I came across this really interesting article in the New York times today about a baseball team from San Quentin (the prison near San Francisco). The article describes the benefit to the incarcerated in their rehabilitation through baseball.
One of the big points that really hit me was this:
For almost all the players on the team, it was also in the weeks or months after their final youth baseball seasons that their lives went downhill.
I think this is fascinating. Archaeologists have found the earliest known instance of human-created fire, in the village of Barnham in England, which they have determined occurred 400,000 years ago. This pushes the origin of human fire-making back by more than 350,000 years.
This is a pretty extensive article, delving into how they propose this site is so old and how they know the evidence of fire is human in origin.
The following is part of a “shared storytelling event” over at I Saw Lightning Fall , Advents Ghosts 2023. We were tasked to write a scary story of exactly 100 words in length. This came to me after watching an episode of Doctor Who where the Doctor travelled to the edge of the Universe. I don’t think this story is actually scary though the unknown can sure be known to unsettle.
Unsolved Mysteries
What celestial phenomenon called the Magi to Bethlehem?
Let’s imagine, as the story has been told, a star. One of 4,000 visible in a clear night sky.
Posit each of those stars has nine planets, 36,000 potential Earths, all these planets forming and evolving in their own time.
Has the Christmas story happened countless times across the vast Universe?
Would Jesus have been sent to save our extra-terrestrial neighbors from their sin?
Perhaps somewhere the apple was never eaten, and our Heavenly counterparts observe our lives like reality tv.
AI image generators are in the news. And they are fun to play with and can create some incredible images. But of course there are ethical questions that arise.
Here is a good article from the Washington Post regarding how AI image generators work:
The following is part of a “shared storytelling event” over at I Saw Lightning Fall , Advents Ghosts 2022. We were tasked to write a scary story of exactly 100 words in length. I don’t know how much this counts as a “story” but this is my attempt at an entry. As far as “scary” your mileage may vary.
An Inside Job
1659, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony deems it a criminal offense to publicly celebrate Christmas.
January 6th 2045, the Freedom party gains control of all three branches of government, repeals the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and declares Christmas a secular holiday, banning it on the basis it’s never mentioned in the Bible.
December 25, 2047 Cynthia Bowman is arrested for having houseplant greater than 48 inches of height indoors in the twelfth month of the calendar year and adorning said shrubbery with a star.
