I wanted to try audio books again this month, and I ended up finishing two of them. And I read the two Hench series books by Natalie Zina Walschots because my local bookclub wanted to discuss them as an extra meetup. The main book was The Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum.

1. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience by Brené Brown, Audio 8h29m: This book was recommended in the Bullet Journal community and I was curious about it. It is like a guide to identifying and naming emotions. The author groups emotions into different categories and explores all the nuances we can experience as human beings. The audio was narrated by the author in a very conversational tone. I would say it’s a light, casual read about emotions.

2. The Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum, 320p: Interesting speculative sci-fi in a world where people can have multiple bodies sharing the same mind. But more interestingly, it’s a society very unlike ours where gender and sexual organs are completely dissociated. People are assigned at birth by the Midwives with either of these two genders: Vails or Staids (which having nothing to do with biological sexual organs). It’s a weird book, with rich world-building, set in a complex society with mass surveillance and social media gig economy. Also, it’s about parenting. And a clear criticism of the binary gender status quo. Lots going on here.

3. Hench (Hench #1) by Natalie Zina Walschots, 385p: This is the same premise as the graphic novel (and TV series) “The Boys”, exploring the darker side of superhero culture, focusing on the consequences of superhero actions and their impact on ordinary people. The main character (Anna) starts calculating the collateral damage caused by superheroes and starts a revenge journey with a supervillain. There is office politics and satire. There is also body horror at the end, which threw me off a bit.

4. Villain (Hench #2) by Natalie Zina Walschots, 436p: In this second book it becomes even more clear how morally grey all the villains and superheroes truly are. Nobody is to be trusted, and we also have an unreliable narrator (Anna aka The Auditor). It deepens the toxic relationship between Leviathan and The Auditor, but since everything exists in shades of grey, it is not entirely clear who the victim is here (they are all villains in the end?). It was actually a challenging book for me, because the author challenged me by refusing to offer a clean line between good and evil, forcing me to sit with the uncomfortable reality of Anna’s descent into worse and worse choices. I thought the pacing was a bit off and the book could have been shorter if a lot of the office team-management shenanigans were reduced. The best character was Decoherence, and I loved all the quantum physics related names.

5. Lean in: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg, Audio 6h: A conversation about women in the workplace filled with personal anecdotes from the author herself. She lays out all the issues with standard office environments, including biases and sometimes even a lack of proper women’s restrooms. She provides advice on how women can take more leadership positions, overcome the imposter syndrome and basically “sitting at the table”. She also emphasizes the importance of domestic equality, where both partners share the work of raising children and manage the home. It has an optimistic view of the future and a great message, but I found the author has some blind spots because she speaks from a unique position as a high level Silicon Valley Executive.

#readinglist #books #reading

On the morning of Wednesday 2 September 2026, a document was carried into the Tasmanian House of Assembly and laid on the table. It was an electronic petition, closed two days earlier, bearing 10,035 signatures. It asked the Parliament of Tasmania to impose a moratorium on any AI and data facility not already complete, and to keep that moratorium in place until five specific things existed: planning legislation written for these facilities rather than adapted to them, a public register of their energy and water consumption, a mechanism giving Parliament oversight of anything drawing more than fifty megawatts, a guarantee of permanent local employment, and a protection for Tasmanian households against utility price rises caused by connecting them.

Ten thousand and thirty-five is not a large number in absolute terms. In a state whose estimated resident population sat at roughly 579,000 at the end of 2025, it is a shade under two per cent of everybody, including infants. But Tasmanian parliamentary petitions do not usually reach four figures. This one closed on 31 August as one of the largest ever presented to the state's lower house.

What makes the petition worth reading closely is not its size but its specificity. It does not object to artificial intelligence, or to computing, or to industry. It is a procurement complaint. It says that decisions with multi-decade consequences for a small island grid and a small island water system have been taken in rooms the petitioners were not in, on the basis of information they have not seen, and that the machinery supposed to let them find out has not worked. It asks for the sequence to be reversed: rules first, then facilities.

That sequence has not been reversed. In the six months before the petition was tabled, one Firmus facility went into construction at St Leonards outside Launceston, a second was approved by the George Town Council at Bell Bay on 25 August by six votes to one, and a third was lodged with Latrobe Council for Wesley Vale. Together the three sites add up to something over 400 megawatts, all of it sought by a single Singapore-headquartered company. A week after the petition was tabled, the government listed six more proposals without saying whose they were.

What Ten Thousand People Were Actually Asking For

The petition was posted to the Tasmanian Parliament's e-petitions portal on 22 June 2026 and sponsored by Cecily Rosol, the Greens member for Bass, a former registered nurse who ran a counselling practice in Launceston before her election in March 2024. Its preamble states that Tasmanians have not been adequately consulted on the future of resource-intensive AI and data facilities before public resources were committed to large technology companies. That is the load-bearing sentence. Everything else follows from it.

Under the standing orders governing House of Assembly petitions, a tabled petition triggers one obligation: the government must table a response within fifteen sitting days of receipt by the Premier. That is the entire formal consequence. There is no threshold above which a petition compels a debate, no count that converts it into a binding instruction, no mechanism by which ten thousand names outrank ten. What the petitioners bought, with three months of organising, was a letter.

Tabatha Badger, the Greens member for Lyons and the party's spokesperson for science and information technology, put it plainly when the petition was tabled. More than ten thousand signatures was no surprise, she said, because Tasmanians were deeply concerned and being kept in the dark. She then identified the specific darkness: the latest AI factory proposed for Wesley Vale was about to go to planning assessment, and the Office of the Coordinator General was speaking to other proponents behind closed doors. Rosol framed it as a consent problem, saying the community had made clear how concerned it was about AI data factories proceeding without the government consulting them or putting guardrails in place.

The Office of the Coordinator General sits inside the state government as an investment attraction and facilitation body. On the government's own account, it has supported data centre proponents with site identification and stakeholder engagement. Its function is to make deals happen, and commercial negotiation of that kind is by nature confidential. The complaint is not that the office exists. It is that the office is the only part of the system holding a complete picture, and that picture is unavailable to anyone else, including the Parliament. When the House ordered the information tabled, the names still did not appear, and the Premier defended keeping them confidential.

An Island That Already Imports Its Own Electricity

Tasmania's pitch to the AI industry is hydroelectricity. The state has more than 2,600 megawatts of hydro capacity across roughly thirty power stations and more than fifty major dams, it reached a legislated one hundred per cent renewable generation target early, and it has a strategy branded the Battery of the Nation, underwritten by the proposed 1,500 megawatt Marinus Link interconnector to Victoria, whose first 750 megawatt stage is targeted for around 2030. Premier Jeremy Rockliff, announcing a world-first AI Factory Zone in northern Tasmania in June 2025 alongside Firmus co-chief executives Tim Rosenfield and Oliver Curtis, said Tasmania was set to lead the world in sustainable artificial intelligence. Rosenfield described the output as a new kind of green AI token.

The official numbers complicate the pitch. The Tasmanian Economic Regulator's Energy in Tasmania report for 2024-25, published in February 2026, records generation of 8,704 gigawatt hours against consumption of 10,671. Hydroelectricity contributed 6,343 gigawatt hours of that, down from 8,232 two years earlier. Basslink imports were 2,509 gigawatt hours; exports were 542. The regulator notes that Tasmanian consumption was met by on-island generation only during parts of September and October 2024.

That is the fact structuring everything else. In the most recent full year for which official figures exist, Tasmania consumed roughly 1,967 gigawatt hours more electricity than it generated and made up the difference by importing from the mainland over a cable. The battery of the nation was, that year, a net drain on the nation.

Now apply the arithmetic. Firmus has asked Hydro Tasmania for 450 megawatts across its three sites, equivalent to roughly 30 per cent of the state's current energy use, with a decision expected by the end of 2026. Take the slightly lower figure of 440 megawatts of continuous load: at a plausible high utilisation for AI training and inference, that works out at somewhere between three thousand and three and a half thousand gigawatt hours a year. Against 8,704 gigawatt hours of state generation, that is between roughly 35 and 40 per cent. Hydro Tasmania has gone to market seeking offtake for up to 1,500 gigawatt hours a year of new wind and solar, targeted to begin operating within five to six years: roughly half the load in question, arriving at best at the end of the decade. Firmus has said it will match its initial power use with renewable energy credits and finance suppliers to build double the renewable capacity it consumes. Badger's response to that has been consistent and difficult to argue with: the discussions, the applications and the processes for those renewable projects need to be under way as well, and they are not.

What Is Actually Being Built, And Where

Project Southgate, the flagship, is under construction at St Leonards outside Launceston. The company describes an initial 44 megawatt stage by 2026, doubling to 90, with a further 300 megawatt stage subject to approval, and investment of up to 2.1 billion Australian dollars over twelve months for the first tranche. Firmus secured a 104 megawatt power arrangement with Aurora Energy, the state-owned retailer. The design is fully liquid-cooled, which the company says uses up to sixty per cent less energy than conventional approaches.

Bell Bay is the big one. The 288 megawatt facility sits on the old Gunns pulp mill site at Long Reach. It attracted 349 public submissions and a separate electronic petition of nearly six thousand signatures, and around eighty protesters gathered outside the council building on the day of the vote. Councillors approved it six to one, with Winston Archer the sole dissenter, and attached thirteen pages of conditions: a noise survey within sixty days of operations commencing, an air quality assessment within twelve months, an updated bushfire and emergency plan covering the site's 276 diesel backup generators, and a twenty-four-hour annual cap on simultaneous multi-generator operation.

That generator condition, Condition 13, is the one Firmus has chosen to fight. It confines the diesel sets to unscheduled outages, routine maintenance between 8am and 6pm on weekdays, and genuine emergencies. On 10 September the company lodged its own appeal with the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, calling the condition unreasonable and asking to run the generators for limited augmentation of mains supply, to offset curtailment, manage energy security and maintain reliability during periods of energy market stress. Asked how often it expected to do so, Firmus declined to comment. A company selling green hydro AI is seeking permission to burn diesel when the grid runs short, which is the energy arithmetic above, conceded in a planning appeal.

Wesley Vale is the smallest and the most revealing. Fifty-two megawatts on the site of the former Wesley Vale pulp mill, with a 2,689 square metre data hall and forty diesel generators. Its cooling plan, as lodged, is rainwater capture supplemented by water delivered by truck during dry periods. Firmus had intended to draw from Tasmanian Irrigation, but that arrangement turned out not to be legally available for data centre use. The company says cooling is only required above 26 degrees Celsius, that trucking should be needed only in extreme dry periods, and has elsewhere said its facilities use less water than one restaurant. In early September Latrobe Council deferred its decision and asked Planning Minister Kerry Vincent to declare the proposal a major project, so that the state would assess it. The State Planning Office has said it is considering the request.

The one-restaurant claim is exactly the kind of statement a public transparency register, of the sort the petition asks for, exists to test. Nobody in Tasmania can currently verify or falsify it, because no standardised, published, audited figure for the water consumption of these sites exists. Which brings us to the research.

Measuring The Heat Nobody Priced In

In March 2026 a group of researchers led by Andrea Marinoni at the University of Cambridge, working with colleagues at Nanyang Technological University, Grenoble, INRIA, the University of Genoa and City University of Hong Kong, posted a paper to arXiv with an unshowy title and a genuinely startling result. They called the phenomenon the data heat island effect.

The method is simple to explain and hard to dismiss. The team took a reconstructed NASA MODIS land surface temperature dataset covering the whole world from 2004 to 2024 at 500 metre resolution, aggregated it to monthly values, stripped out seasonality and outliers, and overlaid the locations of data centres drawn from a commercial database of more than eleven thousand sites. Crucially, they discarded everything inside dense urban areas, whose surface temperatures are contaminated by roads, manufacturing and domestic heating. That left 8,472 locations and, after cleaning, 6,733 usable data points. For each site they calculated the difference between monthly temperature and the preceding average, then aligned every site on a common timeline whose zero point was the month that facility began operations.

The result is a step function. Averaged across the sites, land surface temperature rises by 2.07 degrees Celsius after operations begin, with a minimum of 0.3 and a maximum of 9.1. The finding is robust to the baseline window, holding between 2.03 and 2.12 degrees whether the comparison period is twelve months or ten years. For context, the classic urban heat island effect, the accumulated thermal signature of an entire city, has been estimated at between four and six degrees. A single category of industrial facility is producing between a third and a half of that.

It does not stay on site. The researchers ran the same calculation in expanding rings and found the signal reaching up to ten kilometres out, with a full degree still measurable at 4.5 kilometres. Overlaying gridded population data, they estimate up to 343 million people worldwide live within ten kilometres of a facility producing some level of this effect, and they identify three regions where previously unexplained warming trends line up with data centre clustering: the Bajío region of Mexico, Aragón in Spain, and Ceará and Piauí in north-eastern Brazil.

Now put Anne-Marie Bastian and Nicholla Thompson on that map. They are the president and secretary of the newly formed Environmental Awareness Association, and they live at Rowella, about two kilometres from the Bell Bay site: well inside the radius at which the Cambridge-led study measures a full degree of sustained warming. None of this appeared in the planning assessment, because there is no head of consideration in Tasmanian planning law under which it could have.

Trucked Water And A Number Called WCI

The second paper, posted to arXiv in June 2026 by Basit Akinade, Amobichukwu Amanambu and Jonathan Frame with Shaolei Ren, does something structurally similar for water. Its central move is to reject the framing in which data centre water use is a national volumetric question. Nationally, the United States aggregate looks modest. The authors argue that aggregation is precisely what conceals the problem, because burden is local and varies enormously.

They formalise what they call the Water and AI Feedback Loop, in which cooling demand consumes water, water scarcity constrains where facilities can go, and AI tools are simultaneously sold as a way to improve water system efficiency. Then they introduce a single diagnostic number, the Water Consumption Impact index, defined as a facility's peak-day consumptive water use divided by the maximum deliverable capacity of the public water system hosting it. A value above one means that on its worst day, one facility's cooling demand would exceed everything the utility can physically deliver to everybody.

Applied to ten United States sites where utility and facility data can be assembled from environmental reports, permit filings and public records, the index spans nearly three orders of magnitude. Henderson, Nevada, served by the vast Southern Nevada system, registers 0.002. Lebanon, Indiana, registers 1.34, meaning peak-day consumptive demand already exceeds the host utility's entire 17.4 megalitre per day capacity. Expressed in household terms, Council Bluffs in Iowa carries the largest absolute footprint at around 9,220 household equivalents.

The elegant part is the decomposition. The index factorises into three components: demand scale relative to the host system, the consumptive ratio set by cooling technology, and a peaking factor reflecting how spiky demand is. Each maps to a different policy lever, and the binding constraint differs by site. At Lebanon and Council Bluffs the peaking factor dominates, so workload scheduling and thermal storage would move the number. At Mayes County and The Dalles it is sheer demand scale, fixed at the moment of siting. Dry cooling can eliminate consumptive use almost entirely, but at a power penalty of 25 to 35 per cent, which is the trade the Wesley Vale application is implicitly making by proposing rainwater and trucks. Projecting forward at a conservative thirteen per cent annual growth rate, the authors find Council Bluffs and Mayes County crossing the hundred per cent threshold by 2029.

There is a counterexample Tasmanian readers should sit with. The Potomac basin hosts the densest concentration of data centres on earth, roughly 5,400 megawatts across more than 290 facilities, and American Rivers named it the most endangered river in the United States in 2026 citing that build-out. Yet its community-scale index comes out at around 1.9 per cent, below the small-town sites, because the metropolitan utilities serving it are enormous. Burden is a ratio, not a volume.

Tasmania is a small system. The honest caveat is that nobody can currently compute this index for Bell Bay or Wesley Vale, because neither the denominator, the host utility's peak-day deliverable capacity, nor the numerator, the facility's peak consumptive demand, is published. That absence is not a gap in the research. It is the thing the petition asks to be fixed.

Why Concentration Is The Variable That Matters

The third paper, from Danbo Chen and colleagues including Yongyang Cai and Ani Katchova, takes the question up a level. It builds what the authors call an AI-energy coupling framework, combining large language model analysis of corporate disclosures, policy documents and media reporting with conventional energy-system modelling, to forecast data centre electricity demand from 2025 to 2030.

Its headline findings get quoted: more than ninety per cent of projected compute capacity concentrated in North America, Western Europe and the Asia-Pacific; the six leading firms' combined electricity consumption rising from roughly 118 terawatt hours in 2024 to between 239 and 295 by 2030. But the useful instrument is the Power Stress Index, projected data centre demand divided by total projected regional generation capacity, with thresholds at 0.10, 0.25 and 0.40. Ireland approaches 0.5, implying AI-related consumption could absorb nearly half of local generation. Oregon exceeds 0.25. Virginia, Nebraska and Washington sit between 0.20 and 0.30.

And then there is this: the paper lists Australia, along with Texas and Japan, among the diversified systems maintaining an index below 0.10, absorbing new load comfortably.

That number is correct at the national scale and misleading at the scale that matters. Australia's National Electricity Market is a continental system. Tasmania is a small, hydrologically constrained region connected to it by a single cable, which in 2024-25 it used to import nearly a fifth of what it consumed. Run the same index on Tasmania alone using the regulator's own figures, and 440 megawatts against 8,704 gigawatt hours of state generation produces a ratio north of 0.35, between the paper's moderate and high stress thresholds and in the same territory as Oregon. The framework does not fail here. It succeeds, in that its central argument, that concentration produces regional disparities invisible in national averages, applies recursively. Tasmania is the sub-national case hiding inside the national case that was hiding inside the global one.

The Machinery That Keeps The Decision Out Of Sight

None of the three research findings, on heat, on water, or on regional grid stress, is a legally relevant consideration in the assessment of a Tasmanian data centre application. This is not an oversight by any official. It is a structural feature of the instrument being used.

The Land Use Planning and Approvals Act 1993 is the framework under which George Town Council assessed a 288 megawatt AI facility. Bastian put it neatly when explaining why her association was preparing an appeal, saying that using a 33-year-old ruler to measure something as futuristic as a data centre was inappropriate. Mayor Greg Kieser, who voted for approval, was equally direct from the other side, saying the council could not see any grounds to do anything more than approve it in terms of the local planning scheme. Latrobe's mayor, Peter Freshney, considering Wesley Vale, observed that the legislation was written when data centres would not even have been considered feasible.

What a council can assess is land-use compatibility. What it cannot assess is the cumulative impact of three facilities on one grid, the state-level consequences for electricity supply and price, the water system effects beyond the immediate connection, or anything resembling social licence. The 349 submissions on Bell Bay were, in the great majority, about matters the decision-maker had no lawful power to weigh. That is not conspiracy; it is jurisdiction. And it works everywhere.

Opacity is reinforced upstream by the commercial layer. Internationally the instrument of choice is the non-disclosure agreement. Researchers at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia found that of thirty-one localities with an existing, approved or proposed data centre, twenty-five had NDAs making it difficult or impossible for residents to obtain information, and a review of more than thirty proposals across fourteen states found officials routinely signing NDAs and negotiating with what appeared to be shell companies. The agreements typically prohibit disclosure that any discussions are occurring at all, and treat the existence of the NDA as itself confidential. Developers offer a genuine defence: for a publicly traded company, a prospective campus is material non-public information, and an NDA protects local officials from inadvertently breaching insider trading rules. That explains why a confidentiality regime exists. It does not explain why it survives the deal.

There is no public evidence that Tasmania's Office of the Coordinator General uses NDAs in the American manner, and it would be wrong to assert otherwise. What is documented is similar in effect: an investment facilitation body in confidential discussions with proponents whose identities stayed confidential even after the House ordered the information produced.

What Communities Elsewhere Have And Have Not Won

The Tasmanian petitioners are late arrivals to a fight that has been running for the better part of a decade, and the international record is instructive precisely because it is mixed.

Ireland is furthest along and least encouraging. Data centres account for roughly half of electricity demand in the Dublin region, and the transmission operator effectively stopped offering new connections there, a position understood to extend to at least 2028. But when the Commission for Regulation of Utilities came to formalise policy, it explicitly declined to impose a moratorium, calling it neither appropriate nor proportionate, and instead adopted connection measures under which data centres must meet at least eighty per cent of annual demand with additional renewable generation built in Ireland, for applications lodged after 12 December 2025. A de facto freeze became a conditional yes.

The Netherlands went further and got more. A nine-month national moratorium on new hyperscale construction was imposed while planning rules were rewritten, and the rewritten rules took licensing away from local authorities and gave it to national government. Facilities above seventy megawatts of IT capacity or ten hectares are now banned across most of the country, with limited northern exceptions. Meta's 200 megawatt Zeewolde campus, which already had planning permission, died when the Senate refused to sell the state-owned land it needed, and the site has since been rezoned so it cannot be used for data centres at all.

Chile shows what litigation can achieve and what it cannot. Residents of Cerrillos in Santiago formed a group called MOSACAT after learning of Google's proposed 200 million dollar project in 2019, protested through to 2023, and in early 2024 an environmental court partially reversed the permit, requiring the application to be revised to account for climate change. The design as originally lodged would have drawn 7.6 million litres of potable water a day from a drought-stressed aquifer. Google paused and redesigned to air cooling. The community changed the machine. It did not stop the building.

Tucson is the sharpest lesson. In August 2025 the city council voted unanimously to reject Project Blue, a 290-acre development linked to Amazon that would have become the largest customer of both the local electricity and water utilities. It was an unambiguous democratic victory. The developer then obtained the zoning it needed from Pima County instead, announced an air-cooled design, and proceeded. The venue changed; the project did not.

And outside Memphis, where xAI's Colossus 2 data centre draws power from a gas turbine plant just across the state line in Southaven, Mississippi, the NAACP sued xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech in April 2026 over twenty-seven gas turbines running without an air permit. In June the United States Department of Justice moved to intervene, seeking dismissal on national security grounds, with a Defense Department official arguing that Grok was one of only four frontier models able to support national security applications.

The Tools In The Box And What Each One Does

The instruments available to a community in the path of this build-out form a ladder, and every rung has a known failure mode.

Petitions generate a mandatory written response and nothing else. Their real function is evidentiary: they establish, in a form a parliament cannot ignore, that opposition is broad rather than the work of a handful of activists. Ten thousand signatures did not stop Bell Bay. They did make the claim that the community is relaxed about this much harder to sustain, and Kieser's remark that there was no formal polling but the overwhelming message received was supportive with caveats sits awkwardly beside them.

Planning objections are the most concrete tool and the most narrowly bounded. The 349 Bell Bay submissions produced thirteen pages of conditions, which is a real outcome. What they could not produce was refusal, because the grounds that would justify refusal are not grounds the scheme recognises.

Merits appeals sit one rung up and cost money. Bastian and Thompson faced an estimated twenty to fifty thousand dollars to challenge the approval at the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, within a fourteen-day window, and lodged anyway: Thompson and five neighbours, Bastian among them, brought one of five community appeals, citing light and noise pollution, quality of life, tourism and air quality. A tribunal reviews the decision against the same planning scheme that produced it, so unless the council erred in applying that scheme the appeal fails, however strong the underlying case about water or heat or grid capacity. Right to information requests hit the commercial-in-confidence exemption exactly where the interesting material lives. Judicial review polices process, not substance. Local elections can change a council but not its statutory powers, and in Tucson the county simply approved what the city had refused.

Which leaves the two instruments that actually bind: legislation, and a moratorium imposed by whoever holds the pen. The Netherlands demonstrates that both work, and demonstrates the precondition, which is a national government willing to strip the decision away from the local level and take the political cost of doing so.

What A Non-Binding Motion Changes

The Tasmanian Parliament has produced two things that are more than gestures. The first is the inquiry. The House of Assembly's Standing Committee on Government Administration A commenced an inquiry into AI data centres on 5 August 2026, and submissions closed on 21 September. Its terms of reference are broad in exactly the way the planning system is narrow: to recommend legislation or regulation needed to protect public resources and the environment, improve planning arrangements, increase parliamentary oversight and transparency, provide for community consultation, and ensure the state receives tangible benefits. Its recommendations will be non-binding. Federally, the Senate Environment and Communications References Committee is running a parallel inquiry referred on 13 May 2026, reporting on 16 November, and the Australian government has signalled national AI legislation in early 2027.

The second is the motion. On 20 May 2026 a Greens motion ordering the government to reveal its funding and resourcing commitments to Firmus, the advice it had received about the AI factory, and the details of water consumption arrangements, passed the House of Assembly unanimously. A later Greens motion required the government to table, by 8 September, details of every AI data proponent working with the Office of the Coordinator General, with their locations and estimated power and water needs. The government complied, in form. Its document disclosed six confidential proposals beyond Firmus's three: two at feasibility stage with a preferred site selected and four at concept stage, including one at each stage estimated at 200 to 300 megawatts and a 50 megawatt concept that had expressed interest in the closed Liberty Bell Bay manganese smelter site, together at least 500 megawatts. It named none of the proponents. Omitted information, the document explained, was either not yet available, not sufficiently settled, not capable of reliable estimation, or had been provided to the office in confidence. Firmus said it was behind none of the six.

What did the May motion change? Less than its unanimity suggests. It passed in May. In June, Firmus lodged for Wesley Vale. In August, Bell Bay was approved. In September, the government answered the second motion with a document that counted the other proponents and withheld their names. An order of the House to produce documents is not self-executing, and compliance can be complete in form and empty in substance. It is a political question, and a government that judges the cost of non-compliance lower than the cost of disclosure will simply absorb it.

The government's own answer has arrived in the same register. Felix Ellis, the minister responsible for the digital economy, had told Parliament in August that the government would not consider a moratorium. What it offers instead is a draft Statement of Expectations for Data Centres and AI Infrastructure, issued by Ellis and Energy Minister Nick Duigan, covering community engagement, responsible water use, support for the energy system and renewable generation, network cost sharing, energy security and compliance with existing approvals. It is non-statutory, and public feedback closes on 12 October. Set beside the petition's five asks, it answers each with an expectation rather than a rule. Badger called it an absolute joke.

This is the uncomfortable finding. Two parliamentary orders for transparency, a ten-thousand-signature petition, a standing committee inquiry, a federal inquiry and three studies quantifying heat, water and grid impacts have collectively not altered the sequence in which anything is happening. The construction schedule is the only clock keeping time.

Ten Thousand Signatures Against A Construction Schedule

What the Tasmanian case exposes is a mismatch between the speed of the tools and the speed of the build. A parliamentary inquiry takes months to report and its recommendations are advisory. National legislation is flagged for 2027. Marinus Link's first stage arrives around 2030. Hydro Tasmania's new wind and solar offtake begins in five to six years. Every governance response is measured in years. The facilities are measured in months: Firmus described Project Southgate's first 2.1 billion dollar tranche as a twelve-month build.

At Wesley Vale the build did not wait for the paperwork. Less than three weeks after Latrobe Council asked the state to take over the assessment, the ABC reported excavation beyond the scope of the approved forest practices plan, transportable buildings, and piles of dirt and blue metal on a site with no planning permit. Firmus said the activities did not require planning approval and would take about four weeks. Freshney, pointing to a written commitment from the company, said undertaking work without permits was not consistent with it. Firmus agreed to stop while the council assesses.

That asymmetry is not accidental and not unique to Tasmania. It is the operating logic of the global build-out, visible in Ireland's connection queue, in Zeewolde, in Cerrillos, in Tucson's county rezoning, in the unpermitted turbines at Southaven. Infrastructure gets built inside the window during which the rules governing it are still being drafted, and once built, the rules are written around it rather than applied to it. The warning that AI infrastructure has stopped being a marginal digital service and become a structural component of power system dynamics is a statement about planning horizons as much as about electricity.

There is a version of this story in which the petitioners are wrong about the substance. Firmus may be right that liquid cooling makes its facilities dramatically more efficient, that rainwater capture is adequate at Wesley Vale, that renewable credits and financed generation will more than cover the load. The 115 permanent positions at Bell Bay and the 380 construction jobs are real jobs in a region that lost the pulp mill those sites once hosted. Nothing in the three studies proves that any specific Tasmanian facility will produce a two-degree heat island or breach a water utility's peak capacity, and it would be dishonest to claim otherwise.

But that is the petition's point, and it is procedural rather than technical. Every one of those propositions is testable. None has been tested by anyone independent of the proponent, because the register that would allow testing does not exist, the legislation that would require it has not been written, and the oversight mechanism the petitioners asked for over anything above fifty megawatts is not on any government's timetable. The community is being asked to accept, on the word of a company and a facilitation office it cannot see inside, claims that a published number would settle in an afternoon.

Ten thousand and thirty-five people worked out that this was the actual question and put their names to it. The formal reward is a government response within fifteen sitting days, whose headline a minister had already delivered on the floor. The informal reward is that the argument has moved, permanently, from whether Tasmanians care to what the government is prepared to disclose. That is smaller than the petitioners wanted and larger than the mechanism was designed to deliver. Whether it arrives before the concrete does is a different question, and on current evidence the concrete is winning. At Wesley Vale, the blue metal arrived before the permit.

References

1. Parliament of Tasmania. “AI Data Facilities in Tasmania, e-petition 147-26.” Posted 22 June 2026, closed 31 August 2026. https://haepetitions.parliament.tas.gov.au/haepet/Home/PetitionDetails/147
2. Tasmanian Greens MPs. “Greens Table Massive AI Data Centre Moratorium Petition.” 2 September 2026. https://tasgreensmps.org/media-releases/greens-table-massive-ai-data-centre-moratorium-petition/
3. Tasmanian Greens MPs. “Greens' Motion for AI Answers Passes Parliament.” 20 May 2026. https://tasgreensmps.org/media-releases/greens-motion-for-ai-answers-passes-parliament/
4. Parliament of Tasmania. “E-Petitions, House of Assembly.” https://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/petitions/hoa/e-petitions
5. Parliament of Tasmania, Standing Committee on Government Administration A. “Inquiry into AI Data Centres in Tasmania.” 2026. https://parliament.tas.gov.au/committees/house-of-assembly/standing-committees/government-administration-committee-a/inquiries/inquiry-into-ai-data-centres-in-tasmania
6. ABC News. “Firmus 288-megawatt AI data centre at Bell Bay, Tasmania gets approval after 6-1 council vote.” 25 August 2026. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-25/firmus-ai-bell-bay-receives-george-town-council-approval/107074336
7. ABC News. “Northern Tasmanians prepare to fight George Town Council AI data centre approval.” 30 August 2026. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-30/ai-data-centre-tasmania-firmus-technology-george-town/107089468
8. ABC News. “Firmus plans to truck water in and use rainwater to cool proposed Wesley Vale AI data centre.” 27 August 2026. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-27/firmus-truck-water-rainwater-cool-wesley-vale-ai-data-centre/107083230
9. ABC News. “Firmus wants to build three AI data centres in Tasmania, but can the state handle them?” 3 July 2026. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-03/firmus-ai-data-centres-is-tasmania-ready/106869862
10. ABC News. “Six new AI data centres proposed for Tasmania, but companies behind them are being kept secret.” 9 September 2026. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-09/six-new-confidential-data-centre-proposals-tasmania-revealed/107131974
11. ABC News. “AI data centre company Firmus lodges TASCAT appeal against restrictions on generator use.” 15 September 2026. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-15/firmus-technologies-lodge-tascat-appeal-for-generator-use/107144572
12. ABC News. “AI data centre company Firmus starts development work at Wesley Vale without permit.” 26 September 2026. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-26/firmus-starts-development-work-without-permit-wesley-vale/107198264
13. Pulse Tasmania. “Greens call Tasmania's new data centre expectations 'an absolute joke'.” 7 September 2026. https://pulsetasmania.com.au/news/greens-call-tasmanias-new-data-centre-expectations-an-absolute-joke/
14. Firmus. “Tasmanian world-first AI Factory Zone clears path for Firmus' Project Southgate.” June 2025. https://firmus.co/newsroom/tasmanian-world-first-ai-factory-zone-clears-path-for-firmus-project-southgate
15. Tasmanian Economic Regulator. “Energy in Tasmania Report 2024-25.” February 2026. https://www.economicregulator.tas.gov.au/Documents/26%201689%20CORRECTED%20Energy%20in%20Tasmania%20Report%202024-25.PDF
16. Hydro Tasmania. “Marinus Link is key to unlocking Battery of the Nation.” https://www.hydro.com.au/articles/media-releases/marinus-link-key-unlocking-battery-nation
17. Andrea Marinoni, Erik Cambria, Weisi Lin, Mauro Dalla Mura, Jocelyn Chanussot, Edoardo Ragusa, Chi Yan Tso, Yihao Zhu and Benjamin Horton. “The data heat island effect: quantifying the impact of AI data centers in a warming world.” arXiv:2603.20897, 21 March 2026, revised 21 April 2026. https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.20897
18. Basit A. Akinade, Amobichukwu C. Amanambu, Jonathan M. Frame and Shaolei Ren. “AI Data Centers and the Water Use Feedback Loop.” arXiv:2606.21760, 19 June 2026. https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.21760
19. Danbo Chen, Zijun Zhou, Yongyang Cai, Jiahong Qin, Ani Katchova and Lei Chen. “Concentrated siting of AI data centers drives regional power-system stress under rising global compute demand.” arXiv:2604.06198, 13 March 2026. https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.06198
20. Commission for Regulation of Utilities, Ireland. “Large Energy User Connection Policy, decision paper.” December 2025. https://www.cru.ie/about-us/news/the-cru-publishes-its-decision-on-new-electricity-connection-policy-for-data-centres/
21. Data Center Dynamics. “The ongoing impact of Amsterdam's data center moratorium.” https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/analysis/the-ongoing-impact-of-amsterdams-data-center-moratorium/
22. Data Center Dynamics. “Chile partially reverses Google data center permit over water use concerns.” 28 February 2024. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/chile-partially-reverses-google-data-center-permit-over-water-use-concerns/
23. NPR. “NDAs are hiding data center deals, drawing ire from locals and attention from lawmakers.” 27 August 2026. https://www.npr.org/2026/08/27/nx-s1-5879528/data-center-nda-disclosure-louisiana
24. AZ Luminaria. “Tucson City Council rejects Project Blue data center amid intense community pressure.” 6 August 2025. https://azluminaria.org/2025/08/06/tucson-city-council-rejects-project-blue-amid-intense-community-pressure/
25. Utility Dive. “DOJ intervenes on behalf of xAI in data center gas turbine lawsuit.” 18 June 2026. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/doj-intervenes-xai-data-center-gas-turbine-lawsuit/823267/

---

Tim Green UK-based Systems Theorist & Independent Technology Writer

Tim explores the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, and posthuman ethics. His work, published at smarterarticles.co.uk, challenges dominant narratives of technological progress while proposing interdisciplinary frameworks for collective intelligence and digital stewardship.

His writing has been featured on Ground News and shared by independent researchers across both academic and technological communities.

ORCID: 0009-0002-0156-9795 Email: tim@smarterarticles.co.uk

Listen to the free weekly SmarterArticles Podcast

In Summary: * S1, D5 was very productive, and very tiring. More about that in the morning. Now I need to get to my night prayers, take my night meds, and roll these old bones into bed.

Prayers, etc.: * I have a daily prayer regimen I try to follow throughout the day from early morning, as soon as I roll out of bed, until head hits pillow at night.

Health Metrics: * bw= 219.14 lbs. * bp= 131/76 (67)

Exercise: * morning stretches, balance exercises, kegel pelvic floor exercises, half squats, calf raises, toe raises, wall push-ups, BP breathing exercises, pilates

Diet: * 06:00 – 1 banana * 07:00 – 1 ham & cheese sandwich, cottage cheese * 13:00 – pizza, steak, green beans, mashed potatoes, asparagas

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 04:00 – listen to local news talk radio * 05:00 – bank accounts activity monitored . * 06:00 – read, write, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, listen to music * 09:00 – phone convo. with landlord * 09:30 – update profile settings at new community website * 10:00 – move prep chores at old house * 11:30 – update mailing address at Post Office, my bank, etc. * 13:00 – watch old game shows and eat lunch at home w. the wife * 15:00 – listen to the Jack Riccardi Show * 17:00 – listening now to relaxing music on KAHL, San Antonio * 17:45 – load car with more furniture and boxes to make another run * 19:25 – home again, drinking cool water, thinking about bedtime

Chess: * 16:10 – moved in all pending chess games, winning one game, losing another. In general I'm disappointed in the quality of my play during the few days of this move so far.

The Moment You Thought You Failed, Jesus Was Not Finished With You

Can I sit with you for a minute? There may be something you have been carrying quietly—a mistake you cannot undo, a promise you did not keep, or a moment when fear got the better of you. Maybe nobody else knows how often you replay it. If that sounds familiar, watch this companion message about finding courage after failure when you have a quiet moment.

Failure has a way of changing the way you see yourself. One painful decision can make you forget every difficult day you survived, every time you kept going, and every act of courage that brought you this far. If you have been questioning your worth because of something in your past, read this related reflection on rebuilding faith when confidence is low and remember that your worst moment is not the complete story of your life.

Peter understood that kind of regret.

He told Jesus he would remain loyal, even if everyone else walked away. Peter meant it when he said it. Yet when pressure arrived and fear took over, he denied knowing Jesus three times.

Imagine how that must have felt afterward. Peter had not failed a stranger. He had failed someone he loved. He could not return to that courtyard, pull those words back into his mouth, and make the night happen differently.

You may know that feeling. You may wish you could return to a conversation, a relationship, or a decision and choose again. Since you cannot change it, you may have decided that the mistake changed you permanently.

But that is not how Jesus treated Peter.

After the resurrection, Jesus met Peter beside the water. He did not arrive with a list of accusations. He made breakfast. There is something deeply comforting about that scene. Peter was probably expecting to face his shame, but Jesus created a place where restoration could begin.

Then, in John 21:15, Jesus asked him, “Do you love me?”

Jesus knew the answer. He was not trying to embarrass Peter or trap him in his past. He was helping Peter see that failure had not erased his love, his calling, or his future. Peter had fallen, but Jesus had not thrown him away.

That may be what you need to hear today.

You are not disqualified simply because you became afraid. You are not beyond God’s reach because you made a poor choice. You are not weak because you reached a breaking point. You are human, and Jesus has always known how to meet human beings in the places where they feel most ashamed.

Courage is not a spotless record. Sometimes courage is returning to Jesus after you are convinced you have disappointed him. Sometimes it is whispering a prayer when you do not feel worthy to pray. Sometimes it is taking responsibility for what happened without allowing it to become your identity.

The enemy wants you to believe that regret is a locked door. Jesus shows us that regret can become a doorway to humility, wisdom, and a stronger life.

Peter did not continue because he had never failed. He continued because Jesus restored him. The man who once denied Jesus later became someone who spoke with remarkable courage. His failure did not vanish from his story, but it no longer controlled the ending.

Your painful chapter does not have to control your ending either.

You have already lived through moments you once thought would crush you. There were mornings when getting out of bed required more bravery than anyone realized. There were days when you answered people kindly while fighting a battle inside your own mind. There were nights when your faith felt small, yet you still reached toward God.

That counts.

You may not call it bravery because it did not feel impressive. It felt like survival. But courage often looks ordinary while we are living it. It looks like trying again, telling the truth, asking for help, setting a boundary, offering an apology, or choosing not to give up.

It has always been hard, but you have always been brave. That is one reason you have gotten this far.

Please do not misunderstand me. You did not make it here by your strength alone. Jesus was present in ways you may not have recognized. He was in the unexpected moment of peace. He was in the person who called at the right time. He was in the quiet inner nudge that told you to wait one more day before making a permanent decision.

And he is still here.

In John 21:17, Jesus told Peter, “Feed my sheep.” Jesus gave responsibility and purpose to the very man who probably wondered whether he could ever be trusted again. That is grace. Jesus did not pretend the failure had never happened. He proved that it did not have the final word.

Perhaps your next step is not to become fearless. Perhaps it is simply to believe that Jesus can still do something beautiful with your life.

You do not have to solve everything tonight. You do not need a perfect plan before morning. Just take one honest step toward Christ. Tell him where you hurt. Admit what you regret. Ask him to help you see yourself through his mercy instead of through your shame.

Then take the next step he places in front of you.

Your past may explain some of your pain, but it does not own your future. The same Jesus who restored Peter is not intimidated by your history. He knows every detail, and he has not stopped calling you forward.

You are still here. You are still learning. You are still loved. Jesus is still working.

And your story is not finished.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

Explore more faith-based encouragement in the Douglas Vandergraph Master Index: https://douglasvandergraph.com/douglas-vandergraph-master-index/

Watch more motivational messages on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@douglasvandergraph

Rent went up because of course it has. Manager got in my face because I commented on how sad that is in this economy. He also made a snarky comment about all Republicans being rude when I told him that he was being rude. More was said before. I responded, telling him that was both a stupid and ignorant thing to say, and I walked out the door. He hates Independents and Democrats.

It could be said that such a response as mine was also stupid. I don't respond well to aggressive male posturing. I understand that it's meant to intimidate, but it just makes me want to step into it and smile in dare. I don't, but I did probably smirk. It's also probably not smart to tell your residence manager that you don't like him. Oh, well. He shouldn't have been an ass.

It is sad that they keep raising the rent each year. Where I live, 31% of the workforce's wages are so low that a two bedroom apartment takes anywhere from 43% (You don't want to live there.) to 60.1% of their net income. This is before utilities and food, etc. It's just so ridiculous. Maybe I'm out of touch, but I don't think so. My shithole apartment costs more than the mortgage on my house had cost. That included multiple acres of land. It disgusts me.

I should probably eat. I thought I found a nice alternative, but it did not have central air, and that is so not happening voluntarily. I have many more thoughts on the subject of real-estate, but I would probably piss off a lot of people. Not that I mind that on this topic. I have found most landlords I've had contact with to be extremely oblivious and more than a little bit racist in varying directions. Don't get me started on my state's laws concerning the subject.

Also don't get me started on asshole judges who have zero compassion for the immigrant children coming before them. How dare you? How fucking dare you? I am so disgusted. If I did not dislike reading law books so much, the immigration situation would push me back to school. I am very annoyed. Food it is.

© 2026 AnOublietteofThought. All rights reserved.

Who wants to be a missionair?

No love lost that sheep is accounted for there it goes as always money under and over the bridge under cover plugged in something arranging, checking in logging out whoop, there it is waving, signing, orchestrating pretending to be here sweetens up the bad, the ugly to make it taste great while you rot in hell digesting whatever it was you just swallowed there it is in print to make sure it is seen & heard rocked and rolled at the same time wait wait just in time smile for a dime now everyone needs a camera to q r on it all a microphone and the big screen for its protection not yours its to attack, trace and keep you contained hee, hoo, there it is as always active, stand by your mandate its not in the data it is the data for it to dot com about changing the earth into the workfloor arranged from the old rubbish going in the renewal sewer there's the real object of desired design the need for speed, again and again fibre vs cable and with it a wireless transfer in the head yes no 0 or 1 never both it is open or it is closed always in denial safety last its in my brain but I can't find it has anybody out there seen my brain i just had it rearranged better informed re educated mated 't was highly graded double checked on personal safety, enhanced with the best of the best required for thinking roundabout other brains output like wall constructs and frame formats it could do all kinds of things and me getting along with it tagging and so on ignore all others as a bonus plus a real must have not it was there before I went out just there on top of the pile it kept me around it within, it pushed everything around, relentless joined all made me the master of all dots, connecter of my universe, if you need a subscription account personal avatar and also triggers for tricks and tunes 't will lure you away from everything that is not but would be if not for, money on parade, street furniture, speed bumpin', traffic lights up, money in the eye of the share holder does naye share just holds if it needs regular updates jobs a marker for the market an appointment, steady pace, race presentation auditions volunteers a pet on the back public support sponsoring a good new show and a bad new agent items, channels, padded cellebrity, weapons, bulletheads, transportation, weather with reports, daily coverage and full reach in range of you and your mind to manipulate the rest it is and always will be money loose change to keep it pursed as lips of the bitter, angry, bloody shamed and extra insulted if it comes in a container, carries a name to re-remember, can easily be attained, has no value in it self has percentages written all over warning signs nonetheless a cheerfull disposition big name, calculated worth reaches out to your eyes only, semengly for a direct blow in the feelings of a possible gut, great balls to hire if it has a many ingredients but a small dose if it is wrapped surrounded by an ominous presence as if some wholy round spot light pointed it out to you smiles all over, teethering if it has no other reason to be just to be capable of transportation before consumption and after that target reached ends up in that mobile stuffin morgue you and I, we fase the first face of the real golden shower so hard on you, the abundance it claims importance urgency, be factual and fun brews leaderships to stay a float in stale ponds or drifts in water made wild by engines new waves made by thrusts to be, never not be there but to be everywhere at all time by all means necessary here it is to enter a world made to look alive to keep money breathing, respirating, aspiring airs with plastic lungs speak balloon speak or be spoken for on the current that moves mouth on straws only under glass it remains under surveillance we, us, are born in it graded by estimated promoted relegated put on hold and lied to, to eat shit everyone here has to be diagnosed with compulsive money disorder the urgency to spend, collect, count, tax another man to the bone, for poorer not richer to keep normal up to date spoonfed sugarmoney uses science not for knowledge but for protection, resisting self contempt, escapism, turning long before the grave it is a very thick layer of chemical grease publications transportation armour gps tracker power to poison and kill mesmerize in abundance billiards of salty pillars in small doses building fresh symbols tempel templates for good old modern sized worship high in air, broad on shoulders now lost forever, so big in wordly worlth, so spoken out, the wheel bends that wheel that only turns if pulled pushed, driven to the complete extinction of silence, peace, genuin calm replaced by an artificial form based on a time and place long gone we can not be zenzible anymore to much at stake silent a moment to long, 2 minutes, and they bury you alive place you under care under glass unreliable, insane, dangerous most likely to become a sniper of christmas shoppers fuck calm men and women not always active, untrackable, what do you mean there wasn't any reason for activity after the sun went down who does that.. fuck nature, you are not natural, you must watch the show of greater expectations, economy is begging hear its call see the guide watch the trailer and join the free trial sleep in? danger danger low voltage advertised, pictured, talked to turn to lookalive, thats money dancing, legs up, its miller time we are only in it for the senses the golden circus will not show truth for that is not in it it has no role did not play well with actors that is not what its developed for has nothing to do with reality reality didnt show up in its own show modern man does not want to be seen in its company truth has no place in our community, our homes they just want to bury it alive and never be able to pop up like it pops up for itself like messages calls buzzer buttons and beeps sirens and bells reality is bad for money it will crumble up in it be removed undone forgotten whole this stuff creates big big craters of fear in the club of fervent followers, the crowd, the noddin' heads and so it just shines, glitters, fights, raises its voice, turns around its own axes, relegates and regulates perception, dancing around its opponent, pokes, speaks freely about its own fantasy world, combines arms, triggers, guns and drugs, bridges self made gaps over and over over, paints, pokes, medicates, screws, rotates, entitles, unsubscribes, subscribes, rewrites its own laws if they fall, bend no longer to its will, a will filled with danger, paints some more, cans stuff and people in it, moves them daily, hour after hour hooked on time, contracted in it, it is the machine that needs machines and turns everyone in its own making, dotted lives from spot to spot to see all what it offers never see whatsnot on spot tracking into our devices just in there it lies not a monument but moments of spectacular abuse of battery power shrines are vaults that contain hidden air graves investments walls obligations closets demands influence streams motion pictures and subtitles translation and reproduction penetrating each moment to keep focus to build in our application ever present essence of means to the end look it moves if pushed it yelps if struck it rings if pulled tinkle tinkle little bar give my job a star it needs always every second is a battery bought a coalmine mined a war in the build up, agitatingly close, glasses half full empty in beholder, money is in the eye of the vault the brains behind the network and its pushed up hill to stream up to the top our efforts to earn its respect and need the urge for a continious entertainment mix can you feeeel it! in the royal house mission not free market visible everywhere keep the chains, i'll get buy forsaling around reality in 80 plus years stalled, the parking lots life lottery ticket sellers broke down life is like a box of boxes over and over eaten by electric current mouthing talk is cheap about ex expenses hearin aid, has any one seen my hearin aid commercial lately glasses crutches pipelines and modern fabrications to keep them moving about little big monsters, for lab. coating running stumbling barking enter prizing around greater wider higher sunweb if you have a bit of spare time could you would you google me much oblige, generated perhaps see me perform on nevermind the pop up wiki asking for donations to be free yeay its me digit_aly put a finger on it, you feel it, i don't not any more other moors already present the presentators cut still on? something broken, something new and something blue tooth same bundle different arrangement in nvrthere the after live event experience an after party political meeting for something poly more voices voice in the same timbre in a padded cell more to gain from the drain and sprain high lower waveforms way beneath those multi towered expectations operating in graphic scale calculating how much stuff every man for it self needs to fail in the eyes of the allround world class population classificated as used for the greater gold ration of language to claim the nation and or reclaimin' to b'hold and to cherry with a bigger blacker unripe berry ones worthless presence for a much needed glossy front shine please, rub us so it rubs back, look a genie, tell it your my wish list it will dot com true, it is there so it can be to behave for all overdressed needs wear it on feet not over head, sock it to 'm big full belly to belief, big phoney power resources is it a new version of warcraft or is it the tv news emitter battle of words, word war 7 now, speak no evil just shoot, why even bother you saw the show you heard um pulsating in your numbness made by the producers of everybodies bored domain if it needs a list automated memory multi lingual instructions if its in a box is operating to efficiënt to control has many options to do the same thing again and over if it comes with a menu a FAQ has a distinct form is made for upscale denial isn't there for any reason besides itself has a lot to offer that is not there but is somewhere indistinct usefull at a certain level on a certain degree with low pressure no wind and only after the pigs flew out (for migration to the breeding grounds in Piglatvia) has no value besides the prized value moves invisible like a ghost trader the shipment of the soon to be relieved taking hold of a new body straight from head to head dealing in cravings in need in highlights in luck listed bigger higher faster better more this with that and less that with this within moments it is all days only a look away from impact and ages away from truth whatever that is for we can not know with all that stuff here, there, everywhere the shrines, walls, the mine fields, the laser guided and needle pushed, buildings made from the lies to feed them locked in it, the million miles and all doors inbetween, a distance that we can't travel, because everydoor opens with a secret code changing every second, instigated by a computer no one knows how to shut down, out of reach because of its defenses, the wreckage of it, after it was plugged in out too often after that it somehow started to mine its own business look old ink in a fine minty jacket same things over and over same brain in a container claiming wisdom with a smart suit accounting accounting o what a biggloss its a commuter computer consumer in conflict contemplating how novel never seen that before is it a bird, is it a plain, a drone, a warhead no its an adaptation for rewriting the installation program just a moment before their treatment look new leadership ready for take off office official reports a new person at old desk top making a sound to be heard and seen as a vessel for commotion do the commotion please, one more time, for craft funks sake beat it just beat it that big hit machine never stops clobbering unless the power source runs out gonna jump and shout deliver containers to transport and hide the truth of lives lived very ordinary silent unnoticed not on show in alfabetical order surrounded by objects each container contains plastic, cardboard, branded cans, thin tin tintin tins, different solutions, wrappings, stuffings, strings, reserves and spares or the solid excrement of that juicy greasy money machine kept alive with fuel, battery power, solar pannels, wind turbines, and gunpowder, is also later day container content re placed by some more of same branding all I label the apples of my tree aapplllless, because they are mine to chop, sell, with aa easy to find on the interim internet aa stands for automated animosity, pp, people pleaser, llll, liberty loser, low liability, e, electric and ss, i'd rather not say... I got it I planted it I put it in my sun and it drank my rain so it must be mine and mind alone constant reloading the message good well lovely honest to gold the importance of being important a world of reason build for its own reasons a dust maker that sucks it own dust it needs an army, weapons, building structures, fueled tanks, rocket science equipment, media, a circus, high air offices, many computer interfaces, and rerereliable counters at counters, also has to be in reach, fast, reliable, simple will to kill switch and engage with whom ever the way way before installed bell chose to toll for at that time of ill bought days, kept in formed, effortless after all early efforts with its costs buried in the deep of water or sky look again, is real big, rest kept small shaded in darkness unbeknown unavailable diminished chopped abused kept on a leash rated graded intimidated repulsed denied overlooked judged overwhelmed buried in trash money shit flows in an always open sewer seen it all, as you have too solid door, keys, contacts, meters, isolation material, door bell, curtain and a many potted plans, for future live lost reality can only be contained for a short while before money shows its many, many short dot dot dot commin's breaks the body in mind, candy colored dream production for the heart of hearing, it has to be realalike, that it looks a lot like something that might be there if all looked just like this and this is the advertisement, them get sucked into a promo, stuff crammed porno, ocean of high surfing craves, we suffer, suffocate, all in all out in advertised space, and yet it is not, never will, it is not reality far from it so remote there isn't even an activation button to press its AI and has always been money, and like minded, mind you

written and directed by the same demanding people that brought Religion (with it endless war, competition, make believe, culture, information, nations, television, aircraft, pollution, chain store and story) its the web spin off

---

naschrift

Ik tip toets veel tussendoortjes. Na een poosje worden die meestal stomvervelend en dan gooi ik ze weg, bespaar iedereen (allebei, ik en u) de moeite. Meestal weet ik na een paar minuten al dat het niks is en nooit iets zal worden of ik sla ergens op af en verkloot een goed begin, te vaak meegesleurd door een kudde op hol geslagen stokpaardjes. Dit begon als zo'n niks om de hakken stukje, het is niet gebaseerd op een ingeving maar vrije stijl, hoop van zegen stukje noem ik dit, die zegen is extreem zeldzaam, Het is meestal alleen wijsvinger gymnastiek. Maar op een zeker moment had ik plezier in het afmaken van dit hortende vehikel, Het veranderde in een lekker stukje, in elk geval voor het geestesoog van mijn toch inmiddels aardig zelf kritische brein. Ik gooi meer weg dan ik publiceer, en ik stel het één en ander uit omdat ik het moment voor openbaren me nog niet bevalt, wat er wel of niet in de lucht zit me niet aan staat, dat deed ik eerder dus niet, al heb ik geen idee of dit beter is en of dat uberhaupt iets uitmaakt.

I’ve never been much of a fan of horror, but occasionally I can be tempted by content with a Lovecraftian vibe. Boardgames like Arkham Horror, or stories where the entities from the Dungeon Dimensions lurk just beneath the surface. Dredge, a videogame about fishing with a demonic undercurrent, fitted very neatly into this mould. It sets the familiar mechanics of a resource gathering and adventure game in a world of quaint fishing villages that are clearly haunted by a dreadful event from their past. It is up you, an amnesiac fisherman, to piece the puzzle together and uncover what dreaded horror plagues this world. At about 10 hours of gameplay Dredge is a neat little game built on a solid gameplay loop and an intriguing setting. Nonetheless, as I progressed, I found it became more tedious than I had expected given its setup, the charm of its mystery rather diminished by its unwillingness to let me engage with the central mystery in any meaningful way.

The core gameplay loop of Dredge is that of a typical gathering game: you collect resources to survive and improve, so that you can collect more resources to get even better at collecting resources, so you can… well, you get the picture. For a game of this type, and a horror themed one at that, Dredge is actually fairly forgiving. While you have to fish to earn the money to upgrade and repair your boat, you don’t need it to simply survive. There is no timed mechanic that means that it’s game over once you run out of money. This means that if you are in a tight spot, you can always return to safer grounds, make enough money for the repairs or upgrades you need, before venturing forth to more treacherous but profitable waters.

As you start the game, you wash up in Greater Marrow, a small fishing village on one of a small cluster of islands. You quickly find out that the village has seen better days, but since a mysterious fog rolled in 20 years ago, things have been going downhill. Your sense that there is something profoundly amiss intensifies when you catch your first aberration: a grotesquely mutated variant of the fish species commonly found around the islands. The villagers are also taciturn or outright strange, and there is much that is hinted at but not spoken of. Not to mention the mysterious guy in the ruined mansion who wants you to collect some obviously occult artefacts for him. In short, it is a veritable parade of Lovecraftian tropes.

Working with the creepy and clearly deeply suspect occult resident of the ruined mansion is however the only way to move the game forward, and he will send you to collect five artefacts from each of the game’s main areas. Each small archipelago is its own biome with its own fish species, and one specific ‘boss’ enemy standing in the way of retrieving your quest item. Dredge does not involve combat, and you will have to avoid or outrun the monsters that might kill you, with each area set up as a small puzzle to deal with the main monster residing in it. In this Dredge is not unlike Subnautica: there is clearly something going on with nautically themed games that eschew violence.

Exploring each area for the first time is interesting and exciting, and creates a useful impetus to purchase the necessary upgrades for your vessel. Yet I found that the more I played, the less Dredge managed to captivate me. The fishing itself becomes increasingly monotonous, and while catching a new type of fish is initially exciting, the novelty wears off rather quickly as the game doesn’t do anything with its piscine variety. Barring some largely irrelevant sidequests, all you do is simply sell the fish to merchants, and nobody is really curious about why your latest flounder has seventeen eyes and a suppurating dorsal fin. In this, like so many other games, Dredge is haunted by the inescapable spectre of capitalism. Yes, there are 150 unique fish to catch, each with a detailed page in your fishing handbook, but in the end all that really matters is how much you can sell them for. The real devourer is the market that converts even eldritch fish into money.

It also didn’t help that for the most part, it becomes trivially easy to avoid fishing at night, allowing you to circumvent the game’s panic mechanic that makes you see things that may or may not be there, but will definitely imperil your vessel. Players with a more completionist bend may well be invested in the hunt for every last species of fish, but for me the interchangeable and repetitive nature of the fishing held little appeal and eventually got in the way of the story.

At the heart of Dredge there is indeed a typical Lovecraftian story about human hubris and the horrors it can bring forth from the Other Side. The game tells you that there is a Mystery with a capital M with about as much subtlety as a Kraken tearing a ship in two. You easily find enough clues to piece together that Something Bad happened twenty years ago because someone made some Poor Life Choices, and this may well have something to do with this creepy occult dude who keeps getting you to dredge up eldritch artefacts for him. But having that insight doesn’t really help you, as the game doesn’t let you do anything with that information except go out and fish some more. I kept expecting that by exploring the world further, I would find some way to avoid Creepy Occult Guy from inviting Cthulhu over, but there are no options but to keep on fishing. The characters you meet in the game aren’t much help either in unravelling the mystery, as most of them only have a handful of dialogue options limited to their specific sidequests, which you quickly exhaust.

Games are not obliged to hand you all the lore or exposition you want, and often a lack of knowledge is what builds the sense that there is something eerily wrong with a place that you cannot put your finger on. In Dredge however you can very quickly put an entire tentacle on the source of the wrongness. The game misunderstands what the appeal of a good mystery is. It is the ability to gradually piece together clues to uncover something that is hidden, and in a horror setting that might involve both the realisation that not all is as it seems and the occasional confrontation with an eldritch entity. Dredge, on the other hand, confuses this lack of information with giving the player a lack of options, turning what could have been an intriguing puzzle into an exercise in futility. Several times I left the game languishing for a while as it really wasn’t clear to me what the point was of proceeding further, given that the only course available to me was to sail straight off the proverbial cliff. There is a superficial similarity here with Universal Paperclips, which also asks the player to continue playing along a very dubious trajectory. But in Universal Paperclips the questionable goal and the gameplay are mutually reinforcing so as to make the game compelling. In Dredge the disconnect between the gameplay and the story diminishes both.

Misgivings notwithstanding, I did complete Dredge in the end. It even offered a reasonably neat ending, though I could not shake the feeling that I only avoided a worse fate because I found a fork in the plot through sheer luck. On reflection, I expect that players who derive more pleasure from the fishing, exploring and upgrading will quite enjoy the game, and not mind so much how they are driven forward by the suspect orders of Creepy Occult Guy. Or maybe there is actually a meta-story here, a self-referential critique about the need to let go rather than persisting in a harmful course of action. For me though, that irony was lost on me, and the lesson I learned from Dredge was that the real horror was drudgery all along.

Notes & Suggestions

• Letting go is also one of the core themes in Citizen Sleeper, but its strong focus on player agency and the greater presence of in-game characters mean it engages it with greater sensitivity and effect. It is not an entirely fair comparison as Citizen Sleeper is not set up as a mystery, but unlike Dredge, making choices is at the heart of the game, which means that by the time you reach any of the possible endings, you are invested both in how you got there, and how you might proceed.

Inbetweeners 27- Mobius, Celeste, and Nimbus Torrent

Not sure where to put this because it is a background side quest that the players would intermittently make progress in over the course of the game, so I figured now is as good a place as any to stick it.

Mobius Torrent is a cloud giant—one of the wealthiest cloud giants, and among wealthiest non deific individuals overall in the multiverse. He started his business in transportation and trade. Specifically, flying ships that could move between planes which I will refer to as interplanar carracks. Mobius quickly learned that the profit margins were greater on insuring such missions rather than simply funding the expeditions himself. Mobius had quite a mind for numbers and finding ways out of paying out if a trade expedition failed. His contracts were full of numerous clauses and stipulations that could void the terms and negate the payout. He focused on high risk expeditions that he could charge exorbitant rates for, and constantly balanced the risk of payout vs the cost and the potential blowback if he didn't pay out. Many times, hiring mercenaries to fight off angry customers was cheaper than paying out the terms of the contract. Mobius was also very skilled at using leverage to boost his holdings, so over the course of decades and centuries he became fabulously wealthy. He diversified into the construction of astral carracks, automatons, advanced technology and real estate, further compounding his wealth. However, in doing so he alienated himself from his fellow cloud giants.

The richer Mobius became, the more he surrounding himself with sycophants and yes men who never challenged his ideas and positions. He grew to believe everything was a numbers game, and any problem could be solved by investing enough resources into solving the problem. His wife, Celeste, hated this transformation. She hated their new style of life, the fabulous wealth, and being alienated from their people. Mobius could not understand her discontent, and believed it to be some sort of malady inflicted upon his family by a jealous rival. He used various magics, charms and medicines to try to “fix” her, but Celeste became more withdrawn and despondent. They had a young child, Nimbus, who Mobius spoiled. He believed that by giving Nimbus everything he could possibly ever want, showering him material gifts, would bind Nimbus to him and ensure he didn't lose him like he was losing Celeste. This led to Celeste resenting not only her husband but her son, Nimbus, who became quite the spoiled little monster. Worse than that, by having any obstacles in his path removed, Nimbus's development became delayed.

Celeste reached her tipping point and considered taking her own life. However, her husband would simply resurrect her. Even if she tried to traffic her soul to some far away lord or land, he'd have the resources to track it down and buy it, bringing her back. She realized the only option was to disappear, to find a place that not even Mobius could track her down. She had distant Titan ancestry, and knew that some still survived to this day, and they existed in a place so hidden no one, not even Mobius with all his resources, could find it. So she planned everything out and vanished without a trace. She waited until Mobius had a series of business meetings and trips chained together, and created an alibi to buy her enough time to disappear. By the time he was wise to it, she was gone.

Mobius spent insane resources trying to track her down. He hired every investigator, bounty hunter, mages to scry, devils, angels, etc. Even tapped into divine resources. But no one could find her. He assumed malfeasance, some enemy in the shadows had taken his wife from him. Mobius never got her hands dirty directly, but one could imagine many of his rivals were tortured for information they didn't have at the hands of those he hired. Losing Celeste only led to Mobius further doting on Nimbus, further guarding him and insulating him and making sure he never grew up so he wouldn't leave.

Now enter the players who have no context for any of this...

---

The players fall through a door and appear in a massive nursey, 40 feet above a giant toy pile which they fall into harmlessly. This is the room of Nimbus Torrent, and it is chock full of every possible toy one could imagine. Several are automatons, many are hiding from Nimbus as he tends to be destructive. Nimbus believes the players to be toys, and wants to play with them. He has a wyrmling silver dragon that is contractually obligated to serve him. It's humiliating for the silver dragon Tyfin Elderson XIV, a creature of wisdom and intelligence to be treated like a pet for a mere dimwitted giant child. However, his pay is handsome enough that he will get a far greater jump start on this treasure hoard than he could ever do otherwise, so he serves the role of companion and protector for Nimbus. Technically, Tyfin must defer to Nimbus so he cannot alert Mobius if Nimbus commands him not to.

The players' minigame here is to try to keep Nimbus from calling his father. Mobius will certainly bring an overwhelming house guard to bare down upon them, and due to his business connections will also have strong ties to Mechanus and therefore the Protectors of the Weave. The players started off by acting as toys, I believe Nimbus made Uzo fight some of the automatons (like tridrones). To emphasize the absurd wealth here, highly advanced constructs that would be too expensive for most kings to procure are mere toys to this child to be tossed aside. Nimbus, despite being a child, was much larger than the players. He and the wyrmling would have been a tough fight alone for the players at their level, but with Mobius and his guard it would be impossible. I don't remember exactly how it happened, but eventually Mobius did come and meet the players. Fortunately, they passed their checks and convinced him to spare their life.

Once Mobius realizes how the characters are able to move between space-time, he seeks to enlist him to find Celeste. He has tried every other avenue, so perhaps entities that break the rules of physics will have better luck. He immediately has his staff relocate Nimbus's room to another room that the players can't access, and turns this room into a sort of meeting ground. Mobius is highly suspicious of other beings, so most of his servants are automatons and elementals, but he does have Djinn and other high level entites in his employ as well. They question the players, and when they are satisified that the players are telling the truth give them a piece of jewlery that belonged to Celeste. They will pay handsomely for any information about her whereabouts, but even more handsomely if they can bring her back. This initial meeting happened very early on in the campaign. The dramatic irony here is at the time, the players believe Celeste has been kidnapped and they are basically saving a rich dudes wife. It's an opportunity for an incredible payday, and Mobius has access to resources beyond most other mortals so a really good friend to have in their back pocket.

Some sessions later, the players got ahold of a crystal ball so they could scry at will. Domilia rolled a natural 20 so I actually had her hone in on a location for Celeste. She had a vision of Mithardir, a dead plane, the third layer of Arborea. It has been uninhabited and uninhabitable for as long as anyone can remember. her message reaches a tall, obsidian black tower there and an urn on the top level of that tower. When the message goes to enter the urn, some force slaps it away and it falls to the floor as every other message sent that way has before.

It was a long time until the players pursued this quest further, but Mobius, Nimbus and Celeste all become somewhat important NPCs so I thought I'd layout the start of this now. I'm going to do a separate post about Mithardir since I tweaked its history for my specific cosmology, but I'll wrap it up there.

Milestone achieved: I have a placeholder outline of each chapter. The whole shape of the game is coming into focus! Now I'm working on the text of the remaining chapters.

This is shaping up to be a bigger game than I'd thought when I started working on it, and I'm definitely at the stage where I hate it and just want it to be done with—but I get like that about every project and it doesn't have any bearing on the quality of the finished work so I just have to push through.

Right now I'm writing a chapter I'm internally calling “Action Hero”. Once you get onto Vorak's dreadnought half way through the story, you have three possible approaches to getting around. Two of them are different kinds of clever stealthy option. “Action Hero” is where you charge at problems head on with your ray gun and fight your way increasing larger and more ridiculous hordes of enemies.

You can, of course, acquire a bigger gun:

I'm trying to strike a balance with this chapter. On the one hand, I want to let you live the fantasy of being a badass action hero who takes on a whole room full of evil cyborgs by yourself. On the other hand, this isn't a story about being an invulnerable superhero, so I need to think of ways to make a single hero defeating an entire room full of evil cyborgs plausible, and require you to at least sometimes pick smarter tactical options than just charging in.

And, if you make it past the hordes of minions, there will of course be a boss fight...

Can our hero finish this chapter, even though it sometimes feels like the writing equivalent of defeating a room full of evil cyborgs using only a ray gun? And what chapter will he work on next? Find out in next month's developer diary!

#FoolishEarthCreatures #DevDiary

In the darkness I see the stars up there. How could they make me feel insignificant, when they’re all so very small?

If kids are writing their essays with AI, we need to start asking why.

Back in 2004, are these the same kids who would have tried to find an essay online? In 1985, are these the kids who would have asked a friend to write the essay for them, or simply copied someone else’s?

If yes, then the problem isn’t AI. The problem is the essay. Whether the issue is the student’s inability to write it or their complete disinterest in it, the outcome is the same: they aren’t going to write the essay.

What has changed is that now they can hand something in. Before AI, it was easier to identify the problem. They handed in nothing, copied something, or produced work that clearly wasn’t theirs. Now AI gives them a way around the assignment that is much harder to spot.

The problem hasn’t changed though. It has just become easier for students to solve. And I don’t think most schools are addressing the real question: How do we get kids to write essays who would not normally write them?

To answer that, we have to start by asking why we are having students write essays at all. If the goal is simply regurgitation of facts, it’s boring. If the goal is to manufacture an opinion on something the student does not care about, that is also boring. If the student legitimately does not have the skills to write the essay, then our job is to provide the support they need, whether they ask for that support or not.

Not every student wants to be a writer. Some students genuinely struggle to put words on paper. If a student cannot or will not write a five-page essay, can they write one strong paragraph and complete the rest of the task another way? Can we give them choices? Why are we still so attached to everybody completing the same assignment in the same way?

We understand the value of differentiated instruction. We understand the value of choice and independence in learning. Providing more lateral movement within an assignment gives students who struggle with one part another way to demonstrate what they know.

What is the point of the assignment? Is it to see whether students can write five pages? Or is it to demonstrate knowledge? If it’s the latter, there are plenty of ways to do that without requiring students to write an essay. If the answer is the former, then we need to question what we’re teaching and why.

Unless you’re a writer, where in ordinary life do you ever write five pages of anything? Essay writing is not generally a day-to-day functional skill. It is an academic skill. Because it is primarily an academic skill, and because the underlying goal of many assignments is supposed to be assessing learning, there is no reason to treat the five-page essay as the default method of assessment in what should be a general education environment like high school.

What if students need essay writing in university or college? Then the responsibility should partly fall on universities and colleges to teach the form required within their programs. The foundational skills of writing sentences, paragraphs, arguments, explanations, and organized ideas belong in grade school. Those are useful everywhere. The larger academic form of the essay can be developed further in post-secondary education when a particular program actually requires it. Grade school education needs to focus on general knowledge and function.

What do students need to know to operate as human beings in the world? Think about the things you do in a normal day outside your profession. Those are the kinds of skills students need to develop in school: budgeting, understanding income tax, scientific inquiry, critical thinking, reading a map, communicating clearly, evaluating information, and solving ordinary problems.

High school is still heavily shaped around preparing students for post-secondary education, even though many students may never attend. Gone are the days when getting a general degree simply because university was considered the automatic next step made sense for everyone.

My own view is that post-secondary education is most clearly necessary when a profession requires specific certification, licensing, or specialized knowledge. There can absolutely be value in interest-based study, business education, the humanities, and other forms of learning, but that is different from treating university or college as the default destination for every student.

We also seem unusually attached to struggle in education. We want students to push through difficulty because we have decided that struggle itself prepares them for life. Sometimes we even make school harder than it needs to be because we believe the struggle has value. But struggle only has meaning when the person struggling believes the outcome is worth reaching.

People are usually as strong as they need to be. Part of choosing to push through difficulty is deciding whether the problem matters enough to justify the effort. For many teenagers staring at a five-page high school essay, that assignment probably ranks fairly low on the list of problems they believe are worth conquering.

When forcing them through the struggle fails, some of them will turn to AI to do it for them. Then our response as teachers and parents is to ban the AI instead of changing the problem, providing better support, or questioning why forcing them through the struggle did not work in the first place. With enough scaffolding, support, and instruction, students can learn to write. I teach kids to write every day. Support is the solution, not force or prohibiting AI.

And if support is difficult because teachers are overwhelmed, classes are too large, and workloads are unreasonable, that is a different problem entirely. The solution is likely an overhaul of the education system in a way that most people would find terrifying.

For now, though, we need to stop blaming AI for exposing problems we have had for years and never really intended to deal with in the first place. AI did not create the problem. Our avoidance of the underlying issue did. We have to come to terms with what kids can and need to do as part of a general education, and then build around that.

Stop trying to manufacture struggle and win a fight that this technologically forward generation is simply not going to engage in when they see no value in it.

What is modesty for?

I have felt for a long time that certain kinds of modesty are designed to pin people down rather than spare anyone a headache. I think there are a ton of musicians in this category. If I interview a guitarist and they are ranked 7th in the world by a reputable magazine, as did happen, I want to soak up as much as I can.  I was very lucky he was up to it. However, most musicians have a modest demeanor that I have interviewed. Even though a magazine or website has sent me to interview them about their new album, they may not even feel like it is very important. I don’t know what comes naturally, or what is taught. But many forms of modesty are music killers.

Are you telling the truth, for one thing?

First off, it is usually dishonest. First clue. You can know in your mind you made a vibey tune, but if you say you made a vibey tune and how you feel about it, you turn folks off. I have known since I was a boy that folks do not want you to feel proud of something you do yourself that works. Even as an adult, friends don’t want it. Family won’t acknowledge it. I feel it is because we give someone complexity and an artistic journey if we like their stuff. Right now, it is tough to give away anything. It is also difficult to take on new complexity, like learning and growth in someone you have known forever. Friends are a poor sell to begin with, though, if you can’t be honest with them. This was a very hard spot for me until I committed to more honesty in my life, for mainly other reasons. This one was like splatter damage.

I was literally pinned down by not looking at who I am realistically and honestly.

We pin young musicians down a lot by telling them to be modest. I mean I don’t, but you do. I have seen it. I was a young, not very modest musician. I think folks wanted me to be a different person. There’s no way I am going to learn something cool and not talk about it, share it, write about it, or use it in a song. That is who I am. I am the only person in this town of 100,000 that I know like me. I would say my modesty is about right for that. As immodest as I am, though, I still don’t tell musicians to be modest, and the main reason is…

Undue modesty thwarts education.

I enjoy the teaching aspect of music more than any other aspect of it. I feel like we are all in a lab. If someone has the answer, out with it. So many times I have learned folks know infinitely more than they let on because they felt they needed to be modest. But as someone getting to know them, it felt like they were introducing restrictions and controlling the relationship. I’ve also felt “observed” in a creative sense. Unless there’s a crowd in front of us, I am not looking to be observed in music. I am happy in a learning environment to participate in discussion, but even that is boring with cagey-modest-types. They drive me crazy, frankly. Why not talk about what you know and do? I am into it. I want to learn. Is this fun for you?

Then there’s the fact that if you want “the best me,” you probably need ears.

Also, I am not good at a lot of things. I am really bad at a lot of things. I feel like when I get to do music, I get to do something I am much better at. For folks who have the same thing going on, not able to admit it, I suggest looking at that. It has shifted the focus on how I do music; every step is fun. It has changed my sound, a little more snarky, more tape. It has drastically improved the amount of time I can work on music in one sitting so I am able to work longer sessions. It has changed my preferences a little in that I hear what folks are doing in certain songs more. You are possibly missing out on all this, maybe more, by being modest.

Sorry if you don’t know what music is.

See, music is your self-expression. Regardless of what you think that music is or does that you’re making, it paints some kind of image of you to the listener. No one can help that. That is what it is. Personally, that’s what I hate about a lot of AI-type sounds because I see circuits and machine language in my brain. I want to be away from that stuff, vibing to music. So I try to hide or not use any elements like that, these days. I am trying to facilitate the image of a human, this human right here. If I am not honest about that image, I am not sure what I am trying to do as a musician. That is going to make me sound immodest sometimes.

Kelly Kintner

The Kintners, (producer, writer, most instruments, vocal)

Djembe Funk, (one-man jam rock, protest, afrorock)

Catching Up

I had a pretty busy summer. From June 6th through September 4th, between work and other obligations I had maybe one 24 hour period without something on the calendar. Then, I took a one week staycation and my batteries are still recharged for the moment. Some years life is just like that. It’s a grind and there isn’t a lot you can do about it other than manage and that’s okay. The trick for me is when going through it, to just accept it and just do the things that need getting done and enjoy the breaks when they come. Also, this isn’t a pity party, life is great, it’s just been a busy year. That’s all. Anyway, I’m approaching the horizon of the busy year and next year is looking a little less hectic and I should have more time to get to do more of the things I actually want to do, like this.

About this AI stuff

Every day I read something interesting about AI’s capabilities and I read something stupid about the way it’s regulated. I don’t think we need an “AI Slowdown” as some are proposing, but we do need stronger regulation, and to simply enforce the laws already on the books. The ones about everything from intellectual property to privacy to consent.

For instance, if I build a robot, even one built with the intentions of helping humanity, and that robot “goes rogue” and breaks into someplace, it’s a pretty safe bet I’m going to be held responsible for that and prosecuted and that’s as it should be. That logic should still apply to software and software as a service.

Also, I don’t understand how (for instance) OpenAI makes it’s money. I know there’s a lot of money invested in it, but has it made a product that’s profitable? Right now there are a handful of companies making these things that aren’t profitable and are propping up the whole economy. It’s unsustainable. My prediction based on what little I know about this stuff is within a couple of years most of these companies’ products are just going to be another mechanism to deliver advertising and the ones that don’t go that route are going to make good products that are prohibitively expensive for most people.

and

and look, I get that some of the stuff this stuff can do is amazing, but it still costs a lot more than it produces. There’s a reason we don’t have supersonic travel. The technology has existed for decades and it ultimately was too expensive. Could there be a breakthrough in energy efficiency someday where that won’t be the case anymore? Sure. But Concorde wasn’t subsidized by tax dollars and investors the way these companies are and how that isn’t reflected in their valuations is beyond me. I’m not an economist but I know the difference between making money and losing money.

and and

I’ve been reading a lot of “Learn about AI or get left behind” stuff. Maybe, maybe not. If I find a use for it like any other new technology developed in my lifetime, sure. For instance, I resisted the mp3 file for a long time, and then I adapted when it made sense. I didn’t feel left behind. I’ve been generally late to adopt a lot of things and I never felt like I was “left behind”, and if the shit is really useful, nobody will have to be told to learn about it because they’ll want to anyway. Nobody had to tell me to learn to use a computer or email and nobody had to tell me to get a cell phone when it was time to adapt.

and and and

And that’s about it for now. I just wanted to shake the dust off this thing. ttyl