I parked my car this morning in the village and walked down to my favourite coffee place for an espresso. Every one of the three conversations I overheard was about people discussing the pros and cons of ChatGPT. Pros seem to be that “it helped me to know what to ask for when I talked to my car insurance company” and cons are mostly “how do we know that any of this is real?” More seriously I’m sitting near folks who work in the arts and the looks on their faces are of the deepest concern. They use it. For …
It’s undeniable that in the time I have been publishing on the web (and before that on usenet and bbs’ dating back to 1992) we have seen a shift from protocols to platforms. Back in the day, people made protocols so we could all talk to each other, regardless of the platforms we used to do it. The web today runs on these protocols, which allows us to use all kinds of different platforms to communicate. Think email. We all use different email programs, but when I send a message, it gets to you regardless. The enclosure of the commons …
Spending the past few weeks immersed in football culture in England and back home at Canada fed my soul. There is so much about football that I love, from the complexity of the game, all through to the culture and atmosphere of the stadium. I have been a dedicated and deeply involved football supporter of the Vancouver Whitecaps (2010-2018, ended over a series of unresolved sexual abuse scandals) and of TSS Rovers (2017- the present). The thing that drew me to football as a kid was hearing Liverpool supporters singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” on the BBC Match of the …
Detail from a quilt designed and made by the St. Andrews Anglican Church Women Quilter’s Guild. The quilt was made in 1967 in honour of Canada’s centennial year. Keen eyed observers will notice patterns in here that relate to that celebration. The quilt was on display at the Bowen Island Public Library earlier this year, on loan from Joyce Ganong whose mother, Isabel Faulks, was one of the quilters. Another reflection from the Complexity Inside and Out course we taught yesterday… Caitlin led us in a check in process that was about slowing down out seeing. Here’s a variation. Try …
If you were popping around here on Nexwlelexwm (Bowen Island) over the past couple of days, you might have remarked to folks that the weather seems a bit weird. We’ve had a volatile week of spring weather, with heavy rain, different kinds of winds, a front of thunderstorms and clear skies. It is interesting to listen to people talk about the weather. The patterns are different. The air is warmer, but has a bit of a chill on the breeze. The wind is coming from different angles and the trees are moving differently. In fact southerly and westerly winds on …