Welcome to October, when the certitude of the season becomes a certainty. We are past the equinox. The temperatures are dipping. The days are indisputably growing shorter. For a decade now I have not had the best reaction to fall. I’ve struggled with enjoying its many pleasures because of what follows it. Living in dread of something later is a great way to miss out on today. So, this year, I am trying a different approach.
I’ll start with the idea of being present. I’ll take deliberate efforts to enjoy this moment. Not that I am ignoring anything, but just because I will probably spend all of the winter indoors anyway, why hate that? Plus, El Niño is supposed to give us a milder, wetter winter. Conditions are ideal, then, to figure out how to not miss today. I should have rationalized that yesterday.
We’ll see how long it lasts. At least until tomorrow.
Catober has begun, as you might have noticed. We’ll have daily photos of the cats every day all month long. Tomorrow Phoebe will be at the top of the page around noon. Saturday, it’ll be Poseidon. Sunday Phoebe, and so on, throughout Catober.
And because it is the first of the month I have done all of the boring computer stuff. Cleaning old files to try to save a little space, changing the file structures, and so on. Also, I have updated the photos on the front page. After two tries of putting these together … they still aren’t working as well as I’d like. This is a beautiful creature, my photos notwithstanding. Anyway, if you go to the front page of the site, you’ll see photos like this.
That’s a lilac breasted roller (Coracias caudata). There are 15 photos. If you sit there for a minute you’ll see them all. Go on, have a look. We’ll wait for you.
In class today I finished up a week of talking about the sharing of data and surveillance. I used a lot of recent videos. I like this first one because everyone sits up a little bit straighter from the implications.
This one, I think, someone has to think about a great deal, but it lets me delve into some communication theory stuff.
And I played this one as a way to let us get to doxxing. Everyone knows about it. No one wants to think about it. And we should all pay a lot more attention to it.
And here’s a handful of recent stories that we touched on today, too.
Facebook is paying controversial creators to produce rage-bait content
LinkedIn and X are flooded With AI spam, browsing data suggests
US judges are worried for their safety — and their independence
Elon Musk’s Grok AI is doxxing home addresses of everyday people
AI can now doxx your anonymous accounts? Here’s what’s going on
Somehow, because I worked on it quite a bit, I managed to make it a full class. Hopefully it was useful and helpful.
Later, I went to pick up my lovely bride across campus. There was a crowd at the parking deck elevator. And also fire fighters. I asked someone if the elevator was working. Seems like someone was trapped inside one of the cars. So stairs it was! What a great day to park on the fourth floor.
A fireman went up behind me, keeping pace. He had to go to the top of the deck, which is six flights up, to do something that aided in the rescue of people in a small metallic box. I was pleased he stayed the same distance behind me on the way up and that he didn’t feel the need to render assistance to me. Four floors isn’t that many floors, but my backpack is heavy.
I don’t know what the protocol for elevator incidents might be, or the specialties involved, but they sent out two trucks.
So that was twice this week — at least! — that they’ve rolled out to that building. I’m not nervous about next week at all, no. Why do you ask?
The sun and the sky and the clouds were putting on a great show for the ride home. We got in and sat out back and read for a bit, until the bugs came. The mosquitos outnumber us at least six-to-one, and we can also read indoors, which is what we wound up doing.
Before I went inside, I stopped by one of the hydrangeas. I love this part of the season for them. There’s so much character in the blooms, and they’re all so very different.
I’d like to think there’s a grand reason for that. Some epic story of success and minerals, trials and winds, and the way the rain drops land just so.
Maybe it has something to do with the sun or a bumpy part of the soil. Probably its just how the photosynthesis works on the thing, and how quickly or slowly some thing is going on in the root system.
These are all facing the morning sun, though, and what could make up that difference? Maybe its the fairies. Maybe it is plant energy. Maybe it is fairy energy.
Maybe each of these blooms has a different, but evolving, view of autumn.
One year, when I’m not busy, I’m going to watch that plant a lot more closely. It’ll be a photo study. We will figure this out.
Anyway, that’s enough for today. Happy Catober. Come back tomorrow for another great kitty photo. We’ll have a great time.
