A Quiet Pleasure

 A quiet pleasure takes place in Arizona when we hear that the rest of the nation is changing its clocks.

Your Own Weather

 The Sovereign Professional has an important reminder from Steve Pressfield.

My older brother could have used that approach the other day as heavy rain caused floods in Central Arizona.

His pastures were filled, the cattle were out in the water, and all of his neighbors left for higher ground.

But he stayed and outlasted the storm.

Great Painters of the American West

 

• Frederic Remington
• Charles M. Russell
• Maynard Dixon
• Ed Mell
• Thomas Moran
• George Catlin
• Howard Terpning
• Albert Bierstadt
• Mian Situ

[Photo by Jake Johnson for Unsplash+]

Our AI Future?

 The most fundamental fact about current AIs is that they are grown, not crafted. It is not like how other software gets made - indeed it is closer to how a human gets made, at least in some important ways. Namely, engineers understand the process that results in an AI, but do not much understand what goes on inside the AI minds they manage to create.

- Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All

Find Something Beautiful Today

[Photo by Bernhard at Unsplash] 

Memorable Fictional Characters from Novels

 Sydney Carton, Natasha Rostova, Tom Joad, Raylan Givens, Phileas Fogg, Rutherford Calhoun, Skink, Atticus Finch, Hercule Poirot, Long John Silver, Tom Jones, Miss Jane Pittman, Scarlett O'Hara, Jackson Lamb, Madame Defarge, Sir Harry Flashman, George Smiley, Sam Weller, Hannibal Lecter, Sam Spade, Huckleberry Finn, Jeeter Lester, Jack Aubrey, Uriah Heep, Augustus McCrae, Joel Cairo, Woodrow Call, Fagan, Donald "Sully" Sullivan, Rub Squeers, Mr. Micawber, Becky Sharp, Flem Snopes, Sherman McCoy, Sherlock Holmes, Count Dracula, Pierre Lambert, Captain Ahab, Edmond Dantes, Shane, Smike, Dirk Pitt, Pierre Bezukhov, Harriet and Guy Pringle, Robinson Crusoe, Anton Rider, Quasimodo, Ben Gunn, Hondo, Alec Leamas, Arkady Renko, Edgar J. Watson, Aurelio Zen, Blue Duck, Ma Kettle, Pearly Soames, Perry Mason, Stephen Maturin, Queequeg, Penrod Schofield, Reverend Reginald Bacon, Rhett Butler, Jay Gatsby, Adrian Mole, Ebadiah Slope, Elmer Gantry, Father Hugh Kennedy, Boo Radley, Joe (The Fat Boy), Philip Marlowe, John Galt, Toad of Toad Hall, Jack Torrance, Victor Frankenstein, Sam Fong, Florentino Ariza, Don Corleone, Wackford Squeers, Mr. Bumble, Rooster Cogburn, Bilbo Baggins, Captain Nemo, Jack Price, Don Quixote, Charlie Carmody, Norman Bates, James Bond, Tarzan, Peter Pan, Rip Van Winkle, Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, Dr. Doolittle, Holly Golightly, Ebenezer Scrooge, Gandalf, Dirk Struan, Oliver Twist, Dr. Reo Symes, Casper Gutman, Prince Yakimov, John Blackthorne, Claude Lebel, Josef Roubiček, Sammy Glick, Captain Queeg, Dobie Gillis, Auntie Mame, Charlie Chan, Dr. No, Frank Skeffington, Francis Prescott, Jamie McPheeters, Italo Bombolini, Passepartout, Winston Smith, Miss Jean Brodie, and, of course, Julian Fabius.

Happy Halloween!

 

The scariest novel I have ever read is Ghost Story by Peter Straub.

[Photo by Maryam Sicard at Unsplash+]

The Busy Mr. Bate

It does not surprise me that The Man Who Never Sleeps is also an artist.

Compared to him, I am a towering castle of sloth.

Fiscal Update

 

First Paragraph

Shortly before Easter in the year 1188 CE, an English archbishop of Canterbury went to Wales on a recruitment drive. Thousands of miles away, war had broken out in the eastern Mediterranean and the archbishop, whose name was Baldwin of Forde, had been tasked with recruiting several thousand able-bodied fighting men to join an army that was being deployed there.

- From Crusaders: The Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands by Dan Jones