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The man who almost destroyed the planet… twice
This is a cautionary tale. History is full of inventors who changed the world. Thomas Edison gave us the light bulb. Alexander Graham Bell, the telephone. The Wright brothers taught humanity that flying was not just for the birds. Then we have Thomas Midgley Jr.: environmental historian JR McNeill said of him that he may…
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Then there’s this
Think, thoughtful reader, about something you use everyday, that everybody uses everyday. If you are Taylor Swift, the Pope, or Vladimir Putin, you use it. Got a PhD in Physics or just completed your training on the deep fryer at McDonalds and are finally moving up from the drive-thru window – you use it. The…
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Where’s my flying car?
The 1960s were an amazing time to be born, if only for the television programs. And growing up in the 70s meant those programs found their way into syndication and were a kindof “life primer” for a young boy like me in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Flipping between channel 11 (KTTV) and channel 13…
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People are stupid
When I was growing up in Los Angeles in the 70s, every car had two things inside: the Fleetwood Mac album Rumours on 8-track tape, and a copy of the Thomas Guide. The Thomas Guide was a paperback, spiral-bound atlas featuring detailed street maps of the city; it was such a fixture of life in…
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Sometimes I lie
Last week, I was having a conversation with the esteemed director of my residence here at Stonewall Gardens Assisted Living in my apartment, me seated, her standing in my open doorway. Under normal circumstances, I think the world of Brittany – she is intelligent, experienced, professional yes, but perhaps more importantly she is kind, compassionate,…
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I outwitted AI using Phil Collins!
Okay, let’s just get this out of the way right at the start. I am a Phil Collins fan. And I’m not going to justify it by claiming it’s because he’s such a talented drummer and invented the technique of gated reverb which revolutionized how drums are recorded and defined the sound of rock and…
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Stupid User Tricks
I learned just about everything I know about writing computer code from a man named Carl. I met him in the early 90s when we were working on creating a digital, automated way to transmit raw union payroll data from my company (a sound postproduction studio) to his (a payroll processing company). The idea was…
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Labor of Love
I have a saying: “there’s lots of people I don’t want to be.” That’s particularly true when I look around at some of my fellow retirees, who seem to have “stopped.” Stopped caring – yes, but also stopped growing and stopped changing. Change is life and life is change. You know what doesn’t change? Something…
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Attitudes toward AI
Everybody is talking about “AI” but few know what it is or its implications. My introduction to it has been largely positive. I have had “smart” devices in my apartment for over a year, “controlled” by Alexa from Amazon – though I have configured her to use a man’s voice, so you might say my…
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Carded by Google
After writing the other day about how I’m getting older, it would seem I had it all wrong. I’m Benjamin Button-ing before my very eyes! It started innocently enough. Google frightens me. That said, I do use it, first and foremost as a search tool that dramatically speeds up my research into the various things…
Your mileage may vary.