Tag: Reading

Earth Fall, 19

The action from here to the end of Earth Fall is from Ushen’s point of view. Her very early memories and experiences are glossed over somewhat, since realistic communications would’ve ranged from inchoate to difficult as she is only two years old at the beginning of the chapter.

Rather than posting up the whole lot at once, I decided on short chapters relating to the distinct phases of Ushen’s life. Plus, my thinking was that starting with very short chapters would allow me to expand where needed while editing, and that has been the case so far. Section 1 started with a bunch of notes of about 500 words, that became approx 1800.

As seems to be becoming usual these days, I’m behind on sourcing/painting imagery. The image pertaining to this installment may be added later.

19. UshenDownload

Drones Own the Sky?

I remember a few years back when there was a small concern about the effect of drones on birds. That thinking seems to have gone away like it never existed. It seems like it’s full steam ahead everywhere with drones, no concern about the natural world at all.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/news/battlefield-medicos-to-get-drones-support/?utm_source=Cosmos+Master&utm_campaign=669fd4296f-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6828fba71f-669fd4296f-181485694&mc_cid=669fd4296f&mc_eid=9b6812d534

Can you believe it? There’s even bird-watching with drones, as well as tree-planting! As a tree-planter with Landcare for twenty years, I have my doubts that a drone can successfully stick a plant or seed in the ground, cover it (its roots) with soil, water it in and come back regularly to check on it. As for birdwatching, by drone, I have yet to be convinced.

This is the most recent study of drones around birds. https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/bird-watching-with-drones-might-want-to-watch-your-distance-study-says/ and its title says it all: Watch your (drone) distance around birds. (Another good newsletter!)

While I haven’t seen any deliveries by drones first-hand, and really have no desire for such, I hear that it is a real thrill to get a parcel delivered by a little robotic airplane.

I hear drones quite often, in parks generally, where people are practicing their new skills flying them. I saw a Youtube video just now of a person explaining all the ways he has to protect his drone from bird attack. His drone, he explained, is his livelihood. Which gives him a right to protect it from birds.

I suppose if termites took over the earth, they’d be just as uncaring of the rest of the natural world as humans are.

The ‘Case for Re-reading’…

Reading this article has gifted me with a fantastic reading list. I’ve read maybe four books on the list, a couple that are also on my shelves and that are also on my re-reading list.

I came across this website only recently and haven’t explored the whole of it yet. The links in the article below are giving me a lot of food for thought.

https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/case-for-rereading

When Mandy Brown mentioned the novel I had just started to re-read–The Peripheral by William Gibson–I felt I was finally in the right reading group.

Though maybe only a parallel group to the one being written about, I still feel like this writer is reading stuff I’m reading, and thinking along the similar lines I’m thinking. I feel relationship for the first time in a long while.

Reading isn’t an escape—it’s a reckoning.

Rereading is training, practice for remaking and unmaking—and, yes, razing—the world. Rereading draws your best thoughts close, keeps them at the ready, prepares you to think thoughts with them, prepares you to act with them at hand. Your favorite reads are your armor and your weapons and your shelter all in one. What have you gathered about you? What has taken root in your mind? What thoughts are you thinking with?

from the Case for Re-reading by Mandy Brown