I Feel Used, or Impersonal Trainer

While I've always suspected it was so, last night I probed Gemini a bit to see if any of my writing has been used to train LLMs. The last paragraph reveals the sordid details. Further investigation reveals everything I wrote for Lois Hole has been used as training data, too. 

If we lived in a more equitable world, I'd be fine with this, but I can't help but feel like under capitalism the tech bros owe the writers and artists of the world some compensation. Especially if they want us to keep generating new ideas . . . 
 

Pope Hat

♝
I accidentally discovered I can insert special characters into my blog posts. This sentence follows a pope hat.  

Pope hat
Pope hat
Roly poly pope hat
Pope hat pope hat
Eat them up, yum

Still Almost Maybe Nearly Famous

Every once in a while, I search "Earl J. Woods" on the Internet to gauge my level of infamy. Fortunately, my infamy remains low, but just a few minutes ago I discovered a new hit: my name appeared on a long list of people associated with something called the Western Front. 

At first, this alarmed me. In an instant, I thought: "Western Front? Either people think I'm a crazed militia member, or I'm on an enemies list of a crazed militia." 

Neither is true. As their website states, "Western Front is a non-profit artist-run centre in Vancouver." Whew! My apologies, Western Front. 

As I'm turned out, I'm listed on the site because in 2010 I attended an exhibit put on by my cousin, artist Keith Langergraber, and brought along "Finger Puppet Star Trek" for exhibition, the first and only public showing of a movie I made with some friends from the University of Alberta Star Trek Club. Note that "Finger Puppet Star Trek" was not made in 2009, as claimed above; it was actually made sometime in 1991 or 1992. 

Where the Magic Happens

More organized than usual. 
 

Where I've Lived, and When: Part One

In 2014, we went back to Flin Flon and shot a photo of our old house. 

A few years ago, not long after Dad died, I asked Mom if she remembered when we moved from Flin Flon, to Thompson, to Leaf Rapids, and finally to Edmonton. Yesterday, I found the post-it note upon which I jotted down the dates she gave me, allowing me to determine where I've lived, and when: 

Flin Flon, Manitoba: February 1969 to July 1971
Thompson, Manitoba: July 1971 to September 1973
Leaf Rapids, Manitoba: September 1973 to March 10, 1979
Edmonton, Alberta (Millwoods): March 1979 to June 1979
Leduc, Alberta: July 1979 to September 1987
Edmonton, Alberta (Lister Hall, University of Alberta): September 1987 to April 1991

Short Pants

Here I am with Mom sometime in the early 1970s. Green short pants and a yellow shirt--a juvenile supervillain in the making. 
 

The Price of Fame

 

A little over 40 years ago, I co-hosted If Your Parents Split. It's a half-hour show about children impacted by the divorce of their parents that cuts between dramatic segments and audience interaction. 

Yesterday Jeff noticed my Memory Wall includes a button that says "I'm Nearly Famous." One of the actors on If Your Parents Split gave me that button after we finished shooting the show. Thankfully, I'm not famous, but I value the button nonetheless, and Jeff's comment prompted me to see if the show has any online presence at all. 

Indeed, in a way the show lives on--or at least there's potential for it to do so. Early this morning, I discovered that If Your Parents Split can be licensed for broadcast. Here's the CBC's sample price guide: 

If I'm reading this correctly, if you wanted the rights to screen If Your Parents Split anywhere in the world in perpetuity, you could do so for $105 dollars per second. 60 seconds in a minute times 30 minutes equals 1,800 seconds...1,800 seconds times $105 per second equals a mere CAN $189,000. Of course, the price goes down if you license in a single country or for a shorter time. 

Here's TV Earl wondering if he's going to get residuals. 

During my investigation, I also learned my co-host, Reni Potrebenko, earned a Gemini nomination in 1987 for sound in a documentary for Shooting Stars, about the Edmonton Grads women's basketball team--belated congratulations, Reni! That's Reni to my right. She was cool, and I'm glad she found at least a little more success in the film and television world than I did. 

Memory Wall

I picked up this wall-hanger thing for sixteen bucks and used it to display about 75% of my collection of buttons and pins dating from the 1970s to the 2020s. This saves a little bit of closet space and, more importantly, puts the nostalgia out where I can see it.
 

Earl in the Shadows

 

Mark Lenard: The Lost Conversation

Today Sylvia and I went to Leduc to check on Mom's house and take care of some estate matters. On the way home, perhaps because my mind was already occupied by loss and regret, I told Sylvia the story of my conversation with Mark Lenard, a well-regarded character actor best known for playing Sarek, father of Spock, in one episode of Star Trek, two of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and three of the feature films. 

Except there is no story--at least, no story I remember. 

In the late 80s and early 90s, I attended a number of science fiction conventions in Edmonton and Calgary. On one such occasion, Mark Lenard was a guest. I definitely attended one of his panels, but it was in between convention events that I had a laid-back conversation with the man. 

The conversation took place in a niche with a couple of tables and chairs on one of the middle floors of Edmonton's Chateau Lacombe--or so I believe. The conversation took place in the late afternoon; the niche was dimly lit, but the sun shot beams of radiance through the windows, casting stark shadows. 

Mr. Lenard and I weren't the only ones present; I believe there were at least one or two acquaintances from the Edmonton Star Trek Society (now known as the Edmonton Speculative Fiction Society). 
 
Mr. Lenard was charming, soft-spoken, and self-effacing, and the conversation wasn't about Star Trek or acting, but friends, family, work, and the like. 

And that's all I remember. As a student of film and television and a huge fan of Star Trek, you'd think I'd have that day fixed in my head with all the clarity of an IMAX film, but . . . 

Mark Lenard is gone now, like Mom. And now I wonder how many things I'll forget about her, and curse myself for it. 

We’ll Be Right Back

User Interface Update

Note for readers: I have updated the "Most Popular," "Book, Film, Television, Food, and Concert Reviews" and "Short Stories" link columns down the side of The Earliad. 

The Leaning Streetlight of Edmonton

It was a windy day in Edmonton today, and while out on errands I spotted this precariously positioned streetlight right on our street. I called 311 and a fellow named Steve assured me a crew would head out right away to fix the problem. I'm sure the situation has been straightened out. 
 

55 or 551?

For my 55th birthday, Bing showed me this vision of the future: a snapshot of my 551st birthday taken (or will be taken) on February 25, 2520. Sylvia and I will obviously really benefit from the nanotech revolution, and it was super nice of Superman and the Enterprise to fly by for the party. 
 

Bad Friday

Left Sylvia's food at the drive-through after paying for it, got high-centred and stuck in the snow just before getting home (some folks came to rescue us after about 20 minutes), and then overcome with nausea and other unpleasant symptoms from a new medication. A less-than-ideal start to the weekend. 

And We're Back!

For reasons unknown, my domain name somehow wasn't connecting to the actual address of my blog, so anyone who's tried to visit for the last three days has encountered an unfortunate DNS error. Something to do with Google, I guess? Who knows. 

On to happier business. Here is Fallout's Mysterious Stranger, painted this weekend by Yours Truly. As far as human figures go, I'm happier than usual with this one. 

Trapped Behind the Walls of Blogger

 I am writing today's post from an unusual angle. Normally I visit earljwoods.com to fashion each day's post, but today I get a "This site can't be reached" error. However, if I just go to Blogger, all of a sudden I can access the blog's content management system, which is how I'm posting this. 

Has anybody seen my blog today? Comment below! And if you have any insight into the problem, please let me know. I know my earljwoods.com domain is current and paid for. 

No Longer Awaiting Moderation

 Today, for the first time in years, I explored Blogger's back end and found a moderation tab. Curious, I opened it to find several comments from readers awaiting to see if I'd allow them to be published. I wasn't even aware that I'd turned on comment moderation; indeed, the vast majority of comments are posted unhindered. But for whatever reason, about a dozen comments have been awaiting my approval. Some are days old; some are years old! One of them was even from France. I've now approved them all, save for a couple that were clearly spam. 

My apologies to the commenters, and my thanks for your thoughts! 

Progress

 This afternoon and evening I filled a garbage bag full of junk, emptied a filing cabinet to create space for good stuff that's lying around exposed, and managed to straighten up my office enough to move around with greater efficiency, which should make this entire decluttering project go much faster. Huzzah! 

One Point Six Three Million

I haven't looked at the analytics of this blog for a long time. Google changed something so that they now pop up right away when I start a new post. To my surprise, apparently The Earliad has gathered 1.63 million views since its inception. That seems like a lot to me, but maybe it's par for the course for blogs; I really have no idea. And apparently, only a small fraction of the views are from bots, at least if I'm reading the more detailed analytics correctly (certainly an open question).

Maybe even more pleasing is that people have generated almost 3,700 comments over the years, and I've only posted a little over 4,000 times. What can I say except that I'm baffled and grateful?