Rowan Williams on David Attenborough:
There are people who seem to think concern for the natural world somehow sidelines characteristically human concerns. David Attenborough makes it clear deep attention to our environment nourishes all that is most humane and generous in us – and if we lose this capacity for caring attention, we lose our souls.
Oh, for more thoughtful, attentive people in public life.
Shoreham Beach, 6.45am, Easter Sunday
Travel from most countries to the US is dropping under Trump.
This is a presidency with no understanding of complexity. The second and third order effects of what they’re doing will be more and more painful to the average American.
Spring anemone.
Our first visit to Kingley Vale.
Interesting selection of stickers, found rather randomly on a Sussex gate.
Back at the Brighton Dome for the Blue Film Programme of the Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival world tour.
I think spring is finally here.
When you are young and naive you think the professionals involved will sit down soberly, look at the evidence wisely and then labour long to achieve a good end based on sound science and experience. As you get older you realise that it is commonly not this way.
— from Bringing Back the Beaver by Derek Gow 📚
Nice to have company up on the downs.
Last Sunday of March, the first of British Summer Time.
7.35am, South Downs, near Lancing College.
Song thrushes and skylarks singing.
Have no regard for the words of the witless. They neither love nor care.
From Bringing Back the Beaver by Derek Gow 📚
Oh, dear: UK on alert after H5N1 bird flu spills over to sheep in world-first - Ars Technica:
The H5N1 bird flu has spilled over to a sheep for the first time, infecting a domesticated ruminant in the United Kingdom much like it has in US dairy cows, according to UK officials.
😬
Such a teasel.
Sunset on Shoreham Beach.
Middle of March, and I’m still scraping ice off the car…
… when I wandered into the bathroom and saw the bidet, I made a sound I haven’t been able to reproduce. Heated seat, glowing blue light, and the kind of steely-eyed menace you get from people who have a job to do and know what’s involved in getting it done.
This slice of life post made me laugh far too hard this morning. But, thankfully, not so hard I needed a bidet.
The hollowed world of the appistocracy:
The true power of the appistocracy isn’t measured in billions but in dependence. It’s a relationship that transforms us from citizens into users. Yet even as these digital dependencies deepen, so too does our capacity to question them – to carve out spaces of genuine presence in a world increasingly defined by algorithmic engagement.
So maybe it’s time we finally changed the way we talk about the Internet of Things (IoT). We keep talking about it as something achievable. Perhaps it’s time we started talking about what it really is: one of the biggest consumer scams ever invented.
Oh, I really want smart homes to be a thing. But Om is right. It’s a shoddy mess at the moment.
Quiet on the beach.
