As caverns crawl with twisted rage my saunter pulls to chain. Think not where dull minds scribe as mage. Reap kindle from thwart's flame.

Bid question, but loom not for choice. Our threads reign slow in might. Nocturne does weep a strangled voice. Still, “Blaspheme!” rues my light.

Written July 26, 2026. © 2026 AnOublietteofThought.

Chapter 1: The Quiet Moment Before the Words

You are sitting in the dark with your phone turned face down on the table because one more message feels like too much. The room is quiet, but your mind is not. You know you should pray, yet everything inside you feels tangled. You could repeat the words you have said a hundred times, but tonight they feel thin. This is the hidden place behind this heartfelt message about why Jesus taught His disciples to pray: sometimes the hardest part of prayer is not believing God is there. It is knowing how to come to Him honestly.

Many of us reach that point after years of praying. We know the familiar phrases. We know when to bow our heads. We know how to ask God to bless the day, protect the family, heal the sick, and help us make good choices. But there are moments when those words no longer reach the real thing happening inside us. That is where this deeper reflection on learning to trust God in prayer belongs, because prayer was never meant to help us avoid the truth about ourselves.

The disciples did not ask Jesus to teach them how to pray on the first day they met Him. That does not mean Jesus was withholding something important. It may mean they first needed to watch Him. They had heard religious prayers before. They had grown up around people who knew the right words. What caught their attention was not simply that Jesus prayed, but that His prayer seemed connected to the life He lived.

They watched Him step away from crowds and make room for the Father when people were pulling at Him from every direction. They saw that prayer was not a public performance or a last-minute attempt to escape trouble. It was part of the quiet center of His life. Before they could understand the words Jesus would give them, they needed to see what prayer looked like in someone who trusted the Father.

They needed to learn that prayer was not a tool for controlling God, a way to look holy, or a speech meant to impress the people standing nearby. Prayer was where Jesus remained honest, dependent, and aligned with the Father. Most of us do not struggle because we have never heard a prayer. We struggle because we have learned how to say prayers without always learning how to be present with God.

A woman may whisper, “Please take care of my son,” while staring at a text message confirming that he is in trouble again. She has prayed the same prayer for months. What she may not know how to say is, “Father, I am scared that I cannot save him. I am angry that this keeps happening. I am exhausted from trying to hold everything together.” That second prayer sounds less polished, but it may be closer to the kind of honesty Jesus was teaching.

When Jesus began with “Our Father,” He did not give the disciples a magic opening line. He showed them where prayer begins. It begins in relationship. God is not a distant official waiting for us to make a perfect case. He is Father. Yet Jesus also taught them to honor God’s name as holy. The closeness of God does not make Him small, and His holiness does not make Him cold. Prayer holds both truths together. We come near, but we do not take control. We speak honestly, but we remember who God is.

This is where many of our prayers begin to drift. We may come to God with a full set of instructions. We want Him to change a person, fix a problem, open one door, close another, and give us the answer we have already decided is right. There is nothing wrong with asking for help. Jesus taught us to ask for daily bread. He understands that bills are real, bodies get sick, relationships break, and people we love make choices that frighten us. He did not shame human need.

Prayer becomes smaller than His intent when we only ask God to change what is around us and never allow Him to show us what needs to change within us. That is the quiet conflict many Christians carry. We want God’s help, but we do not always want His direction. We want relief, but not always surrender. We want Him to bless our plans, but we are not sure we want Him to question them.

Jesus did not teach prayer as a way to make God support the life we have already chosen. He taught prayer as a place where we bring the whole life to the Father, including the parts we would rather keep hidden. An honest prayer can therefore be simple: “Father, I do not know what to say. I want my way, but I want to learn to trust Yours. Show me what I am refusing to see.” Those are not weak words. They are the beginning of real prayer because they stop pretending.

The disciples asked Jesus to teach them because they had seen what prayer looked like when it was more than words. They had seen a life that kept returning to the Father. They wanted that life, not merely a formula. Maybe that is where the lesson begins for us too. It does not begin with longer prayers, better language, or greater confidence. It begins when we stop trying to sound like people who have everything together and come to God as people who know they need Him.

Chapter 2: When Prayer Stops Being a Performance

The morning comes too quickly after a bad night. The coffee is made, the house begins moving, and everyone seems to need something before you have even had time to think. You may stand at the kitchen counter with your hands wrapped around a warm mug and realize you have already started rehearsing the day’s problems in your mind. There is the conversation you do not want to have, the doctor’s call you are waiting for, the balance in the bank account, the mistake you made yesterday, and the person you are trying not to disappoint. You know you should pray, but part of you wonders whether prayer will change anything.

That question is not a sign that faith has disappeared. It is often the moment when prayer can become more real. Many Christians have been taught to hide uncertainty from God, as though honesty might offend Him. We think we must arrive with confidence already in place. We try to sound calm when we are not calm. We say, “I trust You,” while our thoughts are racing in every direction. But Jesus did not teach His disciples to perform certainty. He taught them to come to the Father.

That changes the purpose of prayer. Prayer is not where we prove that we are strong enough to deserve God’s attention. It is where we admit that we are not enough on our own. The words Jesus gave His disciples move us away from self-sufficiency. “Give us this day our daily bread” is a prayer of dependence. It is the prayer of someone who knows today has needs that cannot all be controlled.

Daily bread can mean the food on the table, but it also teaches us to live one day at a time. We often want God to show us the whole road. We want the answer for next month, the guarantee for next year, and the promise that nothing painful will happen. Jesus brings us back to today. He does not deny tomorrow. He simply reminds us that grace is often given in daily portions.

A man driving to work may be carrying a decision that could affect his family. He has looked at the numbers, asked for advice, and still does not know what to do. His prayer does not need to become a speech. He can say, “Father, give me wisdom for the next right step. Keep fear from making this decision for me.” That prayer may not remove the responsibility, but it places the responsibility where it belongs: in the hands of someone who is willing to listen rather than merely react.

Jesus also joined prayer with forgiveness. That is where the prayer becomes uncomfortable. It is easy to ask God for peace while holding tightly to resentment. It is easy to ask Him to forgive our impatience while refusing to forgive someone else’s failure. Jesus did not connect these things to make forgiveness feel earned. He connected them because receiving mercy should change the way we carry the failures of others.

Forgiveness does not mean pretending the wound did not matter. It does not require us to trust someone who remains unsafe, and it does not erase wise boundaries. But prayer brings our anger into the presence of God so it does not quietly become the ruler of our life. We may begin by saying, “Father, I am not ready to feel differently, but I do not want this hurt to own me.” That is an honest place to begin.

This is one way Christian prayer can reflect the intent of Jesus. It becomes a place where we stop hiding. We bring the unpaid bill, the medical fear, the strained marriage, the regret, the envy, the exhaustion, and the resentment. We do not bring them because God is unaware of them. We bring them because we are choosing not to carry them alone or pretend they are not shaping us.

Christian prayer misses His intent when it becomes only a request for better circumstances. We can spend years asking God to remove every difficulty while never asking Him to form patience, courage, mercy, and wisdom within us. We may ask Him to take away every hard person, every closed door, and every season of waiting. Sometimes He does change the situation. Sometimes He changes us while we are still standing inside it.

That does not mean every painful circumstance has been sent to teach us a lesson. It means no circumstance is beyond God’s ability to meet us there. Jesus never treated suffering as a simple classroom exercise. He wept with people. He healed people. He carried pain Himself. The lesson about Jesus is not that He stands far away telling us to pray harder. The lesson is that He understands what it means to bring a real human life before the Father.

Jesus prayed in moments of pressure, grief, decision, and suffering. He did not pray to escape being human. He prayed as the Son who trusted the Father completely. His example shows us that prayer is not a sign that we have failed to handle life. Prayer is part of how we live life honestly with God.

There may still be mornings when you do not know what to say. There may be nights when the words will not come. In those moments, prayer may be no more than sitting quietly and saying, “Father, I am here.” You may open the prayer Jesus taught and move through it slowly, not as a formula, but as a way of returning your heart to what is true.

When you say “Our Father,” you remember that you are not alone. When you honor His name, you remember that He is God and you are not. When you ask for His kingdom and His will, you place your own plans beneath His wisdom. When you ask for daily bread, you trust Him with what this day requires. When you ask for forgiveness, you stop defending what needs to be confessed. When you pray about forgiving others, you invite God into the hurt you keep carrying. When you ask Him to lead you away from temptation, you admit that fear and pride can pull you toward choices that will not make you whole.

The words are simple, but the life they invite is deep. Jesus did not teach His disciples to pray so they could sound more religious. He taught them to live near the Father. He taught them to bring their needs without shame, their sins without excuses, their relationships without pretending, and their future without demanding control.

That is still the invitation. You do not need to become impressive before you pray. You do not need to clear your mind, solve the problem, or find the perfect words. You can come tired. You can come uncertain. You can come with faith that feels small. The important thing is not that you arrive with everything together. The important thing is that you come.

And when you come, Jesus is not merely giving you words to repeat. He is showing you the Father.

Your friend,

Douglas Vandergraph

Explore the complete Douglas Vandergraph Master Index: https://douglasvandergraph.com/douglas-vandergraph-master-index/

Watch Douglas Vandergraph’s faith-based videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@douglasvandergraph

Our Father Who art in Heaven Hallowed be Thy name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily Bread And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those who trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil

Amen

Jesus is Lord! Come Lord Jesus!

Come Lord Jesus! Christ is Lord!

The apiary be Scottish run to mute Late December this hugger And seeing simply rise What time in Hearst for Will Enough of oak And seeming simpler For five octet and lane And pasture by the law Economy forever- and nines to the Moon Giving ray to God And night shall let us be- the end of war.

Sudden And Unusual (Fire Me)

For the time this week And known purchases to comply Based on a long trip It was Eesti and Reunion But to Marshall the pretend And signs of rupture to Maghreb We were the universe And the dollar bill and its army And the anguish of a hundred And of an angel And a country To see the solemn survive To review And to take rest In timely we view The place in need of secure To feel and not pretend That enemies lay unprotected So surely to invoke The night of one regret Sitting and careful then On the twentieth we have war And made amends- to the grief of an aging course The repetition in union And solely reported by men And to the new unlabour speaks might There was something of May about Nothing says to the incline Of a past to restruggle the evident To the Eastern laity of war Thoughts for the tide and umber sea The days to King and Commonwealth We stayed upon the open sea And to retract all returning The West at due May course To front every place but our prism And sailing to the better of men Portions inland The legacy of war And returning our inland sea To the abode of a distant and weary men This water to the knees and on time In Justice, youth re-une In highly react-to at war And the sympathy of maiming still What is war and whatever is LCD To discourage the damage And to be fine with the greatest of men We will not live underground And we will have Victory at last.

To the Blessed Virgin Mary, our Patron and Saint at war.

And in the time of supposition We were weary for a few The working wheel And signs to ransom A day of pages like before A prayer for peace For feeding first to Beckham The litmus of a daygood And in this column,- thirty voids An Ark of the Covenant For Geert Wilders to atone And in this dying hour The lights refused to dim For the Good Lord And letting last to fieldsright Preternaturally decayed But all the wooden collections And the sturdy ones denote A place for Earthen Heaven And in it to avoid As the days are made for good And in this verse were lines Of the uncontaminated view That God is good to land And great to better seas And in a line of Crosses Perchance to see Saint Peter Adjusting to the schism Of the stalwart incantations And in this poem, an America That is bursting at the seams Of a dream for Oprah Winfrey Days of flight unto the night And every golden sister Has a drop of Mothers’ land- the only noise, abound Freedom tines in air For near to fortune time forgot In separated view This September to the stream Of every mannequin’s name Shall be blessed into the fold

I sit and nightly view The forms and future words And dreams, and stalls of gear In the separations of time For broken hearts to beat Every fragrant will and rose- and I adore the forms of depth To a star unto its range The polylacrymal Sun Fighting views unto the Henge And days do not infer to wreck The Son of Man upon a ship For all the distant passages Of their Holiness of time- of great departure And of Christ Jesus- Celebrant of creation If the mighty blackened locks Innovations free and bare A fissure to the leaf would happen fast- in lights if too much Heaven But never they- our honest World And beguiling sense of Wonder Distant Women And a song for better free- Heights of weight and worship ever Raptured then To Her night of trystic joy And off in ten To Chicago’s year of wheat And tribulations- But we hear And cast despondence Insofar as knowing every June There is distance unto our walk And every Man can solify These days are meant for Blackness And futures, and escape Barren lands to heave with rain In nine steps out of ten We were with her- and still know The aching of a star Dispossessed of heights of mutiny To her as much as more In mystery ten and then The Persephone and a floor Rigs for light and ship The sound of Earth and solemn Away with every star To the Good Women clad in wise Bearing Winter afraid And in the night unsure Turning to God’s Children Who will count one Oprah Winfrey Always standing nights in Gayle, Coretta, and Luther King Every drop of Earthen Water Filling hands of grateful then Today is unaccounted For the souls of Christ at will In barren dust to Dover Lighting stars to form and see Hallowed journey to this talk- of expectations And experience And of land becoming full In solemn flame And made of Water And the supplication free On our journey to this side Where days are rife And sustenant breathing Escaped to here- our land for us And a joy- to solemn roads And this is what we have And share to Royal as the Other Witness, Lord, of us In flying high The clouds of effervescence Light the isle- and what is right And offer downpour- for the livid- who will not see the sky- as Oprah would- and just for you And we will walk on- on this day as men will render- verdant bliss Into our own To solemn be And hopeful here Chicago keeping For this land..

..In solace and prayer For peace and gratitude Light of Heaven- Christ the Lord First and last In all who seek.

Schon gefühlte Jahrzehnte ist es her, dass Blogs in Mode waren. Für mich sind sie es immer noch: Seit Google angefangen hatte, das Internet mit seinen Suchalgorithmen kaputt zu machen (Stichwort SEO als Beruf(!)), hatten es Blogs immer schwerer. Gefühlt hatte ich bei der Google Suche die ersten x-Suchergebnisseiten übersprungen, um die kleinen, nischigen Blogs zu finden. Die, die Qualität über Suchmaschinenoptimierung stellten, mich zum nachdenken anregen, mich auf etwas stoßen, dass ich noch nicht gedacht habe oder hatte. Die, die sich der Wahrheit verpflichtet sahen und sehen, die, die ihr Wissen, ihre Gedanken, Ideen und Anregungen zum Wohle aller zur Verfügung stellten und stellen. Blogs, die ich schon Jahre nicht mehr bei Google suche, aber bis vor kurzem bei DuckDuckGo fand (aktuell bin ich auf der Suche nach einem brauchbaren Ersatz.), und schon länger bei Mastodon entdecke. Kurzum, auch in Zeiten von LLMs (KI/ML eierlegende Wollmilchsäue)ja werden Blogs bestimmt eine Rolle spielen. Weiterhin als Nische wie seit vielen Jahren nach dem großen Hype, aber immer weiter. So glaube ich mit meinen sechzig Jahren doch noch einmal in die Welt hinauszublasen, was mein Hirn an brauch- und unbrauchbarem angesammelt hat. Wenn es gefällt, freue ich mich, dann war es nicht völlig umsonst. Wenn nicht, macht es auch nichts. Denn etwas ist gewiß: seit dem das Internet besteht, wird neben den oben genannten qualitativ hochwertigen Inhalten auch viel nicht wichtiges bis überflüssiges in die weite Welt geblasen. Ich hoffe, dass ich nicht zu letzteren geselle. Wenn nicht, hoffe ich wenigstens auf die Selbsterkenntnis, dass ich das selbst erkenne und das Bloggen lassen werde. Denn noch mehr Datenmüll zu produzieren ist nicht in die Idee diesen Blogs.

Omenom

Het was er eerder nog nu staat het niet meer op de kaart ik had er iets voor over nu is het niks meer waard het is allemaal van voorbijgaande aard ik haalde het schoon uit de lade na het malen is weer de vaat ik weet nog waar het vandaan kwam maar heb geen idee waar het heen gaat ik wist waar het altijd stond weet alleen niet meer waar het staat het is allemaal van voorbijgaande aard ik kon het allemaal weg dragen nu is niks meer gesneden op mijn maat tegen de stroom in gaan werd gewaardeerd nu noemen ze het hoog verraad het is allemaal van voorbijgaande aard er zit geen spanning meer op maar ooit heb ik me over alles druk gemaakt ik bleef steken in problemen die ik nu met groot gemak achter laat ik sprak heel veel over stomme dingen waar ik nu nooit meer over praat het is allemaal van voorbijgaande aard het was toen eind januari maar nu is het half maart gisteren ging het niet zoals het vandaag gaat morgen kijk ik wel hoe het er dan voor staat het is immers allemaal van voorbijgaande aard allemaal de welvaart, regelmaat het prijsje op de kaart keuzes op menu en namen op de land kaart de grenzen van de staat de kleuren en vormen van het gewaad de heilige onderneming hun wapenvoorraad en bijbehorende krijgsraad van voorbijgaande aard

Eclipsed, this bayonet forsworn. Braided in a pity of harmony, and dilapidated to bow, I rise to the sharpness of a monstrous rebuke. Let Fate tsunami against me. I shall swallow every tide with a saccharine smile, and cleave wave after wave of mismanagement into a foundry of foreboding care. Yes, I dare...

That has always been both the problem and the solution.

Written July 26, 2026. © 2026 AnOublietteofThought.

Substack’s new AI detection

Substack introduced a tool that detects “AI-assisted writing” in posts. Of course they did. Many of the most successful Substacks are run by professional writers, who are naturally concerned that AI could help others compete with their content. So creating a culture where using AI for writing is generally frowned upon is appealing to them.

Of course, using an AI-based tool to detect AI writing is the sloppiest way to fight AI slop. It does not consider the quality of the result, only the tools used. Useless content predates AI – it used to be called clickbait, often created by humans in so-called content farms.

It is better to continue using your own judgment about whether a piece is worth reading, rather than relying on a simple metric that tries to assess how much of a text is “human.”

25 July 2026

Autopsy (working title): a small 8x10 inch painting of what began from close observation of a peeling decorative vinyl house address number I saw on a Wood Green recycling bin. Became a kind of totem upright in the night (memories of standing at the base of Sankaty Head Light). Or a garden and a butterfly, or a fake garden and a projection of a butterfly, or two visitors trying to mirror each other, or experience shifting into two dimensions (less time with the act, more with the storage). Serendipitously found a wax seal on an old envelope as the impulse to add an insect in flight arrived (it really helps to keep anything and everything around; ideas don't die but they hide). Yena said she has been writing about seeing cicada shells on the ground during walks in her neighborhood. I could also say that this work feels like childhood revisited with new tools, or a compressed and frozen metamorphosis, or a record of an imprinting. So content is coming around (by which I mean I'm not even considering it anymore), but I feel that the materiality needs to hurry up and dissolve. I'll let this one stand regardless—it's an okay waypoint and painting is logrolling.

“As a very young man he had spoken of his art as “andacht zum kleinen” (devotion to small things). In the Microcosm of his own visual world he worshipped the Macrocosm of the universe. This was his revolution.” – Sibyl Moholy-Nagy on Paul Klee in the introduction to Praeger Publishers' 1972 print of his Pedagogical Sketchbook (1953).

FILE 003. How Orthodox Judaism views Christianity

This post is created out of disbelief regarding the one-sided love of the Christian communities towards Orthodox Jewish communities. I am sure that Christians have good theological reasons why to support Orthodox Jewish communities.However, I think that it is important that people know that it is one-sided.

Let's make it very clear, most Orthodox Jews think of Christians as “Idol worshipers”.

Here are some sources:

1# Rambam – Hilchot Avodah Zarah 9:4 (uncensored manuscripts)

The uncensored manuscripts contain wording identifying Christians with idol worship. Chabad's annotated edition explains:

“This statement appears to label Christianity as the worship of false gods. That view is clearly stated in Hilchot Avodat Kochavim 9:4.”

The original Hebrew manuscripts contain the phrase:

הנוצרים עובדי עבודה זרה הם

Translation:

“The Christians are worshippers of idolatry.”

This wording appears in the uncensored manuscripts discussed by scholars and later editions.

(found in uncensored manuscripts and critical editions of the Mishneh Torah. For centuries, many printed editions in Christian Europe had passages about Christianity altered or removed by censors. Modern scholarly editions often restore these readings based on manuscripts.)

2# Rambam – Commentary on the Mishnah, Avodah Zarah 1:3

In his commentary, Rambam writes (uncensored text):

דע שזאת האומה הנוצרית כולם עובדי עבודה זרה הם

Translation:

“Know that this Christian nation ... are all worshippers of idolatry.”

He continues that their houses of worship are:

בית עבודה זרה בלי ספק

Translation:

“A house of idolatry without any doubt.”

(found in uncensored manuscripts and critical editions of the Mishneh Torah. For centuries, many printed editions in Christian Europe had passages about Christianity altered or removed by censors. Modern scholarly editions often restore these readings based on manuscripts.)

From my personal experience, I can only say that, to the best of my recollection, I have never spoken to an Orthodox Jew who believed that Christianity is not idolatry.

However, there are rabbis who do believe that Christianity is not idolatry. They are, however, a minority. Nonetheless, many Christians are giving money to Orthodox communities while they are generally not really welcome to attend a synagogue service on Friday evening or Saturday. One time (in Europe) a rabbi invited a high profile priest with his entourage but the community was not very happy with this. Even though most of the community was not shomer shabbat. I would have expected a more moderate response from the community but I only heard mocking and vile remarks. Even people that are Jewish according to Jewish law (halacha) but are Christian are being mocked. The general Orthodox Jewish perspective on Christianity can be summarized as follows: their (Christian) theology is not even close to our sophisticated Talmud and Torah study, besides they belief in ridiculous things like the virgin Marry.

I understand, from a historical perspective, that most Jewish families are against Christianity. Look at the forced conversions and all the pogroms that happened against Jewish communities. However, your average Christian is not fully aware of these things and therefore their approach is often very naive.

#judaism #orthodoxjudaism #christianity #rambam #maimonides #halacha #talmud #torah #avodahzarah #theology #religion #Interfaith #InterfaithDialogue #InterreligiousDialogue #ComparativeReligion

I de flesta sammanhang är bloggen redan historia. Reseskribenter flyttade till Instagram, matbloggarna hamnade på TikTok och de personliga dagboksbloggarna ersattes av tweets och stories. Formatet, ett textblock publicerat i kronologisk ordning och kommenterat av läsare, känns i dag som en relik från 2000-talet.

Varför gick det så? En del av svaret handlar om plattformarnas ekonomi. Instagram, TikTok och liknande tjänster bygger på algoritmiska flöden som belönar korta, snabbt konsumerade format. En bild eller en femton sekunder lång video kan nå tusentals nya människor på några timmar, medan ett blogginlägg oftast bara når de som redan följer bloggen eller råkar googla rätt sökord. När uppmärksamheten blev den knappa resursen, och plattformarna byggdes för att maximera just den, förlorade det långsamma textformatet i konkurrensen om vem som orkar läsa klart.

En annan del handlar om vad innehållet egentligen ska göra. Ett recept, en outfit eller en semesterbild säger sig själv bäst genom en bild. Texten blir där ett tillägg, inte huvudsaken. Det gjorde det naturligt för de bloggarna att flytta dit där bilden redan stod i centrum.

Men bokbloggen har klarat sig undan den vågen, och anledningen ligger i vad en bokrecension faktiskt kräver. En bild av ett bokomslag säger nästan ingenting om berättelsen, karaktärerna eller varför boken var värd tiden. Det behövs resonemang, jämförelser med andra verk, citat som sätts i sitt sammanhang. Kort sagt, det krävs plats, och plats är precis det bloggformatet ger som ett kort inlägg i ett flöde inte kan.

Läsarna spelar också in. Den som söker efter en fördjupad recension innan hen väljer nästa bok är sällan ute efter en trettio sekunder lång sammanfattning. Den läsaren vill se vad recensenten faktiskt tänkte, gärna med en jämförelse till författarens tidigare böcker eller ett resonemang om tema och stil. Det är en publik som redan är van vid att läsa, vilket gör den mer tålmodig med långa texter än genomsnittsanvändaren i ett socialt flöde.

Sökbarheten hjälper också bokbloggen att överleva. Många hittar en recension genom att googla en boktitel eller ett författarnamn, långt efter att inlägget publicerades. Ett gammalt blogginlägg kan fortsätta locka läsare i flera år, medan ett inlägg i ett socialt flöde försvinner ur cirkulation redan efter några dagar.

Två exempel på att formen fortfarande lever är Bokbrus och Lästips. Båda visar att bloggformatet inte behöver vara dött bara för att resten av internet gått vidare. Så länge det finns böcker att recensera, tips att dela och läsare som vill läsa mer än en rubrik, verkar bokbloggen ha hittat sin egen nisch där den fortfarande mår bra.

There seem to be as many way to make humans suffer as there are ways to laugh.

NOT MY WORK! SWIPED FROM THE AWKWARD YETI

I'm a man. But I love women. A lot.

---

#comic #laughter

The old Postville Courthouse in Lincoln, Illinois, via The Library of Congress. Abraham Lincoln practiced law there from 1847 to 1859.

Well, as a surprise to me, my silly little Gravatar article was posted to Hacker News. This has called a lot of attention to the post, and made for some interesting comments. The most interesting of this is the claim that I have “cognitive dissonance”:

We live in a world with cognitive dissonance. We have to because if you don't you'd go insane.

This article is perhaps a good example of that. On the one hand live in public (post blogs, use the same avatar on multiple sites) but at the same time try and control how that publicness is consumed (humans only, no AI).

Right now, whatever you make public is in AI. Whether that is on HN, or your blog, or wherever. You may not like that, but public is ultimately public.

Ironically a blog post about leaving some service because they used the marketing phrase “AI”, is immediately added to the AI training corpus.

So, of course, I feel the need to respond to this.

First off, I don't have cognitive dissonance on this topic. Instead, I would say I have a rather refined set of principles when it comes to AI. But, I'm sure you aren't here to read all my thoughts on AI. So, I will summarize them as: AI is a technology that holds promise, but at this time it's not ready for public consumption. Despite what Alphabet, OpenAI, Anthropic, and other companies have you believing, there is still a lot of work and research that needs to be done. And, it seems that a substantial portion of the AI research community agrees with this stance, according to a report published by the AAAI.

Now, on to the idea that “whatever you make public is in AI.”

The questions surrounding this are matters for legal discourse. There are, in fact, many ongoing lawsuits with respect to AI companies (OpenAI, Meta, Alphabet, et al.) vacuuming up large quantities of copyrighted material into their system. There are currently 163 cases according to this tracker. Not just in the United States, but globally. Anthropic settled one case already, to the tune of $1.5 Billion, which shows that there is reason to believe these companies are aware of the harms they are doing in violating the ownership of the works they are ingesting.

This is not a matter of public versus private. This is a matter of ownership. In the U.S. and quite a few countries works are owned by their creators automatically on creation. Sharing a work publicly does not remove that ownership. Works are not transferred into the public domain for lengthy periods of time, unless the creator explicitly assigns their works to the public domain. (And, even then it's difficult to do. See the reasoning behind the Creative Commons 0 license.)

My ownership of a work means I have the right to control how that work is reproduced. I could, for example, assign the rights to reproduce the work to a publisher. Or I could transfer those rights to a foundation or another organization. I can even reproduce the work publicly, while still maintaining ownership of the work.

Social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. are potentially a different matter. Originally they stated that their reproduction of your posts did not transfer ownership to them. However, over time, they have slid more and more towards a position that they have the right to reproduce your work in ways they feel is appropriate (this was mostly for advertising originally, but that's becoming increasingly blurry these days).

Alphabet has a contract with Reddit to slurp up users postings, and they are certainly using Gmail, YouTube and as many other sources as they can to train their AI. Meta is almost certainly using Facebook, Instagram, and What's App to train their AI's. And Elon's companies are doing whatever they can to feed Grok. But I don't have to capitulate to this loss of ownership. I've left all of those platforms behind for a reason. They might have whatever relics are left over from my time there, but I never agreed to their usage to feed AI systems, and I won't willingly provide them with more fodder.

Hopefully this clears up the misunderstanding that I might have “cognitive dissonance” where AI is concerned.

As a final side note: I was amused by the side discussion regarding the aesthetics of my site. As noted, the font is indeed Work Sans. And, I have done some very minor tweaks in terms of the spacing to make it nicely readable. The overall structure of the site is designed to be minimal. And, through its minimal design I'm aiming for each page to be small and fast loading (there is an issue here, which is based on how the underlying platform works). There are no images in the footer, the buttons are all HTML. The images I use are hand edited to reduce their size (I aim for under 250K per image). As for the color: I just wanted an earthy tone, but yeah, tan isn't really my favorite color either. As for the person that said they didn't like the logo, well what can I say? :) The logo is meant to be mildly humorous—the “A” being a triangle is intended to be a slight visual cue to the name “Unattributed” being a joke about the Attribution clause of the Creative Commons license. (IE, “Attribution: Unattributed”) Yeah—I know it's a joke that passes over most people heads.

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Categories: #Features Tags: #AI, #HackerNews, #repsonse, #cognitivedissonance, #public, #ownership, #copyright License: Copyright Unattributed. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Image of a blue and cream-colored box with a handle and buttons at the side of the handle. Photo by Unattributed. License: Copyright Unattributed. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Okay, this is just a silly little game for the fun of it. Why? Because this is one of those impulse things that I bought. Well, not completely an impulse purchase. It's something I've written about before, but definitely not the exact thing I've written about.

I've talked about Birth Year Collecting in the past, and I was honestly considering looking for something from my birth year for this purchase. But this isn't a birth year purchase.

Image of the top of the box, with the label blurred out. Photo by Unattributed. License: Copyright Unattributed. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Now I'm just being mean, right? I mean who blurs out the label on something “new”. Me. ;)

So, yeah, this might need a little cleaning, and a bit of work. But of all the items for sale of this make and model, this one was really in the best condition of all of them. And, to be honest, the lighting here is magnifying the scratches and a bit of dirt on it. When it's under normal lighting it looks absolutely stunning. I'm guessing the seller either carefully lit his photos, or possibly slightly retouched them. Personally, I can't blame him.

Okay, so here's the reveal:

Image of a Royal Sprite manual typewriter from the 1970s. Photo by Unattributed. License: Copyright Unattributed. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0.

I'd like to say this is my first typewriter. It isn't. But, I don't know if I still have the Underwood that I used in high school to write my first story. Would be nice if I could find it, but no major loss: the story was utter garbage. I didn't have a clue about writing at all.

This Royal Sprite typewriter just shouted at me as soon as I laid eyes on it. It's this beautiful navy blue and cream. I love the clean lines, and the curve of the cover, the on the keys, just everything about it. And so far it seems to have been an excellent purchase. Okay, a few keys don't return properly. But from my investigation, it doesn't appear to be serious. A little cleaning and lubricant should fix the problem quite easily.

So, as I mentioned before: this isn't a birth year typewriter. I still plan to get one. I have an idea of what I would like to find, so now I am just watching for the exact one that I want. I'll say this much: it will be an electric typewriter. And, it won't be portable.

If you'd like to see more photographs of this typewriter, I am going to post a full set of six photos on my Pixelfed when this article goes live.

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Categories: #Features Tags: #typewriter, #notbirthyear, #manual, #royal, #sprite License: Copyright Unattributed. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0.