Iris surveillance
These crept up on us in our front garden. We went to the Lake District for a week and when we arrived what should we find but these show-offs.
Quote of the Day
“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
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Isaac Asimov
The problem seems to have got worse over the years since he made the observation!
Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news
Joan Armatrading | Love And Affection
Long Read of the Day
A Rash Conclusion
By Paolo Valdemarin. Not such a Long Read, but to the point, and perceptive.
Everyone worries about AI replacing doctors. After 24 hours in the hands of the NHS, I think they’re looking in the wrong direction.
GP, A&E, then other parts of the hospital. Every shift, a new doctor. Every new doctor, the same questions. The same story, retold from the top. Every single one of them then took a picture of my rash with their phone.
The first GP I saw actually had an AI assistant. It recorded our conversation and drafted a letter, which he printed on that grey recyclable paper the NHS uses for everything and which absolutely no one in the chain that followed ever read…
The NHS is like many other large organisations, unable to join the administrative dots. Sometimes, it’s maddening to have to watch it especially since no rocket science required to fix it. I guess the problem is that nobody ‘owns’ the co-ordination problem.
My commonplace booklet
I really liked this New Yorker cover (captioned “War-a-Lago”), which was clearly referencing General George Patton’s practice of standing upright in a Jeep during WW2 while reviewing troops. After the Normandy invasion he was given command of the US Third Army which went deep into Nazi Germany.
During the Allied occupation of Germany, Patton was named military governor of Bavaria, but was relieved for making aggressive statements towards the Soviet Union and questioning denazification. He also held antisemitic views and made derogatory statements about Jewish people.
Linkblog
Something I noticed, while drinking from the Internet firehose.
Why the voice note craze is yet to truly explode in Britain
From BBC News…
On an August day in 2013, WhatsApp, the messaging app now owned by Meta, made an announcement. With relatively little fanfare, they revealed the voice note, the messaging feature that lets you send a clip of your own voice to friends and family.
”We know there’s no substitute for hearing the sound of a friend or family member’s voice,” the company enthused in a press release.
Thirteen years on, receiving a 10-minute clip from a friend, telling you about a complex family feud or workplace drama, is an experience that is loved by some and loathed by others.
In places like India, Mexico, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates, voice notes are almost matching the popularity of written texts as the preferred form of electronic communication.
But curiously, the truth is that compared to many places, Britain never seems to have quite caught the voice note bug.
I don’t think I’ve ever sent one. But my sisters love the medium and use it quite a bit.
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