Making Transportation Even Harder

Traffic around here sucks. Cities seem to deal with this by scaring you away from driving. They make it more and more difficult to go by car. And Americans are addicted to cars - we need less of them by an exponential amount. Except no one's really done anything to improve public transit. As much as I'd love to drive less (I hate driving), there's no other way I can get to work. And with unbelievably insane living expenses, there's no way I can move closer. A bus ride could take me 3 hours one way, for a ride that would be 30 minutes by car. The area's taking away transportation options without giving any alternatives. 

Now they've got a fun new idea.  Express lanes. They took away the carpool lanes, which actually do something to diminish the number of cars on the road. Then they replaced them with toll lanes. So there's one more expense on top of this insanely expensive area. Many people will never be able to afford the lane, when they used to take it for free and save gas while carpooling. And my eco friendly car has a carpool sticker, which I guess I can't use either anymore.

If they end up using that toll money to build more train tracks or something, I'd be all for it. But I'll eat my hat if that's where the money's going. And that still won't help the people that used to use the carpool lanes.

Poetry as Proof

I'm reading an old book from China, called Journey to the West. There are a number of poems used throughout the saga.

There's a phrase they've used several times, which always makes me scratch my head. Though it may just be a translation thing. Sometimes when they're talking about a certain event, they'll lead up to a piece of poetry by saying, "here's a poem that proves it." As though writing a poem about something is proof that it happened. And no one can provide false evidence. 

Or maybe it's a statement about the power of a poem? I'm not sure. I'd need a literature scholar to explain that one to me!

 

Another batch of photos!

Lioness

Snow leopard

Red Panda (he likes to play with his tail)

Meerkat

It actually sounds kind of fascinating to use AI to create art. Maybe to help with character scenes, or something. But I also feel that this is going to cause endless troubles to artists. More than the bit of fun is worth.

Machines Writing

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMTConHyTYU

Yeah, I won't lie. The AI thing kinda creeps me out. Forget kinda. It really creeps me out.

Here's more about it, from how it affects real artists:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u1CeiSHqwY&t=1428s

Artists have been leaving Deviantart in swarms (again) because Deviantart is openly supporting AI art. At first, they were going to make artists mark every single one of their posts if they didn't want AI to use it in their designs. The artists were so furious that DA quickly changed it to automatically not be free to use. But really, AI can use your art whether you want them to or not.

Also, a city near me just made it legal to use robots to kill people in certain dangerous situations.

Name Collection

I just watched a movie called "The Man Who Invented Christmas." It's about Charles Dickens writing A Christmas Carol. 

I don't know how many details in this movie were actually accurate. But one caught my attention. Charles Dickens would collect names. If he met someone with an interesting name, he'd make note of it.

I do the same thing. I actually have a list of names- mostly the more fantasy-style names. If I hear something interesting, I'll either write it down or tweak it a bit and then write it down. I also have a book of baby names, which gives origins and meanings of names.

And one other thing about the movie? The main actor also did a certain crazy monkey.

Heading to Alola

Just before I went to Peru, I finally finished the first draft of my next fanfic.

For the last one, there would be a month or two between posts. That didn't seem fair to anyone reading. So this time I wrote out the entire first draft. Now all I have to do is edit as I go along. Hopefully I'll be able to get up one chapter every 2 weeks or so. 

But I have to finish my Peru notes first. TTATT

Return from Peru

 Peru was awesome! 

I got home a few days ago. It may take me a while to get everything organized for blog posts though. I didn't have internet for much of the trip. Unsurprising, considering we were out in the Amazon. But the rest of my free time was spent taking notes on everything that happened. I just have to organize and tidy them up @_@  

But eventually I'll get some stories up here!

(My delay has absolutely nothing to do with the new Pokémon Violet game)

I'm almost a year behind on zoo photos, so I'm going to throw a bunch of them up the next few weeks. 

I'll start with bears and wolves and some other carnivores.

Wolverine:

Mexican Gray Wolves:

Grizzly bears:

Black bears: