Lost in the familiar wood.
I have not been good.
Flowers catch at me.
Breaking free
I laugh
As I have travelled this path
Before, and spent hours
Delighting in flowers,
But no more?
Lost In The Familiar Wood
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Monthly Archives: May 2018
Flirts
Flirts in skirts.
All is quiet
At night.
Save for the riot
Of dreams and nightmares.
He who dares
May Gain the prize
Of a girl’s come-on eyes.
But if she say “no”
Will he go
Down the path
Of nice guy or psychopath?
Flirtation
Is not an invitation
To remove a girl’s short dress
Unless
She explicitly says “yes”.
The People VS Tech: How The Internet Is Destroying Democracy
Recently the Centre for Policy Studies, a centre-right think tank based in London, hosted a discussion on the subject “Is The Internet Destroying Democracy”? Jamie Bartlett, the author of “The People VS Tech: How The Internet Is Killing Democracy” debated the impact of technological advancement with Robert Colvile of CapX, an offshoot of the CPS. The discussion is an interesting one and can be found here, https://capx.co/free-exchange-is-the-internet-destroying-democracy/
How The Enlightenment Ends
Yesterday (18 May) I read a thought provoking article by Henry Kissinger on the subject of artificial intelligence or AI. The gist of Kissinger’s article is that the enlightenment liberated humanity while we are in danger (by relying on AI) of becoming slaves to the emerging technology and loosing our ability to think critically. The below quote from Kissinger’s article strikes me as containing much wisdom, particularly his point about many technophiles taking refuge from solitude in technology:
“Users of the internet emphasize retrieving and manipulating information over contextualizing or conceptualizing its meaning. They rarely interrogate history or philosophy; as a rule, they demand information relevant to their immediate practical needs. In the process, search-engine algorithms acquire the capacity to predict the preferences of individual clients, enabling the algorithms to personalize results and make them available to other parties for political or commercial purposes. Truth becomes relative. Information threatens to overwhelm wisdom.
Inundated via social media with the opinions of multitudes, users are diverted from introspection; in truth many technophiles use the internet to avoid the solitude they dread. All of these pressures weaken the fortitude required to develop and sustain convictions that can be implemented only by traveling a lonely road, which is the essence of creativity”.
To read the article please visit https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/henry-kissinger-ai-could-mean-the-end-of-human-history/559124/.
Having Her Headphones On
Having her headphones on
And being far gone
In music’s sound
She perceives nothing profound.
But there is nothing profound
To see
In the pound, pound, pound
Of he.
It being over
She retrieves her pullover
And other things.
She sings
Her feet
Tap to a discordant beat
And with headphones still in place
She departs leaving a slight trace
Of perfume
And a discarded hairband
In the bedroom.
The latter he does not understand.
There Was A Young Lady Called Sky
There was a young lady called Sky
Who’s heels where extremely high.
Her sister Louise
Being a terrible tease
Lent them to my good friend Guy.
There Was A Young Lady Called Moriah
There was a young lady called Moriah
Who married a country squire.
While her husband shot grouse
She would remain in the house
And stoke the parson’s fire
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Authors
On 25 May, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect. “What has this to do with authors?” I hear you ask.
In essence, the GDPR gives individuals much greater rights to have access to any information held on them and to have it provided (free of charge) on request. There is also a right to be forgotten/for data to be destroyed at the request of the person to whom the data relates.
My understanding is that anyone who has a blog to which people subscribe via WordPress (or similar platform) will not be affected as the responsibility for handling the data rests with the blogging platform (E.G. a person can hit the unsubscribe button at any time on WordPress and be unsubscribed without the blogg owner needing to take any action). If the platform hosting your blog is hacked (heaven forbid that this should happen) responsibility for any data loss rests with the blogging platform (not with the author).
However if you hold email addresses or other personal data on individuals on your own systems then you will, in all probability be affected. Basically anyone subscribing to an author newsletter needs to give their explicit consent (you can’t just subscribe them) and its important that there exists an easy way in which they can unsubscribe from your newsletter and request that their data be deleted. Many authors use Mail Chimp who are, I understand making strenuous efforts to ensure that anyone subscribing to your newsletter via their systems is protected/aware of their rights. However, its good practice to acquaint yourself with the coming changes as non compliance can result in a hefty financial penalty.
There is a good introductory article here, https://authorblberry.com/2018/03/12/what-gdpr-means-for-authors-and-bloggers/.
The disillusioned Rake
Passionless kisses,
Abysses
Of sandpaper, but one must be polite
And feign delight
For that is what a gentleman must do,
Whether or not it be true.
Whether there be the expense of a meal or no
Round and round I go
Gathering the fruit that is seeming sweet to eat,
Then awake, and wash the bitter juice
That did so seduce
From the once innocent sheet.
Standing At My Window
Standing at my window
Reluctant to go
For I know
Not how long I shall be here.
Not quite half-way through the year.
May is love and birds
And erratic words
That fall
As the passing sunlight upon my wall.
Tomorrow will come (probably for me)
And I shall see
The sun’s rays fall
Upon this wall
But I know not
What tomorrow has in store …
K Morris - Poet 