You know that urban legend that says everyone who appears in your dream is someone you saw once before.  Even if they’re not familiar, your brain registered their face in the background of a crowd, because humans cannot imagine faces we’ve never seen.  Which may or may not be true, but it’s the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw the pictures of the AI-generated faces.

Those people don’t actually exist.

It kind of freaks me out.

And this:

It’s easy to see this technology used in the creation of realistic-looking images for marketing or advertising purposes, for example. But it’s just as easy to imagine someone using it to create fake “evidence” of events that never happened in order to promote some agenda.  At the speed this tech is progressing, it soon might be impossible to tell whether you’re looking at a real photograph or a computer generated image.

Is anyone else really uncomfortable over the idea of generating fake faces?  (Or, for that matter, fake cats?)

There is a great quote by the writer Lydia Davis:

I had reached a juncture in my reading life that is familiar to those who have been there: in the allotted time left to me on earth, should I read more and more new books, or should I cease with that vain consumption—vain because it is endless—and begin to reread those books that had given me the intensest pleasure in my past.

Explore or exploit.  To find the new or to dive deeply into the things you already know you like.  The answer is mathematical: explore when you have a lot of time ahead of you and exploit when you have limited time left.  So explore in childhood, exploit in old age.  Explore your first year of college, exploit in your last few months before graduation.

It’s easy to know which way you should go when you know exactly when something is going to be over.  But what if you don’t know how long you’ll live?  When does old age begin if you have no clue if you have three days or three months or three years or three decades left?  When should you switch over and start becoming pickier, spending time only with what will make you happy rather than giving your time over to find things that could make you happy?

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The ChickieNob was telling a story about an “old man” who turned out to be in his 40s.  “I’m in my 40s,” I told her.  “That means you think I’m old.”

“But you are old,” she reminded me from her 14-year-old point-of-view.

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Josh and I were driving, trying to guess a person’s age that we just met.  “He’s in his mid-to-late sixties,” I guessed.

“I couldn’t get a read at all.  He may have been in his fifties.”  We were trying to figure out if this person may be nearing retirement age.  Josh shrugged, “Sixty sounds really young to me right now.”

Me too.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I know next to nothing about Karl Lagerfeld, but I was fascinated by this article about his mourning instructions.  Not burial instructions, because I think most of us have those, but five pages of mourning instructions.

For example, he “provided his staff with the acceptable answers he wanted them to give to customers when they offer their condolences. On the approved list: ‘Thank you for your condolences’ and ‘It is a hard time for all of us’.”  He left behind the statements he wanted written about himself: “He leaves behind an extraordinary legacy as one of the greatest designers of our time, and there are no words to express how much he will be missed.”

I am equal parts in love and confused by his chutzpah to dictate what other people think and feel after his death.  It’s not that other people don’t write their own obits, but they don’t take that space to speak effusively about themselves with the emphatic statement: I will be missed.  We hope someone else will do that.

What do you think?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Why is People magazine telling us about a three-year-old study, apropos of nothing?  This week’s article:

There could be another (surprising!) anti-aging solution for women: having more children. According to a study conducted by researchers at Simon Fraser University in 2016, the number of children a woman gives birth to can have an effect on the rate at which her body ages — slowing the process down.

I’ll admit, the first time I read the opening my eye skipped over the date, and I felt like shit about myself.  But the second time I read it, I felt like People thinks shit about me because they are delivering up a three-year-old study as if this is breaking news for seemingly no reason.  Like reporting on the sinking of the Titanic as if it happened last night but including the fact that the news is 107 years old.

In other words, it’s not news, but they’re putting it out there because fertility sells.  Articles about motherhood sells.  Scaring you with ideas about your biological clock sells.  Because they believe their audience wants to read about three-year-old studies as if it’s breaking news.  There is no update, no reason for saying it now; this is not evergreen content.

I’m putting this out there in case you wanted an example to use to explain to people society’s hyperfocus on fertility and how it affects people who can’t conceive.  You can show them a 2019 article about a 2016 study and ask them to find an article on any other topic that does the same, for instance, a 2019 article that solely covers the 2012 report about concussions and football as if the study came out this week.  Strange how that never happens.

On Monday night, we went down to Politics and Prose to hear Jasper Fforde read.  When I saw that DC was a stop on his book tour, I ran around the house screaming, “WE ARE SEEING JASPER FFORDE IN FEBRUARY!” when the date was announced a few months ago.

He is one of my most favourite-ests.

A bookseller at Politics and Prose recommended The Eyre Affair right when it came out, promising that it was Harry Potter for adults.  And while it isn’t actually Harry Potter for adults, it is twenty kinds of fun and just makes me happy.  His writing makes me happy.  Even when he put a huge cliffhanger into the end of Shades of Grey and then didn’t work on the next book in the series.  Just saying.

I saw him once before in 2007, but it was the first time for the twins and Josh.  I love that we all enjoy the same author.  And that he kinda sorta has our last name.  And that the reading was so packed that we had to get there over an hour beforehand to get a seat.  (It’s nice to feel a part of a fandom.)  And that fifty people all shouted out about the ending of Shades of Grey at the same time when he was speaking about series work.  And that I have a new Jasper Fforde book to read.

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Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Lucky” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Jess!
• “A Teaching Moment” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Lavender Luz has a post about the movie Three Identical Strangers and a reaction to a piece in Psychology Today.  It’s a disturbing story, and I’m a little stunned someone would publish something supporting the study in Psychology Today (and that the piece would pass the magazine’s editorial team standards).  While there is probably more to the story than presented by the filmmakers, the fact that the notes are sealed and will be until all the (unwilling) participants are gone is indefensible.  She makes dozens of great points in the post — go read it.

Not a Wasted Word has a post about identifying core values.  One, I love the reframing of, “We don’t prioritize that.”  And then this: “It was easy to believe our choices were drastically limited, but the reality is that we limit them ourselves, with our assumptions, our preconceptions, and our values.”  It’s empowering to think that you can take an unhappy situation and change it or find peace with it by bringing in your core values.  Food for thought.

Life Without Baby has a post about how time moves differently when you don’t have children.  She explains the difference with her friend: “She marks the passing of time with birthday parties, school grades, and childhood milestones. She knows how long ago something happened, because she knows how old her kids were, or what grade they were in at the time.”  It’s about finding your anchors and milestones.

Lastly, Torthúil has a post marking the five years since her positive pregnancy test.  It’s amazing to look back on what you didn’t know in the moment from the vantage point of the future, and it’s a beautiful reminder you may one day reach a day where you don’t automatically know the day of your cycle.  She writes: “The weeks after February 17th didn’t go smoothly. At the time it felt like they might be the undoing of me. But they began a new story, and here we are.”  Congratulations!

The roundup to the Roundup: I got to see Jasper Fforde this week.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between February 15th and 22nd) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.