The Technology of Abolishing Jobs
“I will be the greatest jobs President that God ever created.” @POTUS Donald Trump campaigned with this and won, partially due to the job-loss-induced frustration in places like the Rust Belt. Building a border wall and introducing import tariffs will help some, but they won’t fix the problem. Technology is the real villain, and many […]
“My God, What Have We Done?”
Atomic bombs are in the news of late. Last year we marked the 70th anniversary of the first use of the A-Bomb on Hiroshima. A treaty intended to keep Iran from getting one is still being argued on Capitol Hill. All eyes are on North Korea, where Supreme Dictator Kim Jong-un grows ever closer to […]
U, Robot
Artificial people are not a new thing. To be clear, I am not talking about non-human legal entities, nor do I mean the sort of folk you meet at cocktail parties who can talk for hours without saying anything. Here I refer only to people whose creators are other technically skilled people. This notion of […]
Creep
If you’re an engineer, creep is the slow, permanent deformation of a body resulting from the continued application of heat or stress. If you’re a regular human, it might signify stealthy movement, or perhaps a detestable person. To a select few, Creep is a song from Radiohead’s Pablo Honey album. The fact that a creep […]
For the Memories
Memory is not to be trusted. It is unpredictable, frustratingly fleeting, and only gets worse with age. It will forever cling tightly to useless facts and yet misplace the freshest, most essential ones. I can remember my childhood phone number, the tune and lyrics to Let It Be, and most of the Gettysburg Address, and […]
Hair Maker
Great inventions are often born at the intersection of two seemingly unrelated observations. Consider hot glue guns and bald guys. Observation #1: Sometimes when you pull a glue gun back from the item being glued it leaves a thin, hair-like strand of hardened plastic. Observation #2: Bald guys have no hair. Although assaulting a bald […]
Just What Do You Think You’re Doing?
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is widely regarded as one of the most influential films ever made. Themes of existentialism and artificial intelligence were reinforced by scientifically accurate depictions of space flight and cutting-edge pre-CGI special effects. In one of the movie’s most memorable and prescient sequences, the working relationship between pseudo-sentient mission computer […]
Getting Lost
Recently my wife and I drove 400 miles to attend a wedding. The festivities took place in a small northern California town where neither of us had ever been. Although some planning went into the trip, navigation was never much of a concern. With Siri calling out the turns, we drove confidently into hitherto unknown […]
The Barfomatic
Nausea. We all know the feeling. Sometimes it briefly grabs our attention, and then slips quietly away. Other times, it builds to an inescapable climax and then….. Friends and family all secretly hope it’s something you ate and they didn’t (So glad I passed on the oysters). Many times it’s due to a virus that […]
Darwin’s Business Plan
“If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.” Charles Darwin Charles Darwin was not an atheist, and he started out studying medicine and theology before finally settling on natural history. Nearly everyone associates his […]
