Back in 2024, when the world didn’t seem quite so insane, I wrote about my views as a Technoskeptic. I’ll restate my views here. I consider that new technologies should be considered and examined, not just unquestioningly adopted at full speed. I consider that the maxim “move fast and break things” is very unwise, once you sit and consider things. Technologies should serve humanity and empower the individual, not pander to the interests of a narrow clique of people; this…
This has been a long and busy year for The Mercian Pilgrim, I turned 50 and made it a resolution to visit as many new places as I could. It’s safe to say that I hit that mark already, and still have till April! A lot of things went unreported and unfilmed, suffice to say that I had enough issues with time and mental energy in 2025. My travels this year have covered a lot of ground, Avebury and West…
This morning I walked through heritage of a different kind, the canal network here in the Black Country is much closer to home in both time and space than Belas Knap. The canals were once the industrial lifeblood of this country, carrying heavy goods along their lengths; drawn by horses or driven by motors, the boats carried heavy goods that would have damaged the roads. While Belas Knap was serene, seemingly (some might say literally) from another world; the canals…
I started to write this post inside a Neolithic Long Barrow. A wonderful old place of still stone and earth, with the modern world at a distance. The sense of the ancient people, our ancestors, is strong here. I sit looking around this low stone chamber, the ceiling low enough that I must stoop to move around, there’s a sense of stillness and peace. As I move around the barrow, the sense of peace and almost otherworldliness is strong. Normally,…
This is a hot topic. In the last few years a lot of content in all formats has been created with the use of generative Artificial Intelligence tools. It allows people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to, to generate some fairly nifty results. In many ways this is a win, you can easily and cheaply get useable results; plus you can use AI tools to help you explore concepts and ideas, or help with research. I’ve done all of this,…
It seems perhaps contradictory, at least at first. I’m a geek, a user of GNU/Linux, a programmer, a gamer, I think AI has potential, I believe virtual worlds can have a beneficial use. All that, and a Technoskeptic? Hear me out…. Our technologies have done wonderful things for us, better quality of life and longer lives are ours. Thanks to our technologies, we can communicate over huge distances and do things that in previous centuries would have been thought Witchcraft….
This feels like a turning of a spiral, somehow the old is new, I turn full circle but am in a different place. I’m going to be covering a few topics here on my website. Technology, including skepticism of it, is one subject. I am going to be pondering Taoism, and Modern Druidry. I hope to be posting the odd “how to”, and ultimately some Python code in GitHub. For now, a journey of a thousand miles begins beneath the…