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Evolutionary approaches towards AI: past, present, and future

Can Darwinism revolutionize AI?

Open environments and competition among species are two driving forces of Darwinian evolution that are largely absent in recent works on evolutionary approaches toward AI models. Within a given generation, faster impalas and faster cheetahs are more likely to survive (and reproduce) than their slower counterparts—leading to the evolution of faster and faster impalas and cheetahs over time. Can these and other principles of genetics and natural selection guide us towards major advances in AI?

A copy of this post is also available on Medium.

Table of contents

Since roughly 2012 [1], the explosive growth in AI has been almost entirely driven by neural network (deep learning) models trained by back-propagation (“backprop”). This includes models for image classification, automatic speech recognition, language translation, robotics, and autonomous agents that can play single or multiplayer games.

Increasingly, however, models are constructed using methods based on aspects of evolution, as observed in biology. Such approaches predate the deep learning era but have only recently been scaled up to the point where they are competitive with backprop-trained deep learning models.

In this blog post we discuss some of these evolutionary approaches, compare and contrast them to biological evolution and organism development, and speculate how they may ultimately bring about AI models with even greater (or additional) capabilities and energy-efficiencies than traditional deep learning models.

Genetics and natural selection

At its simplest, Darwin’s theory states that evolution is driven by small variations in traits that are amplified by natural selection. Organisms with beneficial traits are more likely to reproduce and thus pass on those traits to offspring than are organisms that have detrimental traits.

Darwin was unaware of how traits were passed from parents to offspring (making his insights all the more impressive), but we now know that an organism’s genotype, along with its developmental environment, is responsible for its phenotype (physical and behavioral traits). In general, new genotypes arise in offspring via random mutation of parent DNA, a mixing of genes from multiple parents (sexual reproduction), or both.

Evolutionary computation

Out of scientists’ understanding of biological evolution come computational optimization models inspired by evolution. Among the simplest of these are evolution strategies. Greater and more diverse modeling complexity is found in genetic algorithms. In both cases, the goal is to optimize a fitness function intended to measure the performance of artificial organisms on some specific task. An alternative approach is to forgo fitness functions and instead utilize rich, open environments with multiple agents of one or more species in which agents compete solely to survive and reproduce.

Evolution strategies

Evolution strategies are a class of optimization algorithms in which, at every iteration (generation), a population of parameter vectors (genotypes) is perturbed (mutated) and their fitness function value is evaluated [2, 3]. The highest scoring parameter vectors are then recombined to form the population for the next generation and this procedure is iterated until the objective is fully optimized. In Covariance-Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategy (CMA-ES) the distribution of model parameters is represented by a covariance matrix. In each generation, the model parameters of individual agents are drawn from the distribution. After determination of which agents have the highest fitness scores, the covariance matrix is updated based on the parameter values of those best agents. For a great 2-D visualization, see this terrific Otoro blog post.

Despite the simplicity of this approach, it can sometime be competitive with relatively modern, large-scale, deep learning models trained with reinforcement learning methods, as shown by OpenAI [4] and described in this post. The evolution strategies approach has some nice properties relative to the reinforcement learning methods in that evolution strategies are easy to implement and scale across cores/CPUs, models train quickly, and the method does not utilize gradients (training on tasks with discrete outputs is difficult when using gradient-based methods).

Above are a few videos of 3D humanoid walkers trained with evolution strategies by OpenAI (videos taken from their blog post). Results have quite a bit of variety, based on which local minimum the optimization ends up converging into. As will be noted later in this post, however, none of movements look very natural in contrast to those of biological animals, some of which begin fluid walking and running within minutes or hours after birth.

Genetic algorithms with direct encoding

While the term genetic algorithm may be used in different manners by different researchers and practitioners, we use it in a very general manner herein. In each generation the algorithm: (1) selects for the top N agents from a population of size P (N < P) based on the fitness function, (2) produces a new generation of agents by reproducing from those top agents individually (asexually) or in pairs (sexually), and (3) during reproduction, offspring genes are varied by mutation, crossover (mixing genes of two partner parents), or both.

Another distinction between evolution strategies and genetic algorithms is that in evolution strategies, the genomes of the population are represented by a probability distribution. Typically this means that all members of a population in a given generation will be found in a single cluster within the parameter (genome) space. In contrast, there is no such constraint on the population under the genetic algorithm. In practice, however, a single population cluster typically evolves unless the environment or additional algorithmic components promote(s) population diversity (in which case, multiple “species” may emerge).

In many applications of genetic algorithms, the genetype-to-phenotype is direct, meaning that each gene directly codes for one parameter of the agent’s model. In fact, a gene and its phenotypic expression may be identical, e.g., a numeric value that represents a weight or bias term in a deep learning model. The models trained using evolution strategies, as described in the section above, use direct encoding.

In contrast, biology is based on indirect encoding. For example, genes composed of DNA do not directly code for the strength of synapses between neurons in the brain. Rather, they code for proteins which together function to implement the development of the brain (and its synapses) as well as learning rules by which synapses strengthen or weaken based on the organism’s experiences. We’ll come back to examples of indirect encoding for AI in the following section.

In 2017, Ken Stanley and Jeff Clune—long time advocates of “neuroevolutionary” methods for evolving neural network parameters—demonstrated the potential for genetic algorithms with direct encoding to perform well on numerous Atari games, including games that were difficult to solve by reinforcement learning (Q-learning or policy gradients) [5]. Their team at Uber AI Labs used a simple genetic algorithm in which genetic mutations were introduced into asexually-produced offspring by adding Gaussian noise to the parameters of the parent network.

In addition to evolving agents to play Atari games, the team from Uber AI Labs evolved agents to complete a relatively simple maze, albeit one with two different “traps.” Agents trained with an evolution strategy (ES) consistently get stuck by Trap 1 and never evolve further. Agents trained with a genetic algorithm (GA) do better, but get stuck in Trap 2. When agents are chosen for reproduction based not only on their fitness score but also their display of novel behaviors (GA-NS), the species ultimately evolves the ability to complete the maze. Agents trained with two different reinforcement learning methods (A2C and DQN) do not learn to complete the maze.

The Uber team additionally examined the effect of rewarding agents (allowing them to reproduce) for exhibiting novel behaviors. They demonstrated that despite the fact that such agents often scored poorly on the traditional fitness function, this approach benefited the overall population over time (over generations). Genetic algorithms that assign value for behavioral novelty are a type of quality-diversity algorithm [6], and such algorithms are an active area of study. The notion is that maintaining a diverse repertoire of behaviors across the population provides a pool from which new, more complex behaviors may emerge that could benefit an offspring organism, despite little or even negative value of the more simplistic behaviors upon which the complex behavior is built. [Note that this is largely a heuristic approach, as it is not clear what natural forces would promote the retention of “worthless” behavioral phenotypes across generations.]

As an aside, the Uber team uses a creative and efficient method of retaining the genotype of thousands of agents of large size (many millions of neural network parameters per agent). Namely, they maintain a record of the random number generator seeds used to create the initial generation of agents, and the seeds to create each set of mutations. Thus, an individual agent can be recreated from a vector of seeds, and the agent can be stored as such, rather than storing the agent’s model parameters directly.

Genetic algorithms with indirect encoding

Generally speaking, genetic algorithms that utilize indirect encoding models have not been as successful at direct encoding models (on modern, large-scale problems). Nonetheless indirect encoding models may prove to be very powerful because they have the potential to compactly encode for complex, sophisticated models. For example, while a set of genes within an organism may be fixed, the protein products of genes may interact across time and space (in the body of the organism) in a combinatorial fashion, allowing nearly endless possibilities. We highlight two examples of indirect encoding below.

The evolutionary computation methods discussed so far have a genome of fixed size. That is, a neural network of fixed architecture. The genes define the parameters of this fixed architecture but do not define any aspect of the architecture and thus the genetic algorithm has not way of growing, shrinking, or modifying that architecture. In 2002, Stanley and Miikkulainen introduced the NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies (NEAT) [7]. NEAT defines a mapping between genes and the connections within an neural network, and can accommodate the evolutionary addition of new genes that define new connections or nodes.

NEAT defines rules that map genes to a network architecture in addition to values of network weight and bias terms. Under a genetic algorithm, the network can grow by adding connections and nodes.

However, NEAT is a direct encoding model, with each gene defining the connection weight between two nodes. While some genes can take on a “disabled” state, this can be viewed as encoding a weight value of zero. This takes us to HyperNEAT.

Under HyperNEAT [8], the output of a NEAT-trained network defines the weights of a secondary network. This secondary network is the one used to perform the desired task. In the simplest version, this secondary “task” network has nodes arranged in a two-dimensional space such that each node can be identified by its (x, y) coordinates. The first network, dubbed a compositional pattern-producing network (CPPN), takes four inputs that define the locations of two nodes (i and j) in the task network: (xi, yi) and (xj, yj). The output of the CPPN is the value of the weight that connects these two points. Thus, NEAT can be used to evolve a CPPN that directs the “development” of the task network. The task network, not the CPPN, is evaluated by the fitness function.

With the HyperNEAT approach, a relatively small CPPN network can define a complex task network of arbitrary scale in density. As a demonstration of the evolvability of the CPPNs, models have been evolved to produce intricate 2-D images. And while performance of evolved task networks lags behind that of more recent models, HyperNEAT has been used to train models to play Atari games [9] (at roughly the same time that DeepMind demonstrated such models trained by reinforcement learning [10]).

In this HyperNEAT example, the task network (right) is a two-layered network in which neurons connect between the lower and upper layer, but not within layers. The CPPN network (left) defines connection strengths of the task layer for a given pair of task network nodes. The CPPN is a neural network defined by the NEAT genome-to-network mapping, and can be evolved using a genetic algorithm, with a fitness function applied to the task network defined by a given CPPN instantiation.

Organism development

Biological evolution does not establish the phenotypes of mature (adult) organisms directly. Rather, genes indirectly establish an organisms phenotype through development (e.g., prenatal, infancy, adolescence). Genes also play a role during adulthood in response to an organism’s environment (e.g., creating more red blood cells in in an organisms that moves from low to high altitude). While NEAT evolves a population of neural networks, those networks are not actually “grown” from a genome. Rather, they are instantiated directly since NEAT networks are directly encoded.

Researchers such as Jordan Pollack and his former post-doc, Sylvain Cussat-Blanc, are exploring evolutionary computation methods that incorporate organism developmental periods. In a 2015 study [11], they evolved models of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) using a genetic algorithm related to NEAT. Generally, GRNs are networks in which genes (and non-gene DNA, RNA, and proteins) control the expression (translation to proteins) of other genes. Different genes are expressed during different development periods and under different environmental conditions. Thus, what is evolved is not the organisms per se, but the manner in which they are developed. The authors demonstrate superiority over standard genetic algorithms. However, the computational complexity is high and unlikely to scale to more challenging, modern AI tasks using today’s standard hardware.

Rather then evolve a genome that directly encoded a neural network (such as NEAT), Pollack and colleagues [11] evolved a gene regulatory network that controlled the development of a neural network, much like biological genomes direct human growth from embryo to adult.

More recently, Miller et al. [12] constructed developmental models for neurons (somas and their dendrites) within neural networks. The developmental models were represented by computer programs that could be evolved using genetic programming. Genetic programming is distinctly different from genetic algorithms and we leave it to the reader to explore this topic elsewhere. Nonetheless, Miller and colleagues took an evolutionary computation approach toward creating development models that construct useful neural networks. The result was networks that could grow new dendrites and neural connections in order to learn new tasks.

Up to this point we’ve discussed evolutionary approaches that utilize a fitness function to explicitly score the performance of individual agents and determine which will produce offspring for the next generation. Clearly nature has no explicit fitness function. (It does, however, have a sort of implicit inverse fitness function—if organism X produces more offspring than organism Y, then organism X is likely to have higher fitness than organism Y.) That is, evolution in the natural world has produced remarkably intelligent species (humans), as well as species with unique and fascinating physical and innate behavioral traits, with no external guidance.

This observation has motivated the research fields of artificial life and open-ended evolution. Artificial life refers to the study of artificial organisms in real or artificial environments that closely mirror some or many aspects of natural environments. Researchers use this approach to study life as we know it, but also life as it might be otherwise. Open-ended evolution studies often incorporate artificial organisms like those in artificial life studies, and observe the evolution of these organisms under conditions like those that produced biological evolution—namely, reproduction based on direct actions within the environment (finding mates, obtaining enough food to survive and reproduce, evading predators, etc.) rather than based on explicit fitness measures. The field of open-ended evolution is relatively small compared to that of deep learning but is actually a notably older field, with pioneering researchers such as Charles Ofria, Jordan Pollack, Risto Miikkulainen, and their students (several of whom are now leaders in the field) having spent decades in the trenches. For a more complete description of the history and prospects of open-endedness, see this post from Lehman, Stanley, and Soros, and this paper by Jeff Clune [13].

Can artificial organisms evolved in open-ended environments lead to advancements in AI models (agents)? We believe the answer is “yes,” but is conditioned on at least two factors: (1) co-evolution of species and (2) evolution within a rich, diverse, and dynamic environment. (For a different perspective on the matter, see Lisa Soros’s PhD thesis [14].)

Addressing the first factor, environments must house a diversity of agents of different species with distinct needs and capabilities such that co-evolution of species might lead to collaboration within species—a likely prerequisite for the evolution of human-level intelligence. While co-evolution has led to faster and faster cheetahs and impalas, it has also led to intelligent social behavior in wolves, as is exhibited by coordinated hunting in packs.

Due in part to co-evolution, wolves have evolved a social intelligence that allows them to hunt in packs—thereby killing animals much larger than themselves and earning a food reward that benefits the entire pack, not just individual wolves.

Indeed, a very recent study by OpenAI demonstrates the emergence of complex interactive behaviors among agents trained by reinforcement learning, despite a seemingly impoverished reward system. Notably, rewards were given for team (akin to species) performance, not individual performance—much like all the wolves in a pack are rewarded when a large kill is made.

Given the simple task of playing hide-and-seek, these agents learn to collaborate to perform complex task that at first blush, seem to have little to do with the primary hide-and-seek objective. Competition between teams is a driving factor in the emergence of these collaborative within-team behaviors. Note that these agents were trained by reinforcement learning rather than evolutionary computation. However, the relevant point is that competition between teams of agents (or species) can promote novel and complex behaviors.

There is an important contrast between reinforcement learning and evolutionary computation that should be mentioned here. In nature, reinforcement learning serves as a model for how animals learn during their lifetime. When an animal’s behavior is rewarded (via food, shelter, mating, etc.) it is more likely to repeat the behavior, hopefully to its benefit. However, many animal capabilities are acquired through evolution and bestowed during prenatal development or quickly after birth. For example, humans are born with nearly innate sense of “objectness” (though not “object permanence”)—babies do not need to learn that “pixels” (photons on the retina) in close spatial proximity are more likely be part of the same object. An extreme example of innateness is the rapidity with which some animals gain complex motor control after birth (within minutes). The bottom line is that biological organism are pre-wired for many abilities. Deep learning models are generally trained from scratch (“tabula rasa”) and narrowly targeted toward a specific application. Constructing AI agents with more general, real-world capabilities might be achieved by first evolving agents to have baseline innate knowledge (physics, emotions, fundamental desires, etc.) at “birth.” The agents could subsequently learn to perform niche tasks through reinforcement learning mechanisms (which, ideally, will have been evolved into the agent—e.g., meta-learning) during their “lifetimes.”

Baby wildebeests gain agile muscle control and navigation abilities with minutes of birth. Clearly evolution has given them an innate sense of gravity, physics, objectness, and an advanced sensorimotor control system. They do no need to learn these concepts and capabilities through their reinforcement learning system.

As previously stated, the second factor we believe to be critical for evolving intelligent agents is a rich, diverse, and dynamic environment. Such an environment contains niche conditions across time and space that certain genetic mutations may prove advantageous within, but would be washed out of the species over subsequent generations if the environment was homogeneous. In turn, the mutated, advantageous phenotypes may also prove to be advantageous in a different niche environment, which organisms could come across due to self-driven movement or due to changes in their local environment (e.g., changes in climate, as in the real world). This is somewhat akin to the previously discussed quality-diversity approaches in genetic algorithms.

What’s still missing?

Beyond what has already been stated, we list here a few aspects of agents, agent environments, and genetic algorithms that we speculate could promote the evolution of agents with capabilities beyond those of current AI models. Some of the listed agent aspects may evolve naturally if the conditions support this, but they could also be imposed directly to accelerate evolution toward the end goal of general artificial intelligence.

Agents and environments

  • Parenting and long-development periods: Forcing reproducing agents to care for helpless offspring during a developmental period may promote social interactions, communication (language), collaborations (between parents of a given offspring, between parents and children, and even between non-related parents and children—it takes a village to raise a child), etc.
  • Individual recognition: Agents should be able to identify other individual agents of the same species (via “visual” or other features that are unique to each agent, and are derived from an agent’s genome). If agents are able to distinguish one another, then they can relate an individual agent to that agent’s behavior, potentially allowing for the evolution of trust, collaboration, care-giving, etc. (but also distrust, trickery, and collusion).
  • Communications medium: The environment should allow some modality by which agents could evolve a means of communication (a language). This could be acoustical, visual, or even tactile in nature. This may be necessary for agents to evolve complex social interactions and collaborations.

Genes and genetic algorithms

  • Indirect encoding with combinatorial genes: The use of genes that interact to produce a higher-level product (e.g., proteins, or control over production of proteins) may allow for a compact but highly expressive genomes that can be more effectively evolved than a gene model in which each gene maps to one and only one model parameter or phenotypic trait. In addition, this combinatorial aspect may limit the likelihood of an offspring being completely non-viable (and thus a waste of simulation/evaluation time) due to gene mutation or crossover.
  • Genes that instruct development: Related to the above, genes that encode organism development rather than a final, adult organism may be more compact and evolvable (as in HyperNEAT). If the development is also driven by interactions between genes and the environment, this could provide additional selective pressure on genes and thus promote evolution.
  • Genomes that can evolve in size: Behaviorally complex organisms may require more genes to define their phenotype (or their development) than those with simplistic behavior. However, an evolution procedure that starts with a simple species and small genome might evolve into a complexly behaving, large-genome species more quickly than a species in which the genome is large at the start of the evolution procedure. Selective pressure for individual genes in a simple species with a large genome may be weak, due to the minimal impact any one gene might have on an organism’s phenotype, thus slowing the evolution.
  • Structured selection of reproducing and dying agents: In algorithms that utilized a fitness function, the typical approach is to select the top performing agents for reproduction and kill the remaining agents within that generation. However, under this approach, newly mutated genes that provide a fitness advantage to an agent may still be lost by genetic drift across the species. Recent work [15] suggests that strategically selecting which agent to kill when another agent reproduces (rules of which are represented by a structured “evolutionary graph”) can promote the “amplification” of the new, advantageous, genes across the species and reduce the probability that the beneficial gene will be lost. In rich, open-ended environments, such structure is presumably imposed indirectly by the environment.

Deep learning has inarguably brought about tremendous AI advances in recent years, and more are likely to come. Nonetheless, we believe that evolutionary computation approaches to AI are historically understudied and will ultimately yield similar leaps in AI capabilities—either building on those provided by deep learning, or offering altogether new ones.

Finally, we speculate that evolutionary computation methods could lead to AI that is highly computationally efficient. By evolving agents on a given hardware platform and properly designing the genes-to-instructions mapping, genes that accelerate task completion could be selected for, optimizing performance on that platform.

  1. Krizhevsky, A., Sutskever, I., and Hinton, G. E. ImageNet classification with deep convolutional neural networks. In NIPS, pp. 1106–1114, 2012.
  2. I. Rechenberg and M. Eigen. Evolutionsstrategie: Optimierung Technischer Systeme nach Prinzipiender Biologischen Evolution. Frommann-Holzboog Stuttgart, 1973.
  3. H.-P. Schwefel.Numerische optimierung von computer-modellen mittels der evolutionsstrategie.1977.
  4. Salimans T., Ho J., Chen X., and Sutskever I. Evolution strategies as a scalable alternative to reinforcement learning. arXiv preprint arXiv:1703.03864, 2017.
  5. Felipe Petroski Such, Vashisht Madhavan, Edoardo Conti, Joel Lehman, Kenneth O Stanley, and Jeff Clune. Deep neuroevolution: Genetic algorithms are a competitive alternative for training deep neural networks for reinforcement learning. arXiv preprint arXiv:1712.06567, 2017.
  6. Justin K Pugh, Lisa B Soros, and Kenneth O Stanley. Quality diversity: A new frontier for evolutionary computation. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 3:40, 2016.
  7. Stanley, K. O. & Miikkulainen, R. Evolving neural networks through augmenting topologies. Evol. Comput. 10, 99–127 (2002).
  8. Stanley, Kenneth O.; D’Ambrosio, David B.; Gauci, Jason (2009-01-14). “A Hypercube-Based Encoding for Evolving Large-Scale Neural Networks”. Artificial Life. 15 (2): 185–212.
  9. Hausknecht, M., Lehman, J., Miikkulainen, R. & Stone, P. A neuroevolution approach to general atari game playing. IEEE Trans. Comput. Intell. AI Games 6, 355–366 (2014).
  10. Mnih, V. et al. Human-level control through deep reinforcement learning. Nature 518, 529–533 (2015).
  11. Cussat-Blanc, S., Harrington, K. & Pollack, J. Gene regulatory network evolution through augmenting topologies. IEEE Trans. Evolut. Comput. 19, 823–837 (2015).
  12. Miller, J.F., Wilson, D.G., Cussat-Blanc, S.: Evolving developmental programs that build neural networks for solving multiple problems. In: Banzhaf, W., Spector, L., Sheneman L. (eds.) Genetic Programming Theory and Practice XVI, Chap. TBC. Springer (2019).
  13. Jeff Clune. AI-GAs: AI-generating algorithms, an alternate paradigm for producing general artificial intelligence. arXiv preprint arXiv:1905.10985, 2019.
  14. Soros, Lisa, “Necessary Conditions for Open-Ended Evolution” (2018). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 5965. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/5965.
  15. Pavlogiannis A, Tkadlec J, Chatterjee K, Nowak MA. Construction of arbitrarily strong amplifiers of natural selection using evolutionary graph theory. Communications Biology. 2018;1(1):71.
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These Wonders

We love our birds, and that’s an understatement—from 8-foot Big Bird to thumb-sized hummingbirds. Speaking of “hummers,” here’s a male Ruby-throat captured by talented Louisiana-based photographer Roberta “Birdie” Davidson. Roberta is a lady for whom the world disappears when she gets behind her camera. I’ll bet the world also disappears when she gets behind her binocs.

Male Ruby-throated Hummingbird in flight
Fly-catching male Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Now, if we’re not “bird lovers” as such—and I’ll acknowledge many aren’t—we at least notice them and are intrigued by them. I made that point recently to Katherine Hafner, a Virginian-Pilot staff writer who was interviewing me for an article about the Norfolk, Virginia winter crow roost. I told her that interest in birds is universal, a proposition for which there’s more than enough evidence.

Winter Crow Roosts

I not only told her about the roost here in Southeast Virginia, a roost about which I  didn’t yet have firsthand knowledge, but I mentioned ones in New Carrollton, Maryland (no link, sorry), in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and in Lawrence, Massachusetts. I also told her that there’s been a slow transition in the U.S. from rural to urban winter roosts and that crow numbers may be growing, in part, because of these roosts.

Here’s a fun crow shot that I sent her. Yes, I did take it using my usual camera settings: back button focus, AI Servo (Autofocus-Continuous) and burst mode. It’s not an especially good shot, but it does tell a story. Always try to tell stories.

Crow species in flight with garbage
American or Fish Crow

I’d mentioned to her that crows spend the day foraging, that they’re omnivores—and big McDonald’s fans—and that the presence of human-provided food resources, a.k.a. food waste and trash, could be one reason why crows have established these urban roosts. I also mentioned that cities are warmer—think: heat-absorbing buildings and pavement—and that they provide greater safety from both avian predators and human hunters. This reminds me of something I wrote in a previous blog about Canada Geese: “They’re thriving in urban and suburban environments where there’s plenty of food and open water, and where they can easily escape what few predators they have there.” It’s interesting how we humans have aided these bird species.

The Norfolk, Virginia Winter Crow Roost

Now, a few days after the interview and just before sunset on 12/21/19, my wife and I decided to visit the Norfolk, Virginia winter crow roost for the first time. The destination for our survey: a corner of the bustling pre-holiday Costco parking lot. After our visit, I wrote the following to my “Birding Virginia” Facebook friends: “There really IS a winter crow roost @ the I-64/I-264 interchange in Norfolk, Virginia. My wife and I went to see it for the first time tonight. We saw thousands of crows. It was a little like watching fall- migrating Broad-winged Hawks stream past Hawk Mountain or Mount Wachusett. Here’s one distant shot that doesn’t even begin to tell the story about the numbers or the spectacle.”

Crows flying to roost
Crows flying to roost

I like the photo above. For one reason, it, too, tells a story. But my favorite one of the evening is the one below, a photo of a small column of crows that flew almost directly over our heads. They, also, were heading to roost.

Crows flying to roost
A column of crows

Taking Silhouette Photos

It’s funny how American and Fish Crow shots almost always turn out to be silhouettes. The same holds true for Turkey and Black Vulture shots. Dark birds against light backgrounds like sky and water always present a challenge. Of course, sometimes the whole idea was to create a silhouette of a backlit subject in the first place.

Great Blue Heron silhouette
Great Blue Heron silhouette

I love taking silhouettes and the challenges that go with taking them. Come to think of it, photography in all its forms is about meeting and overcoming challenges. This is one of the reasons why so many people love the hobby. Can I get a witness?

Always be on the lookout for opportunities to take silhouettes, especially at times when the lighting isn’t ideal, or you can’t get into position, or there’s just no way to capture detail. As you search for those opportunities, consider that you’ll need to “train your eyes to see where your camera will see a silhouette.” That’s great advice from a Natural Photographer article about ways to improve landscape photography. If you’d like to delve further and learn more about silhouette photography, here’s a Digital Photography School article devoted to the subject.

Mallard duck silhouette
Mallard duck silhouette

And This Just In

The article about the Norfolk, Virginia winter crow roost has just been published in the Virginian-Pilot. Ms. Hafner did an excellent job, and she told me she learned much about birders and birds in the process. I love it when folks learn more about birders and birds.

We began with an out-of-season photo of a male Ruby-throated Hummingbird, courtesy of Roberta Davidson. But we’ll end with an in-season photo of a male Bufflehead duck, courtesy of Colin Franks. For the benefit of you birds in flight photographers out there, Colin captured this fast flyer (and man, they are fast) with his new setup: a Sony 600 f/4 lens with 2x extender on a Sony a9 body. He told me this combo not only gets him close, but it works extremely well.

Male Bufflehead duck in flight
Male Bufflehead duck

Quip, Question, Quote

We also began with the words: “We love our birds,” the title and one of the themes of my last blog: “We Love Our Birds.” Now, we’ll end on a similar note as we consider a portion of Doug Chickering’s recent email to the Massbird listserv. Not long ago, Doug, a passionate birder and gifted writer, lost the love of his life and long-time birding companion, Lois Cooper. We’ve spoken of challenges. Well, Doug is still facing one of life’s greatest.

The mourning for my loss is an affliction that will clearly stay with me for the rest of my days. Gone will be the Fox Sparrow that visited Lois’ feeders every year, and the Nighthawks that flew over her deck in the late summer. I will have to find those somewhere else. But at this beginning of the new year I like to review the beautiful and uplifting events that nature has presented to me over the last year. Centered, of course on the birds. My life will always be filled with joy and adventure so long as I can go birding. It has been thus for forty years and I can’t help but love my life because of this fact.

Doug later capped off his email with this: “Every year brings these wonders that fill my heart with joy and wonder. The music never stops.”

Doug and others, may the music never stop.

7 thoughts on “These Wonders

  1. Awesome silhouette shot of the Mallard! It isn’t just a black shadow, but enough light to so some detail on the bird. But the catch is the glistening water droplets on the crown, nape and breast! Quite a beautiful capture and yes, all wonders! William — “What a wildly wonderful world, God! You made it all, with Wisdom at Your side, made earth overflow with your wonderful creations.” Psalms 104 The Message

    1. William, Thanks so much. I love it that you noticed those droplets, which to me, really make that photo. And thanks also for the rest of your message. We agree that this is our Father’s world.

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Coronavirus Information

This page will be updated with any changes to the usual school routine. To receive urgent updates, please ensure we have your correct email address via INSIGHT.

Any important letters can be found at the bottom of this page

BWS Remote Learning System Status

  • Insight Parent/Student Portal - Good Service (If you get an error uploading evidence files, check you don't have characters like , & * @ in the filename)
  • Staff Remote Desktop - Good Service
  • Student Remote Desktop - Good Service
  • New web based Remote Desktop - click here to login - Good Service (Facility  to change your password has been added)
  • Teams - click here to login - Good Service (username is
  • Email - Good Service

The scheduled upgrade of student home areas has begun with R drives being moved into OneDrive and emails into Outlook.  So far Y7 -13 are complete and should now be available in Office 365, Staff files and email are currently being migrated.  Updates will be posted here.

An acceptable user guide for Microsoft Teams has been published for all students to read, a copy is available here

For technical enquiries, please email and we will get back to you as soon as possible.  If you are reporting an error, if possible, please attach a screen shot

Last Updated:-1200 Monday 3rd August

Risk Assessment documents for return to school in September 2020

Last updated - 12:00 Friday 24th July

The following documents outline the return to school and risk assessment documents for September 2020. All parents and students are required to read these documents before returning to school in September.

Weekly Parent Briefing by Dr Smallwood

14:00 Monday 13th July

Each week Dr Smallwood will release a Parent Briefing with news, events, information and extra curriculum links.

The latest edition can be found here:- Weekly Bulletin 13th July 2020

11 Plus Testing - September 2020

12:00 Monday 3rd August

We can now confirm that the 11+ examination will provisionally take place at Bishop Wordsworth's School on Saturday 17th October 2020. Further details will be made available to parents and candidates by the beginning of September 2020 via the BWS Admissions website and also announced via BWS twitter.

Use of face coverings on school transport

08:30 Monday 15th June

Please see the following advice issued by Wiltshire County Council

To help prevent the spread of coronavirus, the government has announced that from Monday 15 June, anyone using public transport will be required to wear a face covering. There will be no requirement for pupils to wear a face covering on school transport organised by Wiltshire Council.   However, should pupils wish to wear a face covering it does not need to be of a professional grade and can easily be made at home – examples can be found here

Please also see the DfE information on this below with the information relating to school transport in bold.

5.4 What precautions should my child take when travelling to school?

From 1 June, children in reception, year 1 and year 6 will be able to attend school, in addition to the children of critical workers and vulnerable children who were already attending school.

From 15 June, children in year 10 and 12, and 16 to 19 learners in the first year of their course, will be provided with some face-to-face contact and only a quarter of them will attend at any one time.

This should limit the amount of children travelling to and from school/college to manageable numbers.

When planning your journey to school, particularly if using public transport, you should follow the safer travel guidance for passengers.

Pupils and parents should do all they can to help make sure they and others can travel safely. This can be done through:

  • not leaving home if anyone in their household, has symptoms of coronavirus
  • avoiding travelling on public transport, particularly at peak times
  • maintaining a two metre distance from others who are not in their household
  • ensuring good respiratory hygiene by using the ‘catch it, bin it, kill it’ approach
  • avoiding touching their face
  • washing their hands thoroughly before and after travelling
  • wearing a face covering if they need to use public transport

Letter from Education Secretary regarding 2021 exams

15:00 Thursday 2nd July

The Education Secretary has provided further information regarding GCSE, AS and A level exams next year. More detail in this link.

Important - Letter to Y11 and 13 Parents - Summer 2020 Exam Grades

14:30 Friday 3rd April

As expected, Ofqual have today released further information on how grades will be awarded this academic year following the cancellation of the exams:

Ofqual’s letter to students can be found here:

 Please note: Teachers and BWS staff are not allowed to discuss this process or grades with you, but we will continue to update you where we can.

Important - Message for all Y12 'AS' Further Maths  & Core Maths Candidates

14:15 Tuesday 14th April

We appreciate that this is a stressful and unsettling time for you. We have some guidance for you which we have received from the Examination Boards and Ofqual.

If you have been entered for examinations for Summer 2020 you:

  • will be awarded a grade based on centre assessment
  • will receive these grades/results in August
  • If you are not happy with the grade awarded there will also be an Autumn exam series which you can be entered for.

Teachers cannot discuss these grades, they are confidential.

Please see this useful link which will provide more information -

Please stay safe and well.

Mrs Jan Glasson
Examinations Officer – Centre No: 66715
Tel: (01722) 424732

Important Information - 11 Plus Open Days and Online Applications

09:45 Thursday 2nd April

Please note the status of the following events have changed

  • Late Entry Exam June 22nd Postponed
  • Open session on April 30th Cancelled
  • Open afternoons in June TBC

The online 11+ registration will still open as advertised on April 24th and close July 9th

HM Government guidance on keeping children safe from abuse and harm

15:00 Friday 26th June

Advice for parents and carers about the main risks children may be particularly vulnerable to at this time and information about available help and support. Full details can be found here:

HM Government guidance on keeping children safe online

16:15 Wednesday 1st April

TheDofE have updated their information for parents and carers to include a section on keeping children safe online. It provides links to online resources that will help support parents and carers in keeping their children safe online. Full details can be found in section 6.3 of the guidance for parents and carers on the closure of educational settings:

Guidance for students during school closure

Updated:- 12:00 Friday 24th July

Office 365

All remote lessons and assignments are now set on Microsoft Teams. All students should have free access to the entire Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint…) via their Teams login that they can download onto their home devices (PC, Mac, ipads, Android etc)

School email

We are currently in the process of migrating all student files and emails to Office 365, this work is scheduled to be completed by 5th August 2020. From September, all student files will be stored only in Office 365 and available 24/7 from home via

Remote Desktop (Instructions have changed - please read)

The Remote Desktop gives you access to your files saved on the school’s network and to the apps you’ve been using at school, such as Photoshop. As mentioned above, we have managed to increase provision to this so we will be opening access to all years. However, to avoid overloading the system, please do not leave it sitting in the background whilst you are working on something else (unless you need to).

Insight and your school email account can readily be accessed via the school’s website without using the Remote Desktop.

It also makes good sense to start saving work on your home computer or to the cloud so that if there is an issue with the school’s network you can still carry on.

Department of Education - Latest Updates

Useful information and websites:

(Last updated 16:00 Sunday 12th July)

Message from BWS Pastoral Support Officer

I appreciate this is a difficult time with so much uncertainty and with the current extension to the lockdown, you may be struggling to adjust. I am conscious that we are unable to offer face to face support in school, therefore below are some organisations that can offer support during this time: which lists a variety of organisations pupils/parents can contact for support including: which has lots of useful current advice for children and parents about coping with the coronavirus lockdown online access to qualified counsellors

In addition to this with children spending an increasing amount of time indoors online, this might also be useful for parents to review: advice on setting up parental controls and advice about age restrictions for gaming, as well as lots of other useful advice.

I am checking my emails daily, so if you do wish to contact me directly for support during this time, please do not hesitate to contact me on:
Best wishes
Mrs Elizabeth Jacobs
Pastoral Support Officer

(Last updated 08:15 Tuesday 21st April)

Message from Wiltshire School Nursing Service

Dear Parents, Carers and Young People, We are aware that it is a very anxious time and there may be concerns about where to access support in coming weeks with school closures or you needing to self isolate.

As a school nursing service we would like to let you know we are here to support you during this time.

For secondary school age young people:-

  • We have set up a confidential telephone drop-in service Monday to Friday 12-2pm. Any young person that would like to call and speak to a qualified nurse on the end of the phone can call 0300 247 0090 Monday to Friday 12-2pm and speak to them.
  • We also have our CHAT health text service so you can text a school nurse for advice or support for any health issues or worries, again this is confidential and you don't need to give your name if you don't want to. The number is 07480 635513.

For parents of any school age child:-

  • We have duty school nurses available at the end of the phone Monday to Friday 9-5pm should you require any support with your school age child. This is available permanently for all parents to access for advice and support. If you would like support please call one of our nurses through our Single Point of access on 0300 247 0090.

(Last updated 08:00 Friday 20th March)

Sixth Form EPQ Lessons

  • Instructions for EPQ work to be completed will be put on Insight, with supporting resources on ProjectQ. Students should continue to check their email regularly and continue writing their project.
  • The current project deadlines still apply

(Last updated 7:30 Friday 10th April)

School Shop Summer Opening Times

(Last updated 08:30 Thursday 9th July)

  • Please find below details of the summer holiday opening times for the BWS uniform shop which will enable you to purchase any new items that you require. Please note that the shop opening times are for existing pupils only.
  • Social distancing measures will be followed during these opening times and parents will be asked to wait at the gate to No. 11 until they are collected by a member of the uniform shop team. Ideally only one parent and one child should visit the shop. I would also be grateful if you could check your current sizes at home before you visit.
  • Please contact the shop at if you have any queries. We look forward to welcoming you.

D of E latest information
Teen guide to surviving lockdown
Self Help Apps for Smartphones
BWS Uniform Shop - Summer Opening Times


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M3U Playlist Importing

iHomeServer™ supports the automatic importing of M3U playlists into iTunes.  M3U files will be imported automatically if iHomeServer finds a file with an .m3u file extension in an iHomeServer Watch Folder.
Please note the following:
  1. iHomeServer supports relative and absolute file paths within M3U files
  2. iHomeServer will automatically import into iTunes any files referenced within the playlist; even if those files are outside of a Watch Folder.
  3. Relative paths will be relative to the location of the actual playlist file
  4. If you are using absolute paths, you must ensure they use the same path naming convention as the rest of your iTunes library and configured Watch Folders; otherwise you risk creating duplicates.  For example, if you have a file called \\whs\music\mysong.mp3, and a Watch Folder looking at \\whs\music, you need to ensure that any playlist referring to the song will refer to it as \\whs\music\mysong.mp3 and not, for example, d:\music\mysong.mp3 which would be considered an entirely separate track - please see the topic "1. Decide your file naming convention and stick with it! for further information."
  5. iHomeServer will create an iTunes playlist with the same name as the .M3U file.
  6. If a playlist already exists with that name, entries within the M3U file will be merged into the existing playlist
Note that although iHomeServer supports importing M3U files, it currently does not support importing M3U files that contain URL streams, such as radio station M3U files.


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Chick-fil-a’s Dan Cathy Says White Christians Must Go Through a ‘Period of Contrition’ Before Taking Action to ‘Fight for Our Black Brothers and Sisters’

Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy addresses racism at Passion City Church in Atlanta, June 14, 2020. | YouTube/Passion City Church

Dan Cathy, conservative billionaire CEO of fast food chain Chick-fil-A, urged white Christians to take advantage of the “special moment” in American history now, to repent of racism and fight for their black “brothers and sisters” in the wake of ongoing protests over the police killings of Rayshard Brooks and other black Americans like George Floyd.

Brooks was shot dead by an Atlanta police officer at a Wendy’s parking lot on Friday night just three weeks after the death of Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police officers on Memorial Day. Floyd’s death set off global protests against racial injustice and police brutality. Brooks’ death also sparked fresh protests in Atlanta throughout the weekend including one on Saturday night in which protesters burned down the Wendy’s restaurant where he was killed.

“I think we have to recognize we are in a very special moment right now that the answer is not just for this to go off the radar screen, go back to talking about COVID-19, to talk about world peace, the environment, … politics is going to be coming up here this fall. I believe if we miss this moment we would have failed in our generation,” Cathy said during a robust conversation about race in America just two days later on Sunday at Passion City Church in Atlanta.

In that conversation were Pastor Louie Giglio and rapper Lecrae Moore, popularly known as Lecrae, whom Cathy asked to share his personal experience with racial injustice.

“I don’t need the media to tell me that this is a problem because it’s a reality that I live,” Lecrae began.

“The first time a gun was pulled on me by a police officer I was 13 years old. And I was unarmed. I was pushed on the ground. I had a knee in my back but this was just my reality. At 14 years old, because I was caught skipping school I was put on a gang list. I didn’t know what was going on. My mother had to go to the police station to explain to them, ‘just because he’s skipping school does not mean he’s out participating in gang activity,’” Lecrae said.

The rapper also recounted how “not too long ago” while driving to perform as a Christian artist at a concert, he was stopped by police who ripped his rental car apart.

“I was pulled over because I was in a rental car, I could assume there were all kinds of different reasons why but my car was strip searched and they tore all the seats out of my car and I told them I’m not doing anything wrong and they still didn’t believe me,” Lecrae said.

“The car was strip searched and they said ‘no dog’s alerted, there’s drugs here’ and they found nothing and then they left me to put all the seats back in the car and move on about my business,” he recalled.

Click here to read more.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Leonardo Blair


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REVIEW: Von Villains EP launch | Elsewhere 29 November

Von Villains, you make my ears happy.

A ridiculously fun four-piece alternative rock outfit who hail from our very own backyard, these boys are an unconventional alternative rock act who know how to put on a crowd pleasing show.

Well oiled and raring to go, the boys opened with rough and pastoral rock sounding 625, a number comprised of foundation drumming, misty vocals and evocative songwriting.  Drummer Anthony is not cymbal shy, manipulating his set to create an involved backup to satisfy the moody, nostalgic numbers.

Opening up with indie style serenade, Where You Been quickly had the crowd in a synchronized jig as they threw down a beguiling jam with catchy riffs and some seriously skillful playing by lead guitarist Voislav Ivanovsk.

“We’re gonna drop the beat; it’s gonna be a slow one”. Telephone is as romantic as pastoral blues gets. James handles his voice incredibly well, working it into a rustic and soulful croon to compliment a slow jam reminiscent of Arctic Monkeys. Bassist Lewis is your typical under the radar bass player, effortlessly injecting solid tones for a deep and well-rounded sound.
Miss Evsky is “about the girls that never call you back”, a super fun lighthearted rip on the qualms of twenty-somethings that will have you incessantly bopping along, laughing at James’ guileless lyrics.

Short snares, nostalgic lyrics with travelling vocals, crowd-stealing riffs and absorbed, rhythmic drumming, these guys are one of my favourites of the year. The honest, mischievous and outlandishly fun music making, converts these guys from the budding rock band into a boisterous outfit worthy of swooning over. Von Villains were made to be on heavy rotation.

Favourites: Telephone, Whisper, Where You Been

Sounds like: Kings of Leon, Arctic Monkeys, Two Door Cinema Club, The Strokes

Listen to their self-titled EP on and get your beady eyes onto for updates. A Digital Frontier Ep Web

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Our young Baptist preacher, David Stephens, has posted a comment on my “Prove Just Two Claims and I Rest My Case” (August 3, 2013 : scroll down to page 3 of the Comments, the second page of “Older Posts”).  Because he states that I am “unaware” of the arguments concerning the Problem of Evil and that he can find in my Blog “no statement of the problem itself or any engagement with the possibility that there could be GOOD REASONS FOR ALLOWING EVIL” (!), I have decided to reprint here the first of the 227 Reflections to be found in my book, “From Illusions to Illumination”, “God Could Care Less ?” (pp. 47-50), as well as a briefer Reflection, “Evil Live” (pp. 222-223).

Another earthquake, another flood, another fire, another war and another gruesome report, in living color, of nations that are dying of hunger.  Joseph Heller wondered about it all : ” A man was shot today in the park.  Nobody knows why.  No one’s in charge.”  God, it would seem, couldn’t have cared less.

There are, of course, people like me who do not believe in God.  “The only thing that will excuse God for the suffering of an innocent child is the fact that He does not exist.”  For Roger Ikor and countless atheists like us, the mystery is that so many people can continue to believe in a benevolent providence in spite of the overwhelming evidence that such a belief is a product of their own wishful thinking.  “The whole thing is so patently infantile, so incongruous with reality”, wrote Freud, “that it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life.”

The believer may react, like the psalmist in the Bible, and call us fools.  An eye for an eye, an insult for an insult, and the dialogue of the deaf goes on.  Or he may go a step farther and try to win a convert.  Thumb-screws being no longer legal in such situations, he will talk about causality and contingency, sunsets and the search for happiness.  If all else fails, he will fall back on something like one billion Catholics can’t be wrong.  He can handle objections about religious hypocrisy, sectarianism and superstition, but if his potential convert brings up the problem of birth-defects, tidal waves, famine and the meaninglessness of suffering and death, he will usually slip in a cautious “petitio principii”, a begging of the question, and say that God works in mysterious ways, or that trials are sent to test us, or that we are looking at the tapestry of life from the reverse side, and that one day we shall see the meaning of it all.  His patient listener may be too polite to say so, but he is thinking that all of this is remarkably similar to that pie in the sky which was his objection in the first place.

The pathetic thing about such sterile arguments is not so much that the atheist gets no valid answers, as that the believer fails to recognize the validity of the atheist’s questions.

For the believer, they say, no proof is needed; for the unbeliever no proof is possible.  It is true that many believers do not need proof.  God is a given, part of the package of ideals, prejudices and beliefs they grew up with.  But it is also true that for the believer as well as for the unbeliever no proof is possible.  His reasons for believing in God range from the unquestioning acceptance of an inherited belief, to the need to believe there is Someone in control who can provide protection, fulfillment and purpose if not now at least after death, to some sort of personal experience of transcendence which he has learned to call God.  He may be satisfied with his reasons, but none of them is a proof that God exists.

The extraordinary thing is, however, that believers not only believe that God exists, but say they believe in Him, they count on Him.  “In God We Trust“, proclaims the American dollar bill.  In spite of dungeon, fire and the six o’clock news, they live and die with the conviction that God could indeed care less because He could not care more.  As Victor Frankl put it, they can go to the gas-chambers of Auschwitz with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema on their lips.  That surely is the ultimate absurdity, evidence of a psychotic blindness to reality.  For the believer, however, it is we atheists who have not yet learned to see !

The problem of suffering, caused either by human malice or indifference or by natural disaster, has exercised the minds of thinking men ever since they crawled out of the cave of sub-humanity.  The problem was, and is, simple enough for the primitive who peoples his pantheon with despotic divinities.  It took a different focus in the tradition that gave birth to monotheism and the myths of Genesis.  A good God gives man a Paradise, and if Paradise is lost it is not God’s fault but man’s.  God gets angry, but his “just” anger is tempered by an unheard-of mercy.  Adam and Eve are punished and they will die, but they are not struck dead on the spot.  Cain is exiled, but is given a mark that will protect him.  God floods the earth, but Noah and all of us get a second chance.

There may have been in these stories of Genesis a giant leap beyond the idea of gods in other primitive religions, but it is doubtful that many believers have taken any more than a small step since.  People still pray for rain to start or stop, still expect God to provide good grades, good jobs, good health, still ask to be saved from accidents, energy crises and atomic annihilation.  They still see suffering as a punishment from God.  One of the prayers of the venerable Roman Missal, typical of many prayers still in use, asks the Lord to “save us from famine, so that the hearts of men may know that scourges of this kind proceed from thy wrath and cease by thy compassion”.  One could fairly ask, with Sigmund Freud, whether mankind has progressed very far from “the ignorant childhood days of the human race”.

There are some, however, whose belief in God is not diminished by either the reality of human suffering or even traditional religions’ anthropomorphic portrayal of God as a dispenser of rewards and punishments.  They believe that God punishes no one.  They claim to have a larger vision of God and His creation, of man and his history, than either the fundamentalist or the atheist.  They do not expect God to protect them from crashes on any street, let alone Wall Street.  And they consider it blasphemous to suggest that God is punishing anyone by earthquakes or floods or famine, and even to call such disasters “acts of God”.  They insist that they believe in a God who believes in Man, a God who trusts man to the point of leaving him alone in this world, with all the potential to make of it the paradise it has never been.  God could have given each product of evolution a guardian angel to guide him through the jungle, across the street, and to the outer reaches of the galaxy.  He could have shown us how to exploit, prevent or at least predict every natural cataclysm.  He could have provided us with bodies naturally immune to sickness, or at least given us a cure for cancer.  He could have decided to interfere by making a tree fall on every mugger in the park, or arranged the weather so that it never rains on weekends except in the sub-Sahara.  He could have solved our problems for us.  He could have, says the self-styled, enlightened, modern, liberal believer, but He cared too much for us, respected our freedom and intelligence too much to do for us what we can do for ourselves.

The debate will continue as to whether God is “psychologically nothing other than a magnified father ” (Freud), “the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat” (Julian Huxley), or “the infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of all being” (Paul Tillich).  But  “liberated” believers have to live as though God were not “there”.  They do not believe in a God who arbitrarily reserves His blessings for the elect and condemns others to misery, or a God who can be badgered into providing miracles for the chosen few.  God, they say, is not going to stop us blowing ourselves up, anymore than He stopped us blowing Hiroshima up.  He is not going to give us peace in our time, nor feed Africa, nor prevent the death of innocent children (or even guilty adults).  That is our business, not His.

One has to admire such valiant, last-ditch attempts to make sense of continuing to believe in an apparently indifferent God, whose loving care is now claimed to be evidenced precisely by His not “interfering”.  There is a simpler explanation.  God did not create us.  We created Him.

Evil has always been a problem – for those like most of us, who, in varying degrees, have had to endure it – but especially for believers.  One of the gems of the Old Testament, the Book of Job, famously addresses the question of its origin and why God would permit it.  Atheists know, of course, that the question is meaningless, given the non-existence of God.  But we can appreciate the challenge which evil represents for those whose belief in God forces them to wonder why He allows it.  The world’s literature is full of the Job question, and believers’ answers – ranging from “we deserve what we get”, to “trials are sent to test us”, to “the separation of the sheep from the goats and the men from the boys” (or “answers” to that effect) – are, to be kind, simply pathetic.

But it is one thing to read about evil and its horrific dimensions in the history of mankind; it is quite another to experience it personally, or even vicariously, through the media, often in real time : evil live.  The two words happen to be palindromes.  But the reality is a frightening revelation of our vulnerability not only to the destructive foibles of nature but especially to the malice, cruelty and viciousness of our fellow human beings.

It is no wonder that Jesus taught us to pray to His and our Father (who art, He thought, in Heaven) to deliver us from omnipresent, multiform, sometimes intolerable evil.

There are no easy answers here, unless you accept the reasons Theology offers.  Evolution produced animals that devour others for their own survival.  Nothing particularly evil, or even cruel, here.  But we humans go further.  We kill, rob, rape, torture our own kind for selfish, venal, territorial but also for the most incomprehensible, meaningless, irrational of pretexts.

Believers, in their certitude, think they have found an explanation for evil.  Atheists will continue to search for the truth.  All of us, however, whatever our differences, have a shared interest in containing, limiting, eliminating as far as we can, the evil that is part of our human condition.  Some of us, atheists and non-atheists, will even strive to make this imperfect product of natural selection a better, safer, more human place to live in.

P.S. (August 31, 2017)  :   The devastation wrought by Harvey in Houston and beyond, which currently fills our TV screens in real time – and the floods raging in India, Nepal and Bangladesh which have had 40 times as many fatal victims – is a poignant and pertinent reminder that this discussion never was merely academic.  Tragedies like these may be the closest we will ever get to confirming that evil is real and that “God” is not.

D E L E N D A        R E L I G I O

P.S.  (March 24, 2020)  The coronavirus, Covid-19, has reached already 150 countries, and the death-toll is increasing, sometimes doubling from one day to the next.  God, as usual, has nothing to do with it, and praying is the most extreme example of brain-dead credulity ever practised by Homo Sapiens.  I hope to be around a while longer, though at 83 with a heart condition, I am on the endangered list.  I will do my best to keep on blogging.  I used to say that if the gators don’t getcha, the skeeters will.  Now the race is in danger of decimation if not extinction.  Time will tell, or if you prefer another cliché, that of the Tweeter-in-Chief :  “We’ll just have to wait and see”.  Carpe diem, my friends.


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AMI Media

This week I speak with David Errington the CEO of AMI Media.  AMI run three specialty channels in Canada.  AMI-Audio, AMI-TV and AMI- Tele.  AMi are also creating their own content all with Audio description, plus they have a great app you should check out.

 find out more at

if you have a comment or suggestion drop us an emial  or visit

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Home Writing for Film, TV & Digital Media What to Expect in Screenwriting: A New Student’s Guide to the Industry

What to Expect in Screenwriting: A New Student’s Guide to the Industry

by Academy Contributor

If you love storytelling, you’ll be excited to know that screenwriters work on a wide range of narrative media.

If you’re constantly dissecting your favorite films and TV shows, screenwriting may be the right field for you. Getting started takes perseverance and determination, but being prepared for the industry can help you level the playing field.

Know Your Field: The Basics of Screenwriting

Being a screenwriter means having a strong handle on the details of your story. You need to have a solid plotline, of course, but you also need to think about the themes, characters, and emotional beats of your tale. More than that, you need to consider the medium and the audience.

For example, writing a screenplay for an episodic series is much different than writing a screenplay for a feature film. A feature film must keep its audience’s attention for a few hours at a time. However, an episodic series allows writers to chart out longer character arcs, lay seeds for later key events, and so on. Naturally, writers for video games or short form video content have different considerations as well.

Screenwriters sitting around table

In addition, screenwriters need more than witty responses and creative twists to really make it in their field. They need to learn how to pitch story ideas to busy executives or first-time filmmakers. They also need good people skills, as many work in writers’ rooms and team settings.

Your first step will be to choose your specialty area, depending on both your passion and your talent. For example, your skills may be better suited for short dramatic films rather than standard documentaries. A video game writer will need to create clever dialogue that won’t be irritating to people on their tenth round of the game. Meanwhile, a writer for an animated TV series will need to understand how children and parents will view their content.

Know Your Options: Careers in Screenwriting

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average pay of a screenwriter is $62,170. However, it should be noted that this number varies, depending on the caliber and popularity of your work.

After they graduate with a screenwriting degree, a writer can explore several career paths, including but not limited to the following:

  • Freelance. Some screenwriters prefer to work on their own, then sell their ideas or completed work to different buyers.
  • Staff writer. A staff writer is usually the title of a first-year screenwriter working in a writers’ room. Episodic series typically have writers’ rooms with a team of writers working together to bring the plot and storyline together.
  • Media companies. From newsrooms to video game companies, media companies employ plenty of screenwriters to develop content.
  • Showrunner. A showrunner oversees all aspects of a show, ensuring that all writers understand the larger objectives. Typical duties include managing different parts of the same project, writing and developing parts of the script themselves, and relaying information to producers.
  • Development executive. To get movies ready for debut, development executives review scripts and pass along notes for revisions.
Student editing scripts

Get Familiar With Current Media Trends

As you might have expected, the digital age has created a new appetite for different types of content. Hence, it’s a great time for screenwriters to start forging their own paths based on the new face of content.

For example, short-form videos like those found on popular sites like VICE, Buzzfeed, and NowThis are increasingly popular. Moreover, online streaming on Netflix and other platforms has allowed viewers to binge whole seasons in one sitting, changing how screenwriters approach their craft.

Nevertheless, screenwriters who want to learn the art of either new or traditional media can make a fulfilling career for themselves. The key, of course, is being flexible enough to experiment with new media and keep up with the ever-changing tastes of consumers.

If you’re interested in screenwriting as a career, visit Academy of Art University’s School of Writing for Film, Television & Digital Media page or request more information. On the other hand, if you’re ready to join the Academy community, get started on your application today!

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Are You New Around Here? Why ADAPT Does Things Differently

Posted by Bill Robinson, ADAPT President & CEO on 6/15/20 8:45 AM
Bill Robinson, ADAPT President & CEO

ADA Practice Transitions does things differentlyADA Practice Transitions (ADAPT) has been in pilot stage for several months now, but there are still many dentists who may not know what we do – and why we do it. ADAPT offers a new way of hiring an associate, finding a job, buying a practice, or selling.

Some wonder why such a service is necessary. And why now?

The idea for ADAPT came from dentists. When we asked dentists what worked (and what didn’t work) in the current dental economy, we consistently heard a couple of things:
  • Recent dental school graduates said, “I felt like I didn’t have a choice coming out of dental school – the only opportunities were working for DSOs.” While there is nothing wrong with DSOs and they provide exactly what some dentists are looking for, they are not for everyone. Even if a new dentist chose to work in the DSO model, they often wished there had been independent practice alternatives to consider.
  • Similarly, owner dentists lamented how hard it was to hire an associate, particularly if they hoped that associate would purchase the practice sometime in the future.
  • Broader research showed wide variability in what dental practice brokers provide. Some offer a great service, but many dentists were very disappointed in the value for the price.

Based on these conversations, we concluded there was an opportunity for the ADA to provide a better solution. ADAPT was built to solve the problems that dentists identified. Our goal is to provide a more predictable and successful process, all at a better value.

A different way, a better way

We know some of you are wondering why ADAPT insists on doing things differently. We welcome that conversation. After all, industries are generally suspicious of newcomers – and customers often question new ways of doing things. Think about AirBnB, Redfin, Starbucks, Uber – all of these mainstream companies transformed their industries and created new approaches that are indispensable today.

Kodak famously dismissed digital photography, even though they participated in its creation. The Kodak engineer who developed the technology in 1975 told the New York Times that his bosses were unimpressed: “They were convinced that no one would ever want to look at their pictures on a television set…no one was complaining about color prints, they were very inexpensive, and so why would anyone want to look at their picture on a television set?” That was in 1975! Imagine what that engineer would have said if he had been told that eventually people wouldn’t even use the TV for pictures; they would mostly look at them on their phones.

AirBnB. Redfin. Starbucks. Uber. Even Kodak. All changed how the "normal" in their industries.

So, how exactly is ADAPT different? Aren’t we just another dental practice and dentist employment broker?

No, we’re not. ADAPT doesn’t follow all of the established rules for “how this is done.” We offer new ways of approaching transitions that directly address the most common problems you and your colleagues shared with us. We do it to make transitions more successful and keep independent dentistry thriving.

A focus on finding dentists who share a similar practice philosophy

We heard story after story about dentists who worked together with the best intentions — only to have it fall apart when they eventually realized they just did not have the same approach to dentistry. (See some examples of mismatched philosophies.)

These stories mirror our research, which indicates that dentists who share an approach are more likely to have a successful practice transition – and those with differing approaches are more likely to struggle.

But no one was asking dentists about their approach, or trying to match them based on this vital attribute. Instead, most matches were rooted in geography and budget. Those are important, but not the full story!

For example, an associate who likes to develop personal relationships with his patients won’t be successful in a practice where the owner wants to maintain a strictly clinical relationship. An associate who treats aggressively is a bad fit for a practice that prefers to “monitor potential concerns.”

These issues are even more relevant when a practice is transferring ownership. After all, the main thing a dentist is purchasing with a practice is a specific patient base. Those patients have expectations based on how they have been treated by the previous owner. And those patients will stay or leave based on how the new dentist interacts with them.

ADA Practice Transitions helps dentists find the right practice, the place where they can succeed.

To get at a dentist’s approach – what we call “Philosophy of Care” – we go beyond the typical questionnaire. The entire ADAPT process is online, which makes it easier to connect no matter where you are. Dentists begin by filling out their profile with all the typical details (location, services, practice type, customer demographics, etc.). But then we go deeper to understand how a dentist would approach various scenarios. Once the profile is submitted, the assigned ADA Advisor checks in with the dentist to ensure we understand who that dentist is and what they are seeking to achieve.

We do this because we are committed to more successful transitions, transitions that last. We want to help dentists move to the right practice, rather than just any practice.

ADAPT is changing practice transitions

How else is ADAPT different? Good question. In addition to starting online and focusing on Philosophy of Care, we have a different point of view on:

  • Your control over the process
  • Exclusivity
  • Pricing
  • Valuations
  • What “personal” means

I’ll be dealing with these topics in future blog posts so make sure to sign up for our ADAPT Blog email updates. For now, if you are ready for a change, start your profile. These are challenging times, but many dentists have reconsidered their options and are taking action to reach the next stage of their career. Some furloughed associates have decided that ownership gives them more control over their destiny. Some owners have decided it is time to pass along their legacy to someone new and are now pursuing the sale of their practice with more intention.

Let us show you how practice transitions should be – and help you prepare for your own success. Create your ADA Practice Transitions profile.

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Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act: Past, Present & Future

Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act: Past, Present & Future

Chances are that you are aware of the push for transparency and increased due diligence in supply chains. One of the drivers of this pressure comes from a regulation passed in 2010 as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act requires all Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting companies to disclose whether their products contain minerals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), or one of its neighboring countries.

The regulation set in motion a due diligence effort by hundreds of companies to examine their entire supply chains to ascertain if any of their products contain tin, tantalum, tungsten, or gold (3TGs). Companies are required to file a Form SD with the SEC and, if due diligence reveals the presence of 3TGs in their products, companies need to file an additional Conflict Minerals Report describing the due diligence undertaken to locate the source of the minerals.

The regulation was finalized in 2012, with the first reports filed in 2014. Since 2014, between 1,100 and 1,400 companies have filed annual forms with the SEC that describe the due diligence efforts taken to locate the source of the minerals in their products.

In 2017, however, the SEC stated that it would suspend enforcement of the due diligence and audit requirements of the conflict minerals regulation. Does this mean that companies need not worry about conflict minerals in their supply chains? Not at all. Supply chain transparency efforts for 3TGs are not going away. Despite relaxed enforcement by the SEC, the regulation remains in force, and companies are expected to continue to file disclosures about the source of minerals in their products. Additionally, Maryland, California and Oregon have state regulations that mirror Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act.

EU Conflict Minerals Regulation

Companies with global supply chains need to be aware of international measures similar to Dodd-Frank Section 1502. In January 2021, the European Union (EU) Conflict Minerals Regulation will go into effect. Like Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act, the EU regulation targets 3TGs and requires companies to disclose the origin of the minerals. Unlike Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act, the EU provision applies to importers of the minerals rather than the end product companies. Additionally, the EU regulation does not categorize conflict minerals as only those mined from the DRC and its neighbors; instead, the regulation considers conflict minerals as those originating from any conflict zone or high-risk area. High-risk countries can include those that have weak or non-existent governance structures, or have systematic violations of international law, including human rights abuses.

Why This Matters

Companies in the U.S. should continue to perform due diligence on their supply chains. In particular, companies with SEC reporting requirements and 3TGs in their products should continue to comply with the mandatory disclosure requirements. Companies based in the EU, or with subsidiaries in the EU, should be aware of the upcoming EU reporting requirements.  Although the EU law only applies to EU-based importers, companies upstream and downstream should be aware of the due diligence efforts required.

Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act and the similar EU Conflict Minerals Regulation will not be the end of the push for transparent supply chains. It is in the interest of companies to begin efforts to understand and know the extent of their supply chains, even if 3TGs are not present. The pressure for transparency will only increase, both in the U.S. and internationally.

Karen Woody is an Assistant Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University School of Law, specializing in securities law, financial regulation and white-collar crime. Her expertise on conflict minerals regulations saw her testify for the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, and her work on the subject has been widely cited. Prior to her work in academia, she practiced law at several firms, advising corporate clients and individuals on compliance issues, securities and accounting fraud and international corruption, among other subjects.

Karen is speaking at Assent’s Supply Chain Insight conference in November 2019. To learn more about how you can join her and other industry leaders in Phoenix, AZ, visit the official event website.


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July 13, 2020

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"Lively and affectionate" Publishers Weekly

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"After You've Gone"
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from New and Selected Poems by David Lehman

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Cincinnati Children's Blog

Photo posted on Facebook helps mom diagnose son’s Lyme disease

Karen McGregor recognized the bull’s-eye looking rash on her son’s face as Lyme Disease after seeing a post about the disease on Facebook. Her one-year-old quickly received antibiotics to combat the infection and is recovering.

Dr. Robert Frenck Jr., interim medical director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Cincinnati Children’s, says the first and typically only sign of infection from Lyme disease is the bull’s-eye rash. A child who has one or more marks on his or her body should be seen by a doctor soon.

To find out the geographical areas where Lyme disease is most prevalent, go to Yahoo! Parenting.

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An Empire for Sale

by Frederick Noronha, Publisher, Goa,1556

Goa — which teetered on the brink of collapse in the tumultuous seventeenth century — actually became a thriving cultural, religious and diplomatic hub in the eighteenth century, says a new book on the subject.

‘Globalising Goa (1660-1820)’ by historian Ernestine Carreira of the Universite d’Aix-Marseille in France, says Goa built “close relations with the foremost continental empires of the day — Mughal, Maratha and Mysore”.

9789380739601The 622-page title — just published by Goa,1556 — looks at the role Goa occupied both in India and the world beyond, before the advent of the British Raj.

“The globalisation of trade in the eighteenth century restored its former Atlantic ties via Brazil and the development of the African slave trade,” says Carreira.

She notes that the doors for Goa to the Orient also opened via China and the opium markets. But “within a century, however, it was but a modest outpost of bustling Bombay”.

Carreira argues that Goa is today being “rediscovered by the West”. In the early Modern Era too, it “appealed hugely to the European popular imagination” as a far-flung capital where two worlds and cultures overlapped”.

But after falling “into oblivion” for two centuries, such narratives are now being reassessed as “inventive forms in a Western literary tradition which yearned to relive exotic history by proxy or to understand the expansionist appetites of the past”.

In four parts, the book seeks to locate Goa “inside and outside” Portuguese imperial dynamics; study Luso-French networking and connections between Goa and Pondicherry in the eighteenth century; review the role of Goa in global trade; and understand the role of Goa in travel journals.

Among other topics, the hard-bound book, priced at Rs 500 in Goa, looks at the currencies that were relevant to Goa in the past. It studies the “shifting boundaries” of the area governed by Goa.

In one chapter titled “An Empire for Sale”, it explains French and British companies’ strategic bids to take over the Estado do India ports between 1661 and 1813.

The book, published by Goa, 1556, is available for sale on

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Managing Puppet modules with librarian-puppet

Puppet Labs logoOnce you have your Infrastructure defined as code you need to use coding best practises.

This definitely applies to Puppet code, you have Puppet classes to encapsulate functionality, and modules that group classes together for reuse and redistribution. Modules can be reused from git repositories or from the Puppet Forge, a web archive of tarballed modules in the same fashion as rpm or maven repositories. Modules in the forge are defined by a provider, module name and version, much like Maven groupid, artifactid and version, and a provider has full control over the modules that can be published under its name, with a more open approach, as anybody can upload anything themselves through the forge website, just signup and start uploading them.

But trouble starts when you are using a number of modules from different places, as each module can have its own set of dependencies. How can the dependencies be defined, downloaded and installed automatically as happens with any other package manager?

There are several options actually

  • Git submodules. This is the poor man’s version, where you add the git repositories of other modules as git submodules and use git submodule init and update commands to stay up to date
  • Puppet module tool. Allows the installation of modules from the Puppet forge based on the module name provider/name and version. It will download and unpackage the module in the directory specified
  • Librarian-puppet. It is an extension of ruby’s bundler model to install gems, having a file that defines your dependencies, Gemfile in the case of bundler, Puppetfile in the case of librarian, and a .lock file with the resolved dependencies.

The resolution model is different than those of yum, apt-get or maven, that resolve dependencies at every run on the client, relying on the clients to consistently do that over versions and machines. In the bundler or librarian model, resolution only happens once and it’s saved to the lock file, which is used from there on by the clients until dependencies are changed.

Dependency declaration

The librarian Puppetfile allows defining module dependencies from several sources

Puppet Forge

Using the forge provider and module name, and optionally version it calls puppet module tool to fetch the tarball and extract it in the designed directory

mod "maestrodev/maven", "1.0.0"

Modules can also be cloned from a git repository optionally defining what branch, tag or revision to checkout

mod "maven",
  :git => "",
  :ref => 'v1.0.0'

Path folders

Useful mostly for testing or while transitioning to a full dependency model, local paths can be used as modules

mod 'mymodule', :path => './private/mymodule'

Improvements and issues

Librarian offers several improvements over the puppet module tool. Besides being able to bring in modules from different sources, librarian locks the versions of modules used, which is a must in order to consistently reproduce results. Let’s say you define a dependency on module maestrodev/maven > 1.0.0. If you run it now then librarian will lock the version to 1.0.0. If 1.1.0 is released later your dependencies will stay the same. If you try to run the puppet module tool with

puppet module install maestrodev-maven

you would end with 1.0.0 now and  a newer version later on.

There are some problems, and we hit (and fixed!) a lot of them. We have a fork of the original project where we keep updating the maestrodev branch while our pull requests don’t make it to the original repo. Unfortunately some of the patches have been sitting there for too long and we went ahead and created the librarian-puppet-maestrodev gem  that you can use instead of the original one.

Some of the issues you’ll likely find are the mismatch between puppet module version conventions and gem versions. librarian uses the bundler gemfile resolution mechanism which does not accept some versions such as the ones including dashes 1.0-rc1, or the puppet module dependency type 1.x which our librarian gem will adequately convert to ~>1.0 instead of failing. Check out the rubygems version policies for more details.

Next post I’ll cover how to use librarian in combination with puppetlabs spec helper to make your puppet testing much easier and consistent, and I’ll cover the topic in my upcoming talk on continuous delivery at ApacheCon Portland in February, plus you’ll find me next monday the 28th at the Los Angeles DevOps meetup, and at DevOps Days LA February 22nd as part of the SCALE conference.

14 thoughts on “Managing Puppet modules with librarian-puppet

  1. Pingback: Testing your puppet modules | Carlos Sanchez's Weblog

  2. Pingback: Puppet – Vagrant : Smarter / Better / Stronger | Don't Make the Same Mistake Twice

  3. Excellent blog. Do you still prefer the librarian-puppet-maestrodev gem over the librarian-puppet gem ? or have your pull-requests made it through ?

  4. How is using Git submodules the ‘poor man’s version’? It’s stable, versioned, easy, requires only the use of git, a tool you probably already have. I like the post and your fork of the tool, but I don’t understand the disregard for using git submodules.

    • with git submodules updating all submodules to the latest released version (not the latest commit!) is impossible, updating to the latest requires going into each submodule to do a pull (vs. librarian-puppet update), impossible to handle version ranges (1.x), etc…

      • Yeah, you do have to manage each plugin individually; but when it comes to Puppet this is what I would prefer. Automatic changes to my machine’s configurations is touchy. Librarian-puppet is handy, but I think potentially dangerous; and clearly not stable yet, else I’d certainly use it.

  5. Pingback: New release of librarian puppet | Carlos Sanchez's Weblog

  6. Pingback: Announcing librarian-puppet 1.0.0 | Carlos Sanchez's Weblog

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Silverstein Institute
Sarasota | Lakewood Ranch | Venice

Cochlear Implants Saved my Life

Written by Silverstein Institute
Published: 09 Mar 2017

Cochlear ImplantI was so blessed in life. I was very successful and earned a living in advertising sales. My job and life focused on listening to music, Broadway, dining and intelligent conversation. Suddenly, it was all gone.
My hearing got so bad I was unable to work. I tried volunteering and found I did more harm than good. I moved to be nearer the deaf center in hopes of classes and community. They directed me to Dr. Nally who sent me to Dr. Wazen and the Silverstein Institute.

I am just going on a month since my cochlear implant surgery and am already hearing better than I can remember. I feel so hopeful and grateful to the doctors and staff at the Silverstein Institute.

Wath the video below to learn more about Cochlear Implants:

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Tag Archives | Albert Camus

Astrid And The Exis

Stayed in a mad hotel last Friday, the Karim Rashid designed Nhow in Berlin. If you like pink, then this is the place for you – it’s literally everywhere. Not really my cup of tea, all a bit garish and, as someone put it ‘Barbie girl in a Barbie world’, but certainly somewhere you’re not going to forget in a hurry. Described as a ‘music and lifestyle hotel’, you can have guitars and keyboards delivered to your room, and the upper section of the building houses two recording studios, which are run by the company that manage Berlin’s legendary Hansa studio (best known for David Bowie and Iggy Pop’s patronage in 1977 – ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lust For Life’, both recorded there, and ‘Low’ and ‘The Idiot’ partly recorded).

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