… a couple more, but critter only, they do it so beautifully! Above is a Great Egret taking off from one of the banks between the ponds at Bubbling Ponds Fish Hatchery in Page Springs … no way any machine we design and build comes even close to the beauty of a take off like this … check out the beauty of the Great Blue Heron flaring before he touches down on the road beside one of the ponds. Looking at the leading edges of the Egret’s wings the alula feathers are deployed on both wings. These feathers perform an important function…
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Sedona News – The Sedona International Film Festival is proud to present the Northern Arizona premiere of “The Room Next Door”, showing Jan. 31-Feb. 5 at the Mary D. Fisher and Alice Gill-Sheldon Theatres. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLHSOFsZICk “The Room Next Door” — award-winning filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar’s first feature film in English — features a stellar ensemble cast led by Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore and includes John Turturro and Alessandro Nivola. Swinton was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Actress in a Motion Picture Drama for her role in this film. Ingrid (Julianne Moore) and Martha (Tilda Swinton) were close friends…
Arizona News – New year, new schedule! In 2025, Arcosanti has added new dates to its robust calendar of immersive workshops, including the Natural Construction Workshop, the Arcosanti Archives Workshop and the Land Stewardship and Sustainable Technology Workshop. The Natural Construction Workshop focuses on building using natural earth technology. Participants can learn how to work with natural materials such as clay, rock and reed to construct rock walls, cobb bricks, rammed earth, reed screens and clay plaster. Each four-week program is $1,550 and includes tuition, five-day per week lunch, housing, facilities and field trips. The 2025 workshop dates are as…
Prescott News – Experience a captivating performance of Arizona Philharmonic’s eight finest string musicians, each on a four-stringed instrument—violins, violas and cellos—presenting the dynamic program, Eight by Four, Sunday, February 2, 3:00 pm, at the Ruth Street Theater at 1050 Ruth Street in Prescott. Tickets start at $25 (no ticketing fee), and are available at AZPhil.org, or by calling 855-321-6724. A pre-concert talk begins at 2:00pm. “String instruments are the perfect balance of unity and diversity, creating an entrancing blend of sounds, musical selection and artistry. This concert is a powerhouse performance by top-notch Arizona Philharmonic string musicians,” stated Abby Coffey, AZ Phil…
Sedona News – The Sedona International Film Festival is proud to present Stand-Up Comedy Night live onstage at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre on Sunday, Feb. 2 at 7 p.m. The show will feature headliner Sam Ridley with Christie Campagna opening the evening. The evening will be hosted by Savannah Pagnozzi. SAM RIDLEY New to California, Sam Ridley is making waves in the area as an up-and-coming comic in a big way: an East coast flavor on the West coast scene. With several sketch comedy projects in the works, as well as a short film and a role in a…
By Dave Steve Sedona, AZ — There is a new preprint on arXiv, Can LLMs make trade-offs involving stipulated pain and pleasure states?, stating that, “Pleasure and pain play an important role in human decision making by providing a common currency for resolving motivational conflicts. While Large Language Models (LLMs) can generate detailed descriptions of pleasure and pain experiences, it is an open question whether LLMs can recreate the motivational force of pleasure and pain in choice scenarios – a question which may bear on debates about LLM sentience, understood as the capacity for valenced experiential states. We probed this question…
Sedona News – The Sedona International Film Festival is proud to present the Northern Arizona premiere of “Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story”, showing Jan. 31-Feb. 6 at the Mary D. Fisher and Alice Gill-Sheldon Theatres. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl_av7J1ggY This star-studded tribute brings into focus the dazzling, complex period of Liza Minnelli’s life starting in the 1970s, just after the tragic death of her mother Judy Garland — as she confronts a range of personal and professional challenges on the way to becoming a bona fide legend. Over these years, Liza seeks out extraordinary mentors: Kay Thompson, Fred Ebb, Charles Aznavour,…
… we are a pretty cool species and we have been able to find ways to extend our natural capabilities to do things that only creatures in nature are able to do naturally and one of the really important things is flight … who hasn’t dreamed of flying without contraptions of one kind or another? I still do! So I thought it would be kind of fun to match photos of those who do it every day with we humans in the devices we have invented to enable us to do the same … well kinda! In the photos above…
Sedona News – The Sedona International Film Festival is proud to join theatres around the world to present the global premiere of “Green and Gold”, showing Jan. 31-Feb. 6 at the Alice Gill-Sheldon Theatre. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVJrEdqkfNY Foreclosure looms over Wisconsin dairy farmer Buck (Craig T. Nelson). With mounting debt and the land his family has cultivated for four generations at risk, Buck refuses to give up his legacy without a fight. Buck’s granddaughter (Madison Lawlor) works alongside him but dreams of a career in music. Her aspirations are fanned by an emerging friendship with a famous musician (Brandon Sklenar), but chasing…
By Bear Howard Bear Howard Chronicles Sedona, AZ — Today’s inauguration of former President Donald Trump is, by many accounts, a troubling moment in American history. Trump has declared that he won by a landslide and, therefore, claims to have a mandate from the voters to act as he pleases. However, the numbers tell a very different story. Trump received only 49.80% of the popular vote—hardly a landslide, and certainly not a mandate. Furthermore, when considering the entire U.S. population of 334 million, his share of the vote represents just 23%. In contrast, President Joe Biden received over 81 million…
Safety neurons: World model tensors for general AI alignment By Dave Steve There is a recent feature in The Transmitter, Most neurons in mouse cortex defy functional categories, stating that, “The majority of cells in the cerebral cortex are unspecialized. Cells in the visual cortex that selectively fire in response to an object moving in one direction or another, or neurons in the prefrontal cortex that tune in to confidence and reward and fire only when rats make decisions. Neuropixels recordings reveal that much of the mouse cerebral cortex comprises non-selective neurons. Everywhere except in the primary sensory areas, the neuronal firing…
Sedona, AZ — Yes, it’s true. Evil does lurk in the hearts of humankind. Like those who profit from the degradation, misery, sorrow, and suffering of others. And those who make money from the use and production of weapons and other things that kill. Those who purposely cause wars to maintain their blood-soaked profits. Those who take pleasure in giving pain and hurting others. Those who persecute people of different sexual orientation. Those who rape, kill, plunder, set people on fire, destroy homes and livelihoods, or injure others for pleasure. Those who profit from producing foods that cause cancer and…
By Craig Swanson The KSB website has a page dedicated to helping residents of the Verde Valley prepare for a wildland fire: www.keepsedonabeautiful.org/fire. We encourage you to visit this page and prepare yourself to act quickly and safely should you need to evacuate due to fire. The page has a wealth of information on topics like: Understanding the emergency response plans for jurisdictions in the Verde Valley Making your property Fire Safe How to sign up for emergency notifications What to include in your Go Bag should you need to evacuate And more… Prepare ahead of time to stay safe!
By Amaya Gayle Gregory It is beyond wondrous to live inside a paradox. We all do, whether we realize it or not. We feel real, seemingly separated from each other by time and space, and yet we aren’t. We are both and neither simultaneously, maybe that’s why we don’t like uncertainty, why we fight for answers, need to find the right one. We are the ultimate uncertainty. When we are willing to stop and observe, something that most often occurs only when we have no choice but to, we can see the flimsiness of our solidity, the lack of impermanence…
… thanks to my friend Mary who allowed us in to shoot some horses this afternoon at her Horse Mesa Ranch in Jacks Canyon. I’ve never done any riding to speak of but I love horses and had plenty of time to interact with Mira, above, a part quarter horse owned by Buck the ranch manager and Chauvet a 3/4 Gypsy Cob horse owned by Sandy Byland of Sedona … Sedona Mystique Boutique. It was a true delight to be out there … just starting to go through the photos and I like these two … still nearly a thousand photos to go…