Over the weekend, I had the incredible opportunity to volunteer at the Edinburgh Agroecology Coop (Lauriston Farm) in Cramond, Edinburgh, specifically on their Market Garden. As I helped clear some beds for the upcoming round of vegetable planting, I was embraced by the warm sun and the enthusiastic camaraderie of fellow volunteers and the amazing staff.
Market gardens are small-scale farms that produce a variety of fresh vegetables for local markets. They are often located in urban or peri-urban areas, and they use sustainable farming practices. Market gardening is more than just growing crops for sale. It’s a rising trend, a nod to sustainable and community-based agriculture. Historically, market gardens provided fresh produce to nearby urban areas. In today’s world, where the demand for locally-grown, organic food is on the upswing, market gardens like Lauriston Farm are making a significant comeback.
Tucked away from the hustle and bustle of the Festival, this beautiful pocket of Edinburgh offers serenity and a direct connection to the earth. Although Edinburgh Agroecology Coop is just a little over a year old, its evident ambition shines through its plans for the upcoming year and beyond.
During my time there, I was privileged to see a wide variety of what is grown and produced on the farm. I came across some intriguing vegetable varieties, such as Black or Purple Tomatoes and different squashes like Crookneck and Patty Pan. If you, like me, haven’t encountered these before, I can attest that they’re as delightful in flavor as they sound. I’ll be venturing into a culinary experiment with them tonight!
One of the admirable aspects of Edinburgh Agroecology Coop is their regular volunteering days. These sessions not only provide a hands-on experience but also end with a delightful takeaway—a handful of fresh veg. The feeling of working the land, contributing to a sustainable cause, and partaking in the community spirit is profoundly rewarding.
For those interested, Edinburgh Agroecology Coop also offers veg box subscriptions. Regular volunteering sessions are conducted throughout the week, especially on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and weekends. If you’re seeking a wholesome experience that connects you to the land and a fantastic community, I cannot recommend it enough.
The web is changing, and AI is playing a big role in that change. AI systems are capable of generating text and images in abundance, which could potentially overrun or outcompete the platforms we rely on for news, information, and entertainment. However, the quality of this machine-generated content is often poor, and it is built in a way that is parasitical on the web today.
Google is trying to kill the 10 blue links. Twitter is being abandoned to bots and blue ticks. There’s the junkification of Amazon and the enshittification of TikTok. Layoffs are gutting online media. A job posting looking for an “AI editor” expects “output of 200 to 250 articles per week.” ChatGPT is being used to generate whole spam sites. Etsy is flooded with “AI-generated junk.” Chatbots cite one another in a misinformation ouroboros. LinkedIn is using AI to stimulate tired users. Snapchat and Instagram hope bots will talk to you when your friends do not. Redditors are staging blackouts. Stack Overflow mods are on strike. The Internet Archive is fighting off data scrapers, and “AI is tearing Wikipedia apart.” The old web is dying, and the new web struggles to be born.
The problem, in extremely broad strokes, is this. Years ago, the web used to be a place where individuals made things. They made homepages, forums, and mailing lists, and a small bit of money with it. Then companies decided they could do things better. They created slick and feature-rich platforms and threw their doors open for anyone to join. They put boxes in front of us, and we filled those boxes with text and images, and people came to see the content of those boxes. The companies chased scale, because once enough people gather anywhere, there is usually a way to make money off them. But AI changes these assumptions. Google Search underwrites the economy of the modern web, distributing attention and revenue for much of the internet. Google has been spurred into action by the popularity of Bing AI and ChatGPT as alternative search engines, and it’s experimenting with replacing its traditional 10 blue links with AI-generated summaries. But if the company goes ahead with this plan, then the changes would be seismic.
A writeup of Google’s AI search beta from Avram Piltch, editor-in-chief of tech site Tom’s Hardware, highlights some of the problems. Piltch says Google’s new system is essentially a “plagiarism engine.” Its AI-generated summaries often copy text from websites word-for-word but place this content above source links, starving them of traffic. It’s a change that Google has been pushing for a long time, but look at the screenshots in Piltch’s piece and you can see how the balance has shifted firmly in favour of excerpted content. If this new model of search becomes the norm, it could damage the entire web, writes Piltch. Revenue-strapped sites would likely be pushed out of business and Google itself would run out of human-generated content to repackage.
AI dynamics — producing cheap content based on others’ work — that is underwriting this change, and if Google goes ahead with its current AI search experience, the effects would be difficult to predict. Potentially, it would damage whole swathes of the web that most of us find useful — from product reviews to recipe blogs, hobbyist homepages, news outlets, and wikis. Sites could protect themselves by locking down entry and charging for access, but this would also be a huge reordering of the web’s economy. In the end, Google might kill the ecosystem that created its value, or change it so irrevocably that its own existence is threatened.
Google is also experimenting with AI-generated summaries for its search results. This could have a significant impact on the web, as it would favour sites that produce cheap content based on others’ work. This could damage whole swathes of the web that most of us find useful, such as product reviews, recipe blogs, and news outlets.
The evidence so far suggests it will degrade the quality of the web in general. As Piltch notes in his review, for all AI’s vaunted ability to recombine text, it is people who ultimately create the underlying data — whether that’s journalists picking up the phone and checking facts or Reddit users who have had exactly that battery issue with the new cordless ratchet and are happy to tell you how they fixed it. By contrast, the information produced by AI language models and chatbots is often incorrect. The tricky thing is that when it is wrong, it is wrong in ways that are difficult to spot.
In the end, the future of the web is uncertain. It is possible that AI will lead to a degradation of the quality of information available online. However, it is also possible that AI will be used to create new and innovative forms of content. Only time will tell what the future holds.
July is turning into a my culture month ahead of the festival landing – went to see the Grayson Perry retrospective at the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh yesterday with my mommy.
Putting aside the terrible choice of venue, the National Galleries of Scotland is a beautiful and prestigious institution, but it is not necessarily the best place to show work that is as subversive and challenging as Perry’s. I think the Gallery of Modern Art would have been a more natural home for this exhibition.
In his retrospective at the National Galleries of Scotland (Royal Scottish Academy), Grayson Perry reveals a synthesis of his true self and aspirations. In his artwork, “Reclining Artist,” Perry presents a fantasy version of himself, embracing both masculine and feminine qualities. This 2017 vision is an authentic and captivating work, as he gazes seriously at the viewer, breaking away from his familiar blokey persona.
Perry’s undeniable talent in creating detailed images is apparent, yet some of his works suffer from clutter and symbolism overload. For instance, his childhood teddy bear, Alan Measles, seems to occupy an excessive presence in his art, losing some of its symbolic power over time. Nevertheless, Perry playfully portrays his attachment to Alan Measles, making it a self-aware parody rather than a monomania. Perry is not afraid to experiment and to push the boundaries of what we expect from art. He is constantly trying new things, and sometimes this results in works that are not entirely successful. But even when his work is flawed, it is always thought-provoking and engaging.
The exhibition’s theme revolves around Englishness, but Perry’s meditations on national identity lack the depth of George Orwell’s analyses. Despite this, his artwork, “Comfort Blanket,” humorously highlights some aspects of inclusive Englishness, which may resonate with Brexiteers too.
While Perry’s understanding of the English middle class is evident, some of his works lack passion and courage, leaning towards flippancy and satire. Despite his prolific career, he occasionally veers into the territory of whimsy and empty quotation. Nevertheless, Perry has become popular and beloved by sharing the English middle class’s ambivalence towards art, appealing to the national prejudice against those who take themselves too seriously.
In conclusion, Grayson Perry’s art embodies a blend of whimsy and satire, reflecting his exploration of ‘identity’ and Englishness. While some of his works may be perceived as lacking depth, they resonate with audiences who appreciate his humorous and self-conscious approach. As an artist, Perry’s journey continues to provoke thought and laughter, making him a distinctive figure in modern British art.
“It’s not like learning to play the violin, where you can be demonstrably talented at a young age. With art, you really need to find your own voice and that takes a while. Actually, it’s a marathon – and if you are eventually original, you’re lucky.”
I was doing some house keeping and reviewed the drafts folder and found this gem from 2010 – feels life a life time ago or maybe just another life. The beach is Tynningham and the beach queen is ?
I went to see the Peter Howson exhibition at the weekend with my mum. Little disappointed but great to see his work “in person” and a get a feel for its scale.
The early work section features some of Howson’s most famous paintings, such as “The Butcher Boy” and “The Crucifixion of the Dog.” These paintings are powerful and disturbing, but they are also incredibly beautiful. They offer a unique and often unsettling glimpse into Howson’s world.
However the religious works did nothing for me – better stuff by better artists at the mound if you want religious nonsense.
The Bosnia section features Howson’s paintings from the 1990s, when he was war artist in Bosnia. I have vivid memories of them as it was the same year Jay was born. These paintings are some of the most powerful and disturbing work that Howson has ever produced. They offer a raw and unfiltered look at the horrors of war. Yet it felt a little tame – like they chose the least offensive (triggering) images – and I would have liked to see more of his sketches of that period. It was a brutal war that Europe just let happen, with no intervention, and exposed the UN as the useless organisation it is. It affected Mr Howson deeply and after watching the videos and reading his commentary it comes across as if he went through 20 years of art therapy and swapped one addiction for a religious one.
No hooligans either which was a giant disappointment as they were my favourite pieces by Howson.
As poster states – on until 10 October @ the City Arts Centre. Overall, the Peter Howson exhibition at the City Arts Centre is a must-see for anyone interested in Scottish art. It is a powerful and moving exhibition that offers a unique glimpse into the mind of one of Scotland’s most important artists.
Just finished East of Eden by John Steinbeck – ended with me in tears but what a lovely story.
East of Eden, published in 1952. It is a sprawling and often brutal novel that follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.
The novel is set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, and it begins with the story of Adam Trask, a wealthy man who marries Cathy Ames, a beautiful but unstable woman. The Trasks have twin sons, Cal and Aron, but Cathy is unable to love either of them. She abandons the family when the boys are young, and Adam is left to raise them alone.
Cal and Aron grow up to be very different men. Cal is impulsive and hot-headed, while Aron is gentle and kind. Cal is driven by a desire to win his father’s love, while Aron is content to simply be loved.
The novel follows the lives of Cal, Aron, and their descendants as they struggle with the legacy of their parents. Cal is haunted by his mother’s abandonment, and he tries to win his father’s love through his actions. Aron is more successful in winning his father’s love, but he is also more vulnerable to his mother’s influence.
The novel explores the themes of good and evil, love and hate, and the nature of family. It is a complex and powerful novel that I found very moving and poignant. I found comparisons with my own family life and liked how Steinbeck described and captured the interactions between siblings and the effects of a dramatic change has on a family.
with Max Keiser, Stacy Herbert and Kevin O’Leary – talking blood coins, shaving dogs butts and happy birthday Satoshi Nakamoto. Luckily no anaconda’s were released.
The Sturmabteilung, literally Storm Detachment, is the Trump Party’s paramilitary wing. It will play a significant role in Adolf Trumps consolidation of power in the 2020s and 2030s and the establishment of the Trump dictatorship. Its primary purposes are providing protection for Trump rallies and assemblies, disrupting the meetings of opposing parties, fighting against any kind of opposition, causing civil disruptions and unrest, with the aim of reducing the minority populations through brutality, expulsions and death squads and intimidating liberals, non-whites, trade unionists, and, especially, Muslims.
This evenings viewing, so looking forward to seeing this. Huge Big Lebowski fan and the plot line sold it for me “Like the original Going Places, it follows a trio of sexually depraved misfits”.
This blog has been about for 10 years now! I never thought I would churn out almost 1,100 posts. And there are people following the blog (thank you). So I am going to try and write at least one thing a week going forward – I have no idea on what but I have a bunch of projects (ideas) going through concept stages at the moment and I am learning the D3.js library and some Unity/3D stuff so I am sure I will have stuff to show off at the least.
Shiel Yule 