A Pint on the Patio

I took this picture of our snake's head fritillary, aka checkerboard lily, just now when I took some suet balls out to the garden bird feeder. The fritillary is having a good year, with one mature blossom and two more on the way. And there's already a hungry ring-necked parakeet on the feeder, such a bright green that he's practically glowing.

I survived the conference yesterday but it was a long day. Many of the sessions were more about teaching, so they didn't apply directly to me (because I'm not a faculty member and I don't teach kids directly), but it was still interesting to hear from various librarians how they tackle the difficulties of their jobs. My boss and co-worker did a presentation about all the data we gather on library usage, and gave me a shout-out for crunching the numbers on the spreadsheets, so that was nice. Hearing them talk about it gave even me a better sense of why we collect all that information.

Terms I learned included "cognitive offloading," which is what happens when people use tools like AI to perform tasks that used to require human brainpower. When you ask AI to write an e-mail or design a logo, that's cognitive offloading. It's not necessarily a good thing. (I suppose the same could be, and probably has been, said about the use of calculators -- and we all use those.)

There's also "critical ignoring," which is a clever way of saying avoiding online noise and disinformation. We all participate in critical ignoring -- or should, anyway.

We also discussed the "value of constraint," which is certainly a useful tool for any writer or editor. An extreme example was the book "La Disparition" by Georges Perec, which was written entirely without the use of the letter E. That would be impressive enough in any language, but Perec wrote it in French, which is LOADED with E's. It made me think I should try to write a blog post without a commonly used letter, just to see how well I could do it and how hard it would be -- but I'd need some time and I'm not sure I have the patience.

Last night we had a dinner, but we had about an hour and a half to kill between the last session and the meal. So I went to a local pub by myself, got a pint of Abbot ale and sat out on the front patio watching the world go by. I had to let my mind settle after all the information and socializing of the day.

A table of "lads" came and sat next to me, and they were quite boisterous. I heard classic Britishisms like "bird" (for woman) and "fags" for cigarette butts. I didn't know "bird" was a term anyone used anymore but I'm sure one of them said something about "George's bird," and I don't think he meant a budgie. At one point, a semi-trailer (excuse me, "lorry") drove past with the logo for the BBC Symphony Orchestra on the side, and someone exclaimed, "What, are they all in there?!" Laughs all around.

Perhaps I should have been exercising my critical ignoring skills.

I finally got home about 10 p.m. and went pretty much directly to bed. Dave said Olga was anxious all day, waiting for me, and she wouldn't eat in my absence -- so I was glad to get home, coax some food into her and then all of us could have a good night's sleep.