Month: June 2023

The Dark: The Titan submersible.

~ taran.a.rampersad@gmail.com ~ 2 Comments

It’s very dark down there. So dark, in fact, that the image at left might not do it justice. Lights don’t penetrate very far at those depths. At the depth of the wreckage of RMS Titanic, the pressure is around 4,000 pounds per square inch – the bite force of a saltwater crocodile.

Because of that, the Titan is spartan. Videos show a bluetooth controller and touchscreens in tight quarters. People spend $250,000 US to do this.

The New York Times has great coverage of the entire situation with the rescue efforts of the submersible Titan.

People also spend a lot of money to go to space. Virgin Galactic is willing to take $450,000 US of your spare change that you may find in your couch, as an example. It does have better lighting on that trip, I hear.

I’m an explorer myself, and I enjoy seeing new and interesting places and things. I have no interest in seeing the RMS Titanic’s wreckage which is essentially a graveyard. No one does expeditions like this in Pearl Harbor because those dead are honored and respected. The RMS Titanic’s dead apparently are not as much. Is it exploration or is it tourism? I think it’s tourism. Thrill seeking.

We can’t truly fathom how out of depth we are that deep in the ocean.

Why it sank is summarized as, “High speeds, a fatal wrong turn, cut costs, weather conditions, a dismissed key iceberg warning and lack of binoculars and lifeboats all contributed.” In essence, mistakes were made and the oceans do not abide mistakes very well.

Of course, we all hope that they are found alive and well, and someone will give them steaming cups of hot cocoa for their trouble. The news is alive with it because the news loves a good tragedy in the making, particularly one where it’s very dark and air is running out.

James Cameron might even do a movie about it, regardless of how it turns out, though I expect there won’t be much in the way of romance – and romance is what really sold the movie about the Titanic because we all know how it ends.

I suppose what bothers me most is that rescuing 5 survivors off that submersible that voluntarily went down there is such a news cycle item when there are people who are unable to get assistance in situations that they were involuntarily placed in. There are plenty of people who could use assistance from all these governments to simply keep their heads above water.

When the Challenger exploded, as could well happen with some of that space tourism stuff, these were scientists that were going to actually explore. To find out new things, to broaden humanity’s horizons, and I simply don’t feel the same about some people who pay exorbitant amounts to have a seat without giving anything of value back to humanity other than saying that they had a window view of a very sunken ship.

I bear them no ill will, in fact I wish them a safe rescue. It just seems priorities are askew. People paying to throw themselves off cliffs are costing millions in rescue efforts. People are spending hours watching nothing happen, because these things are not easy to do, and we have gained…

Well, when it’s all said and done, we’ll see what we’ve gained from this other than some advertising for the media, and maybe cost to taxpayers of the involved nations. That seems very weird to me.

Very weird.

It is, after all, very dark down there. We can send unmanned craft to go look at things that deep.

Communicating: Don’t Depend on AI.

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Our planet is full of communication. Elephants communicate over great distances, whales speak to each other across the depths and distances, and we do the same through a broad network we call the Internet now, built on the previous systems. Some might say it’s a nervous system of sorts, but if it’s a nervous system it does seem disconnected from a brain. Or maybe the brain hasn’t evolved yet. Maybe it never will.

I write this because when I was writing about the AI tools I use, which are spartan, I imagined a world where people relied so heavily on what’s marketed as artificial intelligence that they could no longer communicate to other human beings in person. It’s something that they’re writing papers on, and this one from 2021 seems pretty balanced. In some ways our technology helps, in some ways it hinders.

The paper, though, was before ‘AI’ became a popular thing, with even The Beatles helping make it famous. Maybe too famous for what it is, which at this point is really a bunch of clever algorithms trained on data that we collectively created. We’re amazed at well trained morons, who cleverly give us what it thinks we want like Netflix suggests things to show you. It’s different, but not very different.

When Grammarly came out, promising to make everyone better writers, I rolled my eyes because what it allowed was for more consistent output. It allowed really crappy writers to look like good ones, and unless they really wanted to learn how to write better – they wouldn’t.

The fact that they’re probably still subscribing to Grammarly would make the point. If something is going to make you better at something, like training wheels on a bicycle, you can only tell if you take off the wheels. I’m willing to bet that people who have consistently used Grammarly are probably still using it because it did not make them better writers, it simply made it easier for them to appear that they wrote well.

I could be wrong. I don’t think I am, but if someone has some data on this either way, I’d love to see it.

Speaking for myself, though most of my professional life was in technology, the press of what I actually did was communication. I could communicate with non-technical and technical people alike, which is something I still do online on RealityFragments.com and KnowProSE.com. I was known for it in some circles, making overcomplicated things simple and making the unnecessarily insulative dialects of technology more accessible to people.

In all that time, what I learned is that to become a better writer, one has to read and one has to write. Reading rubbish is only good if you know it’s rubbish, because it gives you examples of what not to do when you’re writing. If you don’t know it’s rubbish, you might think it’s the right way to do things and go around spreading more rubbish.

Which brings us back full circle to these large language models that can’t really tell what is rubbish or not. They use probability to determine what is most acceptable – think average, banal – based on their deep learning models. The same is true of images and video, I imagine. Without a human around with some skill in knowing what’s rubbish and what isn’t, people will just be regurgitating rubbish to each other.

But who picks who has that skill? You can all breathe, it isn’t me. I’ve played with the large language models and found them wanting. They’re like college graduates who crammed for tests, have an infallible memory, but don’t understand the underlying concepts- which, by the way, is something we also allow to run around in places of authority making really poor decisions. It’s popular, though.

Communication is a skill. It’s an important skill. It’s such an important skill that if you find yourself using AI tools all the time to do it, I offer that you’re not just robbing yourself…

You’re polluting.

Beyond The Beatles: AI & The Music Industry.

~ taran.a.rampersad@gmail.com ~ 1 Comment

I imagine George Harrison and John Lennon would have plenty to talk about if they were still alive today regarding the ethics of using artificial intelligence to get that one more Beatles song.

I wrote that in this instance, it might be ok, but it does open up a can of worms. And, as I noted on this good read about why the Beatles using AI should be ok, it seems more like The Beatles are being used to market artificial intelligence than vice versa. Gaining some credibility through The Beatles would definitely serve those invested in artificial intelligence with maybe some fleeting value for the song.

After all, whatever the song is, it will also be a song of controversy now, and for better or worse, how good the song is received will help define how AI is used in commercial music.

The music business is by itself a Game of Rights. Just a look at who owns the rights to The Beatles music over the years should be an eye opener. It’s presently Sir Paul McCartney and Sony/ATV, but it wasn’t always the case and it likely won’t always be the case.

Given the Copyright Extension Act, it may well change again. Copyrights and publishing rights rule the industry, and the actual artists involved generally have little to no say themselves on how their works will be used. Likeness of performance, though, seems to be falling under different rules.

“…The recording industry has quickly mobilised against artificial intelligence, launching a group called the “Human Artistry Campaign“, and warning that AI companies are violating copyright by training their software on commercially-released music.

Whether AI-written music can be copyrighted is still under debate. Under English copyright law, for example, works generated by AI, can theoretically be protected.

However, the US Copyright Office recently ruled that AI art, including music, can’t be copyrighted as it is “not the product of human authorship”…”

“Sting warns against AI songs as he wins prestigious music prize“, BBC, Mark Savage, 18 May 2023.

So ‘protecting’ these works is something being… negotiated. The music industry lobbyists will meet with the regulators and deal with public upheaval, and whatever compromise is to happen will happen.

Sting, in that article, makes the point that he doesn’t think humans should be taken out of the process and should drive the process, and he’s in a position to say something. Sir Paul McCartney is in a similar position, if not better, and has done something.

Yet, really, the issue is even deeper than artificial intelligence and music. Popular music is demonstrably formulaic.

“…The findings are somewhat intuitive. Of course a genre will sell more once it forms an established sound that listeners can identify with. But the science is only proving the now-dominant truth of pop music: Record companies are only comfortable promoting things they already know will sell. And they know that now better than ever.

Record labels are pouring resources into data analysis tools, using them to predict which songs will be the next breakout hit. According to Derek Thompson at the Atlantic, executives can use services like Shazam and HitPredictor to see which songs will break out next with surprising accuracy…”

“Scientists Just Discovered Why All Pop Music Sounds Exactly the Same“, Mic.com, Tom Barnes, Jan 7, 2015

They’ve already been publishing generic music, it’s what they do. Popular music is gauged by demand but defined by the music industry itself.

And from the artist angle – there’s already sampling. Speaking for myself, I like a good remix of songs done by DJs, and that allows the original artist to have their performance used in ways that they may not expect or like.

In essence, the problems with artificial intelligence simply highlight the problems with the modern music industry – but, the music industry itself doesn’t see a problem. It’s bias becomes our bias, and they just say, “Buy us.”

They’re making money and spitting out generic music, and people are buying it. AI is hardly going to change that.

I miss the days when music was less formulaic.

Just Fire.

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The community was having a barbecue, I was informed, and thus I decided that 2 hours after the start time I would swing by, show my face, see what was going on – and then return to my position in orbit somewhere.

It was a good plan. A solid plan. I had the exit strategy built in too, because I don’t eat heavy meals before bed, and on a Saturday night I generally find my pillow more appealing than most things.

When I got there, I found the guys trying to figure out how to light the barbecue pit. It was just after 7 pm, the barbecued started at 5 pm per the circular, and no one had thought maybe to check the grill first. They thought it would be a simple thing of igniting some gas and starting the grill.

Nobody told them the gas on that grill hadn’t worked in years.

Coal. And coal is something you need to get heated up right for a nice even grill. This is part science and part art, and what surprised me was that the guys there did not know how to do this. I spent about an hour and a half with all the wrong tools getting some of the damp coals going, chasing this drunk guy off more than once who kept fiddling with the gas on the grill while I’m playing with hot coals.

Apparently I hurt his feelings, because as I was explaining the carburetion of the second grill, he informed everyone that, “Taran knows everything.” and an eyeroll. I laughed. Of course I don’t know everything, but so far I was the only one who got the coals to glow.

I can make fire. It was a requirement in my youth. I had been charged to keep the coals hot without an explanation on how to do it, and had to figure it out. Failure does not make one warm.

Then everyone decided to use someone else’s grill. It was brand new and they wanted to christen it.

Then someone unleashed the right tools – self-lighting charcoal and lighter fluid.

One of the ladies wanted to take my picture with the grill, and I said I didn’t want to have my picture taken. I generally don’t. She persisted with her phone, I persisted with not giving a clear shot, then I took a picture of her with my phone, and said, “There, now we’re even.” She looked puzzled. I said, “I don’t know where your picture is going to end up and who will mess with it, and you don’t know where my picture will end up and who will mess with it.” A realization dawned in her eyes. After these few minutes, I said, “When I said I don’t want my picture taken, I mean… I don’t want my picture taken.“

I think she understood.

The whole thing was weird for me. When I think of a barbecue, I think of disposable plates, of the smell of the grill and the wonders sizzling on it, disposable cups and people in shorts. This was quite different. Plates of vegetables done fancy – you know that circle thing that they do so that people can ruin it? Yes, that. there were wine glasses. Wine glasses! And people were dressed up!

My life has been very different from theirs. A barbecue was not managed, and it was not managed poorly – very basic things had to happen.

It started with lighting the grill and getting the heat even.

For me, it is that blissful solitude of a man and fire, the meditation, the silent moments away from everyone while staring into the grill and watching the coals begin to glow. As it warms, it’s a little hard not to smile, understanding at a more and more miniscule level over the decades of how it was happening.

But to them, I suppose, it’s just fire.

Where they see flowers, I see complex interactions and an evolution that attracted what pollenates, each flower telling us more about the pollenator species than itself in it’s aesthetics. Millenia of evolution culminating in something we ourselves find aesthetically pleasing. We’re pollenators too.

But to them, they’re just flowers.

A Ramble on Romance.

~ taran.a.rampersad@gmail.com ~ 2 Comments

One aspect of writing that I haven’t really tried my hand with is romance, likely with good reason. My version of romance is a bit different, and a combination of Nurse Patty’s long rant on dating combined with Darcy’s wonderful hook to what she’s writing had me thinking about that today.

To add to this, cashier’s at stores were wishing me a happy Father’s Day today and handing me swag, reminding me of some young woman trying to get me to try some version of Johnson and Johnson’s baby oil for some reason or the other.

“Well, thanks, but I don’t have a use for baby products.”

“But you must know someone who has a baby – or maybe your grandchildren?”, she responded with a big ‘I’m going to win at this introducing product‘ smile.

With arched eyebrow and an equal smile, I responded, “I haven’t been so pleasantly insulted in a while.”

“uhhhhhhhhhhhh”, she said, her eyes darting left and right.

Somewhere along the way, people decided that when you reach a certain age you have children, as if they magically appear from the sky. It doesn’t bother me as much as worries me; is this what they have pre-defined their own lives as, these younger generations?

In time, they may figure out that being alone is better than being with the wrong person. I’ve gone through some wrong people. We all have. It wasn’t about red flags but about a very simple concept most people don’t understand:

Just because someone is going in the same direction doesn’t mean that they’ve got the same destination.

I think for a relationship to work, the destinations may not have to be the same, but they have to be within a certain range of each other which likely varies from person to person. I don’t know. I’m not an expert.

Dating.

For most of my life, ‘dating’ was simply what other people did. This whole Hollywood, “Get dressed up and eat dinner and see a movie” thing never happened with me. I do not feel compelled to get dressed up, I’m comfortable in my jeans and a t-shirt. My ideal date is a woman similarly attired, no worry of makeup, and just hanging out and being herself.

Just getting to a date is a problem. In the 1990s forward, where people spend the majority of their time was a sexual harassment minefield, with some fair reason since there was sexual harassment. Everyone was on high alert, and very leery around attractive women so that something couldn’t be misinterpreted. A wrong word misinterpreted could be a visit to HR.

So you end up at bars, and I’m gonna let everyone in on a little secret: You’re unlikely to find someone you want to meet at a bar unless you really like bars. That’s just one-night-stand territory for the most part, and I’ve spent way too much time at bars toward that end.

Then there’s the people who try to set you up, and I have had horrible experiences with that. Even recently, unbidden, someone tried to set me up with someone and tried to sell it to me with, “She’s a gynecologist!”.

I’m not sure they understand what I’m working with here. It’s quite nice that she’s a gynecologist, doing great work with women’s health and it’s not something I don’t appreciate. It’s just not something that makes me thing, “Wow! I’ve always wanted to go out with a gynecologist!”.

An oceanographer? Oh hell yeah.

Speed Dating

I did try speed dating. That was amazingly annoying, overpriced, and more like an interview when I’m not actually looking for the job at that ‘company’. At a company interview, you research the company, you try to say everything that’s right at the interview… but on a date, I just want to know if it’s a fit or not.

I had wonderful conversations with some ladies, it was sort of fun, but there was this pressure in the air that had me smelling more adrenaline than hormones.

Then we get to….

Online Dating

This is the worst idea ever. If you’ve never been at the wrong end of social biases, you won’t get it, but there’s just a bunch of baked in biases that just get profiles passed over – and then women complain when guys are dishonest. I’ve never bothered being dishonest on a profile, and maybe because of that it has never worked for me – but I can’t imagine it working if I were dishonest either.

Just so many biases to work against.

Height

Besides, women generally overlook short guys, and I’m all of 5′ 3″. For dating profiles on websites, you can lie – which I don’t see the point of – or float around in the ether. Height matters in this regard, and I hadn’t realized how much this means culturally until I tried to generate an AI image of a short guy with a taller woman having a romantic interlude. All the guys were taller, every time – so I forced it to a dwarf and a woman, and that worked out for the image above.

That implies a pretty big bias in the images of romance. Nobody draws short guys and tall women.

I don’t have a problem with it, but there are guys who do. I’ve seen reels on Facebook about it and thought, “If they don’t want you, they don’t matter.” They don’t.

Race.

Race doesn’t bother me because it’s a made-up thing. I have been romantically involved with just about every sort of ‘race’ possible, and it’s never mattered to me – but on online dating, it’s easy to click a box that says, “my race”. I imagine that works very well for people who have a race. I don’t. I’m a mutt, I have no papers. So right there, Islide through the cracks. I am “other”, over there somewhere above algae, which is pretty funny if you consider how mixed up most people really are. ‘Race’. Hah.

I’m sure there are other biases I’m unaware of that women have.

But I have experienced romance.

Despite all of this, I have experienced and participated in romance, but not of the novel or Hollywood variety. It can be fun. And each time, it just…

Happened.

And so when people ask me why I’m single, I’ll just look at them and laugh because they’ll complain to me about their significant other in the very same breath. I’ve had women drive me nuts, but I’ve never talked them down because the ones who I have had romantic relationships were worth the respect of not gossiping about. Sometimes things don’t work out. It’s all temporary anyway.

And…

I want you to say this to someone today…

It’s perfectly fine to be single. If someone who is worth it comes along, go for it. And if they don’t, live your life.

Society expects things from you, but society doesn’t always give you what you need. How bad do you need the government to get involved with your relationship? How much do you need that tax break?

Be yourself. After all, that’s who you are.

Bookstores and Libraries.

~ taran.a.rampersad@gmail.com ~ Leave a comment

I’m an explorer of sorts. I don’t wander around planting flags, but I do wander around and see what I can. I’ve traveled when it was easier to do so, and I still will as I can – but international traveling has become such an annoyance.

There was a time when we didn’t have to take off our shoes and belts at airports, kids, or do digital X-ray pornography for the TSA. In that regard, terrorism won.

Books allow me to keep my belt and shoes on and don’t care how much toothpaste I have in my carry on.

I don’t know how it will be with future generations. Everyone seems too busy chattering away, but I fully expect that when the memes age all that will be left are memories of the Internet detritus. When they get to my age, will they be asking each other if they remember that meme?

For me, I absorb books. I revisit some every few years and sometimes find in the revisiting new things based on what I take with me into the book.

Good books are like that. Good books are worth keeping on a bookshelf as a reference. Good books can be dusty but not dated.

I like books. It’s part of how we distill ideas. I regularly go to bookstores in the hope that I’ll find something worth reading, and only now and then do I find something. Trinidad and Tobago doesn’t seem to be a big market for books and the bookstores reflect that, maybe.

I do miss wandering through a Waldenbooks, or Barnes and Nobles, or any physical bookstore. I’ve spent more time in libraries than in the education system at this point, I’m pretty sure. To me, there’s little that’s better than being surrounded by books.

I was over at Bookshop.org leafing through future books to read. I’m even putting together a little booklist because… well, I was goofing off. It’s not about commissions, it’s about encouraging people to read good books. Commissions generally suck on affiliate sites, and since they are using Stripe, it’s unlikely I’ll be able to collect anything anyway.

Some of my old stuff links to Amazon.com, but they have a stupid policy about affiliate links and accounts. If you happen to move across drawn lines on maps, they require you to have a separate account – and as a digital nomad, that simply doesn’t work very well.

It’s not about commissions. It’s about the ideas in those books and making sure people have a chance to access them easily. If a book is available legally for free, I’m going to point to them.

Project Gutenberg is chock full of books people can get for free, as an example, but erosion of public domain means books that would be available for free before all the Copyright changes are… not. We’ve lost that battle, a battle fought when most people were busy paying attention to other things.

If I refer to a book, it’s because I think it’s worth reading, not worth selling you. You can get it any way you wish, and I’d encourage you to do so – especially at your local library.

Grab the ISBN number, or just the author’s name and the title, and go forth. There are some good ideas out there we need to keep moving through time.

Go visit your local library anyway.

Grow, Write, Laugh.

~ taran.a.rampersad@gmail.com ~ Leave a comment

I’ve done 50 days of consistently writing after a period of not writing. At first, it was hard to get myself into the groove… I imagine the last years had me moving between grooves. This feels like a different groove.

Why did I slow down?

Maybe I just needed a break. Maybe I needed time to process a lot of what I had been perceiving and post-processing half a century’s worth of life with the lenses I picked up along that time. Maybe I was just being lazy. Maybe I was depressed. Maybe disengaged. Maybe I was busy taking care of my overall health. Maybe I was too ‘busy’ interacting with other’s social media.

Maybe I was just tired of writing about the same things over and over and over and over and over…you should get the point now… again.

It’s probably all of them and more I can’t think of, but I’m leaning heavily on the last ‘Maybe’.

One of the key problems I had was that you can only write things so many times. It’s like throwing spitballs at a wall, trying to hit a gnat that has just had it’s fix of methamphetamine, trying to find a way to get through to people who… may not even be paying attention.

There’s just so many pornography sites these days, and if people aren’t here reading what I write, they must be watching pornography! Wait, what are you doing here anyway? 🙂

I’ll tell you what I think part of it was.

Healthwise, I did have that surgery, which was an experience I’d rather not repeat. The most uncomfortable moment not being a fear of having someone cut holes in me and fiddle in my insides, but suddenly being naked in front of people in gowns and rubber gloves on a very cold table in a very cold. It is not flattering for a guy, particularly in front of a cute Cuban nurse. That, to me, was the worst part of it. She was surprised at how quickly I got dressed and left afterward.

I was surrounded in a cold room with masked people ready to use sharp objects on me to explore my insides, and I was worried about being naked in front of one person. An audience I knew probably wouldn’t judge me because I had been in similar shoes before. An audience like me, an inner critic of who I am.

Maybe in recovering from the surgery I also needed to face that fear – my thought is that we should face our fears. This does not mean that I will just strip in front of people dressed like medical professionals, so don’t get any ideas – but I had to be comfortable with being uncomfortable to grow.

That’s how we grow, after all, and I hadn’t truly grown in a while. Maybe what I was writing felt boring because I myself needed to grow a bit.

Write, Grow, Laugh. Repeat as necessary.

And if you’re that Cuban nurse, please remember that was a very cold room.

The Contrasts.

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The sunset yesterday evening was intense, like the next 2 days of weather will be here in Trinidad and Tobago. The rains beat out their own rhythm, sometimes with the glancing blows of high wind, sometimes not, and in the Northwest of Trinidad it has been… unpredictable.

Before I left for an appointment today, it was raining one way, then another, bamboo nearby was sheared by the wind. I found it exhilarating. I always have enjoyed a good storm, but today it was only a few hours where I live, with a sunset as above. In South Trinidad, though, I imagine it was much worse, with people still having been flooded from past days.

It’s disappointing, really. The same problems keep coming back while the politicians point at each others for local elections. The flooding has been happening more frequently recently, but the Water and Sewage Company of Trinidad and Tobago somehow never seems to have enough water in the reservoir. There’s too many levels of bureaucracy, not enough accountability, and no effective change – but the government of course wants to bring back a property tax based on what someone guesstimates you can rent a property for.

Nature has no time for that.

There is brave talk about electric cars, and hybrids, but the state owned Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission has problems with the grid off and on, at least where I am. It’s hard to imagine the grid charging so many cars every night. I’ve heard the batteries for the cars cost sometimes more than the cars themselves to replace sometimes. All in the name of ‘saving the planet’ which will well be here long after we are not.

The reality is that if these islands, among all the other islands, went and did everything right, from renewable energy to carbon footprints, it wouldn’t have much of an effect on the global climate because these nations, while polluting, aren’t the core of it. For their trouble, they import everything they are told to at high costs, but the global situation’s problems are really in the larger nations that export these things to the smaller nations. “This is good for the climate!”

The woman with a hungry child on the corner has more immediate concerns.

Since Trinidad and Tobago refuses to believe it can produce it’s own technology solutions, hampered by the failed attempts by government to innovate. Big businesses thrive, small businesses die, and everyone wants to start a small business. Big businesses largely import things and sell them to people. Small businesses try to make local things. The bias, as it is, is evident.

The batteries for the cars will end up in the local dumps, likely. Poisoning ground water, like old cell phones and computers do. Politicians will vie to be elected while not actually doing anything, and the shell game of government corporations absolves all from blame.

It is, in it’s own right, a beautiful dystopia at certain hours, populated with a majority of good people who do not go out at night as much – partly economics, partly crime. The crime of the young has become more personal, more painful to the victims, symptoms of a deep economic divide that the government regularly excavates. It’s not an economic divide, really. It’s a moat.

It can be depressing to see on a daily basis. At busy intersections, we see women with children holding up signs with lists of what they need. There are too many for most to help. This was once a rich country. What happened?

I look toward the west, toward Venezuela, another nation which was rich – and could still be rich. I deal with Venezuelans fairly frequently, and while some call them a plague, I see the hard working immigrants that build countries given the right tools. This fresh blood could be an asset. There are intelligent people here, talented people, who in a land where titles mean more than merit, find no place here. They dream.

It’s not too much to ask for a better tomorrow, particularly if you’re willing to put in the sweat equity. I see it almost every day, contrasted against BMWs and Range Rovers while police escort Ministers through the traffic they are responsible for.

These contrasts are much like the sunset. At certain times, beautiful. The rains will come again tomorrow, properties will be flooded, government will posture yet again, and we’ll see what the sunset looks like tomorrow.

It is in it’s own way Groundhog day in a nation with no groundhogs.

Hello, Neighbor.

~ taran.a.rampersad@gmail.com ~ Leave a comment

This is now what’s on the RealityFragments About page, but I figured it’s a good enough re-introduction since I’ve crossed 500 posts on this site! Woohoo!

We’re both here, you and I, neighbors in space and time.

Both of us are the legacy of those that came before us, living memory of what was and a potential for what will be.

In this moment, right here, right now, we are connected.

These words in this moment of time create a link between our lives and our spheres of influence. They are both a gateway and a nexus connecting ourselves and the living memory we are, influencing our separate and aggregate futures. We are both ourselves mediums and messages.

The door between us now opened, we have the capacity to influence each other and, should we decide, to make each other better and make our futures just a little better.

Maybe you came here for some advice or direction. Maybe you feel stuck in the traffic of life while people with laser pointers are trying to curate your destination. Maybe you’re seeking a way to decorate your canvas of time, or trying to find some meaning. Maybe your hope has faded and you found something of comfort, or maybe you’re simply lost – and being lost is not a bad thing.

I don’t know how you got here, but I am glad you are. We live in an amazing world, and I try to write about the bits I observe and think about. You’re welcome to chime in.

Maybe you’ll find something you like, and maybe you’ll leave a comment so that I know that. Maybe you’ll find something worth sharing with a friend, on social media or otherwise. WordPress.com requires logging in to like and comment on stuff, but you can feel free to use the RealityFragments Facebook group

I am writing this from the past according to calendar and clock, yet we are likely new to each other. Technology has afforded us this ability, beyond the cave paintings and etched stones of yesteryear. We have come a long way, through a deluge of paper and ink and the technology of language itself.

We are… connected, if only just this once. Hopefully more than once. Hopefully you found something of value and come back.

That’s what RealityFragments is about. It fits no genre other than that, it’s about being human and all that comes with it as best as I can communicate. It’s about the little pieces of our world that make us whole yet fragmented, parts of a larger puzzle where we have not yet found the flat pieces to see where the edge is.

Writing Ambience Possibility.

~ taran.a.rampersad@gmail.com ~ 1 Comment

I found a new vibe for while I’m writing that works pretty well for me. TERAVIBE over on YouTube has some nice background stuff that’s pretty cool.

Here are a few samples. I don’t know what to call it other than ‘ambience’.

The one below is a personal favorite.

I have them just play in the background through the television and audio system at a reasonable volume and tap away at the keys. It works for me and they’re really all very nicely done.

And when I break, it’s fun to just watch it for a while.

Yes, I know, people say I should get out more, and that may be true. And these are still something I consider cool and, yes, helpful.