3jun2026

Although the ‘no pain, no gain’ aphorism has (somewhat) gone out of style for weight training, two educators, Zoe Bee and LanguageJones, have recently made overlapping arguments for the opposing view with regard to learning.

I encountered Bee's video first, The Educational Seduction of Jordan Peterson. I didn't know he was even still a thing, assuming his assorted dietary (& other) antics had gotten him so completely discredited that he'd fallen completely off the face of the (online) earth, but evidently his university scam is still an ongoing concern? By scam, I mean that paying the several hundred dollar per year fee is not going to net you a diploma from an accredited university; it's going to give you access to slickly produced videos that promise to deliver knowledge in 30 minutes. Or 3 hours. Or 3 months.

This annoys Zoe Bee deeply as an educator, because these sorts of snake-oil claims deceive people into thinking there's an easy end run to getting good at something. It's much of a piece with get-rich-quick: a get smart quick, if you will.

Unfortunately, life doesn't work that way, and most disciplines worth pursuing take years.

LanguageJones takes a slightly different approach with his video, I did a PhD w/o knowing how to read. In it, he claims that that a lot of the work that even authentically motivated and hard-working students only makes the material more familiar, not more mastered. Thus, re-reading the chapter (or one's notes) are not really good uses of time—but that there are hacks which, while not eliminating the time and effort, will at least make it faster and more effective. He explains that he finds the protocols of two books, Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren's (1940s!) How to Read a Book and Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, Mark A. McDanie's 2012 Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, which, used together, are very helpful for focusing on the sort of effortful (i.e. hard) learning that activates that deep knowledge available ‘on the fly’ so critical to language learning.

Vis a vis the kayaking conference I went to, it should be noted for persons who don't find 3 generations (or more) out-of-style formal la-di-dah-ish language, or the shallow self-help mode in which these books are respectively cast, that the writing can be annoying: just as my paddling instructor's relentless focus on non-negativity in language got really wearisome. Some things are just plain old failures, and in some contexts, I want to be able to say so without being guilted over my cultural choices—that is, I'm from Detroit, and take pride in a certain level of sarcastic pushback on the ocean of midwestern “nice” surrounding me.

In a similar way, while I can appreciate a nearly century out-of-date formality (I read Jane Austen for fun, cuz I like the language), modern self-help books and their breezy, skimalicious, lite writing style just grates. LanguageJones acknowledges this, but says overcoming such distaste is worth it. (So, of course, I feel much more comfortable with the content of the older book, not least because most of its precepts formed the basis of my high school “speed-reading” class, and stuff like summarizing the argument of a book in one sentence or answering the question why did the author write this particular book? are things I mostly do already; it's the annoying-styled one I still need to internalize, le sigh.

Same with the kayaking, despite the ‘no bad experiences, only learning opportunities mantra’—I learned plenty, and would even concede, especially when interacting with others, that praise is gonna be more helpful: ‘what would you have done differently?’ is a better framing than ‘you screwed up!’, even if I wanted to be able to say, I screwed up, because some things, like ramming the rather sharp prow of a kayak in your would be rescuerer's chest is a mistake I don't ever care to repeat, especially not on rough seas with forceful waves propelling said boat as opposed to the gentle tap on dead flat water that actually happened.)

But the larger point stands: learning stuff so it's truly available takes (a) time and (b) brainful, if not painful, effort.

Oddly enough, so does drawing peonies, especially the cultivars with multiple rings of petals, for which today's images serve as photo reference.

1jun2026

O hai.

I have been having this ongoing argument, erm, discussion about AI with f2tE, who like me is an artist, and moreover, one who, at least for the foreseeable future, is (at least somewhat) shielded from AI's disruptive effects.

F2’s feelings, which I have seen expressed with increasing strength and frequency elseweb, is that “AI” is evil, full stop, no exceptions; that it cannot be compared to other modern disruptions; that it is a order of magnitude (or more) dangerous than digital photography was to film, or computer art was to traditional, physical media.

Let alone painting, drawing and engraving when photography came in—it was gonna be the death of the visual arts!

Except not.

Grant you, the moral panics for (other) computer aided art making were not as strong, not least because people with some amount of talent still had to direct the computer to make the art or click the shutter (though given the lower barrier to entry, I'd say the photographers were more bent out of shape than the painters.) —But after the initial explosion of truly terrible designs/photos/art made with these tools, the dedicated users started pushing their boundaries, and that is how we get these splendid slo-mo videos of eagles grabbing fish out of rivers, all kinds of artists making “breyer horse models” or ABJ dolls for their adoring fans; and a slew of reasonably designed instructional materials for a ton of niche interests—because anyone, with a bit of effort, can make tutorials of their chosen passion with quite-average typing, editing, typesetting, design and photographic (or videographic) skills (now that most of this stuff is video you don't even need to talk, let alone write).

I've been making this observation for years, and the lowered barrier to entry is in my view unequivocally a good thing.

But AI slop! What is to be done about that?

I haven't really encountered anyone seriously defending the frankensteined melange of original creators’ works that AI is pouring out by way of “theft” of original creators (which I'd argue is more the problem of transferring the value of their work from workers creators to the capitalists—not exactly a new problem; where the orders-of-magnitude comes in is the efficiency, not to mention that it's now the white-collar artists, as opposed to the blue-collar artisan/workers historically targeted by these threats), but what I and some other defenders have attempted to make a case for is separating out the capitalism from the tool: wielded by sophisticated users, “AI”/LLM is brilliant for assisting radiologists in detecting patterns of cancerous tumours, or helping researchers identify potentially useful proteins amongst millions (or billions) of possibilities.

Or, say, by individual artists using their own work (or perhaps carefully curated [i.e. public domain or paid-for rights’] sources) as the seeds for ideas. I'd seen this sort of thing floated back when AI imagery was just getting going, but now that it's getting ever harder to differentiate it from “real” images, those edge cases are getting drowned with the ‘no, bad, absolutely not’ rhetoric.

But how is this moral panic different from earlier ones in which people were faced with the loss of their jobs (the luddites didn't hate the mechanized looms, they hated they were being cheated of their share of the profits—the mill owners’ greed was bad; the average person being able to afford cloth for more than two outfits, good) or sophisticated deceptions (people using whatever tools were available to hand to copy successful art/business models/technology is not at all a new problem, never mind cheating customers by whatever method is as old as the hills!)

Let alone the quandries people had to address after we (by which I mean the US) dropped atomic bombs on people? Radiation therapy saves lives, but nuclear energy can be—and is—deadly even when it's not being used explicitly to slaughter. (Perhaps the modern update would be drones—US using drones to kill people, horrific; the erosion of privacy we had before these tiny, invisible cameras is a problem that will only get worse; or even the drones’ spoiling the pristine quiet of nature with the mosquito-like whine of motors—all bad; Ukraine using drones in creative ways to defend itself from invasion, or my kayaking instructors using it as a teaching tool: I'd say, good.)

I mean, drone photography and videography has yielded some absolutely gorgeous, and, more to the point, previously inaccessible views of the world, the kind of thing once restricted only to big-budgeted situations like tentpole films, that could afford to hire helicopters or planes to shoot that sort of thing.

IOW, why does AI have people up in arms, but not drone technology? (Let alone nuclear power, which isn't exactly safe...)

Cynicism suggests unfamiliarity crossed with middle class concerns.

I'm retired, so AI isn't coming for my livelihood (though I'm surely invested in differentiating AI produced lies from “truth”) but I grew up in the aftermath of the atomic age. I don't believe tech can be hidden, any more than ‘security through obscurity’ is a robust protocol. The way forward is to come up with social rules (starting with laws) for how we use tech, and that's something we know how to do: no filling trenches with mustard gas. No dropping atomic bombs on people. Killing people with bioengineered viruses is heinous. All of these technologies are currently available, but the default assumption is that even the most evil of governments will refrain from using them.

No-one, so far as I can tell, is suggesting that we just stop collecting data, not least because given capitalism, it's simply not gonna happen. We have, however, enacted laws (however thin) to help protect people (combined, I would argue, with increasing comfort with the loss of privacy as the default of our modern world). Time will take care of the familiarity, so then the problem becomes, how do we regulate AI?

Laws are not by any means a perfect solution, but they are, I believe, more effective than tearing hair and declaring ‘this must not be!’

Perhaps the real problem is that, given the current political climate, people in general don't have a whole lot of faith in our legal and political institutions to protect us. That's a fair cop, but again, it seems to me the answer is to try and fix things, not wish new technology would go away: so long as the 1% stands to make money on tech, that's not happening. Far better to address the root problem, and I honestly don't know of any other method than by fixing the political situation. I mean, the alternative, revolution/civil war, has an even worse success rate.

So it was more than a bit interesting to listen to Hanfu Girl's observations about AI vis a vis western and eastern cultures. Hanfu has a website, but her most interesting work seems to happen on instagram, where she delivers short, pungent comparisons between western and eastern culture. The first one I encountered was the ways in which China (& Japan) emphasize the surface beauty of fabric over the fit on the body: someone focused on western tailoring traditions would ding the bunching of fabric under the arms of traditional Chinese dress, whereas the Asian textile aficionado might deride the way all the darts, armscyes and seams distracted and cut up the uninterrupted beauty of the fabric and its design.

Hanfugirl is in a relatively rare place of being able to speak to western audiences while being able also to access Chinese thought, and she points out that while novelty is prized in Western art, in contrast, traditional Asian art—and I'm no expert on China, but I can speak, a little, to Japanese traditions—you as the student are expected to copy the masters for quite a long time before being permitted to create your own stuff.

Add in the expectation of subtle feedback from the teacher, and voila, a model for using AI that's a good deal more positive (& in fact the one I've seen proposed by western enthusiasts): give it a prompt, correct it, rinse, lather, and repeat until something good starts to come out of it.

I really appreciated this, because I'm simply not a very innovative person—I come up with new ideas comparatively slowly, by trying the same thing over and over (and over) until enough mistakes creep in natural variation accrues to point me in a potentially interesting new direction. My job as artist is to use my judgement to recognize which variations are worth pursuing. I admit, the idea of speeding that process up by offloading a lot of the fumbling around to a machine that works many times faster than I can is an appealing one.

But to get there, we need to start thinking about AI as a powerful tool, rather than an unmitigated evil.

In the meantime, I guess I'll be making more of these little physical media doodles, cuz they're low enough barrier to entry, that is easy, for my molasses slow mind to handle.

4may2026

So I gather today is a sort of the big Star Wars day, (& may the fourth be with you!:) but alas, I haven't any linkies for that; but I do have one for the first Star Trek movie, which I'd argue paved the way for the SW franchise. Steve Shrives asks the question,

Is Star Trek: the Motion Picture actually a good movie?

The answer, of course, is still no, but it was kind of interesting to watch the take of someone who was too young to see it in the theatre, because, of course, that's where I saw it, and as much as I wanted it to be a good movie...it just wasn't.

What I was too young to have seen in the theatre—because my parents weren't movie-goers, wouldn't’ve spent the money to take us regardless, besides which at that point I hadn't discovered sf&f—was the 1968 2001: A Space Odyssey; I think I've seen this film in its entirety, almost certainly at some sf&f con, but I never made the connection between it and the turgid bits of the later film that unsuccessfully tried to cash in on its themes.

I do recall most Star Trek fen being rather disappointed with The Motion Picture, which absolutely makes sense: Star Trek is not and never has been anything like 2001, and trying to chop it to fit was doomed to failure. So one question Mr Shrives’ videoessay answered for me, that I never really understood before, was why the movie was so bad—something young-adult me just accepted as a sort of, oh well, too bad.

To be honest, my favourite iteration was the 72–73 animated series, which had the advantage of the original cast & director (and some of its best & most popular writers, David Gerrold, who wrote The Trouble with Tribbles, the story that originally hooked me, and D.C. Fontana) not to mention hitting at that early teen/puberty age that makes anything experienced then as “the best.” (Plus of course the feline M'ress, she was cool:) —None of the following series have ever managed to engage my interest enough to watch more than an episode or two: by then, I'd discovered the entire sf&f field, and even today, I feel it's difficult for any commercially made film (or tv series) to replicate the particularity and inventiveness individual authors can achieve, constrained as businesses are by the expense and corporate constraints.

And, I have to say, it's just so odd, the way people a generation, or two, talk about the era in which I grew up, because their lived experience, though related, is nonetheless different. Their off-the-cuff assertions are so often just nonsense.

IOW, I'm turning into my parents, but about stuff they didn't really feel was fit for grownups. (It's still really weird to me to see grown adults into this stuff, and I've had, um, at least three decades to get used to the idea...) In fact, now it seems mostly grownups (afict?) that are the ones getting excited about Star Trek (& Star Wars)—the kids have mostly moved on to new things?

Which to be sure, I'm absolutely fine with, the world would be dull indeed without those fresh infusions. —And, by the way, here's a birthday card for one of those young'uns.

1may2026

I know why ‘May [the] 4th’ is for Star Wars but I'm too old to be familiar with the ‘it's gonna be may’ meme (I'm, as they say in the comments, that 10,000th person to learn about it;) via Language Jones, who made a delightful video explaining why the pop singer shifted his vowel from mi (me) to the dipthong mai (long ‘a’) Hint: it's not because he didn't know better!

It's so nice to have something fun, entertaining & educational to celebrate May Day—another of those minor holidays for which I have a fondness—instead of more dreary news.

On a similar (heh) note, here's a bookmark, another little happiness, at least for me. Or may:)

24apr2026

Today's art is pretty enough, but the linkies, alas, fall in the fridayfugly territory. (One of the things I admit to really appreciating while at Baja surf camp last year was that we were in the middle of nowhere in the Mexican desert—admittedly on coast of said desert—was absolutely no connection to the outside world. This is why I find myself, more and more, understanding my mom's, if not decision precisely, but trending habit, of ignoring the larger political realities, as she got older: she wanted to die, if not happy—cancer is not a fun way to go, and she was luckier than most—at least content.

I'm not at all happy about being one of those complicit Deutsch folx during WWII US citizens during the current heinous regime, but I don't know what much I can do about it except hope enough of the country holds together until the November mid-terms. I will say that even the die-hard Trump supporter has taken down his sign, a somewhat encouraging, er, sign.)

I'm hardly the only one who feels this despair: Randy Rainbow is known for his politically inspired song parodies, which while sharply critical of our appalling political landscape, still are darkly funny. Not this time. It is just...sad. I wasn't the only one to notice, other commenters said the same.

Lithub's excerpt of Ibram X Kendi's new book, Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age has definitely moved it to my to-read pile; here's this German immigrant descedent's (from the 1800s, with the excuse of desiring not to be war fodder) money quote:

To be racist is to see peoples of color as eternal immigrants. In 2019, President Trump told four congresswomen of color—three of whom were born in the United States—to “go back” to the “corrupt” and “crime-infested” countries they “originally came from.” Trump’s own paternal grandfather, Friedrich, originally came from Germany in 1885. He traveled back home in 1901 and met his wife, Elisabeth. They moved to the United States together in 1902 and returned to Germany in 1904. They came back to the U.S. for good in 1905—Elisabeth pregnant with Trump’s father, Fred. Trump’s mother, Mary Anne, immigrated from Scotland in 1930. Trump, a son of immigrants. To be racist is to see White people as eternal natives.

Your brain on money, via Slacktivist, is one of the several articles I've seen on the growing online gambling problem. Also via Slacktivist, here's another, proving out the first one's assertion that it generally takes a country about 7 years to realize what a terrible idea legalizing online betting is. Especially chilling is the cite about a writer who thoroughly researched the topic before ever placing a bet—and still getting sucked in; as with so many ills, people are lured in by the late-stage capitalism frustrations burdening them: flat or falling wages, shrinking horizons. I think this same article noted the average age for people buying their first home has crept up to 40.

Yet as Hanna Horvath notes, by far the most corrosive aspect is the gambler's reduction of their sportsball players into elements to be cursed, instead of the social bonding activity sports—especially professional sports that people do not play themselves—is sold as; instead their loss of affect becomes so severe they become emotionally (& otherwise) detached from all aspects of their everyday lives, leaving behind spouses and children even while physically present.

But at least you could argue that the gambling addicts, however damaging to others, are victims; not so with the Gisele Pelicot's abuser. Here, the hero is unambiguously Pelicot herself, who demanded her identity during her rapist-husband's trial be public, as she, after all, had nothing to hide.

I don't know why people were surprized or shocked Deepak Chopra associated with Jeffrey Epstein; anybody who says his gonads are thermonuclear balls (or some such—it's been 20 years, and I can't find the quote) when battling a beleaguered opponent in court over copyrighting yoga poses, which yanno, have been around for thousands of years, is clearly an asshole, if the huge profits he's made off his franchises weren't indicator enough—but me being an open source advocate, and believer in yoga for everyone (also the aim of BKS Iyengar who perhaps did more than anyone else to popularize asana practise in the West) I was immediately repelled by his greed and arrogance; but I was rather saddened to see that the founder of my favourite style, ashtanga (an aerobic fusion of Eastern yoga and western gymnastics, distinguished by its continuous and vigourous flowing movements) K. Pattabhi Jois, was also creditably accused of “sexual misconduct” of women.

Le sigh.

(That said, there is so much good, free info on yoga now—Yoga with Adriene cracked that dam, and now there's also Yoga with Kassandra, Charlie Follows, and EmmaForeverYoga, all of whom I've tried, all of whom at least intersect with the Power (i.e. ashtanga) Yoga, and can recommend. (Adriene is also excellent, especially for beginners, but I would say she hews more to the Iyengar style, which focuses on using props for careful alignment, as opposed to the flowing sequences. You'll still get a workout, though! and the others also have beginner or relaxing sequences;)

And on that slightly higher note, here's a unicorn-pretty chaser.

21apr2026

Ah, the linkies are once again piling up, so I'm posting this older piece so I have an excuse to tidy up my tabs...

• via Pharyngula, a close read of Sapiens It's pretty entertaining so far.
• via Pro-Science, Shizuoka is literally a model city. It took me a moment to understand this adorable visual pun, I'm slow. And in fact, I'm not certain but what I actually may have visited this city, the name seems awfully familiar. (Needless to say I did not pick up on the element cited here, I'm sure I would've noticed. Right? Right! Oh well...)
• In other heartening news the almost-extinct flightless kakapo parrots are slowly recovering. Yay, another reason to visit New Zealand—not because I actually expect to see these rare animals, but to support a place that enables their survival.

Aaaaand, a bit of nostalgia mixed media finally photo'ed so it could go off to its forever home.