Mark Tough
@marktough
Doin' stuff at the nexus of tech, community development, and education. Geezer Xer. Iowa farm boy, 33-year Baltimore City rowhomie. Indie music, Patterson Park, pinball, disc golf, hiking, cat appreciating, econ/soc.
Shifted to a different desk spot for a couple weeks that features a clear view of The Tree That Ocludes Gertrude Stein’s Old House.
This is 70% for @actualkatherine.bsky.social and 30% for the rest of the world. Emily had substantial dental work and two likely-benign masses removed yesterday. I choose to believe she is grateful but I acknowledge that her gaze and general affect may suggest otherwise this morning.
My path home from the nursery this afternoon took me right past the squat, peak-banality-of-evil-nondescript HQ of Sinclair Broadcasting today. I felt compelled to share some feels with Seb et. al.
Got to hop along on an @actualkatherine.bsky.social radical history tour of Reservoir Hill tonight and it was great, in situ racoon and all! It's far from the hippest element of elucidation on the tour overall, but I sure as hell hadn't known that my office was a few blocks up from John Rawls' casa.
Mainlining seasonal nostalgia with a good, old-fashioned head cold. Shown here: 75% of our home's (documented) mammalian population: myself, Cisco, and Emily. Also: I need to shave!
ps: I usually cite sources but frankly, there are shloads of studies and they all report broadly comparable results. And I just don't think this country has several hundred million tween and teen shitposters. Folks like the Supreme Court; not so much Boston City Hall.
Multitasking while watching my Cyclones D I S M A N T L E national number one Purdue!
Not really a vodka drinker but it's been a VERY long day. Accompanied by Alien Lanes and other Dayton indie.
I'm pro AP and strongly pro press freedom. But man, that's an unfortunate place for a typo.
Belated TG post: despite [everything everything everything everything], I'm so thankful our caramel-cream Emily's triple mastectomy three weeks ago went very well and that she is already her badass self again. (Cisco be rockin' too).
Excellent. Thanks, I'll take a look after checking on our convalescing kitty (Emily needed a triple mastectomy, but she's recovering like a champ!).
Hundreds of shitlibs [lauditory] and others out on a beautiful afternoon in Towson, MD. I give the park capacity another half hour or before the crowd starts spilling into The Shops at Kennilworth’s parking lot; hee hee.
Not state-sanctioned calicos but nonetheless: the state OF Birdwatch in Baltimore City today. Cisco the house panther and Good Queen Emily are working in shifts here near the corner of Baltimore and Kenwood.
I'm not a reflexive hater by any means. But the notion that LLMs are at or near the point of passing the Turing Test is only even slightly defensible if one constrains one's notions of humanity to a fellow being's capacity to answer technical questions with authority.
I forgot to reply with this the other day, but on Monday I was chaperoning some kids at a museum visit at the Baltimore Train Museum. And I round a corner and go holy shit, this is the most niche but also one of the best serendipitous surprises I've ever seen. It IS pointed towards West Madison.
1981 and early 1982 were strangely a little late and also a little early in punk/post-punk/alt terms. But that's ok because this is a masterpiece. www.google.com/url?sa=i&url...
Going in a rather different direction than most, I suppose, but I'm quite sincere in my way. What do you think is the most 80s movie ever?
Similarly but differently up the road a piece here in Baltimore at our excellent Basque restaurant, La Cuchara (which obviously ranges beyond Spain in its cellar, but puckishly).
Toynbee Tiles were great back in the day, but Baltimore, your dada weirdness keeps going strong (photo by my neighbor Ann S).