Delightful morning. Spent the first few hours of the day sat on the new reading chair with a cup of coffee and a book by Ahmed Khaled Toufik on storytelling. I'm alternating between that and Boroughs' NAKED LUNCH. Tiger hopped on my lap and curled against my belly in silence.

I'm hoping to stick to a system of only two books at a time, one fiction and one non-fiction. Oddly enough, I find that I've been enjoying non-fiction far, far more lately. The more fiction I read, the more it becomes apparent that the bulk of it actually has very little to say.

Before A.I. slop, an onslaught of human slop has always been around.

Today will hopefully be the last day of podcast notetaking.

#journal

Most writers know what a notebook is. Fewer know what a commonplace book is.

Traditionally, a commonplace book was a personal repository of quotations, observations, anecdotes, reflections, and fragments gathered from reading and experience. It was not a diary and not a finished work. It was a place where ideas could be stored until their relationships became apparent.

Essayists have always been drawn to commonplace books because the essay itself rarely begins with an argument. More often it begins with an observation, a curiosity, a quotation, an encounter, or a question. The commonplace book preserves these beginnings.

In practice, a commonplace book is less concerned with subjects than with connections. A naturalist's observation, a line from a poet, a newspaper clipping, a memory from a walk, and a philosophical question may appear unrelated when recorded. Years later, they may reveal themselves as parts of the same inquiry.

The commonplace book can therefore be understood as the workshop of essayistic thought. Essays emerge from it, but it is not organized around completed essays. Instead, it preserves possibilities. It is a reservoir of unfinished thinking.

Digital tools have not diminished the value of the commonplace book. They have merely changed its form. Applications such as OneNote, Obsidian, Notion, and others allow modern writers to collect and connect fragments with a speed that earlier generations could scarcely imagine. Yet the underlying purpose remains the same: to preserve observations long enough for unexpected relationships to emerge. I have been using Onenote, stored on the cloud and accessible through multiple surfaces, for 23 years now.

A record of attention

The essayist's commonplace book is not a scrapbook of facts. It is a record of attention. It documents what repeatedly catches the eye, returns to the mind, and refuses to be forgotten. Over time, patterns form. Recurring questions appear. Themes announce themselves. The writer gradually discovers not only what they think, but what they are interested in thinking about. But I cannot give you a structure, that will arise from you own foci and patterns of attention, and will doubtless develop over time

Perhaps the most important distinction is this: an ordinary notebook records information. A commonplace book records potential. It is not merely an archive of what has been learned. It is an archive of what might one day be understood.

Two sweep beneath a diamond sky. Two bathe in waters warmed from brisk. Two chase the ache from mirrored eye. Two languish in a darkening kiss. Two spell the other's limbs to quake. Two map pale flesh in lip-bound thrall. Two glut on notes that screech and sate. Two swim and soar where angels fall.

© 2026 AnOublietteofThought. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1: When Your Thoughts Become Your Reality

The kitchen is quiet except for the refrigerator, and you have already checked the bank balance twice. The bill on the table is real. So is the date printed near the top. But somewhere between putting down your phone and turning off the light, your mind has carried you six months into the future. You are no longer thinking about how to pay one bill. You are imagining losing your home, disappointing your family, and having to explain to people how everything fell apart. Nothing new has happened in the room. The only thing that has changed is the story you are telling yourself. This is the private struggle behind what Jesus taught about overthinking and worry, and it deserves more than somebody telling you to calm down.

I think many of us are embarrassed by how far our minds can travel when we are frightened. We know a single unanswered question should not become a verdict on our whole lives, yet sometimes it does. We tell ourselves we are being realistic, or responsible, or prepared. And there is often a real concern underneath it all. That is why finding peace when the future feels uncertain cannot begin with pretending the trouble isn't there. It begins by being honest about the difference between the fact in front of us and the frightening conclusion we have added to it.

The fact may be that money is tight. The conclusion may be that you will never recover. The fact may be that someone you love is going through a difficult season. The conclusion may be that you have failed them and nothing will ever improve. We rarely notice the exact moment when one becomes the other. It happens quietly, while folding laundry, standing at a traffic light, or waiting for the house to settle at night. And because those thoughts arrive in our own voice, we give them an authority they have not earned.

Jesus addressed this human habit long before there were bank applications or late-night messages. In Matthew 6:27, He asked, “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” It is such a plain question that we can miss how deeply it reaches. He was not mocking people who were afraid. Earlier in the same teaching, He spoke about food, clothing, and the needs of ordinary life. He understood that people had genuine reasons to be concerned. What He challenged was the belief that carrying those concerns endlessly in our minds somehow makes us more capable of surviving them.

I have noticed that worry can feel strangely like loyalty. A mother worries because she loves her child. A husband worries because he wants to protect his family. Someone looking for work worries because the people depending on them matter. The concern comes from a decent place, and that makes it hard to set down. We may even feel guilty when we laugh at dinner or enjoy a quiet morning, as though being peaceful for an hour means we have stopped caring. But love does not become more sincere when it exhausts us. Responsibility does not become more effective when it keeps us awake.

There is a gentleness in the question Jesus asked that I don't want to lose. He invites us to examine what fear is asking us to carry. Not everything we feel is something we must obey. A thought can deserve our attention without deserving our trust. When that bill is waiting on the kitchen table, it still needs to be dealt with. There may be a call to make, a payment plan to request, or an uncomfortable conversation to have. Those are real steps. The imagined collapse of an entire future is not one of them.

And perhaps the first bit of relief is not a sudden answer or a miraculous change in circumstances. Perhaps it is sitting back down at that same table, seeing the bill for exactly what it is, and refusing to let one difficult page tell you the ending of your life.

Chapter 2: The Silence You Keep Trying to Interpret

A parent sends a message to a grown child on a Tuesday afternoon. Nothing dramatic, just a question about how the week is going. By dinner, there is no reply. The phone stays on the counter while the parent prepares a meal, but it is checked between nearly every task. By evening, the silence has acquired a meaning. Maybe the child is pulling away. Maybe something was said at the last family gathering that caused offense. Maybe the relationship is changing, and nobody has the courage to say so. The next morning, a reply arrives: “Sorry, long day at work. I'm okay.” A whole night of fear was built around an ordinary delay.

This is one reason overthinking can be so hard to recognize. It often begins with love. We worry about people because their lives matter to us. We remember their disappointments, notice changes in their voices, and want to protect them from making painful mistakes. That kind of attention can be beautiful. But somewhere along the way, concern can become a belief that we must anticipate every difficulty for another person. We start listening for trouble even when nothing has been said, and we interpret every gap in communication as a warning.

The trouble is that other people have inner lives we cannot see. They are tired sometimes. They are distracted. They need privacy. They may be working through questions they are not ready to discuss. When we fill those unknown spaces with our fears, we can begin responding to an imagined version of the person instead of the real one. A simple call becomes an interrogation. A kind question carries an accusation beneath it. We ask whether everything is all right, but the other person hears that we have already decided something must be wrong.

There is an encounter in Mark chapter 10 that has stayed with me for a different reason. A wealthy young man approached Jesus, wanting to know what he should do to inherit eternal life. Jesus spoke to him about what he lacked and invited him to follow. The young man went away grieving because he had great possessions. Mark tells us that Jesus looked at him and loved him. That detail matters to me. Jesus cared deeply about the man, told him the truth, and still allowed him to make a decision Jesus did not choose for him.

I don't think that story means we should stand aside when someone is in danger or refuse to help people who need us. It means that loving someone does not give us ownership of every decision they make. Jesus did not turn love into pressure. He spoke honestly and left room for a human response. That can be a difficult example to follow, especially when we believe we can see a mistake coming and desperately want to prevent it.

There are practical ways to make room for that difference. If someone has not answered, you can send one caring message rather than six anxious ones. If a relationship feels strained, you can ask a direct question and be willing to hear an answer you did not expect. If someone you love is making a choice you disagree with, you can explain your concern without rehearsing the argument in your head for days. None of these actions guarantees the outcome you want. They do give the relationship a better chance than fear-driven assumptions.

And there will be times when a conversation genuinely reveals a problem. Perhaps a son is struggling and has been afraid to say so. Perhaps a friend is hurt. Perhaps a family member needs more help than anyone realized. In those moments, the hours we spent guessing still cannot replace the work of listening. We have to meet the actual person in front of us, not the worst possibility we prepared ourselves to face.

What I take from Jesus here is not a command to care less. It is permission to love someone without pretending I can live their life for them. I can offer my presence, my honesty, and my help. I can pray for wisdom before I speak. But I cannot make uncertainty disappear by watching a phone, rewriting a conversation, or imagining every road another person might take. Sometimes trust begins with giving someone enough room to tell us what is true.

Chapter 3: When Yesterday Refuses to Let You Move Forward

The mistake is already in the email when you notice it. You are at work, opening the document you sent the day before, and there it is: a number that should have been checked again. For a moment you just stare at the screen. Then your mind begins gathering evidence against you. You remember another mistake from last year, an awkward meeting, a time somebody questioned your judgment. By lunch, you are no longer dealing with one incorrect number. You are quietly asking yourself whether you have ever been as capable as people think you are.

There is a particular kind of overthinking that turns backward instead of forward. Rather than imagining disasters that might happen, it takes something that already happened and makes you live through it again and again. You remember what you said at a family gathering. You think of the impatient way you spoke to someone who needed kindness. You wonder whether a different decision years ago would have given your family an easier life. The past becomes a place you visit so often that it begins to feel more real than the room you are sitting in.

I don't want to dismiss regret. Sometimes regret is telling us the truth. We did speak harshly. We should have been more careful. We neglected something important. An honest conscience is a gift because it gives us an opportunity to change. But when we keep replaying the same moment without making anything right, regret has stopped guiding us. It has become another way of standing still. We can become so focused on proving how sorry we are that we never get around to doing what sorrow is supposed to lead us toward.

That brings me to Zacchaeus, a man Jesus encountered in Luke chapter 19. Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector, someone whose work made him deeply unpopular. He climbed a tree to see Jesus passing by, perhaps never expecting to be noticed. But Jesus stopped, looked up, called him by name, and told him that He would stay at his house. The crowd complained because Jesus was going to be a guest of a man they considered a sinner.

I find that encounter remarkable because Jesus didn't require Zacchaeus to spend the day making speeches about how terrible he was. His willingness to receive Jesus led to something concrete. Zacchaeus said he would give half his possessions to the poor and repay fourfold anyone he had cheated. Those are not vague feelings of remorse. They are costly decisions about how to live differently. Jesus responded by speaking of salvation coming to that house. The story gives us a picture of mercy that does not ignore wrongdoing and repentance that does not remain trapped in shame.

Think about what that could mean for the person sitting in front of the computer with the incorrect number. The useful next step is to tell the right person, correct the document, and deal with any consequences honestly. It may be uncomfortable. It may affect how others see you for a while. But the hours you spend calling yourself a failure do not correct a single digit. They only make it harder to bring your full attention to the responsibility in front of you.

The same truth reaches into more personal places. If you hurt someone, a sincere apology may matter more than another week of rehearsing why you did it. If you have neglected a relationship, your presence today may matter more than a private promise that you will never make another mistake. And if the damage cannot be repaired the way you wish, you can still learn to be a more thoughtful person because of what happened. The person you were on your worst day does not have to dictate every decision you make from this one onward.

Of course, there are situations we cannot settle with a corrected email or an apology. Some people will not forgive us. Some losses remain losses. I would never tell you that trusting Jesus removes consequences or gives us the right to demand a second chance from someone we hurt. What faith can give us is the courage to face the truth without surrendering our whole identity to it. We can admit what happened, accept what belongs to us, and still believe that God has more for us to learn and more good for us to do.

I think that is where the question Jesus asked about worry finally becomes very personal. What is this thought adding to the life I am living? If it is helping me see the truth, make amends, or choose more wisely, I need to listen. If it is simply making me relive the same fear or shame, I can stop treating it as a duty. I can turn my attention toward the person who needs me, the work that remains, and the opportunities for kindness that are still here.

There may be an open document on your screen, a difficult conversation you have been avoiding, or an old memory that still changes how you see yourself. You do not have to pretend any of it is easy. You can begin with something smaller and more honest: face what is true, do what love and responsibility require, and let the rest of the story remain unwritten. Jesus never asked us to punish ourselves into becoming better people. He called people into a different way of living, and that invitation still stands when we have spent far too long fighting inside our own minds.

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

Twenty-three thousand a month. That is roughly how many illegal drone flights the New York City Police Department says it logs, a figure that works out at more than 750 a day, or one every couple of minutes, in a city whose own administrative code forbids most drone take-offs and landings outright.

The number sits near the top of a report published in September 2026 by the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington-based think tank that has been studying American policing since 1976. On 19 September, the New York Times put the report in front of a much wider audience. Reporters Hurubie Meko and Maria Cramer described the forum's warning that the confluence of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence and cheaper, deadlier drones posed an increasing threat to cities and towns across the United States. Unauthorised drones, the paper noted, were flying into football stadiums on game days. Hundreds had been seized near World Cup matches over the summer. And the forum's executive director, Chuck Wexler, reached for the heaviest comparison available to an American policing body in the 25th anniversary year of the attacks on New York and Washington. “Twenty-five years ago, our nation paid a terrible price for a failure of imagination,” he wrote. “We cannot afford to make the same mistake again.”

The report's title, “A Clear and Present Danger: The Rise of Malicious Drones and What Police Executives Can Do About It”, makes its position plain. But a warning of this kind is never only about the worst case. It also shapes how ordinary people experience the sky over their heads: what a buzzing rotor at a barbecue means, who gets stopped at a stadium gate, whether a delivery drone over the fence is a convenience or an intrusion, and whether the police drone hovering above a street party is a guardian or a watcher. So two questions follow. What changes for life in the spaces below, in stadiums, streets, parks and back gardens, when cheap autonomous flight guided by AI becomes part of the everyday urban environment? And is this kind of warning the necessary exercise of imagination its authors call for, or a drumbeat that teaches the public to fear the sky?

What the Police Report Actually Says

Start with the document itself, because it is more careful than its headline. The report is the 57th in the forum's Critical Issues in Policing series, a long-running programme supported by Motorola Solutions and the Motorola Solutions Foundation. It draws on a meeting of roughly 150 police executives, federal officials and industry representatives held in Washington in May 2026, and on questionnaire responses from 269 law enforcement agencies gathered several months earlier.

Its headline numbers are stark. The National Football League reported 2,800 drone incursions into the restricted airspace around its stadiums during the 2025 season. The NYPD reported an average of about 23,000 illicit drone flights a month. And during the FIFA World Cup in June and July 2026, federal and local authorities seized more than 700 drones near stadiums and fan festivals across the 11 American host cities. Wexler's foreword argues that “we should not mistake the absence of an attack for the absence of a threat”, and that 700 incursions in a matter of weeks show how commonplace unauthorised flying has become even around the most heavily secured airspace in the country.

Read on, though, and the report supplies its own counterweight. Of the World Cup seizures, it states plainly that there were no reports that any of the drones had been turned into weapons, and that nobody had been charged with a crime related to their use, although, as described below, at least one Dallas-area operator has since been reported to face federal charges. It concedes that the United States has not experienced even the small-scale drone attacks that have caused injuries elsewhere in the world. And in one of its most revealing passages, Micheal Torphy, an assistant section chief in the FBI's Unmanned Aviation Section, explains to the assembled police chiefs that Remote ID, the electronic licence plate that most registered drones are required to broadcast, will catch only the “careless and clueless”, meaning hobbyists who stray into restricted airspace without meaning to. “But that's about 99.5 percent of people that we encounter,” he said, “so you have a 99 percent solution.”

That is the paradox at the centre of the debate. The report's numbers describe a sky full of rule-breakers, almost all of whom are not dangerous. Its argument concerns the tiny remainder who might be.

As for artificial intelligence, the technology that gave the New York Times its headline, the report itself says surprisingly little. In his foreword, Wexler notes that after his visits to Ukraine he observed that some drones are now guided by artificial intelligence, “allowing them to operate with little or no active signal to intercept”, while others are steered through fibre-optic cables stretching for miles. The New York Times added that Ukrainian officials had said an AI-guided Russian drone killed three people when it crashed into a wall and exploded. The concern is specific and technical: counter-drone systems have been built to detect and jam the radio link between a pilot and an aircraft, and a drone that can find its own way does not need that link.

Twenty-Three Thousand Flights and What the Number Hides

To understand the most quoted figure, it helps to know what makes a drone flight illegal in New York. Section 10-126© of the city's Administrative Code has long prohibited most take-offs and landings of unmanned aircraft within city limits. A 2023 rule created a permit route administered by the NYPD with the city's Department of Transportation, and model aircraft fields designated by the parks department are exempt. Almost every flight launched from a rooftop, a park lawn or a garden without a permit therefore breaks the law, whatever its purpose.

Seen this way, 23,000 a month is less a measure of menace than a measure of how far a near-total ban has drifted from the behaviour of a city of more than eight million people with cheap cameras that fly. The report itself notes that consumer drones with video capability can be bought for well under $100. By the FBI's own estimate, the overwhelming majority of operators that officers encounter are careless and clueless rather than hostile, and when federal agents examined the drones seized during the World Cup, as described below, that is broadly what they found.

None of this means the number is meaningless. A city where tens of thousands of unpermitted flights take place each month is a city where a single hostile flight is very hard to pick out of the background noise. That is precisely the police argument, and New York's police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, has made it in the starkest terms: “If there is one threat that keeps me up at night, it is from drones.” But a statistic that sounds like evidence of a looming threat is, in large part, evidence of a regulatory mismatch.

Match Day Under a Three-Mile Ceiling

Stadiums are where the abstract threat becomes concrete, and where ordinary fans are most likely to feel the change. Since 2021, according to the report, every NFL stadium has been required to deploy technology capable of detecting, tracking and locating drones on game days. Cathy Lanier, the league's chief security officer, told the forum that security teams deal with at least a dozen drone incursions every game. When one is detected, she said, it automatically connects with the stadium camera, which swings round to look at it.

College football has the same problem at greater scale. Sean Patterson, police chief at the University of Tennessee, described a drone that hovered over the 40-yard line during a sold-out Luke Combs concert at Neyland Stadium in 2026 and was not picked up by the venue's software. “That could have something as simple as a grenade on it,” he said. “My stadium's over 100 years old; I'm not getting those 80,000 people out.” William Thompson, deputy chief of police at the University of Notre Dame, put the geometry bluntly: “It is literally 300 yards from the south wall of my stadium across the city line to parking lots where people could launch anything.”

Torphy offered the most unsettling observation of all. “In traditional security culture, the more gates and more guns you have, the more protected you are from the traditional attack methodologies,” he said, “but the more vulnerable you are to attack from above.”

The World Cup showed what the response looks like in practice. The Federal Aviation Administration declared temporary flight restrictions with a radius of three nautical miles around stadiums on match days and one nautical mile around fan festivals. Operators who strayed inside faced fines of up to $100,000, criminal charges and confiscation of their aircraft. Agencies seized drones in every host city, though the city-by-city tallies reported by different federal bodies do not agree with one another, a small reminder of how hard the airspace is to count.

Who were the people whose drones were seized? In Dallas-Fort Worth, where the three-mile ring around AT&T Stadium took in residential neighbourhoods and businesses, NBC's local investigative team reported that the seizures included real estate photographers and roofing inspectors. Kevin Vest, an assistant special agent in charge at the FBI's Dallas field office, said: “Many of the operators have told us they're doing it to get an aerial view of the stadium, of the crowds, of the marches.” The FBI confirmed that none of the seized drones carried dangerous payloads. One man who now faces federal charges had, according to a fundraising page set up by his family, been “just flying near his house and did not know there would be restrictions due to the World Cup”.

This is what the filling sky does to ordinary life around a stadium. A no-fly zone drawn for a global tournament reaches into gardens and driveways three miles away. A roofer's survey becomes a federal matter. The defensive perimeter that once ended at the turnstiles now extends upwards and outwards over the homes of people who never bought a ticket.

The Police Drone Is Part of the Sky Too

Any honest account of the crowded urban sky has to include the aircraft flown by the police themselves, who are fast becoming some of the busiest drone operators in their cities.

New York is the clearest example. In November 2025, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, a New York civil liberties group, reported that NYPD drone flights had risen by 3,200 per cent since 2022, with 6,546 flights in the first six months of 2025 compared with 647 in the same period of 2024. “Drone flights have skyrocketed . . . and we didn't talk much about it or know much about it,” said Eleni Manis, the group's research director. A December 2024 report by the Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD found that the department “does not fully and accurately describe” the capabilities of its drones, which include night vision, thermal imaging and 3D mapping.

The back garden first entered this debate in New York in 2023. Ahead of the Labor Day weekend, Kaz Daughtry, then an assistant commissioner, announced that police drones would respond to complaints about large gatherings, including private parties in back gardens, to “go check on the party to make sure if the call is founded or not”. Daniel Schwarz of the New York Civil Liberties Union called the plan discriminatory and potentially unconstitutional, pointing out that it coincided with the Caribbean J'ouvert celebrations.

Police drones also fall out of the sky. In late June 2026, an NYPD drone, a Skydio model of the kind used in the department's drone-as-first-responder programme, malfunctioned and fell near the World Cup fan zone at Brooklyn Bridge Park, where its lithium-ion battery caught fire. Firefighters dealt with it, nobody was hurt, and the fan zone stayed open. According to DroneXL, it was the second NYPD drone to catch fire in Brooklyn in just over a year. Skydio said it had found no evidence of a safety malfunction in the flight logs.

In Boston, the police department announced a drone-as-first-responder pilot on 28 August 2026, in partnership with Motorola Solutions and the drone maker BRINC. Commissioner Michael Cox said that “putting eyes on a scene in as little as a minute” would help dispatchers send the right resources. Six days later, on 3 September, one of the aircraft fell on to a parked Mazda in Brighton, damaging its rear windscreen and boot. The owner was not at home. Neither the department nor BRINC publicly disclosed the cause.

These incidents are minor, but they show that the drone most likely to fall into a crowd or on to a car is not necessarily a terrorist's, and that the institutions asking for powers to police the sky are among its busiest users. Motorola Solutions, which supports the forum's report series, is also a commercial partner in Boston's drone programme. There is no suggestion that this shaped the report's conclusions, but readers weighing a call for urgent investment in the technology of policing the sky might reasonably want to know it.

Back Gardens and the Law of the Open Sky

For most people, the question of the filling sky is ultimately a question about the garden. Who may fly over it, who may look into it, and what can be done about it?

American law has been answering the looking question for four decades, and the answers have not favoured the homeowner. In California v Ciraolo in 1986, the Supreme Court held that police officers who flew over a fenced garden at 1,000 feet and saw cannabis growing had not carried out an unlawful search, because any member of the public flying in that airspace could have seen the same thing. Three years later, in Florida v Riley, the court applied similar reasoning to a police helicopter at 400 feet looking through gaps in a greenhouse roof. Those cases concerned crewed aircraft, which are expensive and noisy. A drone can do the same job more cheaply, more quietly and from lower down.

The courts are only beginning to catch up. In Long Lake Township v Maxon in 2024, the Michigan Supreme Court considered a township that had hired a drone operator to photograph a couple's property, which could not be seen from the road, in a dispute over junked cars. The court declined to decide whether the flights amounted to a search, ruling instead that the exclusionary rule did not apply to civil zoning enforcement, so the images could be used whatever the answer.

Homeowners trying to take matters into their own hands have found the law equally unclear. In 2015, William Merideth of Hillview, Kentucky, shot down a drone hovering over his family's garden with a shotgun, saying he believed it was spying on his daughters. The drone's owner, David Boggs, disputed his account. A Bullitt County judge dismissed the criminal charges against Merideth, and a federal judge later dismissed Boggs's civil suit for lack of jurisdiction, without settling who owns the air above a garden. Local councils have had little more success. In 2017, a federal court in Massachusetts struck down provisions of an ordinance in the city of Newton that would have banned drone flights below 400 feet over private property without the owner's permission, holding that they conflicted with federal control of the airspace.

The new counter-drone regime adds another layer. Under the SAFER SKIES Act, passed as part of the defence authorisation bill in December 2025 and given effect by an interim federal rule from 1 July 2026, accredited state and local agencies can for the first time detect, and eventually disable, drones themselves. The report stresses that the rule carries privacy, data-handling and retention requirements, and that operators must avoid monitoring content or communications in ways that would violate the First Amendment. But it also shows how detection infrastructure tends to spread. Kevin Crowley, a lieutenant with the University of Michigan police, described a statewide drone association in which detection data from about 32 agencies is being integrated by a third-party vendor, and a planned historical search function. “So if I had a flight on the Ann Arbor campus, I could search that serial number,” he said, and then see the same aircraft's activity in Detroit, East Lansing or Grand Rapids.

For a security professional, that is sensible intelligence sharing. For a hobbyist who flies at the weekend, it is the beginning of a movement log. When the threat is framed as a clear and present danger, systems built to find the rare bad actor end up recording the routine flights of everyone else.

The Delivery Drone Over the Fence

The policing debate concerns a few thousand rogue aircraft. The commercial build-out concerns millions of routine flights, and it is the change most likely to reach the average garden first.

Wing, the drone delivery company owned by Google's parent Alphabet, says its partnership with Walmart aims to reach more than 40 million Americans through a network of more than 270 locations by 2027. In August 2026, David Carbon, vice president of Amazon Prime Air, said that “by the end of 2026 we plan to reach customers in nearly 500 cities and towns”. Amazon's MK30 drone has a maximum take-off weight of 83.2 pounds and serves customers within about 7.5 miles of each site.

Regulators are clearing the way. On 28 July 2026, the FAA signed a nationwide finding that drone package delivery, carried out with the noise mitigation set out in its programmatic environmental assessment, would not significantly affect the quality of the human environment. A separate rule, known as Part 108, would allow routine flights beyond the pilot's line of sight. As of mid-September 2026, it was still under review at the White House, with the FAA saying it hoped to publish by the end of the year.

Not everyone accepts that the sky over the suburbs can be signed off so quickly. On 28 September 2026, 15 states, among them California, New York, Michigan, Illinois and Massachusetts, together with a Texas county, asked the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to review the FAA's environmental assessment. They argue that the agency moved ahead “without adequately accounting for the effects of a potentially large expansion of drone deliveries”. California's attorney general, Rob Bonta, said that “environmental justice and thoughtful innovation can and should go hand in hand”.

There is already a detailed record of what happens when delivery drones arrive over gardens, and it comes from Australia. In 2018, Wing ran a trial in Bonython, a suburb of Canberra. Residents organised as Bonython Against Drones and collected more than 1,000 signatures. In July 2019, the ACT Legislative Assembly's Standing Committee on Economic Development and Tourism published its report. Wing told the committee that 91 per cent of the critical feedback it received from the trial related to noise. Describing the noise of its aircraft, the company acknowledged that “it is a unique sound and it really draws attention”. One Bonython resident told ABC News that the first flyover of the day came at a quarter past seven in the morning. The residents' group told the committee: “There is no-one responsible for the noise.” A local dog-training club explained that dogs hear a drone coming from far further away than people do, and the residents' group described a neighbour's dog so distressed that it wrecked her back garden. The committee's conclusion was unambiguous: drone noise “is the single biggest obstacle to community acceptance of drone delivery services”. It also asked the territory government to help Australia's privacy commissioner consider limits on the collection of personal information about people who are not customers.

Laboratory research points the same way. In a 2017 study, NASA Langley researchers Andrew Christian and Randolph Cabell played recordings of small drones and road vehicles to listeners and found that the drones were judged more annoying at the same loudness. The offset was about 5.6 decibels, which contemporary coverage described as roughly equivalent to a car driving twice as close. Public attitudes were wary before deliveries began. A Pew Research Center survey published in December 2017 found that 54 per cent of Americans thought drones should not be allowed to fly near people's homes.

That is the texture of everyday life under a filling sky. Most of it has nothing to do with bombs. It is a whine at 7.15 in the morning, a dog that will not settle, a camera you did not agree to, and a regulatory system in which, as the Canberra residents found, nobody seems to be in charge of the sound.

What Artificial Intelligence Actually Changes

If most of the new sky is mundane, where does AI make a real difference? The honest answer is that it matters most at the extremes: in the hands of the rare attacker, and in the systems built to stop them.

On the battlefield, the shift is well documented. Ukrainian developers have fielded low-cost machine-vision modules, reported to cost around $100 or less, that let a drone recognise and lock on to a target and continue its final approach even after its radio link has been jammed. The Kyiv regional police commander Serhii Bolvinov told the forum's May meeting that “the war in 2022 and the war today are already two different wars”, and described Russian drones steered through fibre-optic cables that leave nothing in the air to intercept. For a police force whose counter-drone tools depend on reading and disrupting radio signals, autonomy is the problem in its purest form. An aircraft that navigates by what it sees, rather than by instructions from a pilot, emits little for a detector to find and gives a jammer nothing to jam.

That is the legitimate core of the warning, and it should not be waved away. The forum's report also records drone attacks well beyond Ukraine: drones launched at an airport in the Democratic Republic of Congo, an off-the-shelf drone carrying a crude explosive device into a state prosecutor's compound in Tijuana in October 2025, and, according to a United Arab Emirates interior ministry official, 2,260 drones launched at the UAE by May 2026 during the conflict with Iran. Closer to home, the US Bureau of Prisons reported 474 drone incursions and sightings in 2024, twenty times the 2018 figure.

But AI cuts both ways in the urban sky, and the everyday consequences mostly come from the defensive side. The Skydio X10 drones flown by the NYPD use 360-degree obstacle avoidance to navigate between buildings, a form of machine autonomy that makes police flights over crowded streets practical. Federal policy is pushing the technology forward and trying to control it at the same time. On 6 June 2025, the White House issued two executive orders on the same day. One, on airspace sovereignty, warned that criminals, terrorists and hostile foreign actors were turning drones into weapons. The other, titled “Unleashing American Drone Dominance”, opened by declaring that drones “are already transforming industries from logistics and infrastructure inspection to precision agriculture, emergency response, and public safety”, ordered a rule enabling routine flights beyond visual line of sight, and directed the Department of Transportation to use AI tools to speed up the review of drone waiver applications.

So the same government that funds counter-drone grants is using algorithms to approve more drones more quickly. That is not hypocrisy; it is what managing a dual-use technology looks like. But it means the filling sky is not something that simply happens to cities. It is being deliberately built.

Imagination or Drumbeat

So is the forum's warning the imagination its authors say it is, or a drumbeat?

The case for imagination rests on solid ground. The 9/11 Commission's verdict, that “the most important failure was one of imagination”, has become part of how American security institutions think about themselves. The report quotes Sarasota police chief Rex Troche making the point vividly: “No one's going to see this coming . . . you could just sprinkle sugar over a crowd. Yell bomb or yell anthrax. You're going to have a stampede.” Kathy Lester, a former Sacramento police chief, said that the absence of an attack so far “is really kind of a miracle”. When people with decades of experience protecting crowds say this, it is not scaremongering in any simple sense. The technical vulnerabilities are real, the international record of harm is real, and the legal gap that left local police able to see a drone but not stop it was real.

The case against comes from an equally serious tradition. In September 2005, the security technologist Bruce Schneier published an essay in WIRED titled “Terrorists Don't Do Movie Plots”. It opened: “Sometimes it seems like the people in charge of homeland security spend too much time watching action movies.” His argument was that vivid, specific scenarios crowd out sober thinking about risk, and that money is better spent on “intelligence and investigation: identifying the terrorists themselves, cutting off their funding, and stopping them regardless of what their plans are”. A drone over the 40-yard line with a grenade attached is about as cinematic as threat scenarios get.

Recent history shows how fear of the sky can do damage without any attack at all. In December 2018, reported drone sightings closed London Gatwick for about 30 hours over the Christmas getaway, affecting around 1,000 flights and 140,000 passengers. Sussex Police arrested a local couple, released them without charge and later paid them compensation. The force closed its investigation in September 2019 without charging anyone. In late 2024, a wave of sightings over New Jersey prompted alarm across the north-east of the United States. Federal agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, eventually concluded that the reports were “a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones”. In Europe in 2025, some airport incursions, including those that shut Copenhagen in September, were genuine and serious. But Norwegian police investigating a disruption at Oslo concluded that they were “unable to confirm or deny whether the drones were actually observed”.

Troche's sugar-and-stampede scenario contains a lesson its author may not have intended. In that imagined attack, the payload does no harm. The panic does. Fear is not a side effect of a drone attack. It is the weapon. A public that has been taught to see every buzzing rotor as a potential bomb is a public in which the threat of drones is easier to exploit, not harder.

The best reading of the forum's report is that it is both things at once, and that its value depends on which half its readers hear. As a document for police chiefs, much of it is unglamorous and useful: get trained, write a policy, build relationships with federal agencies, report incidents properly, and, first on its list of eight steps, build public support before using new powers. Its own text concedes that none of the World Cup drones was reported to have been turned into a weapon, and an FBI official inside its pages puts the careless and clueless at 99.5 per cent of the people officers encounter. As a public message, packaged with 9/11, a clear and present danger and AI, it becomes something else: a story in which the sky is, by default, hostile.

Imagining the Whole Sky

If the 9/11 Commission's lesson is that institutions must imagine harm before it arrives, then the imagination being asked for here is too narrow. A properly imaginative approach to the filling sky would also picture the other failures it is likely to bring.

It would picture the counter-measure going wrong, as it did in February 2026 near El Paso, when, according to the forum's report, the Department of Defense used a laser to bring down a drone that turned out to belong to US Customs and Border Protection, and the FAA briefly grounded flights at the city's airport. It would picture the police drone falling on to a parked car, or catching fire beside a fan zone. It would picture the serial-number database that begins as a tool for finding the rare attacker and becomes a record of every weekend hobbyist. It would picture the roofing inspector whose drone is seized, the man charged after flying near his own home, and the Canberra dog wrecking a back garden, and the fact that, as one resident put it, nobody was responsible for the noise.

Above all, it would picture the public as participants in governing the sky rather than as an audience for warnings. The forum's report gets closest to this when it puts public trust at the top of its list. Pew's survey points to the opportunity as well as the risk: when asked how they would feel if they saw a drone near their home, 58 per cent of Americans said curious and only 11 per cent said scared. That is not a public already gripped by fear. It is a public still deciding.

That is what is at stake in how these warnings are delivered. The sky over the stadium, the street, the park and the back garden is going to fill whether or not anyone is frightened of it. Delivery networks are scaling, police fleets are growing, and the machines are getting better at flying themselves. The real choice is not between fear and complacency. It is about whether people who live under that sky help write its rules, or simply learn to flinch when something passes overhead.

---

References and Sources

1. Meko, Hurubie, and Maria Cramer. “The Rise of A.I. Is Raising Threats From Drones, Police Group Warns.” The New York Times, 19 September 2026. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/19/nyregion/artificial-intelligence-drones-police.html ; syndicated text as published by The San Juan Daily Star, 21 September 2026: https://www.sanjuandailystar.com/post/the-rise-of-ai-is-raising-threats-from-drones-police-group-warns
2. Police Executive Research Forum. “A Clear and Present Danger: The Rise of Malicious Drones and What Police Executives Can Do About It.” Critical Issues in Policing Series, Washington, DC, September 2026. https://www.policeforum.org/assets/MaliciousDrones.pdf
3. NYPD. “Unmanned Aircraft (UA) Permit Application Portal: Frequently Asked Questions” (on NYC Administrative Code section 10-126© and 38 RCNY 24). https://dronepermits.nypdonline.org/FAQ/ ; NYC311, “Drones”: https://portal.311.nyc.gov/article/?kanumber=KA-01541
4. Kesteloo, Haye. “FAA Warns NFL Drone Pilots After 700 World Cup Seizures Didn't Deter.” DroneXL, 5 October 2026. https://dronexl.co/2026/10/05/faa-nfl-no-drone-zone-700-world-cup-seizures/
5. Friedman, Scott, Eva Parks and Edward Ayala. “FBI: World Cup drone seizures included real estate photographers, roofing inspectors.” NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, 14 July 2026. https://www.nbcdfw.com/investigations/fbi-world-cup-drone-seizures-included-real-estate-photographers-roofing-inspectors/4049617/
6. NYPD drone use and oversight. Quinlan, Keely, “NYPD drone flights rose 3,200% since 2022, with little public oversight, watchdog claims”, StateScoop, 20 November 2025: https://statescoop.com/report-nypd-drone-flights-increase-with-little-public-oversight/ ; Smalley, Suzanne, “The NYPD is sending more drones to 911 calls, but privacy advocates don't like the view”, The Record, 20 March 2025: https://therecord.media/nypd-drones-as-first-responders-911-calls-privacy-surveillance
7. NYPD backyard party drone deployment, Labor Day 2023. StateScoop, “NYPD plans drone response to backyard parties, festivals over Labor Day weekend”: https://statescoop.com/nypd-drones-backyard-labor-day-party/ ; NBC News, “New York police will use drones to monitor backyard parties this weekend, spurring privacy concerns”, 1 September 2023: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/new-york-police-will-use-drones-monitor-backyard-parties-weekend-spurr-rcna102937
8. NYPD drone crash near the World Cup Fan Zone, Brooklyn Bridge Park, June 2026. DroneXL, “Skydio Drone Crashes And Burns Feet From FIFA World Cup Crowds In Brooklyn”, 1 July 2026: https://dronexl.co/2026/07/01/nypd-skydio-drone-crash-fire-world-cup-fan-zone-brooklyn/ ; Hoodline, “NYPD Drone Sparks Fire Near Brooklyn Bridge Park Fan Zone”, June 2026: https://hoodline.com/2026/06/nypd-drone-crash-briefly-ignites-near-brooklyn-bridge-fan-zone/ ; Skydio, “NYPD launches Drone as a First Responder program” (customer story describing the Skydio X10's 360-degree obstacle avoidance): https://www.skydio.com/customer-stories/nypd-launches-drone-as-a-first-responder-program ; NYPD, “Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Impact and Use Policy”, updated 4 February 2026: https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/public_information/post-final/Unmanned-Aircraft-Systems-NYPD-Impact-and-Use-Policy-2.4.26-FINAL.pdf
9. Boston Police Department. “Boston Police Department Deploys Drone as First Responder Pilot Program.” 28 August 2026. https://police.boston.gov/2026/08/28/boston-police-department-deploys-drone-as-first-responder-pilot-program/ ; Kesteloo, Haye, “Boston Police Drone Wrecks a Parked Car Six Days Into Its DFR Pilot”, DroneXL, 19 September 2026: https://dronexl.co/2026/09/19/boston-police-drone-crash-brighton-mazda-brinc-dfr/
10. Court cases on aerial observation, drones and private property. California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207 (1986): https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/476/207/ ; Florida v. Riley, 488 U.S. 445 (1989): https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/488/445/ ; Long Lake Township v. Maxon, Michigan Supreme Court, No. 164948, 3 May 2024: https://law.justia.com/cases/michigan/supreme-court/2024/164948-0.html ; the “drone slayer” case, Hillview, Kentucky: The Register, “Dad who shot 'snooping vid drone' out of the sky is cleared of charges”, 27 October 2015: https://theregister.com/2015/10/27/drone_dad_william_merideth_cleared ; NPR, “Dispute Emerges Over Drone Shot Down By Kentucky Man”, 31 July 2015: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/31/428156902/dispute-emerges-over-drone-shot-down-by-kentucky-man ; DroneLife, “The Kentucky 'Drone Slayer' Case Dismissed”, 22 March 2017: https://dronelife.com/2017/03/22/kentucky-drone-slayer-case-dismissed/ ; Singer v. City of Newton, 284 F. Supp. 3d 125 (D. Mass. 2017), decided 21 September 2017: https://www.hoverlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Singer-v-City-of-Newton-Ruling.pdf ; Harvard Law Review, “Singer v. City of Newton”, Vol. 131: https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-131/singer-v-city-of-newton/
11. Counter-UAS Authority for State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial Law Enforcement and Correctional Agencies (interim final rule). 91 Fed. Reg. 41466, 6 July 2026. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/FR-2026-07-06/2026-13609
12. Commercial drone delivery expansion. Wing, “Wing and Walmart name seven new markets for drone delivery service”, 2026: https://wing.com/news/wing-and-walmart-seven-new-markets-drone-delivery ; Quartz, “Walmart and Wing expand drone delivery to 7 new U.S. cities”: https://qz.com/walmart-wing-drone-delivery-expansion-seven-cities-061126 ; McNabb, Miriam, “Amazon Prime Air Plans Drone Delivery Expansion to Nearly 500 U.S. Cities and Towns”, DroneLife, 19 August 2026: https://dronelife.com/2026/08/19/amazon-prime-air-plans-drone-delivery-expansion-to-nearly-500-u-s-cities-and-towns/ ; Kesteloo, Haye, “Amazon Drones Head for Nearly 500 Towns. What Residents Can Still Do”, DroneXL, 25 September 2026: https://dronexl.co/2026/09/25/amazon-drones-what-residents-can-do/
13. FAA drone delivery environmental finding and Part 108 status. Federal Aviation Administration, “Public Involvement and Environmental Review for Drone Operations” (Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment and FONSI/ROD for drone package delivery, signed 28 July 2026): https://www.faa.gov/uas/advanced_operations/nepa_and_drones ; Unmanned Airspace, “FAA: drone deliveries 'do not significantly affect the quality of the human environment'”: https://www.unmannedairspace.info/uncategorized/faa-drone-deliveries-do-not-significantly-affect-the-quality-of-the-human-environment/ ; Drone Intelligence, “FAA Part 108 Status September 2026: Final Rule Pending at OIRA Since July 10”: https://droneintelligence.ai/insights/part-108-oira-operators-build-ahead ; The Flight Brief, “Part 108 Nears Publication, FAA Says”, September 2026: https://www.theflightbrief.com/articles/faa-part-108-bvlos-update-september-2026
14. Multistate challenge to the FAA drone delivery environmental review. Ryan, Matt, “States Sue FAA Over Drone Delivery Review”, AVweb, 29 September 2026: https://avweb.com/aviation-news/states-sue-faa-over-drone-delivery-review/ ; Reuters, “US States Challenge FAA Environmental Review of Commercial Drone Package Rules”, US News, 28 September 2026: https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2026-09-28/us-states-challenge-faa-environmental-review-of-commercial-drone-package-rules ; Agraz, Alexandra, “15 States Sue FAA Over Plan to Expand Drone Package Deliveries Across U.S.”, Law Commentary, 28 September 2026: https://www.lawcommentary.com/articles/15-states-sue-faa-drone-package-delivery-expansion
15. ACT Legislative Assembly, Standing Committee on Economic Development and Tourism. “Inquiry into Drone Delivery Systems in the ACT.” Report 6, July 2019. https://www.parliament.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/1394485/9th-EDT-06-Inquiry-into-Drone-Delivery-Systems-in-the-ACT.pdf (archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/2020/https://www.parliament.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/1394485/9th-EDT-06-Inquiry-into-Drone-Delivery-Systems-in-the-ACT.pdf)
16. Coverage of the Bonython trial. Burnside, Niki, and Tahlia Roy, “Noise from drone delivery service divides Canberra residents”, ABC News, 9 November 2018: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-09/noise-from-drone-delivery-service-divides-canberra-residents/10484044 ; Corrigan, Laura Carolina, “Not in my sky: drone delivery service backlash”, The Canberra Times, 30 June 2022: https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7800777/not-in-my-sky-drone-delivery-service-backlash/
17. Christian, Andrew, and Randolph Cabell. “Initial Investigation into the Psychoacoustic Properties of Small Unmanned Aerial System Noise.” NASA Langley Research Center, 2017. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20170005870/downloads/20170005870.pdf ; PetaPixel, “Camera Drones Sound More Annoying Than Any Vehicle, NASA Finds”, 19 July 2017: https://petapixel.com/2017/07/19/camera-drones-sound-annoying-vehicle-nasa-finds/
18. Pew Research Center. “8% of Americans say they own a drone, while more than half have seen one in operation.” 19 December 2017. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/12/19/8-of-americans-say-they-own-a-drone-while-more-than-half-have-seen-one-in-operation/ ; DroneLife, “How Most Americans Feel About Drones: The Pew Research Study”, 22 December 2017: https://dronelife.com/2017/12/22/americans-feel-drones-pew-research-study/
19. AI terminal guidance in Ukraine. The Defense Post, “$100 AI Upgrade Gives Ukrainian FPV Drones Last-Meter Accuracy in Heavy Jamming”, 19 November 2025: https://thedefensepost.com/2025/11/19/ai-upgrade-ukrainian-drones/ ; United24 Media, “New AI-Guided Drone System Helps Ukraine Bypass Russian Jamming”: https://united24media.com/latest-news/new-ai-guided-drone-system-helps-ukraine-bypass-russian-jamming-14057
20. Executive Order 14305, “Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty”, 6 June 2025: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/06/restoring-american-airspace-sovereignty/ ; Executive Order 14307, “Unleashing American Drone Dominance”, 6 June 2025: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/06/unleashing-american-drone-dominance/
21. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. “The 9/11 Commission Report: Executive Summary.” 2004. https://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Exec.htm
22. Schneier, Bruce. “Terrorists Don't Do Movie Plots.” WIRED, 8 September 2005. Archived at https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2005/09/terrorists_dont_do_m.html
23. Gatwick Airport drone disruption, December 2018. CNBC, “'Deliberate' drone flights shut down London Gatwick airport”, 20 December 2018: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/20/drone-sightings-shut-down-britains-gatwick-airport.html ; LBC, “Gatwick drone investigation closed by police with no suspect charged”: https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/gatwick-drone-investigation-closed-by-police-DWyg8Z_2/ ; The Register, “Couple wrongly arrested over Gatwick Airport drone debacle score £200k payout from cops”, 15 June 2020: https://www.theregister.com/off-prem/2020/06/15/couple-wrongly-arrested-over-gatwick-airport-drone-debacle-score-200k-payout-from-cops/592086
24. New Jersey drone sightings, December 2024. CBS News, “What do we know about mystery drones flying over New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and other East Coast states?”: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/drones-new-jersey-what-we-know/ ; CNN, “What we know about mysterious drone sightings”, 15 December 2024: https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/15/us/drone-sightings-east-coast/index.html
25. Paternoster, Tamsin, and Noa Schumann. “Fact-checking Europe's 'drone problem': Why are airports closing over drone sightings?” Euronews, 20 November 2025. https://www.euronews.com/2025/11/20/fact-checking-europes-drone-problem-why-are-airports-shuttering-over-drone-sightings ; Al Jazeera, “Copenhagen airport shut after sighting of unidentified drones”, 22 September 2025: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/22/copenhagen-airport-shut-after-sighting-of-unidentified-drones

---

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: * Another productive day. Don't know which is aching more right now: my back, or my feet. But my mind is clear, and I won't have any nagging, unresolved issues keeping me awake tonight. And I'm anticipating an early bedtime, shortly after the night meds and night prayers.

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= 214.51 lbs. * bp= 151/90 (63)

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

Diet: * 05:05 – 1 banana, fancy bread * 08:45 – 1 barbacoa breakfast taco * 10:40 – 1 more piece of fancy bread * 17:45 – dish of ice cream

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 03:30 – listen to local news talk radio * 04:10 – bank accounts activity monitored * 06:00 – coffee with Sylvia * 07:30 – read, write, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, listen to music, take daily meds, unpack, organize * 11:30 – loading furniture and boxes into shed behind trailer

Chess: * 09:10 – moved in all pending CC games

Emotional volatility is an extreme form of self-neglect. I know better than to internalize my feelings to the point of self-detonation. I am far too hard on myself, the one person I am so graciously stuck with until the curtains fall in the finality of life. My precious body, mind, heart and soul take care of me as best as they possibly can given the circumstances. The berating they receive every once in a while when I make a mistake which has consequences that are worse than usual are too extreme. I seem to conclude that I have no choice but to punish myself, because now that I’m an adult with no parental authority to chastise me, it’s clear that a punishment must be handed down to truly solidify how awful of a mistake I made. It’s not a way to live, I know this. I know it whilst inflicting unfettered mental pain onto myself. This pain slithers inside and wraps its tendrils tightly around my heart that then struggles to feel anything but sorrow and anguish, quickly turning into this physical pain that claws its way under my skin making me want to rip it off along with every last strand of hair on my head. All that unnecessary effort just to make myself feel worse than I already did to begin with. My poor sorrowful heart and sharp-tongued mind takes these feelings as proof, magnifying all my inadequacies and incompetence. Just another typical day turned unnecessary and ridiculous. C'est la vie. I’ve since bounced back. Life is a beautiful, scary, fucked up mess. Being human is not for the weak, yet we persist and persist. Despite it all, we are stronger than we give ourselves credit for. I just hate when it happens, and I’m allowed to complain, just like anyone else. That doesn’t take away from our overall persevering spirit and determination. I am still love and light at the end of it all, so I try to remember it as much as possible. I place sticky notes around my computer with affirmations; I am a spiritual being having a human experience. Everything I don’t like is reflected back to me in people that rub me the wrong way, in situations I try to avoid. There is no escape, only persisting through the fear I hate to face head on. It will get easier, I know it will. I just want it now. One day, it will here. And I will look back and think to myself… how silly it is to be me and to be human. Nothing is so serious, happiness and love are all that matter. Stop being so dramatic, you. Start writing about your life when you’re not looking at it through melancholic vision.

written by amelia rodriguez / a.k.a amy

published october 8, 2026

---

The purple-potted pothos keeps you grounded.

You keep looking at the plant whenever you're in the living room. Its two long vines drape over the pot, over the counter, sitting in the air. Confusion lingers in your mind each time you stare down its leaves. You remember this plant sitting on the kitchen counter of your family home over a decade ago. How has it even survived for so long?

Do you remember when exactly the pothos plant first appeared? Not really. It was probably bought by your mother, and placed in the kitchen one day with absolutely no fanfare. But you do remember the first time you tried to water the plant. You gave it way too much, and were scolded accordingly, because the plant could have drowned, obviously. This can't happen again.

From the corner of your eye, each day, dark green leaves colored the background of every rushed breakfast that accompanied your mornings before school. As you grew in height, the vines grew in length. As the dirt in the pot became dry, you gave it the perfect amount of water, every time, marveling at how many vines were growing out of the same spot.

The plant could not talk. You definitely wondered at least once if it could dream. If a plant could dream, it had memories to draw from. If a plant had memories, it had experiences, and there is no end to your hopes of learning about the way other beings perceive our fleeting lives on the planet we all share. Of course, you never told anyone about these hopes, because your life so far has taught you to bury thoughts that others would see as stupid.

What you knew for a fact is that the plant was there for you. It never left the kitchen, but you and your family members entered and exited constantly. The purple pot could always be trusted with whatever you had to say, because it never moved from its spot. You adored the consistency that it never wavered in. You definitely wished that more people in your life were like the pothos.

Could you think highly of a specific plant? Yeah, you can, can't you? How can you not? Surely a plant that's watched half of your life is more than an ordinary plant. You know you can follow the vines further and further back, and confront the events that the plant bore witness to.

Middle school comes and goes. High school comes and goes. College comes and gets aborted abruptly. One more year comes and goes. That year was really rough for you. Staying mostly confined to your room staying awake until 4AM every day seemed like a dream come true for a while, until the dream was devoured into a nightmare. You didn't see the plant as often, nor did you water it as often. Your mother had to pick up that slack. Yet it persisted.

The world isn't done messing with you yet. Now comes one of the worst things imaginable that could happen to you. That's why it's time to start planning a hasty retreat. It doesn't matter where, right? As long as you escape, you can live a life. Where? Ohio? Sure, whatever. The long-term planning can come later, but you need to leave as soon as possible. There's nothing else to do.

One of the vines begins to shrivel up. It dies.

You grit your teeth through the last summer spent in your hometown. Maybe because there's a sense of encouragement coming from the plant, you forge a path through every tiring shift at work. September couldn't come soon enough. But what about the pothos? There's no way you want to leave it here, right? No, absolutely not. The plant is going to come with you.

The night before your move, it's time for the procedure. Multiple layers of paper towels are sitting in front of you, and you take your fingers, digging them slowly into the dirt. With the lightest possible force, the plant is gradually lifted out. The short length of the root system surprises you. Is that it? The plant been showing its full self the whole time, with nothing beneath the surface? The plant is placed ever so gently upon the paper towels. Moving to the kitchen sink, you give the pot a deep clean. That was satisfying. When was the last time that anyone in the family cleaned out the pot that the pothos made itself home in? It was the least you could do now.

Would the plant survive the trip in the air? You were terrified at the thought of unpacking your bags only to find a plant that had been torn to shreds by an ignorant airport security employee. It's okay. It'll be fine. You're overthinking it, as usual. It's a routine of thinking that you will come to be more and more familiar with, but that's okay, too. You just have to focus on the plant right now. So you pack it inside of a big plastic bag, carefully giving it space to breathe in your suitcase. You get another plastic bag, and go outside to the garden shed to pack fresh dirt for the plant to live in. Now it's time to pack the purple pot. To pack the purple pot will mean the end of your packing, and your point of no return.

Deep, deep, deep down in the recesses of your mind, you push away a recurring thought you don't want to say out loud. You know it. You know this situation that you've found yourself in. You don't want to. You don't want to do it. You needed more time. You needed a different circumstance. You needed everything to go differently. You didn't want it to go this way. You don't want to go yet. You don't want to be rushing this. You don't fucking want to be rushing this. But you have to.

Sleep starts to take you into restless dreams. Inside your suitcase, a vine begins to wither.

You're awoken by your alarm, and soon surrounded by all of your siblings, saying one last goodbye. Your sister gives you a bag of gifts. You and your siblings all embrace in a group hug. You go downstairs, bringing your bags, and your mother hugs you farewell. The move is a blur. You're driven to the airport by one of the very people who caused it. Their sobbing over a situation which is entirely self-induced on their part confuses you. You have no sympathy for this crying. At the airport, before saying goodbye, you spite them. You “remember” to give back your set of house keys. It makes them hurt more. You hope it will make them understand. You know it won't, though.

One flight later. One reunion later. One drive later. There it is. The apartment complex that you and your partner were approved for. The area doesn't look great. A suburb, one hour north of downtown by bus. It's been less than thirty minutes and you already begin to sense- no, no, it doesn't matter. It's time to sign the lease. Oh, wait, look at that. The apartment you got approved for is suddenly unavailable, and now you have to rent a different apartment that's fifty-one dollars more expensive per month. Whatever, who fucking cares. You just have to move in. So you sign the lease.

A hailstorm of boxes fly up the stairs and into the new apartment. Let it be a blur. As soon as you possibly can, you free up space on the raised counter in your new kitchen. Unpacking your suitcase, you pull out the purple pot, the bag of dirt, and the pothos. Much to your relief, it looks intact, save for some wrinkles on one of the leaves. With loving hands, you place the pot on the counter, and empty the dirt inside, packing it down smoothly. Making a hole in the center, you unzip the pathos plant bag, stringing out its long vines, placing them on the countertop as you plant its roots inside the hole. Covering the roots with the dirt, you get a cup and fill it with water, dripping a small amount over the pot. Finally, it's done. It's done. It's done. The pothos and its purple pot are home. You hope that you're home, too.

The pothos plant continues its ever-watchful presence over your life. It sees you coming home from your new job, every day. You know that the plant can see it just as well as your partner can; the office job life is not meant for you. Little more than a month in, and it kills you inside, slowly and methodically. The plant sees your days beginning to merge together in a cycle of exhaustion that only grows worse and worse. You have no choice, of course. It pays the bills. It makes you financially stable. That's worth it, right? You convince yourself of this. The pothos is not as convinced. Sitting in the living room, you stare at the pothos, with its two long vines draped over the counter.

Oh- it's time for this conversation, again. This argument isn't new. Each time the subject comes up, you wish you had a different response. How can you help her understand? You're tired. You're so fucking tired. You're not trying to hurt her. Maybe you can do it another day. Another day means another opportunity for a promise. The pothos sees it from a mile away. You're behind the kitchen counter. She's behind her desk. The pothos is in between. It can't take a side. The stress, the stress, oh God, the stress. You end the argument for the day with a promise that you probably won’t be able to fulfill. You know you can't predict your mood in the future, but you wish you fucking could.

A vine fades into browner hue.

You continue to keep the plant safe and watered. Nearly one year after moving, your new routine has solidified. It's not as exciting as you hoped it would be, and you've grown frustrated with it, but there is nothing you can do. One of the only things that keeps you grounded is the pothos. The plant is old. The plant has grown, and ungrown. One vine remains. One vine, dotted with dark green leaves. One vine, and the stories it carries within. It's lasted this long. You're doing all that you can.

Summertime. Vacation time. Finally, a goddamn break. It also means a break from the pothos. You're prepared for this, though. That's why you bought an automated watering device to care for it during the week you'll be gone. It'll be okay. So you fly out with your partner, into the social unknown. And in that unknown, you enter the territory of fright. A frightening feeling that you go along with, because it's exciting, and new. You don't really think much about it. He probably doesn't, either. You just let yourself get wrapped up in the warmth, in the fuzziness, because it's sudden, because it’s fresh.

The plant is doing okay when you return. You notice that more of the leaves have fallen off, but the vine itself is still a pleasant green. So, you don't fret too much. The fretting will come soon. Maybe the pothos was trying to warn you. It’s learned from experience that change is a powerful force, one that is not always for the better, one that cannot always be planned for. Yet, you don't heed the plant's warning. If it could, it would probably sigh at you. Instead, it becomes saddened.

Nobody could be prepared for their life to change forever on one August evening. Least of all you. That's why, after you come home from work that evening to face it, your ability to engage in routine stops. There is no routine in a time like this. No routine. No comfort. No pleasure. Only debilitation. Only a new type of suffering. Last year's wasn't enough. And the pothos knew. It saw everything when it happened. She's only telling you all of it now, almost a year later. The plant was never able to tell you, but you wonder if it wanted to. It's too late. It's too late. It's too late. It's too late. The thought repeats.

The vine changes color.

It's impossible. The pain is impossible. Everything becomes impossible. In that pain, you don't even realize. You don't even realize what's slipping away, right in front of you. The cup of water is neglected. The watering device is unplugged. The thoughts all exited your mind as soon as you came home from work that night. There was no plant in the apartment that could be tended to by anyone. Not by you, and certainly not by her. The grasp of depression tightens.

The plant knew.

One brisk autumn morning, you wake up next to her, the same as always. There's not much of a choice, after all. Only one bed. You get out silently, and slowly step to the kitchen to scrounge together a breakfast. You get to the pantry, and take out a box of cereal. You move to counter. Suddenly, your head moves up, called by instinct.

You see a purple pot, sitting on the counter. Inside the pot lies a lone, brown, deceased vine, with one round leaf still attached.

You stare at the vine. You begin to cry.

Publicat la 4 octombrie 2017

Deși uneori povestesc despre ceea ce fac, despre ceea ce vizitez sau despre ceea ce gândesc, am senzația că ceea ce scriu e cam impersonal, cam fără suflet, cam fad. Aș asemui scrierile mele cu înghețata de pe vremuri nu demult apuse, vremuri care unora le-au fost prielnice, vremuri pe care unii le regretă. Vremurile acelea s-au terminat oficial într-un decembrie.

Până atunci, înghețata avea o culoare dată de siropul puțin dulceag (puțin nu în sensul că puțin mai mult decât mi-ar fi plăcut, ci puțin peste zero gust dulce), amestecată (culoarea dată de sirop) cu reflexiile luminii prin sau din cornetul delicios. Cornetul era mai bun decât înghețata aceea de consistența acelor de gheață. Știam de atunci că înghețata ar fi trebuit să aibă o consistență cremoasă. Aflasem asta într-o excursie într-o țară vecină.

Nu știu dacă acea înghețată de vanilie (îmi plouă deja în gură) a făcut să consider această înghețată ca fiind numărul unu al tuturor sortimentelor posibile de înghețată. Sau o fi pur și simplu gustul delicios al înghețatei de vanilie.

Așadar, postările mele îmi dau aceeași senzație ca înghețata de pe vremuri, spre deosebire de alte postări pe care le-aș asocia cu savuroasa înghețată de vanilie din zilele noastre, când producătorii se întrec unii pe alții și se întrec pe ei înșiși în a găsi o înghețată de vanilie și mai bună, și mai cremoasă, și mai aromată!

Iată și un top 3 al preferințelor mele în materie de înghețată:

1. Vanilie

2. Alune

3. Fistic

După ele mai sunt și altele, dar cea de cacao e undeva spre coada listei.

Aaa! O precizare la final. Turcii de pe Ada-Kaleh, insula înghițită de nivelul crescut al apelor Dunării din lacul de acumulare Porțile de Fier, au continuat tradiția de cofetari și i-au încântat pe locuitorii localităților în care au fost strămutați cu baclavale, cu rahat turcesc, cu halvita și halva, cu bragă și cu înghețată! Aceste produse erau alternativa produselor din cofetăriile în care se servea un suc original, o combinație de limonadă și socată.

Te și miri că se mai găseau amandine și savarine, iar uneori chiar și fondante! Sunt răutăcios! Îmi aduc aminte și de prăjitura Carpați și de Ora 12, de ecleruri și de plăcintă cu mere, iar uneori tarte cu fructe. Iar cofetăria se chema Femina!

Chiar și cu așa diversitate de prăjituri, tot mai bun era cornetul de la înghețată!

Publicat la 3 octombrie 2017

Nu am chef azi N-am chef de nimic

— Vama Veche

Asta a fost de fapt ieri. Ieri a fost luni, iar ziua de luni dă tonul săptămânii, așa cum dimineața îl dă zilei.

Compania de apă a anunțat întreruperea furnizării începând cu prima oră formată din două cifre. Cum eu obișnuiesc să mă trezesc la prima oră formată din două cifre identice, însemna că la ora respectivă apa era întreruptă deja de o oră. Așa că am făcut un efort și m-am trezit cu două ore și jumătate mai devreme decât de obicei.

Alarma nu o reglasem așa devreme, dar subconștientul a fost mai vrednic.

După ce am profitat de existența apei în rețea, am zis că trebuie să recuperez orele de (ne)somn. Hmm. Odată ritmul rupt, nu se mai reface cu una, cu două. Plănuisem să citesc câteva pagini din recent cumpărata Arta simplității de Dominique Loreau.


Dar notificările primite pe telefon păreau mai tentante, așa că le-am dat întâietate. Odată citite, am trecut telefonul de pe silențios pe tonuri cu volum obișnuit (că era deja o oră la care lumea se așteaptă să răspunzi, sau să te găsească) și am luat cartea de pe noptieră, dar nu cea menționată, ci una începută și neterminată. Mi s-au închis ochii, așa că mi-am zis că e momentul prielnic pentru somn. După vreo jumătate de oră a sunat telefonul.

Am mai dormit apoi o oră, mai exact până când telefonul a sunat din nou.

Trecuse ora prânzului. Îmi extrăgeam deja activități din lista celor pe care le-aș fi putut face în acea dimineață și le reorganizam în minte pe o nouă listă. Și uite așa le trec dintr-o zi în alta. Și uite așa trece timpul. Și uite așa mă invidiază unii cum eu irosesc timpul pe care ei nu îl au disponibil.

Mai e vorba și de eficiența utilizării lui. Când n-ai chef de lucru, oricât de puține activități ai avea în listă, nu îți vor ieși așa cum vrei sau nu îți vor ieși deloc.

Azi, prima zi de concediu, pare a avea același curs ca cea de ieri, cu diferența de apă: azi curge! Ieri, deși era anunțată ora până la care furnizarea avea să fie întreruptă, lucrările au suferit o amânare, amânare ce a dus la o oră întârziată a curgerii apei la ridicarea clapetei robinetului… Azi. Azi o durere subită și puternică la spate face ca lista să aibă aceleași activități nebifate.


Totuși, ieri după-amiază am reușit să schimb radiatorul procesorului calculatorului personal. Era și cazul: îl cumpărasem de vreun an de zile!

Interesantă treabă! După ce scoți toate mufele și jack-urile tuturor perifericelor atașate prin cabluri în conectorii din spatele carcasei calculatorului, mufe și conectori în perechi de tip poka yoke (termen din filosofia japoneză Kaizen), pui calculatorul pe masa de lucru, înlături capacul lateral și începi treaba la interior.


Deconectezi mufa ventilatorului radiatorului de pe procesor, îl eliberezi pe acesta din urmă de presiunea clemelor de prindere și îl scoți printr-o mișcare verticală, lăsând procesorul la vedere. Cureți cu alcool restul de pastă termoconductoare rămasă pe el și pe radiator, procesorul fiind gata pentru noul radiator.

Noul sistem de prindere prevede un inel de plastic pentru placa de bază și niște cleme metalice, prinse pe radiator, care vor forța presarea radiatorului pe procesor. Inelul s-a fixat ușor după îndepărtarea vechiului sistem, dar clemele, foarte rigide, s-au lăsat convinse foarte greu să intre la locul lor (acestea erau puse în punga cu sistemul de prindere din plastic, nefiind montate pe radiator).

(Am făcut o pauză de scris, ocazie cu care am verificat certificatul de garanție. Am cumpărat radiatorul acum aproape… trei ani! Luna viitoare sunt trei ani de când l-am cumpărat!)

Le-am convins cu ajutorul unor clești. Evident (asta așa ca să complicăm lucrurile), urechile erau prinse pe alte poziții decât cele necesare.

Am aplicat pasta, am presat radiatorul, am prins clemele pe inel (însă sistemul s-a dovedit și de această dată unul ineficient, greoi, imprecis și instabil), am conectat ventilatorul la mufa pentru ventilatorul radiatorului procesorului, după care, vorba manualelor cu instrucțiuni, am efectuat operațiile de demontare în sens invers: închis carcasa, introdus mufele (poka yoke), alimentat, pornit…

Surpriză! Temperatura procesorului aproape că ar fi putut fierbe apa! Ba pe Himalaya o fierbea!

Demontat, verificat. Sistemul de prindere e vinovatul. L-am convins să stea într-o poziție adecvată. Am reluat operațiile și am verificat temperatura. Deși s-a menținut în limitele propuse de fabricant, având în vedere suprafața imensă de răcire, nu sunt deloc mulțumit de sistemul de prindere pentru presare. Cred că voi apela la niște bride de prindere din plastic cu care voi suplini lipsa de eficiență a bridelor metalice originale.


Păcat că o firmă renumită (nu îi spun numele; nu vreau să îi spun numele) vine cu astfel de sisteme de prindere.

Ușurința montării, simplitatea sistemului de prindere ar fi dus atât la un timp redus de montaj, cât și la o eficientizare a timpului montatorului. A fost eficientizat, în schimb, timpul producătorului pentru că nu și-a mai pierdut timpul cu îmbunătățirea sistemului de prindere.

Supărarea unuia, bucuria altuia…

Publicat la 28 septembrie 2017

A fost o vreme în care telefoanele mobile aveau butoane. Nu a trecut chiar atât de mult timp de atunci, ba chiar și acum sunt mulți care încă le mai folosesc.


Când telefonul mobil venea într-o cutie impresionantă, în care manualul era prezentat în forma sa tipărită, conținutul cuprindea și un set de căști cu microfon. Setul avea o mufă de conectare specifică fiecărui model — ei, nu chiar fiecărui model, dar fiecare firmă producătoare experimenta tot felul de mufe, cu cât mai mulți pini. În funcție de destinație, cablurile de date sau cele pentru căști și microfon foloseau anumiți pini ai respectivului conector.

Ulterior s-a trecut la mufa universală, de tip USB, pentru transferul de date și, uneori, chiar și pentru audio, precum și la mufa combinată, de tip jack, pentru căști și microfon.

Când căștile aveau un conector atât de mare, iar obligația de a folosi la volan dispozitive hands-free încă nu se legiferase, unii foloseau telefonul ca pe un walkie-talkie, ca pe o stație de emisie-recepție. Modul acesta de utilizare mi-a amintit de telefoanele cu microfonul fixat de stativ și cu receptorul, de forma similară cu microfonul, asemănătoare cu o pâlnie de gramofon în miniatură, conectat printr-un șnur de partea fixă.


Se inventase bachelita.

Doamnele stăteau cu eleganță în fotoliul alăturat biroului pe care era așezat aparatul telefonic și, cu delicatețe, țineau receptorul la ureche, purtând convorbirile telefonice ca și când ar fi stat față în față, la un ceai, cu interlocutorul.

Domnii, în schimb, purtau cu ei receptorul prin camera spațioasă, încercând să gesticuleze atât cât le permiteau lungimea șnurului și cea a cablului, pentru a-și convinge interlocutorul de gravitatea subiectului în discuție.

Similar, dar mai aproape de mișcările unei stații de emisie-recepție, am văzut anumite persoane ducând telefonul mobil de la ureche, după ce au auzit ce aveau de auzit, în fața lor, pentru a-l folosi pe post de microfon.

Asta era atunci când conversația se purta ca la un interfon: apeși butonul, vorbești, eliberezi butonul, asculți. Practic, era o înșiruire de monologuri, nu o conversație tipică.

Astăzi, când pe stradă sau la volan mulți utilizează căști stereo cu microfon, am remarcat din nou o ciudățenie.

Am crezut că, în urmă cu ceva vreme — dar nu cu mult timp — o adolescentă avea vreo defecțiune la unul dintre firele căștii, pentru că apropia de față una dintre căști atunci când avea ceva de spus celui sau celei cu care vorbea.

Astăzi, același obicei l-am observat la un bărbat care aștepta, probabil, autobuzul, pe o bancă.

Avea o cască în ureche, iar pe cealaltă o ținea în mâna stângă, ca pe un microfon, și o apropia de buze când vorbea. Apropiind casca, apropia și microfonul prins pe fir, în aceeași capsulă minusculă în care se află și butoanele de volum.

Interlocutorul îl aude mai bine, iar el este convins că microfonul este în cască.

RTFM — Read The F*ing Manual, spunea un cunoscut. Când a menționat acest termen, nu înțelegeam la ce post de radio se referă: RT FM — Radio Total FM or something.

Dacă pe vremuri era o plăcere — cel puțin pentru unii — să răsfoiești manualul de utilizare, acum cine se mai obosește să descarce și să deruleze paginile unui fișier în format PDF (Portable Document Format)?

Ar observa acolo și poziția microfonului de pe firul căștilor, dar și pe cea a microfonului telefonului mobil.

Evident, observațiile mele sunt niște excepții. Dar „bunul-simț tehnic” — asta este vorba unui coleg din facultate — mă face să le consemnez.

Keep Talking!

When curriculum is changed, the focus is often on how we teach rather than questioning what's actually being taught and why.

We've changed how we teach students to arrive at answers in math. We emphasize number sense and conceptual understanding rather than relying exclusively on memorized procedures. We've introduced different approaches to literacy instruction, writing frameworks, reading strategies, and assessment.

But how often do we step back and question the purpose of the content itself?

When was the last time we looked at the math curriculum and questioned whether everybody really needs to know trigonometry and advanced algebra? When was the last time we questioned whether being able to write poetry was a necessary skill for everybody?

It's not that these skills aren't valuable. Writing poetry is a great interest subject, and there is absolutely cultural and historical value in exposing kids to poetry. There is definitely a future engineer who needs trigonometry and geometry.

But are we being fair to students by expecting them to decide whether they need those things at 14, 15, or 16 years old?

We already have different academic pathways that allow students to choose which subjects they want to pursue in greater depth. But those choices come with consequences. A student who decides at 14 that advanced math isn't for them may discover at 25 that they want to become an engineer. Suddenly, they need to go back and acquire the prerequisites they didn't know they would need.

Why are we expecting teenagers to make educational decisions that can create barriers well into adulthood?

And if we take away the pressure of deciding future careers from teenagers, how does that influence what we teach those same teenagers? What would high school look like if its primary purpose were to expose students to different subjects, skills, and interests rather than sort them into future educational and career pathways?

How do we design a system that doesn't punish a 20-something for not knowing they wanted to be an engineer at 14?

There is another question we need to ask: How much of what we teach, and what we've stopped teaching, is determined by educational value, and how much is determined by administrative convenience?

Part of my role as a tutor is enrichment for kids whose parents feel they need a challenge. Not everything I teach is remediation.

I have one student whose parent has requested that I teach deeper thinking because much of the writing the student is doing in school involves stating an opinion and backing it up with a fact or two from a book or article.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that type of assignment. It teaches students to support their ideas with evidence.

But there's a difference between identifying evidence and examining what that evidence actually means.

We can ask students to make deeper inferences, question why an author included a particular scene, consider why something was written a certain way, or explore whether there are other reasonable interpretations of the same text.

Is it a problem if students aren't being asked to do those things? That depends on what we're actually trying to teach.

If we're teaching critical thinking, then being able to question meaning, make inferences, and examine different interpretations matters. If we're only checking for basic comprehension, then forming an opinion and backing it up with evidence from the text may be sufficient.

The purpose of the learning matters beyond the stated outcome.

And that brings us back to how curriculum is organized.

Teachers have limited instructional time and an enormous number of outcomes to address. They are often expected to combine multiple skills into single assignments, assess numerous outcomes, and demonstrate that the required curriculum has been covered.

Integrating skills isn't necessarily a problem. In fact, it can be excellent teaching when students understand how different skills and concepts work together.

But when the pressure to cover curriculum outweighs the time available to teach it meaningfully, we risk creating assignments that serve administrative requirements more effectively than they serve students.

Some skills are taught in isolation with no meaningful connection to anything else students are learning. Other skills may receive less attention because they take too much time to teach or assess properly. And sometimes we combine so many outcomes into a single assignment that it becomes difficult to determine what the student actually understands.

What if we approached curriculum differently?

What if we started by identifying what students should ultimately understand and be able to do, then worked backward to determine which knowledge and skills actually contribute to those goals?

We could examine which skills everyone needs to function independently, which skills develop over many years, and which subjects are better suited to exploration and specialization.

We could also question whether every student needs to demonstrate learning in exactly the same way, or whether the method of demonstrating understanding should depend on the skill we're actually assessing.

None of this means abandoning foundational knowledge, memorization, or traditional assignments. It means understanding why we're using them and whether they're accomplishing what we intended.

If bureaucracy, time constraints, and the pressure to cover every outcome are influencing what gets taught, what gets dropped, and how students are assessed, then perhaps we're losing sight of the larger purpose of education.

We spend an enormous amount of time asking how to teach the curriculum more effectively.

Maybe we need to spend considerably more time asking what belongs in the curriculum in the first place, and why.

We are experiencing a time of great knowledge “without a lot of meaning.” I was listening to a Tarot podcast and the host mentioned this. I couldn’t agree more. With the time I get to spend exploring, which I feel might come to an end soon, the “meaninglessness” of things is very obvious when you talk to other people who feel as though they have no choice or agency regarding their life. And the ones with some sort of faith, there is certainly greater agency, but it also makes me curious about what kind of Truth they are seeking.

Most of us are stuck in a capitalist nightmare of our own making. There’s the kernel of self-awareness and there’s actual self-awareness, where you can catch yourself falling into an egotistical tail-spin or a hyper-fixated thought. Many of us swim in the former, still. Self-awareness requires deep curiosity. Self-awareness requires humility. Self-awareness demands you to be wrong most of the time. I find myself enjoying being wrong, or having certain impressions first and then realizing that I feel differently after a conversation or further introspection. Isn’t it a lovely thing? That we can change our mind/thought/choices/selves?

I pulled the Knight of Swords card to inspire my outfit today. I’ve decided that while I can, I will pull a card for inspiration, and create something out of it. Today, it was inspiring myself to dress up beyond my comfort zone, and then venturing out. The Knight of Swords card, has teen angst energy to me and I do feel a bit like a teenager again in this moment. I am on the cusp of possibilities. It’s up to me to follow the right road, before I get too caught up in the choice that I’m not actually moving along the path. Feels like Teen Spirit, but with a whole lot of responsibility. I have all the things I could ever imagine wanting. A place I can call home surrounded with books, art, and art-making tools. And now Taro tools.

What do I do next?

#taro #daily #writing #learning #InfiniteDoors

First day of 100 Days: The first day was pleasant, and a bit multitasked and driven not only by being in my menstrual window but also by my deep love of chocolate. I have had a LOVE for chocolate since I was a little girl. I would pass on gummies and didn't care for sours, but chocolate was a way into my heart. Fast forward years later, that love has grown to new depths from sourcing and intentionally working with Cacao as a ceremonial drink and medicine for several years. Cacao is one of my many loves within the plant/fruit kingdom and has served many potent connections throughout the past 10 years of my life. Her medicine of delicious decadence, yet rich bitterness, has served many lessons of open-mindedness, patience, connection and wide love and appreciation.

Cacao, scientifically known as Theobroma Cacao- meaning “fruit of the gods” is only found growing in tropical regions where the climate is moist and hot in conditions. The tree has a teeny-tiny pollinator friend called the midges. These small bugs look to be the size of mosquitoes and do the massive job of pollinating the cacao trees within these areas. The cacao tree will mature within 3-4 years and begin producing fruits. The cacao tree is classified as a Califorus tree, which means the pod is not growing from branches or leaves, but from the tree's trunk, which was a major fun fact for me(cauliflorous trees, right on!) Another fun fact that I was learning is that cacao beans are actually the seeds of the fruit, not actual beans. When you see a fresh cacao pod, it has a hard shell for the skin of the fruit and when cracked open, the beans are covered in it's pulp, which is a great ingestion for animals but not so much us, as mammals. Cacao will undergo 4 major processes to get it into the chocolaty goodness we know and love. The first, and most crucial part of the chocolate journey is fermentation. One would never truly know that chocolate is considered a fermented food unless you know how it was made. After about a 3-6 day fermentation period, the pulp or cocoa butter will fall off, and the seeds will germinate (another fun fact incoming), which is the part in the process where chocolate really receives its flavor. Fermentation to germination is truly where we start to see the magic happen within the process of getting the “chocolate” that we all know of. Raw cacao or natural chocolate really does have this outstanding, complex flavor profile that allows you to taste the soil is has grown in, the fermentation is has under gone the, drying and roasting, which are the last two steps. After the cacao beans have undergone fermentation and germination, they will hit the drying, roasting and winnowing or grinding process. Cacao beans are covered with a shell which needs to be pelled after roasting to get to the actual chocolate bean. This process can be time-consuming and highly rigorous. The whole process of getting cacao to be in a state where it can be made into chocolate is a service of love and devotion- can you feel that the next time you consume chocolate, in its raw form? Dark Chocolate or higher percentages of cacao can be highly beneficial for the body, mind, and spirit if used in certain contexts. Cacao, or higher forms of dark chocolate, contains molecules that help nature the body and help us form deeper relationships with the health and well being, of our being! Polyphenols are the first compound that so many know within chocolate that is “good for us”. This compound contains high amounts of antioxidants. This works in ways to protect the body on a cellular level, making us feel well cared for and promoting good production amongst our cells, A+ for that! The next compound we can overview is Tryptophan. This might sound familiar to you in the way of knowing this amino acid as what makes us “sleepy” within the Thanksgiving turkey. Tryptophan is essential for the body to produce serotonin and melatonin, as well as overall growth and development of protein and muscle. Introducing more of this to the body allows for a more calm and emotionally balanced state to the body and mind... go chocolate! Let's go on, “Anandamide (The Bliss Molecule): Named after the Sanskrit word ananda (meaning joy or bliss), anandamide is an endocannabinoid that naturally occurs in the human brain and binds to cannabinoid receptors to regulate mood, pain, and appetite” (quoted from grizzlynews.org). Cacao is known for its “heart expanding properties, which in spiritual context can be from abundance of situational experiences, but on a physiolocigal level dark chocolate contains certain flavanoids that allow for the blood vessels to expand and become coated for a more through and readily blood pump through.

Dear diary!

I found a plastic food container in the freezer. I’d been thinking to eat it today, the day when I’m alone. But, when I could finally pry open the lid to see what was inside, it was just something brown, like a puddle of frozen mud.

Isn’t that fascinating?

The little town next to where I live, it’s teeming with racists. Finally there was a sinkhole there, which I have good reason to believe, in reality is a not fully opened hole leading straight down to hell.

I think the whole town might sink into this hole one fine day, and I haven’t made up my mind yet, whether it is a good thing, or a bad.

I choose indifference this time.

Speaking of which,

Have you thought about the fact that neutrality almost always benefits the strong party in a conflict, the oppressor.

Game 063 in the collection is Tee & Sorcery. It's golf, but every hole is a little adventure: you level up, buy better clubs, cast spells on your ball, and at the end of each realm you play a boss hole where the cup stays sealed until you've beaten the boss with your golf ball.

In the kingdom of Fairhaven, every argument (border quarrels, inheritance, who gets the last scone) is settled with a round of golf. At the heart of the Royal Clubhouse sits the Golden Tee, the peg the first shot of the world was struck from. Then Lord Bogey, a sorcerer who has never once made par, crashes the festival, shatters the Tee into five shards and curses every hole in the land. “If I can never make par, then NOBODY shall!”

You play Pip, a caddie who has never played a real round, and who trips over an old sand wedge stuck in a rock while running away. Pip pulls it free. It complains.

Like every game here, it uses no asset files. Every character, face, course, texture and note of music is made in code. It's built with three.js and plays on a phone as well as on a desktop.

---

A talking wedge

The wedge is Wedgewick the Wise, formerly Archmage of the Greens, who has been stuck in a club for 300 years after losing a bet. “Long story. Bad lie.” He's your mentor, your spellbook and your running commentary for the whole quest, and he does most of the teaching:

Next stop, the Sandsea Dunes. Pack sunscreen. I burn easily. I am made of metal.

The story is nine short scenes, two to eight lines each, typed out with a voice blip pitched to each speaker and a portrait rendered from the 3D character. You can skip any of them. The tone is Saturday-morning cartoon: nothing is scary, nobody dies, and every boss is grumpy and then sorry.

The golf has to work on its own

The first rule I set was that if you stripped out all the RPG parts, it should still be a nice little golf game. So every shot is real 3D golf:

• Aim left or right, and pick from four clubs: Driver, Iron, Wedge and Putter. The game picks one for you based on distance and lie, and switches to the putter on the green.
• A dotted arc of glowing orbs shows where a full-power, perfect shot would go, with tick marks for 25, 50 and 75% power. Wind isn't in the preview. Reading the flag is your job.
• The swing meter takes three presses: one to start, one to set power, and one to stop the marker in the sweet spot on the way back. Hit the glowing zone for a PERFECT strike, which flies straight and a little further. Early or late and the ball hooks or slices by how much you missed.

Under that is a physics simulation that runs at 240 steps a second. The ground is a heightfield, and the ball bounces or rolls on it with different friction for each surface. A ball rolling over a crest can take off again. Tree trunks, windmill blades and walls are solid, but tree canopies are soft and just soak up speed. Each club has backspin that bites on the first landing, so drives run out and wedges stop.

The cup can lip out. Come in too fast and the ball rattles round the edge and keeps going, which is exactly as annoying as it should be.

Twenty holes, five realms

There are five realms with four holes each: three regular holes and a boss hole. I wanted every realm to play differently, not just look different:

RealmWhat's differentMeadowmereA turning windmill in the fairway, spring mushrooms that bounce the ball, pondsSandsea DunesSand everywhere, quicksand that stops the ball dead, an island green, a pyramid, strong windFrostpeakSheet ice where the ball barely stops, snowdrifts where it barely starts, a frozen lake with holes in itCinder CalderaLava rivers and geysers that fling the ball into the sky on a rhythmSky CitadelFloating islands over nothing, bouncy clouds, a teleport rune and low gravity

Some of my favourite hole names are Sheepish Start, Quicksand Gulch, Icicle Run, Avalanche Ridge and Starfall Stair. As Wedgewick says about the Caldera: “Lava is a hazard, like water but rude.”

Each hole gets one to three stars: one for finishing, two for par or better, three for under par. If you go past the stroke limit, the curse wins and you can retry. That's the only way to fail.

Boss holes

At the end of each realm the cup sits under a shimmering Bogey Seal. To break it you have to hit the boss's weak spot with your ball, and the boss gets a turn after every one of your shots.

BossHow it plays

Grubbins the Gopher King

Pops up from one of six molehills round the green, then burrows somewhere else. He'll kick your ball away if it stops near him.

Duneborn

A sandworm coiled round the green. Only the head takes damage; the coils bounce your ball away.

Big Frosty

A yeti on an icy throne behind three ice walls. He throws snowballs that bury your ball in a drift.

Double Bogey

A two-headed magma ogre on a ledge behind a lava moat, so you need loft. His stomp shoves your ball away.

Lord Bogey

Floats round the green behind two orbiting shield orbs and teleports after each shot.

Triple Bogey

Bogey's final form: a three-headed dragon. The fire head leaves a fire patch, the frost head an ice patch, and the storm head changes the wind.

The bosses were the most fun to write dialogue for. Grubbins was promised all the golf balls he could eat, and after you beat him he admits: “Golf balls are actually very hard to chew.” Big Frosty turns out to be lonely because nobody ever asks him to play. Double Bogey's heads can't agree on anything, including whether to fight you:

LEFT HEAD: We crush the tiny golfer! RIGHT HEAD: We could also just… let them through? I am tired.

And at the top of the Sky Citadel, Wedgewick recognises Lord Bogey. He's Bogart, Wedgewick's old apprentice, who took a fourteen on the first hole 300 years ago and ran off when everyone laughed.

The RPG part

The RPG layer is there to make the golf richer, not slower. A hole still takes two to five minutes.

You earn XP by finishing holes (more for being under par) and by bonking monsters with your ball: Puffslimes in the meadow, scarabs in the dunes, penguins on the mountain, ember imps in the caldera and Bogey wisps in the sky. Each level gives you two points to spend on four stats:

• Power makes the ball go further.
• Control slows the swing meter, shows more of the preview arc, and softens hooks and slices.
• Luck widens the PERFECT zone, adds a bit of gold, and sometimes gives you a lucky bounce off a tree.
• Magic gives you more MP for spells.

Gold comes from coins and gems on the course and from finishing bonuses, and you spend it at Old Man Eagle's Pro Shop in the Clubhouse. There are six club sets (from Willow Woods up to Dragonbone, plus Starforged after the ending), six balls and six charms. The balls are my favourite: the Feather ball ignores most of the wind, the Slime ball bounces more, the Iron Heart hits bosses harder, and the Comet leaves a trail.

Spells come back to Wedgewick one at a time, as you recover each shard:

SpellWhat it does to your next shot

Mulligan

Rewinds your last shot and gives the stroke back

Gust Ward

No wind, no hook, no slice

Fireball

Burns through trees, brambles and ice walls, and does double damage to bosses

Frost Step

Freezes water and lava under the ball so it skates across

Seeker

The ball curves toward the cup near the end

Each one changes what a good shot is. Frost Step means a lake is suddenly a shortcut, and Fireball lets you go straight through a wood instead of round it. There are also power-up crystals on the course that give you a Rocket Tee, a Sticky Ball, a Spring Ball or a Ghost Ball that passes through everything.

A storybook look

The characters are chibis with huge heads, built from simple shapes with toon shading and ink outlines. Their faces are painted onto a canvas in code, with eyes, highlights, brows, a mouth and blush, and they switch between happy, surprised, angry, sad and blinking. There are no animation files: everyone bobs, walks, swings, cheers and slumps procedurally.

The courses use one terrain shader per hole. It's driven by a surface mask built from the same shapes the physics uses, so what you see is exactly what the ball feels. Fairways get mown stripes, greens get a fine checkerboard, sand gets wind ripples, ice gets cracks and quicksand swirls. Ink lines where surfaces meet make the edges read like an illustration in a picture book.

Water has foam at the shore and moving ripples. Lava glows and has a cracked crust that drifts. In the Sky Citadel, the void shows the sky through it with clouds drifting below the islands. Over all of it there's a little bloom on magic and lava and a warm storybook colour grade with faint paper grain.

Between holes you walk Pip round a floating-island world map, with the five realms circling a central mountain and the Sky Citadel above. A tilt-shift blur makes it look like a miniature diorama.

A few things are there just to make shots easy to read: a shadow under the ball at all times so you can tell how high it is, a glowing trail coloured by your spell, and a pulsing ring where the ball is going to land.

The sound

All the sound is Web Audio, with no audio files. Each realm has its own short theme with its own instruments: flute and pizzicato in Meadowmere, oud-like plucks and a hand drum in the dunes, celesta and bells on Frostpeak, low brass and taiko in the Caldera, and harp and a choir pad in the sky. Bosses get faster, minor-key versions, and there's a march for the map and a cosy waltz for the Clubhouse.

The effects cover a swing whoosh, a different contact sound for each club, a chime for PERFECT strikes, bounces for each surface, the cup rattle and drop, splashes, lava hiss, coins, monster poofs, boss roars, the seal shattering and a level-up fanfare.

On a phone

On a desktop you aim with the arrow keys or A and D (Shift for fine aim), change clubs with up and down, and swing with Space. Number keys cast spells, Q opens your item pouch and V shows the whole hole from above.

On a phone you drag anywhere to aim and tap a big SWING button three times. The spell and item buttons sit in the bottom-left. Every button is at least 44 pixels so your thumb can hit it, and it works in portrait and landscape. There's also a Gentle swing setting that slows the meter and widens the PERFECT zone, for younger players.

What the bot found

As with the other recent games, the dev/ folder has test harnesses, and the most useful one was a bot that plays golf.

simtest.mjs checks that the simulation is pure (no three.js, no DOM and no Math.random) and deterministic, fires random shots from random spots on every hole to make sure the ball never goes through the ground or gets stuck in a tree, and checks every boss can be beaten through the real hit path. Then two bots play all twenty holes: a search bot with perfect timing has to make par or better on every hole, and a noisy bot with human-like timing errors has to finish every hole inside the stroke limit. The pars in the game were set from those bots.

Watching the bots play found a lot of problems I wouldn't have spotted by hand:

• Drives rolled 85 yards. The ball kept all its flight speed when it landed. That's where the per-club backspin came from.
• The cup was far too big. The bot was chipping in from 100 yards. It shrank, and so did the speed a ball can drop in at.
• The noisy bot kept hooking into the woods. It planned for perfect shots and then missed. Now it checks every shot it's thinking about against a hook, a slice, a fat and a thin strike, and picks one that's safe if it goes wrong.
• The sandworm couldn't be hit from more than six yards, because it kept moving while you aimed. Now it holds still while you line up and moves on its own turn.
• Beating Lord Bogey looked like losing. His health resets when he becomes Triple Bogey, so the bot saw the winning hit as negative damage and never took it. Boss progress now counts across both forms.
• Late-game Power turned par 5s into par 3s. Each point of Power now adds half as much speed as it used to.

browsertest.mjs then plays the game in real Chromium: it makes a hero, skips the prologue, walks the map, swings with real key presses, uses a Mulligan, holes out, goes shopping, reloads and continues, and hits a boss. Then it does the same on touch-only phones in portrait and landscape, checks that every control is big enough and nothing overlaps, and fails on any console error.

The whole game is about 8,000 lines of plain JavaScript modules with no build step.

Play it

Play Tee & Sorcery, or find its statue in the Garden of Games with the rest of the collection. If you want to see how it's built, the design doc covers everything from the physics to the boss turns.

As Pip tells Lord Bogey near the end: “Golf is not about the score. It is about the walk, and the friends, and the one good shot that brings you back.”

Grab your wedge. Mind the lava. Have fun!