Penny finally had her first big test of how good she will be as a companion dog.
She's had some brief interactions with people while we walk the trails, but not as much as she would have had during a normal camping season. And she's had almost no interaction with other dogs, other than her brothers. So I've been worried.
At the end of August, there was a local event called the Corgi Benefit Bash, and we took Penny.
There were SO many people and dogs. Penny handled the whole thing like a champ. She had one little dog repeatedly take the play position and punch her in the face. No issues. She had other dogs sniff her from head to toes. No issues. She even had a dog try to pee on her. The only issue was that she drew back and gave him a look like, "DUDE!?"
Not only did she have no issues with the dogs, or the people stopping to give her pets, she would sit quietly and watch everyone while hubby and I stopped to talk to people. No whining, no hissyfits!
She's going to be a great companion dog!
This month's writing update.
Responses to last month's submission have been slow coming in, so it is the only story I have out right now. I'm not going to send out another one until I hear back from all the publishers on this one.
I finished a first rough draft of the new "nostalgia" story, though I'm still not sure I like the ending. I'm going to let it sit for a couple of weeks, and then I will come back to it and start revising. Maybe a better ending for it will manifest in the meantime.
I have started on another idea, but it is still too much in the early stages to really talk about. I'm going to explore the idea and see if it develops into anything that might make it worthwhile to take to rough draft stage or if it peters out before becoming anything worthwhile.
What I'm reading this month.
I finished To Be Taught, If Fortunate, by Becky Chambers, and it was good. It was the most hopeful depressing ending I've ever seen, but I enjoyed it.
I didn't finish Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. I thought it was awful pretty much from the beginning, and I was ready to abandon it several times. But then I'd tell myself to just keep pushing through, it will get better.
It did NOT, in fact, get better. It actually got worse, which left me gobsmacked.
I make no beans about the two movies that I consider the worst movies I've ever seen in my life: Mystery Men and Watchmen. Now I have a worst book I've ever read in my life (or, mostly read?). There's a certain horror author (who says he's NOT a horror author, and I agree, lol) who's work I really hate...and this Heinlein book is worse than that, in my opinion!
The book took a very weird turn at the last third. I couldn't get past the fact that suddenly Jill decided to abandon the newspaper dude she "loved" and run off with the Mars Man while he "made his way as a man in the world." And then the next scenes have he and Jill working as a magician and magician's assistant in a sideshow, and they are having a threesome with the tattooed lady, and Jill lets the Man from Mars have sex with whoever he wants because she doesn't want to deprive the world of the experience...this book is seems like it was written by an incel living out all his fantasies.
Keep in mind, I'm no puritan, so that's not what bothers me. What bothers me is that this all has nothing to do with the effing story, you know? The first encounters in the story where the man from Mars was exploring sexuality make sense for the story. He's new to human "interactions" and wants to explore. But this later stuff is completely pointless for the story. If this book were billed as old fashioned erotica, fine, it would make sense. But this book is billed as foundational scifi.
The funny thing is, if you go online, there are still a lot of people who say the book is the greatest and that haters just don't get it. I'd love to see the demographics on who is a diehard fan. I'm sure a lot of them are people who first read the book as teens, and it was one of their first forays into science fiction, so it sort of has that "sacred documents" status. And that's fine, I totally get it. I have lots of books (and movies) that I'm that way about, too. They were "landmark media" in my youth, so they still hold a special place in my heart, even though they suck now. These are the media that I usually try not to revisit so I don't ruin the memory.
Damnation Alley, I'm looking at you, lol. I thought that was the coolest movie ever. And then when I finally found a DVD copy just a few years ago and rewatched it, I was SO disappointed. I still love the movie, even though I acknowledge that it really is TERRIBLE.
Anyway, now I'm reading Mirrored Heavens, by Rebecca Roanhorse, for my main book club, and The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, for the secondary book club. I still have never attended the second book club, since the most recent two meetings were about the Heinlen book, so I'm looking forward to finally going and seeing how it is.
I've also started reading a borrowed book, Mordew, by Alex Pheby. I read an excerpt, and I can't wait to get more into the story. There's living mud that "makes" creatures!
So it's going to be a busy month of reading. That's fine, because the weather this month can be iffy. We are having a cold front this week, it it really feels like late fall. If it keeps this up, then it will be the pefect time to curl up with a book indoors!
What I'm learning this month/class report.
I am SO excited for my university class this semester. The textbook issue was resolved (no textbook, only supplemental materials). And it looks like it is going to be fascinating!
It's focusing on the impact of technology on society, something I've been very interested in these last few years, starting with how social media has impacted everyone. And now we have all the hubbub over AI. AI is either going to be the downfall of civilization, or the savior, depending on who you talk to!
The president of our university has declared a goal of making our university the "AI university for our state" (just as we are the UAS university for our state). So upper leadership in the university is embracing the power of AI.
At other levels within the U, I know the feelings about AI are mixed, especially when it comes to how AI impacts teaching and learning.
Supposedly, AI is gutting the computer programming industry and people are being laid off left and right. Why? I don't understand. You still need people to program and train AI. It's really just software and databases, after all.
And then there are all the reports of people having problems distinguishing the reality of AI. From the man who thought he'd solved an impossible mathematical problem due AI's misleading encouragement of his ideas, to the boy who committed suicide after lengthy interactions with AI, people are having problems grasping that the interactions aren't real.
It's fascinating, because just like our phones learn how we use them and respond/adjust accordingly, and even our cars learn how we drive them, AI learns how we use it and adjusts accordingly. I use AI regularly for work and personal use, and it has "adapted" to how it should interact with me.
When I first started using it, I would end our conversations by thanking it, etc. My joke was, "I want to be in good with our robotic overlords when they take over." And so my AI learned to be humorous with me. So now, even when I search for "What proteins make up XXX," It comes back with an answer and it ends it with, "May the proteins be ever in your favor."
We were talking about the boy who committed suicide at work, and the article we were discussing referred to a company that does companions. I thought the company had went out of business. They used to do ads in all the phone games, and they were full of sketchy anime-style girls that would be your digital girlfriend. You were supposed to be able to "build" your dream "friend." It really felt like a whole online-sugarbaby thing. I haven't seen any ads in a while, so I thought they had gone out of business.
As it turns out, maybe they aren't advertising anymore because they may not have to. It looks like they are doing well. They are still in business, and now they are billing themselves as, "Your AI companion," and they have a slick, nicely designed website (as opposed to the sketchy, half-ass ads they used to run games).
I think one of my coworkers was traumatized by this new knowledge, lol. Out of curiosity, she googled them (that's how we found out about their slick website). She decided to check out the reviews they have on the site, and the reviews said things like, "We've been together four years, and I've never been happier!"
Review after review, they were all the same: people acting as if their "AI companion" was a real relationship. Not surprising, given how people have been interacting with just the plain-interface AI of CoPilot and ChatGPT.
Of course, it probably makes it easier to pretend it's real when you've designed your "AI companion" to look like the House Bunny. 😂
And that seems to be the norm for the site. The profile pic of the reviewer would be a middle-aged, fat, balding man, and the review would include a graphic of the House Bunny girlfriend that he created for himself and was so happy with.
Why not, I guess? If you're going to pretend, why not go all out, right?
Anyway, humans interacting with technology is fascinating to me, as you can tell from how long this section became. Don't even get me started on TikTok!
So, yes! I am very much looking forward to this university class!
And I'm still working on my other stuff: Spanish through Duolingo and Udemy, Codecademy, Javascript, etc. At a minimum, I get at least one Duolingo lesson and one Codecademy lesson done daily.
This month's playlist. The ten songs I'm listening to on repeat.
This month's pondering/share/rant.
I'm dabbling in a new hobby.
Turtle River State Park had a great artist-in-residence session with an artist who does leathertooling. Leathertooling involves stamping or carving a design into leather.
Tooling Leather: Everything You Need to Know
The session with the artist in residence was so much fun, and the work so relaxing (I was completely absorbed in it), that I decided to give it a try at home. I'm not very good yet, but I'm learning. I was absolutely thrilled when I heard that a lot of people use watercolors on their designs (Yay! That's my jam!), so I decided to try some of my Dr. Ph. Bombay India ink (iridescent) on a design.
My linework and beveling still needs a lot of work, but the India ink looks terrific! With more practice, I eventually hope to expand into leatherworking, as well, and make my own custom purse and a new gun sling. Of course, a leathertooled Cthulhu Fhtagn r'lyeh runes belt isn't out of the question, either (and yes, I did think of that when I was making my first floral project, shown in the picture, and I was thinking, "Wow, these leaves would make GREAT tentacles!")😂
That's it for this month. Until next month, Stay Spooky, my friends!
~~Here be monsters . . . and corgis.~~