Isn’t this weather something?
My weather station only recorded about nine-tenths of an inch of rain the first two days this week. But the storms battered the area around us hard. As of Tuesday at noon, there were still almost 6,000 OG&E customers without power. Fort Gibson received an especially bad strike, with several businesses heavily damaged. One downtown building lost its roof, and thousands of trees throughout Green Country got leveled.
The only problem we had at Wayfarer’s Refuge was a suicidal squirrel who made himself part of the circuit on the 12kv distribution line and transformer in front of our house. Probably owing to the storm damage in the area, I had an OG&E truck on site within 45 minutes of my call. The lineman was the one who found the squirrel, which looked surprisingly undamaged. I didn’t even see singe marks.
I emailed CyberPowerPC for a status update on my repair. Their response: “Please allow up to 14 – 21 business days for us to properly diagnose, replace, and stress test your computer properly.”
Eep. 2-3 weeks?
Nothing I can do about it but wait, I guess.
Friday would have been a beautiful day to set up the pool. Instead, we waited five hourse on the side of the road for a tow truck for Middle Daughter’s car. Hopefully, whatever the problem is will be covered by her warranty.
Second Son got the wiring done we needed for the pool. Ever since we’ve had a pool, we’ve run things on an extension cord from an outlet on the house. But a couple of years ago, back before the driveway went in, the boys and I buried power lines for the pool (and for Christmas lights). I just never got around to finishing the electrical work. I know, huge surprise there. But Second Son came out between the rain showers Saturday and installed the outlets for the pool.
Now if we can just go a full week without rain.
I’m getting more and more frustrated by the weather delay here. It’s not just that I want to be able to get in the pool. It’s that I’ve got this four-by-eight-foot pile of stuff in the middle of my garage. It has been a pain to get around in there for a couple of months now.
On the brighter side, I won’t run into this issue next season. Once it’s up, it’ll stay up. Bestway/Intex was kind enough to provide instructions on winterizing the pool.
Oklahoma in SCOTUS
Lots of talk this week about the SCOTUS decision in the Oklahoma St Isidore case. That’s the one where a Catholic church wanted to open a charter school. The problem: Charter schools are public schools, and you generally can’t spend government money on religion.
The decision was brief: “The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.” Justice Barrett recused herself because of ties to the attorneys representing the church, so the court voted 4-4. Ties mean the original decision stands, so I’ve been saying that it wasn’t so much that the court decided the case as they punted. Then again, as the great Neil Peart opined, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”
I’m very concerned about the close call here. I think SCOTUS was just one vote away from a decision I’m convinced would gut the Establishment Clause. Charter schools have long been considered public schools. But the Catholic Church has rules about who can attend and work for their schools, and those rules, though permissible for the private institutions of The Church, conflict with laws against discrimination in the public sector. A city can’t refuse to hire someone just because they’re gay. A church can. But if the church receives public funds to run that school, must they employ people who might violate church doctrine and dogma?
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond (who’s running for governor to succeed Stitt) invoked the “other religions” boogeyman in the case. He says that if the Catholic Church gets public money, so would other churches, “and you don’t want groups like The Satanic Temple to get public money, do you?” I’m paraphrasing that last, but that was the gist of his comments. And TST has used the same argument. I’m not a huge fan of the boogeyman idea. I’d rather groups in opposition focus on the positive of obeying the Constitution rather than the negative of other scary religions.
Writing
Generative AI caught my attention this week. For starters, the Chicago Sun-Times managed to publish a list of 15 must-read books for the summer. It included The Last Algorithm, by Andy Weir of The Martian fame. “This time, the story follows a programmer who discovers that an AI system has developed consciousness—and has been secretly influencing global events for years.”
Weir didn’t write that book though. No one did. It doesn’t exist.
Neither do most of the other books on the list. A post on Bluesky said only five were real. According to coverage from 404Media (stories archived here and here), the freelancer who wrote the piece uses GenAI “for background at times but always check[s] out the material first. This time, I did not and I can’t believe I missed it because it’s so obvious.”
The second thing I read about also came from 404Media. At least three romance authors left their AI prompts and responses in the final drafts. I think all three are independent or self-published. One author claimed the generative AI text came from a beta reader who was helping proof-read. She blames that person (for adding it) as well as the editor (for not catching it). A second author claims she uploaded the wrong draft that contained a prompt she’d used for brainstorming. The third author is apparently a pseudonym and 404 Media couldn’t find any way to contact her.
Romance readers are well-known for their expectations and for actively responding when those expectations aren’t met. In these cases, the books have been review-bombed practically into oblivion.
I can’t say I blame them.
On the other hand, given this piece at The Verge, how many other authors have used generative AI without being caught? I wonder how many readers have consumed AI-generated text without realizing it?
Is there an ethical way to use generative AI? I used to think there was. I’m less certain of the idea these days, and I’ve been dialing back my own use of generative AI. I used to use it only for titles and social media posts, but I haven’t done either for several weeks now. I feel like I’m being hypocritical when I complain about OpenAI and Meta using my blog and books while I keep uploading posts myself.
One Last Cool Thing
Back near the beginning of COVID, I posted about WindowSwap, a site that let people share the view out their window. I’m happy to report it’s still live.
Along the same lines, I found the Coral City Camera. It’s a webcam in about nine feet of water just off the coast of Miami. They run a YouTube livestream and it’s really pretty darned cool, especially if you’re into fish. Even if you’re not, it’s very relaxing.
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