Today the Fremont district of Seattle has the annual summer solstice parade. I suspect that this year’s parade will attract even larger crowds than last year’s given the weather conditions are not quite so dismal as a year ago. Back then I was speculating how the rain would interact with the paint so artfully decorating many of the naked cyclists leading the way. A few years ago my band was part of the festival and parade when Honk West coincided with Summer Solstice.

I’ve just finished the chapter about Mark Zuckerberg in “Burn Book” by Kara Swisher and I’d kind of like to immediately stop using Facebook. And she hasn’t even gotten to Elon Musk yet.

I can’t really disagree with what the authors are saying here. “Peak Denialism” is a provocative but useful phrase that can be a reminder to not look away from unpleasant truths.

We’ve Hit Peak Denial. Here’s Why We Can’t Turn Away From Reality | Scientific American

We are living through a terrible time in humanity. Here’s why we tend to stick our heads in the sand and why we need to pull them out, fast

I really hope this story has a happy ending. We discovered Scarecrow Video just a few months ago and have been regularly visiting the store and borrowing DVDs. It really is a unique and precious resource for movie lovers.

Scarecrow Video says it needs to raise $1.8M or face possible closure | The Seattle Times

I think we’ll make a return visit today and hopefully dodge any potential rain.

I’m glad to have attended this event on Friday since yesterday’s weather was quite wet and chilly

What’s a good alternative to Bartender on the Mac? I know I tried out one a few years ago, but I can’t remember what it was.

Bartender Mac app shifts owners, adds telemetry:

Popular app Bartender was quietly bought, and a shady certificate replacement, insertion of invasive telemetry, and a lack of transparent responses by the new owners has shaken confidence in the Mac community

I need to think about this a little more!

Light and Distance in an Expanding Universe - NeuroLogica Blog:

Quite an interesting and topical article by Steve Novella of “Skeptics Guide to the Universe”.

The Moon Race is On - NeuroLogica Blog:

What are the geopolitical, economic, commercial, technological, scientific and exploration factors pushing us back to the Moon? It’s complicated, but here are some factors that are commonly discussed by experts.

It’s worth keeping this in mind. I came across this article after I played with the OpenAI product and Bing.

The People’s AI – Doc Searls Weblog:

The People’s AI can only come from people. Since it will be made of code, it will come from open-source developers working for all of us, and not just for their employers—even if those employers are companies listed above.*

That’s how we got Linux, Apache, MySQL, Python, and countless other open-source code bases on which the digital world is now built from the ground up. Our common ground is open-source code, standards, and protocols.

I just discovered that I can use ChatGPT 4 on OpenAI’s website for a few queries and then I got told that I have a few hours delay before getting to use version 4 again. I’m back to queries using 3.5. I guess this works for me as a way to very occasionally try queries with this latest version. I noticed that it did give more detailed replies. Back to Bing for now!

It’s good to eat outside again at various local restaurants courtesy of warmer weather. Of course you can always get rained upon which happened to us late yesterday afternoon. A quick table move to the umbrella shelter solved that concern however and then, of course the sun returned!

Here’s a photo just before the rain decided to dilute my wine a little bit.

Speaking of the fictional character Inspector Rebus I’ve just borrowed a DVD of the Rebus television series from the Edmonds Sno-Isles Library.

Testing Drafts action again.

Back to reading some fiction. I’ve borrowed the ebook of The Black Room by Ian Rankin and I’m reading it on Libby on my iPhone. I love mysteries but have never really gotten into the Inspector Rebus books in as big a way as I have with the Bosch books by Michael Connelly. I should mention that I’ve read the previous Rebeus books in the series but that’s less than a handful and there are many more to go!

Here’s our most recent Troll sighting over on Lincoln Park shore just to the South of Alki Beach which is in West Seattle. He’s Bruun Idun - Way of the Bird King. I think we are going to try and find the remaining Trolls in the region over the next few weeks.

Summer seems to have finally arrived here in the Seattle region. I took some photos yesterday at Richmond Beach and people were out enjoying a pleasantly warm Saturday.

I have been having issues holding my Nikon 6ii camera because of arthritis pain and so I’ve gone out and bought a Nikon Z30 camera to take some of the burden off my right hand wrist. I’ve not sold the larger camera and can more or less continue using it with a Peak Design Clutch but there’s a lot of photography that I can do with the smaller and lighter model.

We recently checked out Pia the Troll on Bainbridge Island. Our plan to to see all of these trolls around the Pacific Northwest region and this is our second sighting.

Uncut Gems is something of a Gem of a movie for Adam Sandler. It took me a while to warm up to this extremely busy film but the last 30 minutes or so are essential viewing.

We are almost halfway through the final season of Picard. So glad for public libraries and in particularly public libraries that have good collections of DVDs allowing us to borrow this Star Trek series and have to subscribe to one more streaming channel! #DVD #Picard

Looking out for critters stranded by low tide here in Edmonds earlier this week.

Michael Cavanaugh wowed the audience last night at the Edmonds Center for the Arts. He was really on fire, as it were, and never more so with his incredible performance of Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Great Balls of Fire”. That was a crowd-pleaser but there was so much more as he played many Elton John and Billy Joel hits in this two-hour concert.

The new Nordic Museum really impresses; definitely an upgrade from the museum that I visited years ago.

This guy is in front of the Nordic Museum in Ballard, WA