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The Jennings Test
16 Feb 2011 23:16 EST
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Big Blue
Random observations upon the Defeat of the Humans on Jeopardy! by Watson, the wondrous electrical thinking-machine:
1. What Watson got wrong, and how it did so, is at least as interesting as what it got right.
2. At first I thought it was remarkable that Watson would be so closely competitive to the humans. Yes, it won, but it was no worse a defeat than many traditional human-on-human contests. Watson’s timing was eerily close to humans’, as well: sometimes it buzzed in first, sometimes it didn’t. How uncanny to be so closely matched. On reflection I realized that’s just a function of its development: in the past, Watson Beta must have been too slow to compete. It got better and better, but hasn’t yet gotten so good that it just skunks human players. So now’s a good time for it to be on TV – but that means all the general public sees is this snapshot.
3. In less than a decade, there’ll be thousands if not millions or billions of Watsons embedded in the world around us.
4. Watson seems to display knowledge without understanding. Some of its wrong answers, and its visible thought processes, showed it wanted to answer questions about people with a book, or questions about US cities with an obviously non-US city. If a human did this we’d say they lacked very basic understanding of the subject matter. There’s fascinating questions that follow: is this a side effect of Watson’s programming (it was built to win, not to understand)? Is understanding so fundamentally different from knowledge that we need new algorithms or devices to capture it? Or is the difference just one of degree – give it enough knowledge and understanding will emerge? Or maybe do biological creatures come about understanding in a way that silicon-based ones cannot (by what mechanism)? I imagine that places like Douglas Hofstadter’s center are pondering such things. Watson did poorly with wordplay, one of the subjects that Hofstadter has focused on throughout his career. Can a computer make a pun? Can a computer “get” a joke?
4. Speaking of Hofstadters and Gebstadters, when I was 15 and first read their seminal collaboration Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, computers were lumbering, flickering beasts that dwelt within rough metal carcasses, blind and deaf and barely tethered to the rest of us by exceeding narrow pathways of copper admitting only ponderous telegrams as communications.* Now my kid has a Droid.
Times change, and Moore’s law holds, and Watson seems more related to the science fiction of my childhood than its science. To many, it may be indistinguishable from magic.
5. Watson > Ken Jennings > the rest of us poor saps
Anyway, that’s what I thought of when I watched Jeopardy tonight. Oh, wait, no, there were a couple more:
6. If Watson has a rematch will they give it Sean Connery’s voice?
7. My version of the show is called Leopardy! Naturally, wrong questions are punished at the claws of a spotted big cat.
That’s really enough now. Unlike Watson, I need sleep.
*Could Watson parse that sentence?
The truth about the de-evolution band
12 Aug 2010 23:18 EST
I saw a man on a stage scream “Put me back in my cage!” / I saw him hang by his tie / I saw enough to make me cry…
-”Planet Earth”, Devo
Last Wednesday I finally performed my duty and attended my first ever concert performance by DEV-O, the De-evolution Band of Akron, Ohio (What’s round on the end and high in the middle?). Mark Mothersbaugh, Gerald V Casale, Bob1, Bob2, and the new boy Josh played for a large troupe of primates at the Ohio State Fair, where people also sell deep fried Snickers bars, sculpt unironic cows of butter, and fatten themselves on fattened pigs.
The condensed review: It’s a Good Thing.
The whole big mess: I have waited all my futile, repetitive ‘life’ to attend a performance by these spuds. Now that I have done so, I am happy to report that I have nothing further to live for but the dictates of my genetics. The grotesque, yet fully satisfying, spectacle of videos, lights, and calisthenics was accompanied by a throbbing beat, clamorous guitars, and victorious analog synthesizers. The analog tones produced by the vintage synths spoke with a raw-edged perfection that straddled the uncanny line between natural sounds and the noise of machinery. Modern digital synthesis is pathetic, weak, and bloodless in comparison.
Bob1 on the psycho-surf guitar tore shreds in the amps throughout the night; in the second half of the show his bandmates gave up their own synths for guitars themselves as they switched from new songs to old favorites. In lieu of a drum machine, the boys from Ohio recruited Mr Freese, the very man who is used as the calibration to ensure drum machines keep proper time. He closed his eyes and beat the skins like a man barely aware of anything but the insistent rhythm. Mark Mothersbaugh gave a consistently hyperactive performance, although for the last song he deserted us and left poor Booji Boy to sing the lead on “Beautiful World” – while images of the Deepwater Horizon flowed jarringly before us. And the brothers Casale on the bass and the rhythm laid down a texture not heard since our ancestors were hooting in caves.
A thing to remember: Devo are essentially two pairs of brothers, two of whom are suspiciously named Bob. These are men who have never grown up and make their livings still playing around with their brothers. This gives these sexagenarians a fount of youthful energy. They did not stop moving. Truth be told, the opening band were twenty-something hipsters who lolled lackadaisically about in their chairs making adequate music. In stark contrast, Devo understood that performance requires action. They simultaneously played instruments, sang, and ran frenetically to and fro, all while showing videos on a high-technology transparent LED screen behind them and three enormous displays around them.
The video entertainment was highly ironic. No, Gen Y, I do not mean ironic like a goatee or a Where the Wild Things Are t-shirt. Devo are dead serious about their irony. The videos taught us that our pheromones and hormones rule our minds, and yet our primitive culture subsumes french fries and donuts for sex.
In no reasonable order, I will now list for you the tunes they barraged us with: Whip It / What We Do / Uncontrollable Urge (featuring the original choreography!) / That’s Good (of Square Pegs infamy)/ Smart Patrol/Mr DNA (for die-hard devotees) / Secret Agent Man (a tour de force by Bob1) / Satisfaction (the original and best)/ Planet Earth / Peek-a-Boo! (scary) / Mongoloid (thoughtful, actually) / Jocko Homo / Going Under (a personal favorite) / Girl U Want / Gates of Steel / Fresh / Freedom of Choice / Don’t Shoot (I’m A Man) / Devo Corporate Anthem / Beautiful World. I should note that What We Do (the finest performance of the night), Uncontrollable Urge, Mongoloid, and Don’t Shoot were particular favorites of the feverish crowd.
I must admit that I draw the attention of my children (who, with my mate, accompanied me to the concert) to the lyrical teachings of Devo. Devo’s music can be beautiful, but their lyrics are, strictly speaking, not. Instead of focusing on Beauty, they focus on Truth. The Truth is only sometimes beautiful. It is often harsh, unwanted, and painful. Yet it is true, and we ignore Truth at our peril. It comforts us not to confront our descent from the apes; our slavery to our uncontrollable biological urges; our existence which repeats itself mundanely, day after day, generation after generation. These are Devo’s topics, set atop catchy jingles with danceable beats: “the fittest shall survive, yet the unfit may live“; “freedom of choice is what you’ve got, freedom from choice is what you want“. But Devo are never subjugated by the Truth. They don’t mope. Instead they also tell us how we must embrace our destinies and strive for success within the time and space we are given: Whip It! Step Up!
The evening was itself a success. Devo have been travelling minstrels for 37 years, but show few signs of flagging and little evidence of rot. They are still loud, brash, deliberate, annoying, fun, bright, stupid, and brilliant. Having felt their presence I can now spread the word as it has been ordained. If they invade your town, do not fail to heed the call. They have something for everybody.
Tags: awesomeness, Life, local, music, stupidity
Posted by mark beadles in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted by mark beadles in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Ashes to ashes, roots to branches
12 Mar 2010 19:53 EST
Fire burns; fire kills. Fire reduces wood and bone to ashes. From the ashes grow new forests which in turn are consumed in fire and fall to ash. The forests have learned to subsume this cycle; the ashes feed the next generation’s seeds. There’s even a sort of tree termed a fire-climax pine: the Obsipo pine not only survives fire, but depends on the heat to open its cones and release its seeds.
The phoenix is a fantasy, a dreamed-up bird that burns only to rise again. We humans aren’t so lucky, are we? The firebird sees his perennial reinvention simply as part of his nature. It’s simple for the phoenix to rise up from the embers. We humans, though: we really have to work at it. Reinvention and rebuilding are born of necessity but they ain’t necessarily easy.
I’m pushing the metaphor too much here, of course: fire is our enemy, but ever since Prometheus earned his life sentence fire has also been our tool. The trick’s in putting that fire to its best use. But rest unassured: you’re not going to avoid getting burned.
Car crash, cancer, bankruptcy, prison; bereaved spouses, torched houses — only a few among us will escape disaster, and honestly I’m not sure they’re truly the ‘lucky’ few. Resiliency’s such a useful capability and if you don’t learn it sooner you may regret it later. What gives some people the knack to rebuild themselves from scratch? Or, what makes some people unable to rise after a fall?
Part of it is that luck, or that unluck: crush a man to pieces and maybe he’s reduced to rubble. I won’t venture to guess why that fate befalls some; I’ll just note that in the end none of us escape it. But there’s a whole lotta bad luck that’s not mortally bad. When this submortal luck chooses you, how do you see it? As defeat and despair? As a challenge to rise above? Or even as an opportunity and a second (or third, fourth…) chance?
Reduce the tree’s trunk to ashes and perhaps its rootstock will survive. It may remain a ruined stump, technically but not practically alive. It may shoot out a few sucker branches stabbing forth green but really not a tree now, we must admit. Or it might, just might, grow to full height again. But look: the tree that grows from the ruined stump will not be the same tree that stood before. Not a leaf, not a branch, will remain in place or grow as it once grew. It’s the same tree, but not the same tree.
I don’t quite understand it and I’m living inside of it; but then I’m not a phoenix, just a man.
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Prometheus: From thoughts of death I freed the minds of men.
Chorus: What medicine finding for this malady ?
Prom: Blind hopes I gave them, in their breasts to dwell.
Chor: A priceless boon they have received from thee.
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Revolution and Freedom
14 Jan 2010 19:04 EST
Evidently some of you have been curious about the results of my one year post-transplant checkup. Your curiosity is heartening! So here we go.
I often like to start these posts with a bit of history in case I’ve got new readers, a useful fantasy that keeps me writing. In brief: umpteen billion revolutions of the Earth ago matter and energy were arranged into a Universe; forty-two-or-so revolutions ago some bits of said matter and energy were rearranged into Me; and twenty years ago bits of Me (namely my Kidneys) decided this arrangement wasn’t for them and staged their own revolution. My new arrangement is that I’ve spent a couple years on dialysis, and through the altruistic goodness of others I’ve received two kidney transplants. Don’t worry, it actually hasn’t interfered with my life as much as you’d think, though it does make for interesting conversation.
Last December my college friend Shark and I arose underwent twin operations; a surgeon removed a kidney from him and another surgeon installed it into me. Read the rest of this blog if you want to know what’s happened between then and now. Anyway, Monday was my approximately one year checkup; now you’re up to speed.
The one year checkup is a milestone in kidney transplant success. If your kidney is working fine after a year with no hiccups, then it will probably work for decades. See: six months after my first transplant, I had a “major rejection episode” that required a hospital stay and heavy-duty immune system killers, and the kidney still lasted 17 years.
The lifetime of a second transplant is strongly predicted by that of the first. If the first one lasts a decade, the second one probably will work at least that. When they were preparing us for this recent transplant, my surgeons told us that this would probably be my last transplant as I’ve known them. What they meant is that either this transplant will last the rest of my natural life; and if not, by the time I need another one they won’t be doing kidney transplants this way any more. Over the next decade or so they expect that technologies like growing kidneys to order from scratch, or kidneys from pigs that are tailor-made for humans, or the like will be commonplace and replace the need for human donation. Prometheus’ revolutionary gift keeps burning today, no?
Now, there’s a great big hulking caveat looming significantly behind all this. The above only applies if you take care of yourself. Most of the taking care of yourself if stuff we all should be doing anyway: watching our salt and cholesterol, eating a balanced diet, exercise, et cetera. You’re all doing that, right? Right. But of course there’s more to it than that. You have to take your megadoses of medicine mutliple times a day: currently I’m taking about a dozen medicines scheduled into four time slots every day. The meds have unpleasant and even deadly side effects. I monitor my weight and blood pressure and temperature because any bad moves there can be an indication of problems. Maybe some of you have read the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. and recall the warning of his doctors: “Self-neglect might have killed him.” On the more likely bet that you’ve read Harry Potter, then I’ll use Mad-eye Moody’s words: “Constant vigilance!” Yeah, I know, it’s not like I have leprosy or Lord Voldemort on my tail, but facts are facts: at least 10 percent of kidney transplant patients fail to take their medicine and, and non-compliance is a sadly important area of research.
It’s hard, so I’ve made it automatic. I just do it. It’s what I do like breathing, eating, and going to the bathroom. I take my medicine every day. I eat right and I avoid the demon rum. I exercise. When it’s tough, I consider the alternatives. One alternative is dialysis, or as I affectionately like to call that, living hell. The other alternative to living with kidney failure, though, is Not Living. Actual Hell. I’m not sure what being dead is like but I’d rather not find out; I like living a lot even when it’s tough. There’s cool stuff in the world, and some people that I like.
From December to July I returned to the transplant clinic every week to get blood drawn, took my BP 4 times a day and was on fairly high doses of meds. In July it looked like everything was going well so they said I only had to return to the clinic once every two weeks and they lowered my meds some. But the one year point is what my surgeon calls “graduation”.
I’m glad to say I graduated with distinction.
At one year, my blood work is that of a normal, healthy 42-year old male. Maybe my cholesterol’s a little high. The kidney is doing its job perfectly (creatinine of 1.0 for you kidney geeks). There are no signs of rejection and my bone marrow is working like it should. The point of maximum risk has passed and I’m doing great; better than the first kidney, actually. Living donors are always better.
From now until forever, I’ll get my blood drawn just once a month and see a nephrologist every six months…status quo like I had been doing for 20 years already. I no longer need to visit my transplant surgeons since by now it’s obvious that everything’s been hooked up right and the organ’s not going anywhere. “Everything’s still in place,” as he put it.
I had become very sick in the year leading up to this last transplant, and as I now realize, I’d been becoming sick for many years. My last kidney didn’t work at 100% after that rejection episode, and I went for a good decade with about 25% normal kidney function. It did damage to my body: my muscles, my joints, my endocrine glands, even my skin. My body is now undergoing a major rebuild, its own sort of revolution if you will. My muscle mass is increasing — think “return to normal”, though, not “Lou Ferrigno” — although, yeah, one of the meds I’m on is testosterone, to counteract the effects of all the steroids. My joints were once riddled with gout and now that’s pretty much gone. It’s nice to have all this stuff working again so I can get on with my business of life and many more revolutions around the Sun.
I see upon reflection that I’ve shared a lot today, and some of it’s disturbing or at least not-fun stuff. I’m not bringing these things up to gain sympathy, which I need only a
little of. See, things can get tough. In my life it’s kidneys. In other people’s lives it’s earthquakes, or abuse, or mental illness, or what have you. We could all pretty easily feel sorry for ourselves, couldn’t we? It seems like it might be much easier just to let someone else worry about taking care of things, no? Our lives always have a built-in excuse for why we couldn’t do this, couldn’t do that, because it’s not our fault these things happen to us, right?
I learned at the age of 22 that the alternative to a life of suffering isn’t freedom from suffering. It’s freedom from life, which is no freedom at all.
All right, folks, thanks for reading. The checkup went ok.
41 31 21 11 1
23 Dec 2009 19:21 EST
41 years ago today I was spending a cold winter in Michigan, a dark-haired little boy.
31 years ago today I was 11 years old.
21 years ago today I was spending a very cold winter in Alaska.
11 years ago today my 2nd son was born; today my dark-haired little boy is 11 years old.
1 year ago today during a cold winter in Ohio I received the gift of life from an old friend, my 2nd kidney transplant.
Merry Christmas to all
Ten months, thirty-one days
01 Nov 2009 03:13 EST
It’s Halowe’en 2009, October 31, and I’ve exercised at the gym for the entire month. In my own personal NaGoGymMo (National Go to the Gym Month) I’ve worked out every day at the local YMCA. To be honest, this would be impressive for me even ignoring the fact that I had my second kidney transplant just 10 months ago. I had never been the going-to-the-gym type; my favored exercises had always been running, swimming, and aerobics — but, as you’ve all heard me complain, my joints haven’t let me run or do aerobics in years. Going to the gym allows me to do two things that are critical to my future health: build muscle and exercise my heart.
Long-term kidney failure had done a number on my muscles and tendons. And not a cool number like 7 or 42, either. More like 13 or 4 or 11630. My muscles atrophied; my joints swelled; I developed bursitis in my knees and my right elbow. This was due to the metabolic changes associated with the kidneys: they regulate electrolytes and protein, and if they’re outta whack, so will be your muscles and joints.
Going into October, I really had no idea what lay in store for my body. I’d exercised about twice a week since my surgery, but I had not been able to handle anything really strenuous. I believed that I needed a challenge in order to see what I was capable of.
So it began. I’m stubborn.
Some days were great, some days weren’t. Overall, the days got better and better. I did 30-45 minutes of strict exercise time each day. I tried mornings, days, and evenings, and settled on evenings as the time that worked best for me — I could come home, settle in, and then sleep the sleep of the sleeping dead. I saw myself get stronger, too; I moved the pins downward a couple slots on most machines. Both Monica and my doctor noted that I gained a lot of muscle; I’d estimate maybe 5 pounds of additional muscle weight, actually. No, really, it’s muscle. Seriously. Really. Anyway.
Aerobic exercise saw the biggest change. Kidney failure is very bad for the cardiovascular system. People with kidney disease are most likely to die of heart disease, actually. I had discovered about a year ago that I have a small scar in my heart muscle; that is almost always a sign of a previous and probably unnoticed minor heart attack. I also have high blood pressure. So aerobic exercise is critical to my health. Eh, yeah, it’s critical to your health too. But my problem had been that I hadn’t been able to move my body hard enough or fast enough to get good results for my heart. Well, that changed this month.
I’m data-driven and fueled by music. I bought a snazzy new exercise heart monitor, filled up my snazzy old first-generation iPod mini. The iPod playlist is heavy with Gary Numan, B-52s, Adam Ant, Siouxsie Sioux, Afro-celt Sound System, Danny Elfman, Devo, The Fixx, Liz Phair, the Raconteurs, and Stevie Wonder right now. Around-the-neck/over-the-ear headphones. Turn it on. Turn it up. Hit the big black button on the heart monitor watch, and go go go.
There’s a downside to NaGoGymMo, though. Even though I was careful to alternate activity types on different days, going daily didn’t allow me time to rest. I also wasn’t taking enough time to stretch. That, combined with my already screwy tendons, put some hurtin’ on me. Right now I’m nursing a right lateral epicondylitis, commonly known as tennis elbow. I’ve also got a real fun case of plantar fasciitis in my right foot. Both of these are tendon-associated degenerative conditions, and in both cases the cure is rest and stretching.
But I figure after 31 days in a row I deserve a little rest, huh?
So the experiment is over. The results are better than I expected. I think that from a physical point of view I’m now just as mended as any other average forty-something male. I’m going to keep it up, of course, though not every single day. Well, maybe next October. And, hey, I’ve got more things to do next month! Have you heard that I’m writing a novel starting tomorrow as part of National Novel Writing Month? Not only that, but as an unemployed-American my official occupation is still ‘looking for ways to make money’. So, yeah, I’ve got more challenges to keep me busy.
But like I said, I’m stubborn.
Thank you to the Central Ohio YMCA Hilliard/Ray Patch Branch, to Polar Electro, to Apple, to New Balance, and to the two wonderful ladies in my life, my mother and my wife, for their implicit and explicit support in this experiment.
Getting ready for NaNoWriMo
04 Oct 2009 18:52 EST
Well, I’ve committed to the public, to my family, and to myself that this year I’ll be participating in National Novel Writing Month – NaNoWriMo. To participate, I signed up at the web site and agreed to start writing a novel on November 1st. Every day I’ll upload my current word count, which is posted for all to see. The goal is to have at least 50,000 words written by November 30th. This is serious stuff, if you want to take it seriously.
I’ve actually been working on the background to some stories since the early summer. Finding myself with an excessive amount of free time this spring, I plunged into creation. Many people start from characters, but I’m not a character-driven person. The maxim is “write what you know:, and I don’t know much about people. Other than being one, and perhaps about being a father. I do know linguistics and astrophysics; mathematics and computing. I know music and little about poetry, some chemistry, some philosophy, and a lot about being lost. I know soldiers and cooking and evolution. So my novel will be about these things, and probably some others.
Genre comes from the Old French gendre, in turn from Latin gener- (a root of genus), finally from Classical Greek γενος, a term which Aristotle was the first to apply to writing. It still means “kind”, or “type”. The original Indo-european root form is ǵenh-, which meant “to give birth”. So what kind or type of novel am I to give birth to? Again “write what you know”. The genres of fiction to which I continually return are science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mystery. Mystery seems to me — I may be wrong here — to be a particularly tricky genre and I’m loath to try it as a starting point. So again, my novel will be somewhere in the science-fiction/fantasy/horror spectrum.
I don’t think we can avoid being influenced by our influencers; all we can hope for is to avoid plagiarizing them, I suppose. I may as well admit my influences right up front and get the comparisons out of the way. I’ve really enjoyed the following authors; observe that not all are authors of fiction.
- JRR Tolkien
- CS Lewis
- Roger Zelazny
- Larry Niven
- Jerry Pournelle
- Fred Saberhagen
- HP Lovecraft
- Arthur Conan Doyle
- Wm Shakespeare
- Douglas Hofstadter
- Umberto Eco
- Jorge Luis Borges
- JK Rowling
- Stephen King
- Douglas Adams
- Ayn Rand
- Adam Smith
- L Frank Baum
- Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket)
- Philip Pullman
- Oliver Sacks
- Orson Scott Card
- Michael Crichton
- Philip K Dick
- Stephen J Gould
- Richard Dawkins
- Stephen R Donaldson
- Frank Herbert
- Dante Alighieri
- Piers Anthony
- Rex Stout
- EE ‘Doc’ Smith
- Kurt Vonnegut
I imagine I will be influenced by some to all of the above, and will probably outright steal from at least one. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and stealing is the sincerest form of imitation. QED.
So, gentle and not-so-gentle readers, I’ve shown you the blank, ungessoed canvas upon which I’ll be splashing words come November. I have no idea what will come out the other side.
Excelsior et citior!
Fair dealings
05 Jun 2009 22:00 EST
Today the immediate family + my mother + Shark went to the Columbus Arts Festival – what a beautiful day for it! Blue skies and temperatures in the mid-70′s. The festival is now held on the shared campuses of Columbus State Community College (my wife’s current school) and the Columbus College of Art & Design, a much better location than the old riverfront. The riverfront is picturesque, and the idea of a festival there is wonderful, but the old location was crowded, shadeless, and had poor parking. The new location improves in all these areas.
The exhibits are fantastic, world-class. Columbus deserves its reputation as a top city for the arts. All sorts of media were represented – sculpture from delicate handmade butterflies to 9-foot-tall ogres made of welded nails; metalwork from delicate jewelery to hand-forged damascus-steel folding knives; paintings from the surreal to the sentimental; etc. Met a jeweler who does his own lapidary with a variety of atypical and gorgeous semi-precious stones. Great show.
But this post is not about the art festival. As such. This post is about Paul, 10.
Paul has been making plushes (stuffed animals) for a few months now. They are typically ‘creatures’ of his own design. He keeps a lengthy set of journals where he designs the creatures, including their names, qualities, and characteristics. Then from these designs he makes one-of-a-kind 3-dimensional replicas of the creatures. He has done papiere-mache versions, but generally he does fabric. He selects materials, cuts, sews, and stuffs them; sometimes with a little help from Mom or Grandma, but really, they are all his.
Paul even inspired his 4th-grade classroom teacher and art teacher to expand this idea into an art project for the entire 4th-grade class. Cool stuff.
So today Paul was at the festival and struck up a conversation with an artist who had a booth of hand-dyed 2-d fabric art. As they were talking shop, Paul mentioned that he himself was a fabric artist. From his pocket he pulled “Twig”, one of his creations (of the Lenko species), an 8-inch long stuffed creature of fabric and ribbon. Very cute, right?
The artist immediately asked, “Can we do a trade?”
So Paul and she negotiated an art barter. She gave Paul and Luke each a piece of her art, a total of $50. In return, she commissioned two pieces from Paul.
Paul took care of the whole transaction himself. They established values, exchanged contact information, set time frames, and discussed themes for the designs. Paul had already been talking about selling his art and even getting a booth at our church’s crafts show this fall. So this could turn into something very interesting. Paul has a very creative mind, and is definitely of the “temperamental artist” mold; this could be a great outlet for him. So we’ll see what happens!
Oh, yeah, I usually blog about my health here. It’s, um, basically perfect. Over the past couple years outdoor festivals had become difficult for me due to the walking, the heat, and the fatigue. Today none of those were an issue. It was absolutely wonderful.
about mark beadles
I write the things you read here. Polymath renaissance redneck. I build software, stories, and young men. More...on the desk
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