Red-Winged Blackbird

It was behaving very strangely.

A couple of weekends ago, DW and I went to Mud Lake, along the Ottawa River. We hadn't been to this small trail and trove of many different types of bird in a long time, and I also felt that I needed to get out of the house, to get some fresh air, so it was a great way to start the day. And even though we were heading out too late for the peak time that birds are fluttering around, there's always something new to spot, whether it be an owl, a new species of heron, or a new duck to be found.

On this visit, we spied a northern pintail duck, which I shared in last week's Wordless Wednesday.

As we walked back to our car, I noticed a red-wing blackbird perched on someone's side-view mirror. And it would also flutter over the mirror or in front of it, chirping in a seeming state of irritation.

"Do you think he's seen himself in the mirror and thought it was another male?" I asked DW.

"I don't know," she said, "it's possible."

I didn't have the greatest vantage as we approached the car. But the bird wouldn't leave it, hopping on the mirror and the roof of the vehicle. Even when we reached the car, the red-wing blackbird was determined to stick around. So, I snapped a few photos (one of which I also shared, last week).

Red-wing blackbirds are territorial, so there was definitely something that made him stay at the car. And whatever it was, he was not pleased.

Happy Wednesday!

AI-Assisted

At my old job, we were supposed to embrace AI. When I was composing an e-mail message, AI would make its presence known—not like Microsoft's Clippy, but a subtle icon would suggest that AI could improve my message.

I'm sorry, I would respond, in my head, to that prompt, but I'm a professional writer. I don't need to have an algorithm create my message or convey it in a different tone. I know what I'm doing.

For our customer documentation authoring tool, we incorporated a plugin tool that used AI to analyse our writing to ensure that we were following our company's style guidelines. I never used the tool. I was my team's editor and I knew the style guidelines cold.

So, the thought of using AI at work seemed preposterous. Maybe, that made me a bit of a dinosaur but I still produced high-quality documentation. Year after year, my peers and bosses praised my work, so I was doing something right.

The idea of using AI for my fiction just didn't make any sense. How could an algorithm be as creative as a human? I imagine that any work of fiction that was generated by AI would be dry, boring. I mean, I had tried describing a scene in order for Chat GPT to create the cover art for the novel I'm now working on and it couldn't get anything right.

It didn't seem to understand what lying face-down in a body of water looked like: how would it know how to craft a well-conceived story?

I'm more than 30 pages into my murder mystery and I'm more organized than I've ever been for a novel. I have a spreadsheet that contains the names of the characters and their roles, and how they fit into the story. Some of the people, such as the killer and some of the witnesses and suspects, are on the spreadsheet but haven't even appeared in the story.

I have a clear idea for the motive and the circumstances that lead up to the murder, and I came up with them on my own. I used no artificial intelligence to produce my plot.

But there are aspects of this story for which I have no knowledge beyond what I've seen in televised crime dramas or have read in murder mysteries I've read over the decades. I'm taking wild-ass guesses or I'm just glossing over some sections, such as the coroner's autopsy findings.

There are a lot of moving parts around the discovery of the body and identifying the victim, and while I've made some decent notes around certain things, I'm not a detective. I don't know proper procedures.

So, for the first time, yesterday, I turned to ChatGPT for help. For other stories, I've relied on Google searches to give me some answers, so I decided I'd let ChatGPT be my search engine.

I described how the victim's body was found. I provided the identity and career of the dead person, with people who know her (I've previously stated that the victim is a woman, so there's no surprise there). I did not state that the person found floating in the water was a murder victim: I simply said it was a dead body. When I typed in this information, I asked the AI tool for the first order of operations on the side of the police.

The tool churned for a few seconds before listing all sorts of tasks that the police and pathologists would perform. It gave details of what clues would be followed to determine if the death was an accident or homicide. It suggested who would be interviewed, and how the body would be identified.

AI gave me a framework in which I could fill in details.

As soon as I had this information, I started thinking: was this story mine? Was I letting an algorithm be a part of the creative process?

The answer is a resounding no. AI isn't telling me what to write. It isn't giving me insight into the characters or suggesting any twists to the plot. (I've had enough people do that when I've indicated that I'm writing a crime novel.) AI has simply listed a number of tasks that an investigating team wound undertake to help determine the identity of the victim and how she would have ended up in the river.

I'm not cheating.

AI isn't writing my book but I think I'll use it like an assistant, as it should be. AI should never do the heavy lifting when it comes to being creative.

For me, ChatGPT will be the new Google search, without me having to wade through what is useful and what is just taking up my time.

Time I can be using, writing.

Choose Joy

When I had an account on Twitter, and later, Threads, I got used to blocking people.

I would say that for more than a year before I left Twitter, I got into the habit of blocking accounts that spread hate or people who would troll my account. I'd also steadily block sex bots that would start following me.

If someone was going to follow me, I wanted them to be real.

Similarly, when I joined Threads, I'd have to block accounts on a daily basis. It's like the hatred had found its way from Musk's cesspool into Zuckerberg's platform, and I wanted to shut that noise down.

I left Threads the very day that I learned that Zuck had given a million dollars to Felonious Tangerine Turd's^* inauguration. I was not interested in supporting an oligarch.

Luckily, I found a soft place to land on Bluesky.

Overall, the tone of people on this social-media platform is relatively positive. And I know that some have said that Bluesky can be a bit of an echo chamber for the left leaning, but I'd rather be in a space with like-minded individuals than share it with far-right nutjobs.

As you can tell from this post, I'm not always the most positive person, either. But I try.

Until yesterday, it was rare for me to block someone. Sure, I'd run across someone who would respond in a hateful way to something I've posted, and I wouldn't hesitate to block that individual. One of the great features on Bluesky is that you can mute someone's comment so that your followers don't have to see it, either.

Yesterday, within the space of a few minutes, I found myself blocking several people.

No, they weren't trolls looking to give me grief: they were people who seemingly disliked the politicians and political parties from which I distance myself. On some level, we were like-minded people.

So why did I block them?

As soon as somebody follows me, I check out his or her feed. I'm interested in seeing who the individual is and why they would choose to follow me.

Now, I'm not one for keeping my political views hidden. DW has even warned me to watch what I say on social media, especially since we'll be passing through American airports on the way to our next travel destination.

I've tried, but it's hard. I'll do my best to stay joyful in my posts but I'll occasionally re-post a political message that I find worth sharing. I try to avoid typing some names but I don't always succeed. 

If a new follower only re-posts other people's posts, without adding content of their own, I tend to not follow them (I may, in fact, follow the person who shared the original post). If a new follower doesn't seem to share my interests, I won't follow them. And, of course, if someone has absolutely nothing in their feed, I won't be following them back.

But yesterday, when I saw that I had new followers, I did something that I had rarely done before, especially on Bluesky: I blocked them.

These followers, didn't like what was going on across our border, to the south. They did not like Canada' Conservative parties, especially not their leaders. In addition to sharing posts from other people, they put out content of their own. So why would I block them?

Frankly, it was their bios that did it.

I love reading people's bios. I want to know what their interests are, what they do, what part of the world they come from, but mostly, what brings them joy.

And people don't necessarily have to provide all of that information in their bio, but I appreciate when people let others know who they are.

When I saw that I had a bunch of new followers, their bios only told me what they hated. Some followers used handles that described their hate. And when I looked at their feeds, it was saturated with negativity.

Sure, I was under no obligation to follow them back and I could have let them continue to follow me, but I thought, I don't want someone who is consumed with hatred on social media to be following me. I don't want to see them liking or sharing anything that I post. I don't want to attract that kind of audience.

I get it: people are angry. People are frustrated about the growing fascism around the globe. We all want to let people know that we need to step up.

We all need to punch Nazis.

But for as much as we are upset and worried about what is happening around us, we cannot lose sight of the good that is in the world. We need to also find and maintain the joy in life. Be mindful of and resist the hate that is spreading. But be joyful, because it can spread, too.

To those who want to be angry on social media, to those who want to share information about how hateful people seem to be acquiring power more and more, all I can say is, you be you. Fight. Stay strong.

But please don't follow me.

Happy Monday!

^* Sorry, that name's not joyful. But sometimes, you've got to call it like you see it.

Duck, Goose, Bird

Retirement Haiku

My last day is done
Nineteen years went by quickly
Now, I start anew.