Jack Preston King

@jackprestonking

Author, poet, philosopher. Courter, creator and curator of wonder. I write for people who intuit that there is more to reality than meets the eye. JackPrestonKing.com

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Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· 26d

The complicated heart of Sayaka Murata's Convenience Store Woman buff.ly/xFHxVPi

Book cover of Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Jul 5

Very interesting post on Medium by Will Locket all #writers #writing should know about. #AI is up against the wall regarding Copyright infringement. The story is behind the paywall but do read the whole piece if you can. The screenshots below share the main legal conundrum medium.com/@wlockett/th...

Google recently lost a court case regarding its AI-generated search summaries in Germany. The court ruled that these AI summaries are the company’s own content and are therefore legally liable for any false claims the bot spits out. The implications for Google are immense, which we discuss soon, but this will also seriously impact other AI companies. For example, xAI’s proclivity for producing unconsensual sexualised images or even CSAM could be framed as xAI’s legal liability and not the users’.

Now, Google plans to appeal this ruling, but I don’t rate their chances, as any defence they could make is nonsensical from a copyright point of view. AI labs have been able to get away with stealing vast reams of copyrighted data to train their AI under the guise of ‘fair use’. To qualify the unpaid use of copyrighted material as ‘fair use’, you need to transform the material and make it something different. This is why YouTube film critics can use clips of

films without facing a copyright claim, because they are transforming the material into something fresh, rather than just reproducing it. AI labs like Google, OpenAI and Anthropic have claimed that training an AI on copyrighted material counts as transformation. But that, in turn, means that they are the originator of the AI’s output and are therefore liable for whatever it claims. Again, if a film critic YouTuber were slanderous, they would personally be liable for it, rather than the creator of the movie they clipped. So, if Google wants to claim that the AI isn’t transformative and that it simply regurgitates what it finds in its training data, then it will undermine the entire industry’s argument of fair use. And boy, if you think the AI industry’s financial woes are bad now, just wait until they have to pay the people they stole from!

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· May 26

Yes, it was Bowie's "Sound + Vision" tour in 1990. He played all of his classic hits for the last time live. I saw him in St Louis. www.davidbowieworld.nl/tour-date-2/...

DAVID BOWIE 1990 – SOUND+VISION ERA
The Sound+Vision Tour was launched on 4 March 1990 and concluded on 29 September 1990, totaling 108 shows across 7 legs. The tour was conceived as a retrospective farewell to many of Bowie’s classic songs, which he announced would be retired from live performance following this series of concerts.

The show incorporated extensive use of video projections and integrated lighting effects, marking Bowie’s return to a more visually stylized stage presentation after theatrically restrained tours such as 1978’s Isolar II. The setlist relied heavily on Bowie’s most iconic material, determined partially by fan voting.

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· May 21

Quote with a fictional band that is not Spinal Tap

Michael Fassbender's band from the movie Frank

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· May 9

Reposting because it got no traction yesterday. Here's a snippet from Wikipedia's synopsis of the 1816 story The Sandman by E.T.A. Hoffman. Olympia in the story is a clockwork automaton. This is the archetype Richard Dawkins is possessed by as he falls in love with "AI Claudia."

Spallanzani gives a grand party at which it is reported that his daughter will be presented in public for the first time. Nathanael is invited, and becomes enraptured by Olimpia, who plays the piano, sings and dances. Her stiffness of movement and coldness of touch appear strange to many of the company. Nathanael dances with her repeatedly, awed by her perfect rhythm, and eventually tells her of his passion for her, to which Olimpia replies only "Ah, ah!". During the following days, he visits Olimpia repeatedly, reading her the poems and mysticism that had so bored Clara, and Olimpia listens to it all and replies only "Ah, ah!", which Nathanael interprets as understanding. Most other people consider her dull and stupid, although pretty, and with strangely mechanical actions.

Eventually Nathanael determines to propose to Olimpia, but when he arrives at her rooms he finds an argument in progress between Spallanzani and Coppola, who are fighting over the body of Olimpia and arguing over who made the eyes and who made the clockwork. Coppola, who is now revealed as Coppelius in truth, wins the struggle, and makes off with the lifeless and eyeless body, while the injured Spallanzani urges Nathanael to chase after him and recover the automaton to which he has devoted so many years of his life. The sight of Olimpia's eyes lying on the ground drives Nathanael to madness, and he flies at the professor to strangle him. He is pulled away by other people drawn by the noise of the struggle, and in a state of insanity, is taken to an asylum.

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· May 6

Somebody had to do this...

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· May 1

#EcksteinsMonthOfMusic 🎼 #MusicChallenge 🎶 First artist I had a crush on Yes, I'm that old...

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Apr 24

News story this morning about Microsoft. It looks like #AI train is crashing. "Adoption of 365 Copilot has reached just slightly over 3%." Which means 97% of us disabled the stupid thing. LOL.

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Apr 5

Verification:

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Apr 4

Here's my entry. This is from my Medium about page: #LibrariesChangeLives

I grew up in a lower middle class, Midwest USA small town. I attended the local Methodist Church and went to public schools within walking distance of my house. My family was “dirt poor,” but so was everybody else in my home town. My parents were divorced (and Dad flew the coop), a rarity in
1960s-1970s small town America, so we were a bit poorer than our neighbors, living on just Mom’s income. But my (working single) mother made up for our low circumstances in many creative ways.

The most impactful thing my mother ever did for me – and I choose to believe this was her intention; she made this decision with me and my future in mind – was to buy a small house in which to raise her 3 children, a house only half a block from our large-and- quite-impressive-for-a-small-town public library.

Growing up, I practically lived in that library. In part because it was air-conditioned, which my home was not. In part because I had a mean older brother who thought books were for nerds and wouldn’t be caught dead
there (ah, the great escape!). But most of all, I grew up in the library because I couldn’t get enough of reading. Books transported me to other worlds, both here on Earth (other times, other places, other cultures), and to worlds of the imagination (science fiction and fantasy, mostly). The three elderly librarians who ran the place adopted me as their own and let me read anything I wanted, with no age or subject restrictions. They introduced me to Books in Print and ordered anything I requested through the Interlibrary Loan System. That library, and those librarians, basically co-parented me for the first 18 years of my life. It was bliss.

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Mar 21

A poem bult from self-help and bowling metaphors: You have to admire their form – twelve long steps before letting it fly: Denial is more than a river in Egypt, or Just take it one day at a time, or the tricky Today is the first day of the rest of your life... jackprestonking.com/divorce-night

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Mar 18

My book The Simplest Path to Personal and Planetary Awakening – FREE YOUR MIND is now 100% FREE to read on Internet Archive. Read online or download a free PDF or EPUB. #spirituality #Booksky archive.org/details/the-...

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Mar 3

Has anybody found a way yet to turn off this new "suggested for you" feature?

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Jan 18

And our Milky Way galaxy is only one of at least 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe. And the observable universe is only 5% of the universe as-it-is (the other 95% being Dark Matter and Dark Energy). The lack of humility among most earthlings is mind-boggling.

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Jan 11

I don't know about "most cherished," but I do have a funny poem featuring flowers... 🌹🙂🌷

The Garden Plot

In Russia, they jail their poets — Ten years
busting Siberian ice for even
the least fruitful charge on any
gulag of the heart. Then there’s

you, growing wild, in Capitalist Pig America, planting
your Gold Card on the register to charge
Poet’sMarket: 1800 Places
to Sell Your Poetry! The slacker
cashier is scoffing as he hands you the pen. He’s picturing
you washing dishes, taping soaps, playing
bridge with housewives in wall-flower dresses, then
it’s off to the garden for sweet tea and sugary

poems about flowers — lilacs, chrysanthemums…
struggling for a rhyme and finding only
anthems, battle hymns, war songs. The boy’s clearly
fantasy-prone brain sows a Moscow apartment, and you

have sprouted a beret, a tulip-shaped
scar on one cheek like a third eye. Your dirty garden
apron has budded bandoleers. You’re gathering
dissidents like daisies for a seasonal centerpiece,

a bouquet of angry poets, blooming
around him like red, red roses. He takes
a cautious backward step. He’ll turn
you in. He knows your variety. He

sees right through your shrinking violet veneer.
You’ll cut down his children
with words sharper than thorns,
plant your marigold mines in the fertile

soil of his bleeding heart, outside-agitate
his peace lily mind with your
sunflower seditions, your incendiary
poems like snapdragons exploding in his face.

-- Jack Preston King

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Jan 9

When the world gives you horrors you need a reminder that life is also wonderful. Here's a love poem I wrote for my wife. The first line refers to the fact that I wore a tie to work every day for 30 years. We met at work, and have been joyously married for 26 years.

True North

Behind this seemly tie, just left
of where the silvery clip restrains
the freedom of its fabric — there,
inside the cage of curling bone
in which my body wards its fragile
turning, lies a heart as free
of questions as a compass pointing
North again, and always North,
no matter all the turning world,
and you, my North, and my heart finding
you, and finding once again,
in all the round and turning world,
but one True North, one sure direction
all the turning world must turn
in reference to, if it would my heart,
fixed by Nature’s Grace on you,
in all its turning plans include,
for where you are, there’s my world turning
North, as every compass learns
by Grace to find itself and turn.

-- Jack Preston King

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Jan 2

Black Phillip - patron saint of 2026!

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Dec 30

I'm stuck being a 12 year old in Alabama. Robert McCammon's Boy's Life. Great novel. Echoes of Bradbury.

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Dec 27

I read 31 #books in 2026. Kind of at the low-end since I've been keeping count. In my defense, a couple of those books were ginormous, such as Passoa, Richard Zenith's biography of Portuguese poet Fernando Passoa, which, in paper, is over 1,000 pages. I listened to the 42+ hour #audiobook.

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Dec 25

Look at my amazing Victorian Christmas tree! Full credit to my wife. All I did was put the tree up and bring boxes of ornaments down from the attic. She turned it all into magic!

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Dec 21

Your last saved meme is your moral philosophy.

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Dec 21

"The concept of "real" is morphier than we usually credit." Amen to that! I love this passage from physicist Carlo Rovelli's book The Order of Time:

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Dec 16

Great question, Chloe! I think my most joyous art experience this year was listening to the audiobook of Jack Kerouac's Dr. Sax. There are other versions out there but this one from (I think ) 2024 is perfect in every way. It carried me out of myself and reminded me why I love this Beat classic.

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Dec 14

I see people posting winter #poetry, so I'll join in. Here's the one and only poem I ever wrote set in winter, "Sheep Pressed Crystal Wool-to-Wool." I think I was on a Gary Snyder kick when I wrote it. The incident in the poem really happened many years ago when I owned sheep:

Sheep Pressed Crystalled Wool-to-Wool

Sheep pressed crystalled wool-to-wool, eyes
riveted on shadow, crackle, dark
night trees beyond the fence line. Something
moves. Brave Dorset, snorting steam,
stamps her warning in the snow.

Great white sheepdog, giant in the moonlight,
leaping starward, biting air, chases
sky gods on the hilltop, coldly
indifferent to his timorous wards’ plight.

Gray stone the size and shape of
a cat's skull, though heavier, presses
cold against my palm. Eyes closed, I
become listening. The stone
arcing from my hand becomes
a god in flight and the dark wood shadow
yelps and bounds away, crashing
to silence through the underbrush.

Laughter rimes the hilltop. The dog howls in shame.

- Jack Preston King

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Dec 10

Still free on Archive . org archive.org/details/like...

Like an Astonished Magician by Jack Preston King.Download free at https://archive.org/details/like-an-astonished-magician-jack-preston-king

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Dec 9

I just finished reading this book which is focused exactly on this question, how to tell intuition from anxiety. Highly recommend. I listened to the audiobook, which has terrific narration.

Everyday Intuition: What Psychology, Science, and Psychics Can Teach Us About Finding and Trusting Our Inner Voice
By: Elizabeth Greenwood
Narrated by: Talon David

A captivating and insightful deep dive into the world of human intuition, exploring the power of this elusive phenomenon and how it can be harnessed to better know and trust ourselves. We rely on our intuition, even though we don’t fully understand what it is, how it works, or if we can even...

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Dec 1

"𝐴𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝐺𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑎 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑍𝑒𝑛 𝐾𝑜𝑎𝑛𝑠, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑢𝑡𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦." My #BookReview of Brian Tom O'Connor’s Awareness Games: Playing with Your Mind to Create Joy #consciousness #meditation #mind #enlightenment #Booksky jackprestonking.com/f/awareness-...

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Nov 17

Post a book you love from the 80s. No explanations, no reviews, just covers and the all-important Alt Text #BookSky #bookchallenge #readingchallenge #bookish #books

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Nov 15

All the humans aren't gone, but this sounds a bit like Philip K Dick's 1955 short story Autofac. Starts on page 72: archive.org/details/Gala...

Jack Preston King@jackprestonking· Nov 13

This essay is me standing up against all the cynics of the world. This is literally what every individual person can do to save the world, maybe the *only* thing we can all really do to save the world. Stand up against the cynics!