#3 hit us hard as we haven’t used cash since the start of the pandemic. Everything we buy is paid for by card, and we only put money on our cards when we intend to buy something. This is a security measure as we have to buy a lot of stuff online, and that means if our cards are hacked, we’ll only lose a small amount of money.

Anyway, we had just bought the groceries on Thursday so we had lots of food, but our cards were down to a couple of dollars. And with no internet, we couldn’t transfer money into them. -gnashes teeth-

Knowing we were low on petrol and might need to buy some after going to the shopping centre, we literally had to scavenge through the house, looking for spare change. We found $15 in twenty and fifty cent pieces. I am just grateful we didn’t have to buy petrol after all. That would have been incredibly …embarrassing.

I hope your weekend was better than ours!

deliriously happy to be back,
Meeks

LIDAR vs Tesla’s cameras

Back when Tesla EV’s were the bee’s knees, I did dream of owning one, one day, when I won Tatts. The self-drive function however, always left me feeling a little squeamish. After watching this video, I wouldn’t ‘use’ that function if you paid me.

I skipped the middle bit until the video gets to the part where the Youtuber tests a car equipped with LIDAR against a Tesla equipped only with optical cameras. See for yourself:

For those not interested in the full test sequence, the Tesla can’t see the wall and in poor light situations, it also can’t see the crash dummy on the road. By contrast, the car equipped with LIDAR passed every test with flying colours.

Why aren’t Tesla cars equipped with LIDAR? It’s because Musk thinks the tech is too expensive and ‘not necessary’. That crash dummy might not agree, Elon.

So which cars do come equipped with LIDAR?

Well, according to carscoops.com :

“Chinese automakers are leading the charge in lidar adoption. No less than 70 per cent of current and upcoming vehicles equipped with lidar sensors are coming from China, in particular from brands including Nio, Xpeng, Li Auto, and SAIC.”

According to the same article, Mercedes, BMW and Volvo are also looking to put LIDAR in their up and coming vehicles. Great… if you can afford those top of the range cars, but if I ever win the lottery, I think I’ll be buying a nice EV from China.

RIP Tesla

Meeks

Climate Action You CAN Take

There is a very old saying about putting your money where your mouth is. With the US walking away from climate action, that saying has never been more apt, or more critical. For my friends in the US, please watch this video Short.

For my fellow Aussies, do some research to see which bank is doing more for the climate and make the change. I haven’t done that research yet, so I’d appreciate any info. you guys may have.

cheers,
Meeks

Review: Winter Journeys 5/5

I just left the following review on Goodreads:

Winter Journeys: A Novel of Music and Memory by Audrey Driscoll  

5/5

As all of Driscoll’s previous books have had a strong element of the supernatural about them, I was half expecting something similar from Winter Journeys. Instead, I discovered a glorious, character driven story about being different, and falling in love with music.

The story is told through the eyes of Ilona Miller, a middle-aged woman whose life revolves around her job and her small basement apartment. She doesn’t really socialise, has never been married, or had children, or pets, or any of the things most of us take for granted. We are not told why, but right from the start we get the feeling that there is something in her past that she’s trying to get away from.

And then Ilona’s job is made redundant, the only one in the company to do so. She is given a severance package that will allow her to pay the rent for a few months, but not surprisingly she feels victimised, believing that she was chosen for the chop because no one really likes her.

Things go downhill from there.

When I first read about Ilona’s plight, I’ll be honest, my initial reaction was “pull yourself together and just get another job!”

I felt very uncomfortable with Ilona’s apparent self-pity until the story unfolded a bit more, and I began to see that it was that ‘something’ in her past that was triggering her depression and negativity. But what was it?

That ‘what’ was revealed, bit by bit, as the story flowed backwards and forwards from the present day to the past. As a teen, Ilona’s mother forced her to study to be a teacher, but in her last year, she took an elective that turned her life upside down. The elective was about Romantic era music, in particular the Winterreise, a series of 24 songs composed by Franz Schubert.

Winterreise literally means ‘winter journey’, and the songs trace the life of a young man who is jilted by the girl he loves and never recovers. He leaves his old life behind and starts walking, just walking. It’s winter, it’s cold, and he’s just walking without any destination in mind.

Ilona is captivated by both the story and the music, and creates this romantic image of the young man in her mind. She stops studying and becomes obsessed with the story, the music and the singer, a tenor by the name of Julian Northridge. In time, she empathizes so much with the fictional character in Winterreise that she falls in love in the real world, with a young man also named Julian.

And this is where the story becomes quite dark because there are hints that Ilona goes to bed with this ‘Julian’ because of a date rape drug. It is never spelled out in so many words, but much of what she remembers turns out to be a hallucination.

What happens next is the ‘something’ that I had been dreading, almost from the first page. To say any more would spoil a truly masterful story. Let’s just say that I grow to like Ilona by the end.

And now a word about Winterreise the music. I love classical music, but my tastes go to Chopin, and Debussy, and Rachmaninov rather than the Germanic composers. The thing is though, you don’t have to love that particular piece of music to understand the power of music. Music speaks directly to our emotions, engaging us at a gut level, so if you don’t like Schubert, or classical music in general, just substitute any piece of music you love for Winterreise, and you will be captivated by Ilona’s story.

Apologies for the length of this review but this story moved me in ways I struggle to describe. Like Ilona, I was an awkward teen, and I have always loved music, so her story sent me on a journey of my own. If you love deep storytelling then this is a journey worth taking. Very highly recommended.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC copy of ‘Winter Journeys: A Novel of Music and Memory’ from the Author, Audrey Driscoll, because Amazon no longer allows customers to download ebooks via USB.

Learning from the Offspring

I’m pretty well informed when it comes to politics, or at least, I thought I was. As a result, when the Offspring first introduced me to the Friendly Jordies Youtube channel, I didn’t pay as much attention as I should have. I regret that.

Today, the Offspring sent me a link to one of Friendly Jordies videos about the power of the mining industry here in Australia. And what I learned truly shocked me.

If you are my vintage you may remember a former Australian Prime Minister by the name of John Gorton, or John Grey Gorton as he was [affectionately?] known. Gorton was a Liberal, but he was a man of integrity, so even a staunch Labor supporter like me had a lot of respect for him.

Gorton was ousted. I remember that. What I didn’t ever really know was why he was ousted. The answer seems to be that certain interested objected to him trying to introduce legislation that would have reduced some of the mining industry’s profits. Clearly he had to go.

I knew the mining industry was powerful, but I had no idea how powerful, or how much Australian taxpayers are being ripped off by this cartel of bastards. Almost all of the tax burden falls on us, while magnates like Gina Rinehart make sure they pay next to nothing.

If you have any interest in Australia’s future, please watch this video:

I admit, I had no idea that corporations, many of them American, had such a stranglehold on Australia. Until today, I honestly thought that Australia was a little bit immune to the threat of oligarchy, but history shows that we’ve been owned for a very long time.

The only difference between today, and when I was a girl, is that ‘they’ don’t try to hide it any more. And we don’t seem to care.

Meeks

Trump actually means what he says.

I am so sorry. I really didn’t want to have to do another tRump post, but I can’t sit by and watch the world self destruct without even a whimper.

Trump wants to ‘renegotiate’ America’s border with Canada. This is perhaps the worst because Canada was a friend. He has just shafted a friend in the back, and he’s proud of it. Trump has torn up the treaty with Iran and is prepared to go to war with Iran if his renegotiations don’t get…something? Peace in the middle east? Forget it.Trump really does intend to take over Gaza, or let his buddy Netanyahu do it. That amounts to genocide.Trump has renamed [sic] the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

#4 is perhaps the least egregious in terms of world peace, but in some ways it pisses me off the most because of the arrogance of the man. I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am.

On days like today, it really does feel as if I’m watching World War III unfold before my eyes, and I finally understand how the German people allowed Hitler to come to power. It happened to them, and now it seems that it’s happening to the US as well. Not with a bang but a whimper.

Meeks

How Did Neanderthals Bury Their Dead?

I’ve been fascinated by Neanderthals ever since I read that we, as in Homo Sapiens, actually share some of their genes. The fact that we still retain some of those genes means that there was a fair bit of interbreeding happening. And guess what, according to a Wiki article I read, red hair and a tendency towards sunburn could be a Neanderthal trait!

But trying to understand how an extinct group of, well, people lived involves more than just genomic sequencing. Now, thanks to Jacqui Murray’s tireless research and vivid storytelling, I know a lot more about Neanderthals than just our shared DNA. Jacqui’s new series is called Savage Land, and I’ll provide links at the end of this post.

Getting back to Neanderthals, what’s so important about burying the dead? And what does it tell us about Neanderthals? I asked Jacqui, and this is what she said:

Burying the dead is a practice long considered exclusive to Homo Sapiens--our kind–but within the last decade (maybe longer), attitudes have changed. Mounting evidence indicates that Neanderthals buried their dead possibly with care, empathy, and a belief that the end of their life might be the beginning of something else.

Let’s do a quick exploration of the facts behind Neanderthal burials and then some evidence that might point to a belief in a hereafter:

Burial practices

Here are details about how they interred bodies

Neanderthals, who we now accept were cognitively advanced, understood that burying the dead protected others of their species from diseases carried by dead bodies and from predators scavenging the bones of former loved ones.The care given dead suggests the body may have been important in Neanderthal society.Most individuals were placed in graves, be they natural grooves in the ground sized for a body or purposefully dug holes.Bodies seem to be buried soon after death before scavenged by predators or the elements.In one case, an existing channel in the ground was deepened to accommodate the body, something that would have taken considerable effort on the part of the Neanderthal tribe.

Was death the start of something else?

These are a few examples found to indicate maybe Neanderthals did believe in some sort of a life after death that they wanted their formerly loved ones prepared for:

One Neanderthal child was laid on its right side and buried within a small niche in the cave wall, with a red deer maxilla on its pelvis.Several children were laid into depressions, possibly with flint scrapers that could be considered ‘grave goods’.One of the most famous Neanderthal child burials was a 70,000 year old grave in a remarkable state of preservation. It consisted of a child deposited in a natural depression on its stomach with a hand to its head and legs bent at 90 degrees, then covered with soil.At least 30 intentional burials have been found. Some possibly included grave goods.An Iraqi cave has become known as the “flower burial” because of pollen grains clumps from adjacent sediments found in the grave as though intentionally buried with the child.

It is impossible to determine if Neanderthals had any beliefs about death, but it is clear that they cared for their dead.

That bit about caring for their dead really resonates with me because it mirrors the best of Homo Sapiens. I hope you enjoyed this insight in Neanderthals, and appreciate how much research went into Jacqui’s books.

As promised here is some info. about Jacqui and the Savage Land series:

Jacqui Murray  is the author of the popular prehistoric fiction saga,  Man vs. Nature  which explores seminal events in man’s evolution one trilogy at a time. She is also author of the  Rowe-Delamagente thrillers  and  Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy .  Her non-fiction includes 100+ books on tech into education, reviews as an  Amazon Vine Voice and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics.

Savage Land is the third prehistoric man trilogy in the series, Man. Vs. Nature.Written in the spirit of Jean Auel, Savage Land explores how two bands of humans survived one of the worst natural disasters in Earth’s history, when volcanic eruptions darkened the sky, massive tsunamis crossed the ocean in crushing waves, and raging fires burned the land. Each tribe starring in the story considered themselves apex predators. Neither was. That crown belonged to Nature and she was intent on washing the blight of man from her face.

Where to find the Savage Land series:

Endangered Species —Print, digital, audio available: https://www.amazon.com/Endangered-Species-Savage-Land-Book-ebook/dp/B0DJ9Y7PQ8/ref=sr_1_1?sr=8-1

Badlands —digital on presale now: https://www.amazon.com/Badlands-Savage-Land-Book-2-ebook/dp/B0DFCV5YFT/ref=sr_1_1?sr=8-1

Jacqui’s blog is one of my favourite places to hang out, but you can find her in lots of other places as well:

Amazon Author Page:         https://www.amazon.com/Jacqui-Murray/e/B002E78CQQ/

Blog:                                        https://worddreams.wordpress.com

Pinterest:                                http://pinterest.com/askatechteacher

X:                                             http://twitter.com/worddreams

Website:                                 https://jacquimurray.net

And that’s it. Cheers from Downunder,
Meeks

CL1 – Synthetic Biological Intelligence

Some time ago I posted about a ‘wetware’ neural network that could be taught to play Pong. Now that early breakthrough has been refined and commercialised as the CL1 by Cortical Labs. Cortical Labs is a research and development company based in Melbourne, Australia. I’m both proud and chilled.

I’m proud because, hey, Cortical Labs in an Aussie company and it’s based in my home town. The chilled part is a little harder to explain, so bear with me. AI as it’s currently defined is ‘simply’ a neural network that’s base on hardware and software, all of it digital. Digital is great for logic, but it doesn’t even come close to replicating what we mean when we talk about ‘sentience’.

As humans, we cannot avoid thinking of sentience as the way we think. But the way we think is a curious mixture of both electrical stimulus and chemical pathways.

To give you a very, VERY simplistic example, our nerve endings register a stimulus – pin prick, hot stove, freezing cold etc – and each one sends that stimulus along electrical pathways until they reach a synapse.

Think of the synapse as a lake. To cross that lake you need ferries. That’s where the chemical part comes in. The lake is full of chemicals [hormones]. Depending on how strong the electrical stimuli are, they will be translated into the appropriate chemicals. Again, the strength of the chemical reaction will depend on the strength of the electrical stimuli that triggered them.

The lake analogy is not a good one but it’s the best I could do. Anyway, on the other ‘side’ of the lake, the chemical translations are once again changed into electrical stimuli and that is how they continue their journey…millions and millions of translations across millions and millions of synapses. Some get stronger, some get weaker, but eventually all those electrical>chemical>electrical processes trigger a response[s] from higher level parts of the human brain.

In humans, a pain response – ouch! that hurt – teaches us to stay away from hot stoves etc. By contrast, something that triggers a dopamine response – oooh, that feels nice – will make us want to do that ‘thing’ again and again. Because it feels good.

This is the ‘carrot and the stick’ that is at the heart of much human behaviour. But these behaviours are all analogue, meaning there are almost infinite shades of difference leading to almost infinite changes in learned behaviour. This is part of what makes each one of us unique.

I once read that a single human brain is the equivalent of something like 17 billion computers. Admittedly that was quite a few years ago, but the point still stands. More importantly, no matter how large LLMs – Large Language Models – like ChatGPT become, they can never become sentient like us because they are based on just the digital half of the equation.

So what of CL1?

Cortical Labs does not use brain cells per se. Instead, they use “human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) integrated into high-density multielectrode arrays (HD-MEAs) based on complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology could be electro-physiologically stimulated to forge autonomous, highly efficient information-exchange paths.” New Atlas

By creating their own brain cells, Cortical Labs gets around the ethical problem of using cells from someone who was once alive, i.e. a real person. But, if this wetware continues to evolve by responding to the equivalent of the ‘pleasure pain’ stimuli, won’t it eventually evolve some sense of ‘self’? After all, these pluripotent stem cells do contain DNA, and that DNA could dictate how they ‘evolve’. Have we just taken the first step in creating a cyborg?

I don’t know the answer to that question. No one does, but I’m chilled at the thought that we could be on the threshold of creating an artificial brain that is closer to us than we’d like to acknowledge, but also very, very different.

I strongly recommend that you read the entire New Atlas article which you can find here.

On a selfish note, I loved reading about a technology that creates a synthesis between wetware and digital computing. That synthesis is at the heart of the tech in Innerscape, and I imagined it over ten years ago. Yay me. Sadly, I didn’t imagine that the AI of that time would be the recipients of this wetware. This myopia is the bane of all scifi writers. We never get it all right.

Cheers,
Meeks

Fox News Bull Shit

I was too angry to post about the disgraceful bullying of President Zelenskyy so I decided to post about Australia’s own Trump-lite party, and the talking heads trying to legitimize the lies about our own ‘waste in government’.

For those who don’t know, Sky news is part of Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorpse. Newscorpse is doing to Australia exactly what it’s already done to the US.

I’m going to go wash out my eyes now. I may throw up a bit too. Anything to get rid of this brain pollution.

Meeks