Future Shock and Its Rot (by sarah)

We are creating a new Category "Future Shock and Its Rot" to go along with things like Aethelflaed and All Things Anglo Saxon, Moon Mania and Beyond, and Ammonites and All Things Cephalopod. These are categories that define specific topics of research or longer form projects such as poetry collections. Topics written about in these "Quests" will also appear in other categories such as history or technology, but tend to have over arching themes that need looking at all collected together rather than just disappearing into the broader categories.

I (Sarah) have been debating the addition of this category for a couple of years now because I am aware I straddle two worlds - Art and Science/Craft and Technology and though people would like to split them into exact dichotomies they are not, but they do tend to exist socially in distinct and separated communities. I have always seen myself as a bridge between those communities - back in the day helping artists with websites and following the progress of accessibility tools without which I would not have been able to complete my degree, as at one point I had lost the use of my hands for even holding a book to read, and of course my interest in green technologies and medical advancement as well as the intersection of tech and art in things like case modes and poems about Markov chains.

My two worlds are imploding and exploding and warring and hating and hurting in a great big mess involving greed and witch hunts and a perfect example of dipoled thinking that is currently crippling our society in everything at the moment.

The topic I am avoiding writing is of course AI - a meaningless term in and of itself. I have avoided writing about it because as I said I straddle the two worlds and am in the weird position of watching as a tech utopia I had envisioned 20 years ago can now never be, even though the technology for it now exists. And watching those technologies being badly and irresponsibly made and used causing ecological and economic devastation whilst still having to defend the use of technologies that provide access for disabled people like me, which have all been rebranding as AI for marketing purposes, and having to field issues such as getting my work rejected because I have "obviously used AI" when I have not, but work of mine that has been published has been scraped and I write genre anyway..... or my photos of storm light looking too realistic or the astronomy photo montages... a story of false AI use accusations that can currently sink your career.

I was loathed to start writing without doing a lot of research and then even more so when I realised it would be a topic I am on both sides of - something that will endear me to nobody and actively harm my career and then the issue that I am now going to be filling our over 20 year old blog with terms that may break who finds it and associates all our work with AI because algorithms can not get the nuance or even often the bluntness of a written argument often misunderstanding whether something is for or against a thing let alone giving complex overviews.

So I spoke to Alaric and the kids about this to check everyone was ok with me writing and potentially breaking our family blog and then I started my deep dive. And some of the stuff I have mentioned above happened after I started this deep dive and I realised I didn't want to just be writing about the negative either - there are plenty of awesome things happening but at the same time as I tried to research this topic and some stuff for post COVID revival projects. The more obvious it became that the wonderful window to people and knowledge that I had watched grow throughout my life was dying or in its death throes. The internet as I knew it doesn't really exist and that added a new quandary - was there any point in even attempting this? Will people even see it?

My conclusion was that it doesn't really matter if others get to see this as I need to put it down in writing so that I personally know where I am going with it! And there is rot and destruction and active death but there also needed to be scope to still celebrate and mark the good and just discuss the "ugly" or ill fitting parts. Bits that might fall into the good or the bad depending on how they are used or implemented.

I had already written Future Shock almost a decade ago now and that techno-social aspect has lingered in my thoughts and the disparity has grown. It was the moment we realised we were living in the future - I remember Charles Stross mentioning his similar moment which was a laptop-using cybergoth girlfriend and a "I'm living in a cyberpunk novel" realisation.

I am alive due to medical tech and people I know have been using AI to find and fight cancer... brain injury survivors and the elderly struggle to use the online world the doctor's surgery try and force you to use to order prescriptions and make appointments... I have had to talk vulnerable adults out of actions AI chat bots have encouraged...

Once upon a time I was very excited about Google Deep Dream and trained it with photos I'd taken to produce a book baby and other bizarre concoctions and my poetry was on a website under a specific licence because it was being used with permission for a language model to create poetry. These were interesting and fun art projects - the images were delightfully weird and the poetry, so obviously generated, was the entire point. This was machine art with human curators.

So how I can say I am anti AI and I definitely can't say I have never used it - other artists when I explained my projects to told me to rename them - they aren't the same as what is happening and accessibility tools are not the same... but on some level they are, and this is where the tangle exists... pretending you have drawn something created, and where the material used to train the AI come from, is important but is a distinction many in the Arts community do not want to acknowledge or more likely simply do not know about. The poem generator was also next to a poetry ping pong where different types of words are on different coloured ping pong balls and you turn the handle to produce a sentence - they both used the same under laying language constructs... this was a Literature Festival about 20 years ago - these fun things could not happen now.

And what even is AI? What is meant? Artificial Intelligence has meant many things to many different people and those in industry use it differently from those in academia, who have several uses depending on which research groups they work with, and this is all different from sci-fi readers which is different again from the general public and of course the marketing department is something else again. So there is a language barrier, and when I was first looking at writing about all this there actually was not the language to do so - sure I could make up terms but sometimes it is best to wait and see what words emerge. and sometimes due to dual meanings or ambiguous or rarely used acronyms you still end up making up your own terms for things. AI needs a lot of defining at the moment and it is a forever shifting landscape under my keyboard clicking fingers.

To try and work all this out I have been attending tech events and discovering some awesome charities Tech4Good SouthWest and more weapon design companies masquerading as humanitarian aid than I thought possible.

When offered sessions with experts I have taken them... they suggested I write a series of articles, or a book, or a series of workshops to explain the whole AI thing across multiple industries and the first time I was like "but... but that is why I am here... I wanted another answer - case studies I could point people at - lovely summaries" but apparently they do not exist yet and as the months drew on and I was getting the same response in despair I have been thinking this is going to be more than a simple few blog posts, and I don't really want to do it, but I can not see disabled people excluded from creative spaces just because of a confusion of word use and I can not leave the dangers of chat bots left unsaid and I can not ignore the environmental impact or the lost legacies of AI contaminated medical data bases.

And I can't ignore that sometimes AI is a tool for art but that the ethics of using ones trained on stolen art has possibly destroyed any legitimate use of it for that. Curation, intention and directional lead are important with inkblot paintings as much with AI which is why I am horrified to see such bad images being produced.

At an arts strategy group I attended the AI Good or Bad Session and I said "if you are going to steal the art and cost the earth can't you at least make sure there are no extra legs or pugs of a million eyes."

The environmental impact is bad - you can tell it's bad by the fact that companies dumped their green credentials in a way that had the geek communities in uproar. With situations like noise pollution caused by temporary generators in car parks and extreme energy and water consumption and that is before we look at emissions in general and building on what had previously been protected land (or at least attempts including here in the UK).

The concept of Meek Geek has been supplanted with Crypto/tech/AI Bro and all our heroes are dead or have been exposed as the villains. The great philanthropy future is drowning under billionaires, and the coders with consciences are working for community interest companies and not really making much money.

This keeps sounding like it will be all depressing but it won't be, honestly - I want to look at ways forward and positive developments too! I mainly want to untangle it all.

Yay! May – Gloucester Storytelling Cafe (by sarah)

Today!

Thursday May 7th 2026

7 pm doors for a 7:30 pm start

Pay what you want

The Folk of Gloucester

99-103 Westgate Street (just down from the Cathedral)

Gloucester

Gloucestershire

GL1 2PG

Fiona is amazing - I really loved the story walk she did for use a few years ago. The Gloucester StoryTelling Cafe has just turned 3! And we are hoping to bring back Chloe's competetion for The Bardic Chair of Gloucester as a position - so watch this space!

8 min open mic slots are avaliable too! Though you have to brave the hat, or box, or vase of choosing!

I am also working on a specific website where we can archive and catalogue all the events and workshops properly!

Chloe's dragons often reside over the monthly cafe sessions and last month they went on a little excursion and ended up on stage at The Kings Theatre. They were very pleased to have taken part in Guards! Guards! a Discworld Play with The Crown Players (As was I) but they will be back at the cafe tonight!

They were joined Blagrave Chelton and Errol Mk1 - here they are chilling back stage.

A Year of Sounds I Never Knew (by sarah)

It's been just over a year since I found out I was deaf and had always been deaf to some extent. I went because my hearing had gotten worse - it often gets worse when I have colds etc... and then goes back again except I had covid and then covid and more covid and somehow unlike my sense of smell it wasn't returning and now the TV and music was very loud and I was aware I was frustrating people. And my understanding of speech was comical at best.

I have (Pendred Syndrome)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendred_syndrome]. (yes I have the "wrong" thyroid condition because things are never simple and that sometimes happens like two types of thyroid illness on top of each other).

Fevers, infections and head injuries cause step changes in my hearing. So I may not have actually been born deaf as the loss with this kind of deafness can happen during early childhood but I know I was a deaf child and that I had huge problems with infections and tempereatures as a child. I was also being seen by ENT (Ear Nose and Throat) and getting speech thearapy at the Deaf School. But I had gromets and I don't know if things were not explained properly because I could hear so much better after the gromets for glue ear. So much so the world was completely over whelming and I became aware my speech was wrong and stopped speaking for a bit - I was 4 yrs old for the first lot of gromets. I missed most of my first year of school due to infections and an immune response to my blood transfusion.

Weirdly this should have caused an idnetity crisis but it hasn't it just kind of provided some clarity for me. My mum had the same type of deafness, my uncle was deaf and I had two cousins who had to have hearing aids as children. I have since discovered more aunts are also deaf and infact have the implant which I was told I was too old for!

I grew up with signing and subtitles on all programs that could have them and my uncle was very deaf. It was not obvious I was deaf inside my family because I had more hearing than a lot of the family and if I needed to lip read to understand people well... I had been nearly completely deaf whilst at the critical stage of childhood language aquasition - that was not supprising but I thought it was a processing issue - I have actually been getting by on chaos guessing - words you wouldn't think are similar from sound are with lip reading leading to some humours mess ups and more frustration and tears - I thought I was thick. Now I know to watch for it I can not hear people when they have a hand over their mouth - I thought the hand blocked the sound... but its just even if I have a video on silent I hear words when I see the mouths move.

So year I am not what many would consider deaf I can hear sounds but not the middle range - a cookie bite on the graph apparently. And annoyingly and most importantly right were a lot of people speak. I can hear high pitch and low pitch except since the head injury I have had continual tinitus - three different sound variant sometimes just one electric hum and sometimes all of it at the same time including a high pitch whine that previously I would have associated with passing out. I had a laughable conversation with the audiologist where I thought I was mucking up the test because my tinitus was bad that day and I couldn't tell where or when the high pitched signals were - this was how I found out that tinnutis is a form of deafness.

I thought a lot of people mumbled and the kids have realised they have a special talking to me voice which is higher pitched than their normal vioces and a lower very deep one for if they need my instant attention.

The hospital told me that I had adapted too well for my own good as it meant I didn't get support that was actually needed. Also my eyesight was damaged by covid and alot of the change in my hearing was actually just my eyesight getting worse so I couldn't lip read as well. Bare in mind the Graves Disease and possible diabetes stuff affects eyesight too. I do infact have new glasses and yeah the eyesight is worse again but the eye health is actually better than it was just after my first lot of covid. I am still on thyroid treatments - weird thyroids are infact part of this type of deafness which is a rare recessive that appears globally but it is one of the main hereditry types of deafness.

Apparently when I was at school the emphasis was on being able to get on at a hearing school so as soon as it was considered I could do that support would have been withdrawn. I am pretty angry at this to be honest along with being told off for talking with my hands/movng my hands around.

Part of this journey has also bought up the fact that I thought everyone understood at least slow finger spelling - they don't - I understand simple stories in sign but Alaric does not - this is a weird realisation. I am not good at sign - nothing seems to quiet match the stuff we used and mum moaned about this as well but still there was some understanding - I remember her beaming at a lady who signed to her just after her stroke when we were out for our Christmas walk - that is another complicated story - sign languages and systems can be bizarly controversial.

Yeah so I am angry or rather angyier.

What else?

Well I now have hearing aids... I find changing the batteries a pain and almost ate one o.0 not brilliant! They sometimes make my ears itch, I have scarring from the gromets and evidence of having done water sports in the UK (surfers ear). I do not have the right number of turns inside my ear which is why I have always struggled with balance and also why it took physio longer to re aling my ear crystals and sort my balance after the head injury. I had a scan - very scifi head cage type thing just to check as some rare cancers can cause the same issue. I think this might be the sort of cancer one of my friends had that cause them to go deaf.

The hearing aids are slightly too big and hurt a little, but have given me so much, I heard whole extra bits of bird song and music - I cried at The Lord of the Rings sound track - there was a whole extra bit I just had never hear. Rain makes a noise. This week we went to the sea and the sea... I could hear it from the top of the beach - it sounded different to how its always sounded to me as well. Cheepy little birds sound the same but crows etc... do not - there was always a puzzle for me TV crows did not sound like crows and I was always perplexed that they made them sound like that... they actually sound like that its just the TV was amplifying the bit I can't normally hear so I was hearing it (hope that makes sense!).

Sometimes the world is too over whelming and I take them out or turn them down. Others have said this is the wronge thing to do and they went straght to wearing them 18 hrs a day or all the time they are awake but they have all lost hearing due to age and so ts given them back what they had. And though obviously my hearing is worse so it has given me back what I had lost but it has also given me so much more - not full hearing - they just can't actually do that. I find sometimes it activates my headaches if they are in too long - I am having to learn new language/sound processing and I am mid 40's even if they could give me full hearing I apparently would be unlikely to then be able to process it all.

Someone else told me about the drastic difference between the private £2000 hearing aids and the nhs ones - a world of difference but I am still over awed but what I have - I think it will be sometime before I would consider trying to aid more sounds to the melee!

A couple of friends have questioned why I have been calling myself deaf - I have some hearing... well for a start the drs told me I was deaf, and gave me hearing aids. Alaric also pointed out I am reliant on lipreading and the Deaf Association says that affect on language is a big thing. Very few people are profoundly deaf which is what most people think of when you say deaf. I already knew that was generally Deaf with a capital D. My friend was like "oh so your just hard of hearing" and I suppose that is a discription just one I kind of associate with getting old so it just didn't seem to fit with my situation - I knew I was a deaf child so it seemed right that I am a deaf adult... I am not really sure what the correct phrases are other than knowing it would be deaf with a little d rather than profoundly Deaf with a capital D and I don't even know how I know that. Medical people have only used the word deaf with me.

The deafness is in both eats - bilaterial is the term they used. Due to the kids I have been under going genetic testing which apparently the endocrinologist can't access even though the results affect things to do with my thyroid. Apparently if I hadn't already had kids I would have had genetic councerling - I am not sure what that means - but this is a rare recessive meaning the kids are carriers at the minimium. When asked if either of them appeared to have hearing problems I had to answer that I didn't think I was the best person to notice that - as I have a family with very deaf people in it. They agreed.

So the world is loud for me! This can make large gatherings even worse than before but there s a restuarant setting on my phone and being able to directly pick up the mics at festivals etc... has been amazing!

I want to learn BSL (British Sign Language) but am shy - I know the ladies at the Deaf Association always sign "help?" when asking me if I need help/assistance for my batteries. But I don't sign back. Alaric completely missed they do this.

I am sure you are all already bored of me going on about this! But it is revolutionary for me - I spent so much time feeling loney and stupid and so much of that can be directly laid at the feet of being deaf.

This that are kind of bonuses but also my own internal albilism - if I had been treated properly as a child I would have had a head cage - oh the irony of being more susceptable to head injuries and them also being more catastrophic and being a wild card child (ie one always getting into a pickle breaking bones A&E trips for stitches in my head... but if this had happened though I would have still been me I feel the bullying would have been worse and I would have been sent to the "special" school and though it provided some of my friends with amazing support I doubt I would have gotten to go to university - kids from there just didn't. The other is seeing how Mary is affected by their ADHD... I think it is basically the same as mine but I was deaf and bizarlly this acted as a bit of a sheild for overwhelm - the overwhelm is quite bad with the hearing aids and that is still no where near full hearing let alone over sensitive hearing.

So I am deaf. This is still weird! I now have to put my ears in as well as my eyes on and remember my legs (crutches) before leaving the house!

Also I get to be a deaf musician and song writer - who knew?!

MockTales and Blogging (by sarah)

My left hand isnot behaving at the moment but we have resurrected Mocktales - this was our fortnightly writing night we just did in the house and invited people to join us so especially with NanoWrimo being no more we decided it was time to bring it back properly. So far we have mainly been blogging. We've been doing MockTales just for us again for a while and have including admin for writing and poetry stuff so if I have a load of slam performance requests I will reply to them or funding for storytelling etc... but mainly I want to write.

Before covid we were having to cap the nights so everyone got a chance to just sit and write but I don't think that is going to be such an issue these days. We have done some weekend ones mixed up with CreativiTeas but nothing like the numbers we used to have.

Anyway this week I did not blog what I did was try and retrieve stuff I had written on a stupid choice of plateform - not the plateforms fault it was never designed for writers and the writings had kind of been accidental. I do have a copy of these writings but it will mean typing it all out again 🙁 Boo! But doable. The result of my search was all my images are still there but the projects with the writings in are not - sigh.

On the plus side there may be a text reading short cut but it is in a silly font that might not be so readable to the reading devices so we shall see.

This has lead me to ponder weather I want to record this story - I am not sure how to do that as my microphone was broken yrs ago now by over enthusastic kids and grandmothers. It is probably fixable but will it still be compatable with my tech? It was bought from Maplin which no longer exists or at least is no longer round the corner!

I need to investigate microphones.

OF course I invited people round and then had a horrendous migraine so spent most ofthe day asleep whacked out on pain killers and not really functioning whilst awake so only after people left did I realise that the bunny supplies where all in soak in the bath and I hadn't emptied the bathroom bin and these things shouldn't really matter but I do fret about these things but the house will never be perfect for visitors so they get a dining room of half taken down halloween decks and a kitchen where weights are being primed to paint them metallic purple to match my living room gym as I battle with the high risk of osteoperosis and so on. And I boiled milk all over the oven just before hand too!

Anyway - I hope you are all enjoying our attempt to put the blogs all back in order! And hope a few more of our writing friends rejoin our little writing parties! Also you might need to tell us you want to know about them as the social media channels we had been using are getting more unrelable and they weren't brilliant to begin with!

Alaric has written a blog post that will go live tomorrow and is now back on working on the novel/series we concieved on our first date - a mash of the two novels we were writing at the time.

We are hoping to really get going again with our writing - for Alaric they would love to write another technical book but the chapters for collections and the book he wrote are now so long ago everything has changed including who the publishing companies are!

But all of that is the grand stuff - for now we are just spending Tuesday nights writing andhaving nice drinks and snacks.

The drinks this time were:

Toffee Apple Matcha Latte made with oat milk and served with a homemade siced apple toffee apple - the toffee needed more sugar

Spiced Pumpkin Pie Sticky Chai - hot with no milk and made about twice as strong as the instructions

Pumpkin Spice Malted Hot Chocolate with pumpkin marshmallows

Didn't mean for them to all be hot brews but it was tipping it down outside!

Modelling data with relations (by alaric)

So, I've been thinking about data. I'm going to explain my thoughts with enough background so that non-programmers should be able to follow along, but don't worry - I won't be going on huge tangents with basic tutorials, so if you already know everything about pointers in C and SQL databases, you can just skim over the early paragraphs! Read more »