“There is a great deal of art to creating something that seems artless.”

Posted on July 3, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

There is writing which resembles the mosaics of glass you see in stained-glass windows. Such windows are beautiful in themselves and let in the light in colored fragments, but you can’t expect to see through them. In the same way, there is poetic writing that is beautiful in itself and can easily affect the emotions, but such writing can be dense and can make for hard reading if you are trying to figure out what’s happening.

Plate glass, on the other hand, has no beauty of its own. Ideally, you ought not to be able to see it at all, but through it you can see all that is happening outside. That is the equivalent of writing that is plain and unadorned. Ideally, in reading such writing, you are not even aware that you are reading. Ideas and events seem merely to flow from the mind of the writer into that of the reader without any barrier between.

— Isaac Asimov, I. Asimov: A Memoir, 1994

 

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More than a bookstore

Posted on July 2, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

In the heart of the Grandmont Rosedale neighborhood in Detroit, a failed bookstore is experiencing a welcome rebirth. Pages Bookshop, a valued independent bookstore, has found new life with the help of the Steen Foundation and a team of dedicated young Detroiters.

Leading the revival is 23-year-old Detroit native Jeremiah Steen. His foundation, launched in 2018, is dedicated to youth empowerment and workforce development. Jeremiah, alongside 24-year-old Grandmont Rosedale resident Jelani Stowers, who now serves as Pages’ general manager, has taken over with more than just financial investment. The pair share a deep-rooted passion for community engagement and literacy.

The new Pages Bookshop hosted a grand opening in April. The event featured community speakers, student performances, and even some wonderful book giveaways. However, the Steen Foundation’s vision for Pages extends beyond traditional bookselling. The new owners plan to transform the space into a multifaceted community hub, complete with art displays and a podcast studio.

Recognizing the importance of accessibility, the new Pages Bookshop plans to extend its reach beyond its physical location. As part of their outreach program, a free traveling book fair will visit various Detroit schools, bringing literature directly to students.

 

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“Once upon a time there was a dragon,”

Posted on July 1, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

For fantasy is true, of course. It isn’t factual, but it is true. Children know that. Adults know it too, and that is precisely why many of them are afraid of fantasy. They know that its truth challenges, even threatens, all that is false, all that is phony, unnecessary, and trivial in the life they have let themselves be forced into living. They are afraid of dragons, because they are afraid of freedom.

So I believe that we should trust our children. Normal children do not confuse reality and fantasy – they confuse them much less often than we adults do (as a certain great fantasist pointed out in a story called “The Emperor’s New Clothes”). Children know perfectly well that unicorns aren’t real, but they also know that books about unicorns, if they are good books, are true books. All too often, that’s more than Mummy and Daddy know; for, in denying their childhood, the adults have denied half their knowledge, and are left with the sad, sterile little fact: “Unicorns aren’t real.” And that fact is one that never got anybody anywhere… It is by such statements as, “Once upon a time there was a dragon,” or “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit” – it is by such beautiful non-facts that we fantastic human beings may arrive, in our peculiar fashion, at the truth.-Ursula K. Le Guin, Why are Americans Afraid of Dragons?

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International Flight Seat Map

Posted on June 30, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

I’m glad that I didn’t see this very amusing graphic prior to my recent 15 hour international flights; it would have been too depressing. This chart is from Matt Shirley. He clearly has been on some of the same routes that I’ve flown. My favorite part is the “luxury bathrooms you aren’t allowed to use.” On a recent trans-Pacific flight, I was seated in Premium Economy just behind a small Business section that had two restroom that were open most of the time. After using the closest one twice, I was berated by a bored flight attendant who screamed at me while waving his arms in my face. Good times.

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Kyoto Retreat

Posted on June 29, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

During my all too brief week in Kyoto, I was unable to visit one of the city’s best kept secrets due to scheduling conflicts. If find yourself in the old imperial capital and you want to escape the frenetic pace and crowds head to this secret retreat for books and coffee. Situated north of central Kyoto, the Donkou Kissa Fang, is a serene cafe and private library set  inside of a stunning townhouse and garden. But plan well ahead since it is only open Wednesday through Saturday and solely by reservation. And, to make it even more exclusive, Kissa Fang limits visitors to 6 every 90 minutes.

Donkou means slow thinking in Japanese, and is the name of the private collection of Yoshitaka Haba, a book director who has planned and curated the selection of books for libraries and shops across Japan.

You can learn more on their website or follow them on Instagram.

 

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Bookmobiles are the best

Posted on June 28, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

Open Books, a nonprofit bookstore and literacy organization in Chicago, Ill., has launched a bookmobile to bring free books to under-served communities.

The Open Books Mobile made its debut on June 8 during the nonprofit’s annual Slide into Summer event, which was held at the intersection of W. Douglas Blvd. and Central Park Ave. The mobile bookstore offers books in English and Spanish for all ages, and has appearances lined up in Chicago’s McKinley Park, Back of the Yards, and Gage Park neighborhoods.

Jennifer Steele, the executive director of Open Books, called the bookmobile “an extension of our mission to help transform lives through the power and joy of reading. Through continuing to partner with our communities, we aim to create equitable access to high-quality books, resources, and programs that are fun and inviting. In that way, families can read, learn, and grow together in ways that are most meaningful to them.”

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Fake It Til You Make It (there)

Posted on June 27, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

Discover the world with Fake Trave l. This site lets you bring your travel fantasies to life with AI-generated images. Create convincing travel photos that capture you at your dream destinations in seconds.

Fake Travel is your all-in-one platform for creating stunning travel photos with AI. Whether you need a scenic landscape, city view, or vacation snapshot, our AI-powered tools help bring your travel dreams to life with minimal effort.

  • AI-Powered Travel Photo Creation
    Create professional-looking travel photos using just text prompts and optional reference images with our state-of-the-art AI technology.
Obviously I tried it out with meme photos first.
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It started with a globe

Posted on June 26, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

Google Earth is celebrating its 20th birthday, and to mark the occasion, Google is bringing historical Street View imagery to the service.

In a blog post, Google said the anniversary update allows users to “explore the wonders of the planet from even more viewpoints, whether it’s a bird’s eye view or at street level.”From today, when you load up Google Earth you’ll see a new option for historical imagery in the toolbar, which allows you to move back and forth between now and years gone by.

Seemingly predicting that you might be overwhelmed by the prospect of having the entire planet at your fingertips, Google offers some suggestions.

You might want to look at a timelapse of Berlin between 1943 and the modern day, in which time the Berlin Wall was built and fell, before the city underwent huge urban transformation.

You could also observe the rapid expansion of Las Vegas since the 1980s, or how Houston’s NRG Stadium was built on top of what was just farmland back in 1944.

Some Maps users have even used the historical view to look up, say, pictures of their homes from years gone by, occasionally finding imagery of lost loved ones in the process.

Google also announced further updates to Google Earth, including new AI-driven insights for professional users in the US.

Urban planners will soon be able to access information about things like tree canopy coverage and surface land temperatures of different areas of a city using built-in Gemini insights.

Google Earth first launched in 2005, and according to Google was downloaded 100 million times in its first week.

It’s had a number of major updates over the years, adding features such as searchable wallpapers and 3D timelapse videos.

NB: if the video on Google Erath fails to load, please click here.

 

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Everybody needs a poetry camera

Posted on June 25, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

The Poetry Camera creates and prints poems about anything it’s pointed at: animals, people, objects, and landscapes. It photographs using AI. Much like an old school  instant camera, there’s a camera lens on the boxy frame, which scans the subject. Below it, there’s a slit where the receipt-like paper prints out the poems that the AI Poetry Camera digitally writes. Looking like a cartoon camera, with the sizeable shutter button and viewfinder, there’s also a nostalgic sense about it.

The AI language model that the Poetry Camera uses is from Anthropic named Claude 4. It’s the reason the device can write poems almost instantly using literary language. The user can choose the type of AI-generated poem they want, from haiku, sonnet, and limerick to alliteration and free verse, using the built-in knob. So far, the images and poems aren’t stored digitally on the Poetry Camera, meaning that the only copy the user has is the printed receipt.

The nifty video below explains all:

 

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A bit like Shakespeare

Posted on June 24, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

A bit of comic relief from my favorite Doctor and companion.

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