Pirates

From time to time I like to give a random 'shout-out' to today's talented craftspeople who breathe life into our images of the past. When it comes to caparisons (horse coverings) there is no comparison. Gwen Nowrick of Black Swan Designs is the best. Her fabrics have flare with flair. This is engineering with cloth. Understanding how it fits and how it moves on a horse is a specialized knowledge. Her caparisons offer both comfort and durability. She selects the right fabrics with care - just the right weight, just the right weave and just the right colours and patterns to dazzle. When these cloths move on a galloping horse, they ripple and crease and fold, creating 3D lines that trace the movement. Look at a medieval manuscript, look at still photos of Gwen's caparisons in action - we see the same lines . These billowing wavelets accentuate the action - they are integral to the heart-stopping display of it all. They are the equivalent of a line-drawing artist sketching in lines to convey movement. They are an accent. When it's right a good caparison pulsates with power; when its wrong it hangs like a limp rag and falls off. If you want to look the real deal - Black Swan Designs is the place to go (they also make many other wonderful period clothes). It also helps that Gwen is a fab person. ... See MoreSee Less

Here is a really positive application of AI that will be of considerable benefit to historians. It is a model that facilitates, in a predictive text sort of way, the completion of missing fragments of Latin inscriptions. It is wonderful. As the article points out it can process a quantity of data that no human brain is capable of holding. It is a smart use of the tool.Although I too worry about the social, intellectual and creative implications of AI, as well as its risks in the hands of malevolent actors, there is little point in bemoaning it. It is here. What we need to do is to see how we can use it for good. In some ways it is just a few thousand steps along the same line of doing a google search, which we've been doing for years. It can be a handy research tool, although it must be constantly challenged, cross-checked and reviewed with sharp critical thinking. Critical thinking skills are key for the future, if humans are to retain autonomy.Meanwhile projects like this can add significantly to the sum of human knowledge. In other instances it may propel major advances in healthcare or speed up the justice system. Of course as an old fogey I'm a bit wary of 'it' but I know enough not to ignore it. We must grab it and learn how to control it. No-one has yet successfully returned a genie to its bottle. ... See MoreSee Less

Pirates

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