What’s wrong with me? I no longer have the urge to check when someone on the internet mentions an AI getting things wrong; you know, hallucinating (offering demonstrably false statements as facts).
An increasing number of reports of such behaviour appear to be completely fabricated either for the lolz or as another reason to not use AI, but some are verifiable.
It’s undeniable that AIs or large language models (LLMs) are an increasing part of modern life, and whether one personally participates in the hype/bubble/de-skilling of not. But I’ve concluded that it’s pointless to fact-check posts. Why?
Other than using an AI how else is there to find out whether someone is making something up?
Humans don’t want to hear things that upset their worldview. We saw it writ large at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re seeing it with the rise of populist, far-right politicians. We should be checking stuff the little people in our phones or on our computer and TV screens are saying, and yet we don’t.
Why? Despite the decades-old dream of artificial intelligence giving us time to do things that enrich our lives, it’s not really come to pass has it. But it really can’t be far away now, right?
All the media chatter is of knowledge transfer, of chatbots supplanting interactions between humans, of ‘coming here and stealing our jobs…’ of the billions spent by the billionaires on the data centres required to keep AI running… and of the billions written off by the billionaires as each technology hits an evolutionary dead end.
It looks to me like Facebook’s ‘move fast and break things’ motto won out over Google’s ‘do no evil’. And it’s boundless.
A heart-shaped ‘tuft’ of grass, buttercups and probably dandelion leaves left over after mowing our back lawn towards the end of ‘No Mow May’ – mowed early due to the forecast of lots of rain. Photo taken during the early evening and facing roughly north; the shadows are long enough to split the heart in two but the sun is high enough to not have the fence shadow obscure the top of the tuft. A vaguely human’s shoe-clad feet appear at the bottom of the photo. Photo by the vaguely human foot custodian.
There’s not much yet of the increasing cost of AI to business as the subsidies start to become economically unviable for the AI peddlers, and there’s not much yet of the cost to humanity.
The cost of the AI ‘arms races’, like the cost of climate change and the cost of COVID denial, is an inconvenient truth that ordinary humans don’t want to confront.
“From this distant vantage point [that of ‘an alien scientist newly arrived at the outskirts of our solar system’ where Voyager 1 took the photograph], the Earth might not seem of any particular interest.
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
I have travelled alone and with family around Scotland a fair amount over the decades, scratching only the surface of this scenic, welcoming country from the Borders (the border with England) all the way to Shetland. I am not qualified as a tour guide or itinerary planner. Or writer. Or coherent, probably.
Nevertheless 🙂 here goes on a list of places seen and those I would revisit. It starts in the south/southeast at Gretna and goes on a vaguely clockwise route ending in Edinburgh.
Chances are I’ll update this as time passes. I’ve added a few links and a tiny number of my photos. (The links end half-way down the page at Aberdeen, I ran out of patience on the first run through).
Stuff
Gretna
Gretna/Gretna Green exists on the reputation of a place to which young couples would elope to and be married over the blacksmith’s anvil or something. It’s always been packed as we passed by since my first and only visit
West through Dumfries & Galloway
We visited Kircudbright on a wet day so used it only as a journey breaker. I’d bet it’s quite scenic though, especially down by the river.
We’re off to Newton Stewart later this year, booked a house close to the centre for a week.
Stranraer & Sandhead a few years ago was pleasant but nothing stood out other than its beach and a windy day trip down to the Mull of Galloway – the southernmost tip of Scotland.
There’s a lot of space between towns and villages here, and consequently a lot of spaces classified as Dark Sky – eminently suitable for stargazing.
Ayr and Ayrshire north to Glasgow
Made the mistake of stopping in a pub in Ayr next to the racecourse, arriving on race day.
Rolling hills. Decades ago, I can’t recall much. One area landmark of sorts is the Electric Brae, a section of the road that makes it appear one is rolling uphill when in fact one is rolling down. Oh, just go and see if you’re ever in the area.
Glasgow
I’ve only ever driven through or watched American football in Glasgow. Honestly I’m keen to hear what others have to say about the place declared the UK’s first-ever European City of Culture.
The road north to the Highlands
The A82 road heading to the west coast doesn’t really interest me, not even alongside Loch Lomond, although my wife would disagree – she says it’s incredibly beautiful, especially later in the year. It’s always been packed or being upgraded so take care driving. It’s only past Crianlarich it becomes interesting – for me.
The A82 road north to the Scottish Highlands. The cyclists at the bottom right may or may not be having fun. It’s overcast and bleak but remains an impressive landscape. Taken by me.
It’s a bit bleak the further north you go but wow, big sky. And then the hills start in earnest.
Turning onto the A85 towards Oban cuts out some of the gradual approach to some of the cragginess of the Scottish Highland scenery and the road past Glencoe, but there’s more of that and history further north.
Oban has a distillery and a port, and great seafood. We took the ferry as foot passengers across to the Isle of Mull. Fans of the children’s TV series Balamory will want, nay be unable to resist the urge to visit scenic Tobermory. We stopped in a house outside Oban, one I’m absolutely certain is haunted by a previous owner.
Oban north to Fort William
North from Oban on the A828 past the sea lochs to the west keeps the interest up. In general driving is pretty easy – unlike driving in the cities people generally become more courteous the further north one travels. Heck, even on single track roads most drivers know how to use passing places! Not true in England and especially the south of England.
Glencoe. Infamous battlefield site. History in the raw.
The town of Fort William, despite the number of times I’ve visited, isn’t special to me. The area around and to the north and west, heck yes! The Moorings hotel in Banavie next to Neptune’s Staircase – the scenic locks on the Caledonian Canal was good base for a few years. Recent reviews appear to show the hotel has lost its spark so I can’t now recommend. Incidentally, if you’re lucky there’ll be a boat or three passing up or down the locks. Fort William’s location at the start of the A830 Road to the Isles to the west and the A82 north to Inverness and made it a good centre.
Glen Nevis to the southeast holds very special memories for me and although I can say I’ve walked up a bit of the Ben Nevis mountain, I much prefer to view that from places like the Commando Memorial close to Spean Bridge. At the turn of the century I visited alone for the first time. In early spring. With snow and sleet and wind. And I walked and saw wild deer and an eagle. It was awesome.
Trees along a path running along the east side of the River Nevis not far from the car park at the southern end of the road through Glen Nevis. The river is just visible at the top left. In the foreground a few smoothed-off rocks break the path. Taken around Easter 2000 by me.
West from Fort William to Mallaig
West are the Glenfinnan Monument and film-famous Glenfinnan Viaduct, and the road itself to Mallaig is worth a drive, although aside from taking the ferry to the Isle of Skye and back again just the once I didn’t find much in Mallaig itself.
North from Fort William
There’s a gondola at Nevis Range and decent views atop Aonach Mor. I bet it’s spectacular in the winter.
A small bird on a car’s door mirror. I think it’s a chaffinch. I think it’s a Peugeot 206 GTi. Photo taken at Easter 2000 by on a rainy day, at Loch Oich in Scotland. I didn’t have food.
The road west to Skye
At Invergarry the A87 road west eventually reaches Kyle of Lochalsh and a road bridge over to Skye. It passes the scenic Eilean Donan castle and is worth a drive on its own. Be careful of foreign tourists forgetting which side of the road they must drive on though. Gulp! (It’s the left by the way). 🙂
Skye is special of course, itself and in Scottish history. A highlight for me was the drive to Elgol and the view over to the Cuillins – craggy peaks. There’s not a lot at Elgol but the destination. And sure it’s not for all – my investment was worth it for me. (I read a fascinating book on shark fishing many years ago, Elgol is the closest I could get to the island of Soay).
Look up Plockton. A village with palm trees made possible but its location at the eastern, climate-tempering end of the Gulf Stream.
Honestly, all of this is personal, I get a lot out of Scotland but detoured a lot over the years. Thousands of miles, no joke.
North again to Fort Augustus and Inverness
Missing out that significant detour and continuing north reaches Fort Augustus. It’s small, it’s ok. Notable are a more scenic set of canal locks than Fort William’s and the really rather good restaurant at the Lovat Hotel.
The Caledonian Canal locks at Fort Augustus in Scotland, taken in 2008 by me.
Fort Augustus is situated at the southern end of Loch Ness. Further north along the loch are Drumnadrochit and the Nessie exhibits – the Loch Ness Monster is very real dontchaknow!
Foyers on Loch Ness’ east side
An alternative to the more widely-travelled west side, Foyers and the falls of Foyers might be a drive for another visit. It’s a narrower road but interesting nonetheless. There are plenty of viewpoints along the way, and I wish in our last visit I’d known of Nessiehunter Steve’s place at the north end of the loch.
Inverness
Off the north end of Loch Ness is Inverness. I’ve eaten in the city but that’s about it. There’s a river and it’s somewhat scenic.
Further east are Fochabers (Baxter’s foods), Cawdor Castle, Dallas (really!) and south from there are Ballater and Royal Braemar – and Balmoral castle. Not far away is the Royal Lochnagar distillery, the first I ever visited and literally the first time I’d ever tasted whisky. I hated it, but I’ve made up for it since with a whole host of, er… extended tastings of everything from the innocuousness of Bells blended all the way up to a 15 year old Laphroaig. Wish I could afford that one these days.
A whisky glass sat on a small illuminated light table. There’s a silhouetted cork in the foreground and a dimly-lit bottle on the left background. The bottle contains a Lagavulin 16 year old whisky, as does the glass. The photo is high contrast. Taken a few decades ago by me.
Aberdeen north to Shetland
I’ve been to Aberdeen twice. The first time it was just windy and bleak, the second we were catching the ferry to Shetland. My in-laws flew but my wife’s scared of flying so we took my car and I drove all of us around Shetland.
Shetland is amazing, but somehow not road trip material per se. It’s amazing, did I say that? My father-in-law and thus my wife and now daughters have Shetland heritage removed only two/three/four generations. He made a pilgrimage of sorts there just over 10 years ago. It’s an amazing, important place.
The Shetland Museum and Archives in Lerwick is a must-see, as are the Croft House museum and Sumburgh Head’s puffins. Best soap I ever bought – Shetland Soap Company.
By the way, my father-in-law’s ancestors came from the big house in a Shetland hamlet called Twatt. I kid you not.
The resourcefulness of the islanders is impressive. Less so the removal of pretty much all the trees the island once had.
Aberdeen south to Stirling
Anyway, south of Aberdeen is Stonehaven. It’s small enough to be walkable, and holds the honour of being the first place in the world to and sell and popularise a deep-fried Mars bar. 🙂 The ‘Cool Gourmet’ tearoom and caterer is a hidden gem. It’s tiny though. I absolutely loved their cheesy scones with rhubarb and ginger jam.
I’ve passed through Aviemore. I guess it comes alive in the winter but it’s a bit depressing in summer – for me at least.
I had friends who lived in Callander, north west of the road from Aberdeen to Stirling. The lived in a forestry-owned single-storey building but aside from their companionship for a bit and the countryside around I’ve not many memories of that area now.
Stirling
Although it’s quite a way, south we go to Stirling – famous for its castle and excellent views from its ramparts, and the National Wallace Monument. Braveheart, remember? I can’t recall being allowed to park close to the castle but it’s not an onerous walk up.
We stopped over Valentine’s Day 2006 close by the village of Fintry, back when the Culcreuch Castle was open as a hotel. Sadly that closed a few years ago.
Dundee and St Andrews
I’ve visited Dundee for work only, and St Andrews on a day trip from Edinburgh. Aside from the St Andrews golf and university connections I can’t recall much. Do not exceed the speed limit in Dundee. My boss did when we were there, and paid the literal price. Famous Dundee exports marmalade and The Beano children’s comic… can be found anywhere. Just saying.
Falkirk
Falkirk is notable for 2 things that I know of, the incomprehensibly-large Kelpies – horse statues visible from the M9 but with a visitor centre, and the Falkirk Wheel – an innovative rotating boat lift irresistible for any kind of mechanical engineer. 115 feet up or down without locks! My ex boss has been on it. Words don’t…
Edinburgh
Edinburgh? Well…
The bridges on the approach to Edinburgh are all spectacular in their own right. Rail is a big thing for the city, and Waverley station is…
Ok, the Royal Mile, Castle, bus tours, food, drink, Princes street and the Princes Street gardens, the nighttime ghost walks, Greyfriars Bobby statue, National Museum of Scotland, Camera Obscura… it’s a proper walkable, memorable city. The bus tours even head out to Holyrood and the Scottish Parliament.
Things to be aware of
Midges
Midges in the Highlands peak around July to August. I’ll never forget an Audi cabriolet owner who left his open outside the small private hotel off the single track road northeast out of Banavie. Absolutely crawling in little black flies it was. They bite, so take insect repellent.
Glasgow accents can be almost impenetrable without listening carefully and deliberately. The farther north and west in Scotland one ventures the higher the chance of encountering an Hebridean voice; wonderful, mellifluous, just wonderful.
Apology
None of this is as in-depth as I’d like it to be, and I’ve not linked anything much as initially written, constructed as it is on the spur of the moment. I’d rather just go and visit! A road trip is a great way of seeing Scotland. It’s my favourite country anywhere.
Feel free to ask questions! The answers might be rubbish but who knows? 🙂
The thing about power, including when people use terms like soft power and hard power, is that it is entirely misunderstood.
There is a quotation that follows people with power and authority. Until literally just now I had never thought to search out the context.
Lord Acton (John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, 13th Marquess of Groppoli, KCVO DL) wrote it in a letter1 to Archbishop Mandell Creighton on April 5, 1887.
So, not just anyone then.
And this is it:
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.”
Speaking of bad men, I wildly overestimated the number of false or misleading statements made by the 45th President of the United States of America. It turns out that, according to the Washington Post, he only made 30,573, not the 48,000 figure I had in my head.2
It’s only been a little over 5 years since he lost the previous election.
My most repeated quotation with the #QuoteSunday hashtag – across 4 social networks including the fondly-remembered App.net – is by George Santayana. You’ll have seen and probably heard this one too:
” Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Until about 16 or 17 months ago it was my fervent hope (even as an Englishman I’m being honest here) that President 47 would be constrained by the power of existing laws, and ‘the people’ would have the representation to…3
Yeah, I’m naive.
Dictator.
No, in no way, shape or form a benevolent one.
Anyway, even when power is wielded for good it doesn’t always work out as intended.
A plaque dedicated to Cleveland Ohio’s Mayor Michael R. White’s efforts to restore the NFL Browns franchise to his city after owner Art Modell moved the team to Baltimore in 1995. | “The Cleveland Browns Organization dedicates this plaque to Mayor Michael R. White, whose tireless leadership led to the retention of the Cleveland Browns Football Franchise for this great community. Mayor White quarterbacked a team of citizens who refused to quit until they scored a final and permanent victory. “Our name, our team, our colors,” became the slogan and the goal for his successful campaign. This magnificent stadium serves as the new home of the Browns and it also serves as a tribute to the effort that reflects the spirit and tenacity that makes Cleveland a special place.”
When a nation is at war with another a calculation is made, how can we end it quickly?
Negotiation or an overwhelming display of force, both strategies are intended to show the foreign power it would be a good idea to stop attacking.
The 2026 Iran War is not a war. I’m pretty sure none of the wars the USA had involved themselves in since WWII have been wars. They get fancy names, Desert Storm, Operation Epic Fury, adult stuff right?
So if not wars then what?
It’s about control, not an imminent threat.
And because there’s no imminent threat one has to be manufactured.
Of course 2 parties are using missiles or dropping bombs on the other, and sure, other nations are helping out. But both Israel and the USA don’t seem too concerned with the convention of “we need to end this as soon as we can”.
If the war was won a few weeks ago then why are the bombs still dropping? Why is the deranged US dictator threatening to destroy all the Iranian bridges and power plants tomorrow? Why the deaths?
There’s another calculation in wartime. The first part, how long will it take to rebuild after the conflict ends and destruction and loss of life can be assessed? The second part, who’s going to do it? The third part is likely to be, how much can we make on the interest payments?
A dog’s rustly rabbit toy. Ripped apart after a year, with no stuffing left now, no squeaker, but still loved and played with every day. How could it be replaced?
It’d be naive to assume that people don’t get rich from making armaments and reconstructing a country’s infrastructure. But I sense there’s been a plan all along.
China and Russia are used to building major infrastructure projects in areas ‘the west’ neglects, especially when the west withdraws funding.
But they’re not the bad guys here, despite Russia’s Ukraine War. Not the bad guys in the limited context of a rebuild or a shift in the world order.
There’s money to be made. Lots of it. And the people who make it for themselves don’t care where it comes from. Same as it ever was.
Before I finish this superficial, fact-light post, I have to make mention of a Mastodon toot I saw earlier. When replying to a post about the elevated likelihood that nuclear weapons would be used against Iran, a reply said they were more concerned with the near-certainty of climate change than the chance of nukes.
Climate change and the devastation that will bring is real. But we must not take our eyes off the here-and-now. We can’t allow an imminent terrible thing to happen because we don’t care it’s not as big as a more far-away terrible thing.
A fourth part to the calculation above, how long will it take for the defeated nation to pay for a rebuild? Right now it’s looking like the power plants and bridges might be destroyed tomorrow. Oil facilities have already been targeted. How could Iran pay?
I mean, it’s not as though there’s a narrow strip of land at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea that’s ripe for luxury resorts. Is it now.
So oil? Well, of course.
If it was just the re-opening of the Straits of Hormuz there’d be no need to make a country literally dark and impenetrable.
In much the same way the USA wanted to acquire the minerals and rare earth elements from Ukraine and Greenland, it’s greed.
I can’t bring myself to conclude anything right now. Well, apart from wondering who’s going to be the first nuclear power to use them in the 21st century.
USA?
Israel?
Oh, and we’ve got an entire region potentially up in arms. Yay.
Terrorists? Yay.
But terrorism, when it starts, will have a sound foundation that not many rational, sane people can deny.
“One final point, simply attempting vengeance, to kill terrorists without any other coherent strategy to stop ordinary people being turned into terrorists, will never work.”
I happen to be lazy when it comes to generating blog posts. No, I don’t use any form of AI1, I just occasionally repurpose text I’ve made elsewhere.
So here is one lightly remodelled from an email I sent asking to sign up to The Human made Webring, a ring highlighting sites made by people against using AI slop in their personal websites.
So what is a webring? A collection of sites set up around a ring-like structure with simple links to a previous site, a next site, and a random site. Look at the bottom of each of my pages here for more. (As of the time of writing I’m not in the ring so only previous and next work).
A photo of a spider and its web in a garden. It’s probably the most appropriate of my photos to illustrate how the web works and webrings work. (p.s. I don’t know how the web works).
It’s been decades since I last signed up to one – something I found on GeoCities, so probably common during the late nineties and early noughties. I’ve not gained much in the way of social reach since, so I won’t be much of a publicist or evangelist. But as a member and consumer of fediverse content I’m definitely hoping this takes off!
Best wishes to everyone who signs up!
I have one AI-generated image in this blog. A prize to whoever finds it. (The prize is not having to read more of my blog). 🙂 ↩
In 1992 mum and I went on our first foreign holiday, to the west coast of the USA. I had enough time to research what differences we were likely to find, but my biggest fail was not anticipating mixer taps and toilet flushes.
A tap is a faucet in the ‘States. But that’s not it.
San Diego and Phoenix had cards by the handbasins asking patrons to save water directly, and save water by cutting down towel change requests. Makes a lot of sense there due to the region’s climate.
In the United Kingdom taps were, in my experience at least, two at a time, a hot and a cold. No mixers. Toilet flushes were either a pivoting handle on the front of the cistern or a chain pull when the cistern was suspended just below ceiling level.
And, right through until 2007, that’s just how it was. Pretty much.
And then my wife, first daughter and I moved house.
The previous owners – we called them ‘The Bastards’ for various reasons throughout the period of negotiation, the legal stuff, and for the issues we found after moving in – had installed ‘luxury’ features such as single push button low-capacity-cistern flushes, mixer taps in the en-suite (did we become posh buying the place?) and bathroom (the place with a bath).
Oooo… nice.
The utility room (yeah, we’re posh) and downstairs toilet (we have 3 toilets!) had a hot and cold tap and a handle flush. Fine, we’re not in those for long, and it was familiar.
A pair of taps, left-cold, right-hot, with a box of Bold washing machine capsules behind and a pack of Fairy Big One capsules on top of that. Chances are these taps have been in the house since it was built in 1988. We have no sentimental attachment to them.
But time passed and upgrades happened. So now we have push button flushes through and mixer taps everywhere apart from the utility room.
It’s not fashion. We save money with each flush – the designs have been updated to use less water. I get it. But…
Work installed new toilets, stand-up urinals and handbasins within the last year. The toilets have a dual-button flush. The taps have proximity detectors, the urinals work off a timer. (I don’t go in the Ladies). Every time I use the flushes I must think – which button?
I need an acronym thingy, because ‘small for yellow and big for brown’ doesn’t somehow work.
I watched a NASA moon launch live last night (UK time). Artemis 2. This mission sends a crewed spacecraft around the moon1 but you probably already knew that.
Cannot remember anything of Artemis 1. Still sinking in that I’m old enough to at least have been alive during the Apollo mission programme. I do not remember any of that either but I am lucky enough to know someone who does.
And as I have the Pale. Blue. Dot. feels right now I’ll go to bed thinking of great things.
A grainy low-resolution scan of a 35mm film photo of the moon, taken many years ago using a series of lenses and teleconverters.
I wanted so badly to say “fly” but it just does not sound right somehow. Need to refresh my nerd creds. ↩
To begin with, a Hawaiian pizza is a pizza with ham and pineapple toppings. The odds are good that if you could get over the shock of fruit on a pizza you tried it, at least once. The ‘Bazwich’ though, probably not, if you ever heard of it.
I made a sandwich a couple of decades ago, a sandwich of polarisation. People who try it either love it or hate it. It has to be said though, nobody has given me feedback, maybe nobody tried it.
21 years ago today I got together with my wife to-to-be.
Today we shared a large measure of Dooley’s toffee cream liqueur – around the 21st anniversary of my first sip from my favourite whisky glass. It’s a Glencairn (thistle-shaped) bought in 3 days time 21 years ago from a little shop in Edinburgh.
And today is also the 20th anniversary of my proposal of marriage, in the romantic setting of a ferry ship cabin on the way back from a mini cruise to Bruges. She says I did it in international waters to avoid future complications. 🙂
Narrator, “There were many many future complications.”
Maps have fascinated me for most of my life. Old maps, new maps, paper maps, ring bound or fold-flat books, modern online digital maps, maps on CD, satellite navigation maps. Maps in general.
For the majority of my life consumer satellite navigation systems didn’t exist so we bought and planned trips & holidays using paper maps – maps of the major road networks down to town street maps. Back then I could memorise a route from home to any destination and had a decent sense of direction in case of a need to recalculate due to roadworks or unforeseen circumstances.
I bet I could still do it despite my age. Maybe. No, it’s not me challenging myself so don’t you try!
Speaking of old things, one of the most useful sources of historic data for the United Kingdom is the National Library of Scotland’s ‘Map images’ site at https://maps.nls.uk. 13 browsable categories are enough to please anyone like me. But that’s just the beginning.
Walking Pumpkin dog yesterday we came across an anomaly at the side of the road, a dropped kerb led directly nowhere. Well ok, into an unbroken well-established wall against a small earth bank.
6 maps in I found it on an Ordnance Survey1 map surveyed in 1928 – a ‘reservoir valve house’, whatever one of those is. It existed before the 1890 survey and was removed a decade or two before the end of the 20th century (I used to cycle up there, and have seen a lot of changes since I was young and fit)!
There are loads of reservoirs around the town, and to be honest although I’ve walked by and around some I never gave the engineering a second thought. Well ok, I’d be somewhat troubled if a dam wall burst and flooded the town.
Speaking of mortality and history, this again reminded me that of the 3 schools I attended as a child, only one still exists. Of the pubs I drank in as a young adult none now exist as pubs (they’re funeral parlours, offices and a private residence). Of those I frequented until my forties, one stl. Of the company buildings I worked in my family first is now a supermarket, I still work in the second, the third company (also the first) mismanaged their way out of the third building, and I still work in the fourth’s which is the second’s…2
And when my generation’s gone will anyone be interested in any of this, or will have other things taken attention spans?
Speaking of limited attention spans, I wondered earlier if my family is within the range of the ‘bad guys’. We have first to define bad guys – which is not as easy as it appears. Let’s say for the sake of advancing this the bad guys have missiles with a 2500-mile range.
Looking for a straight line distance measuring thing I found the ‘distance.to’ site, but it does more than straight lines. Check it out at https://www.distance.to. It’s translated into 17 languages and uses OpenStreetMap data. Nice.3
Are we within range? It’s marginal. Ask me next month when the bad guys may not be so simply and clearly defined.
An overview map of one of the Shetland islands – with a pushpin locating the hamlet of Twatt.
Not the rabbit hole I expected this weekend.
Anyway, both sites get Baz’s seal of approval. 🦭
I’ve not linked to the Ordnance Survey’s main site, it’s not tailored for casual users so I don’t visit. I use their excellent app instead. ↩
distance.to is a part of Stefan Georg’s https://distance.tools site – a very comprehensive set of online distance measuring tools for all kinds of users. ↩
