Sunday Sundries

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Jingle Bells

Not worth it?
Local writer Dan Gardner’s PastPresentFuture newsletter/blog,  available through substack, is one I subscribe to — for free! His Christmas Potpourri includes upfront  the surprising

“Substack sets a minimum price for paid subscriptions, which the writers cannot set lower. I’m Canadian and in Canada it is, I think, CDN$7 a month. I can see why they do that. But allow me an admission against interest (as lawyers say): At $7 a month, people are paying as much or more than the cost of a subscription to a major magazine. With editors. And staff writers. And illustrators. And paper. I think highly of myself but I don’t think the newsletter I work on part-time with a team that consists of me and my dog is remotely equivalent to a major magazine.”

That made me feel better about not having a paid subscription. Perhaps I can further salve my consious by mentioning his forthcoming book How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything In Between, coauthored with Bent Flyvbjerg.

ChatGPT
Following on my post What Are The Attributes of a Good Genealogist, that demonstrated what ChatGPT can do, Dan Gardner’s Christmas Potpourri item included recommended reading by Ethan Mollick and Gary Marcus. Beware, there’s lots there and they do get pretty well into the weeds.

5 senses? In fact, architects say there are 7 ways we perceive our environments

Thanks to this week’s contributors: Anonymous,  Brenda Turner, Craig Milne, gail benjafield,  Glenn W., Helen Whyte, lesley, Pat Laffey, Teresa.