Oh this is excellent

Thin, illuminated sliver of a crescent moon against a deep black night sky.

Sliver of moon..

Really was!

Pretty pink and white flowers among little green leaves on a branch

The apple trees are blossoming!

Mikhail Belomlinsky- Bilbo in Smaug's lair (The Hobbit) 1976

Text from the article: But Google does say “we train on limited info, like specific prompts in Gemini and the model’s responses, to improve functionality over time.” That’s why “connecting your Google apps to Gemini remains an opt-in experience that you can adjust in your settings at any time.” It’s opt-in for a reason. Keep that in mind.

The article to which you're responding seems to say they are?

I agree that the whole thing's unpleasant, but it seems to be opt-in for the user (that said, I also agree with OP that that's not sufficient when there are inevitably others in those photos who won't have given their permission)

The dome of St. Paul's Cathedral rising over buildings

The dome of St. Paul's Cathedral and some beautiful blue sky photographed between sunlit green trees

Sun catching the towers of St. Paul's during the golden hour

Spectacular weekend in London, and my first time visiting St. Paul's!

Night sky, full moon, magpies roosting, golden key buried beneath a tree, painting.

Goodnight.
Apple Tree: Seven for a Secret, Catherine Hyde.

THE BISHOP OF DURHAM ATTEMPTS TO SURRENDER THE CITY by Susanna Clarke A beautiful green book cover bearing the golden silhouettes of a tree and some birds

New book announced from THE Susanna Clarke, and it's related to Durham – just as I'm sorrowfully coming to terms with having bidden farewell to that beautiful city after living there for eight years

At what point does one's love for an author's work begin to feel like a link of destiny?

Happy birthday!!! (and I agree, that birthday card is exquisite)

😂

Had to check elsewhere that it was an acceptable spelling, but INWREATHED (10)

Only one D :(

Daffodils, foliage and purple flowed with little brown bird perched on branch, painting.

Morning.
🖼️ Raymond Booth

Makes sense that he was a gynaecologist, because in this painting he's definitely serving c— *loud gunshot*

I've had to have very similar "not an umlaut" conversations

*gasp*

I have been accused of being a snob by a colleague because I include the diaeresis in "naïve."

Now admittedly, it was probably ill-advised of me to briskly say "It's not an umlaut."

One of those days I utterly lament the fact my degree wasn't in archaeology (or a relevantly related field). Oh, to return to Durham and get to study wonderful Corbridge! Oh!

Painting of red, white, yellow and blue flowers in brown pottery vase on table, grey background, painting.

Bouquet of Spring Flowers, Pierre Auguste Renoir.

Found in the ancient city of Monopolis

Earth, taken from the Artemis II.

I refuse to believe I'm meant to spend my one go on this floating rock celebrating cruelty and ignorance. That just can't be the point of all this.

Bright pink-purple flowers of honesty with green verdure in the blurred background

The honesty is in bloom!

Close-up photo of bronze letters, arranged to spell "PX AT IN" against a black background. The large letters show mounting holes.

For #RomanFortThursday, a little ancient Scrabble: bronze letters from an inscription found at the Roman fort of Schirenhof near Schwäbisch Gmünd.
Built around AD 160, the fort was abandoned in the mid-3rd century AD. It was the base of the Cohors I Raetorum, an... 🧵1/2

📷 @almbawue.bsky.social

🏺

This is quite the etymological Easter egg

Thank you

Snowdrops, ladybird, leaf litter, woodland floor, painting.

🖼️ Josef Lauer

and (b) not just blended amalgams of other people's ideas fed to them sycophantically under the guise of their own 'brainstorming' by the :::Plagiarism But It's Very Mildly Occluded By A Computational And Philosophical Haze::: machine

For a while I've been seeing variations upon "I only use AI to brainstorm ideas!!!", and I'm really starting to wonder what it is these people think the chatbots are providing that is simultaneously (a) beyond my brainstorming with a pen, paper, and my own imagination and cognition,

A beautiful edition of J.R.R. Tolkien's children's story Roverandom

Today is #TolkienReadingDay, celebrated on the 25th of March in honour of the destruction of the Ring and Sauron's defeat, and for this evening I've dug out a little piece of Tolkien's work that I've never got round to reading before

Hurray! Hope all goes well