From facts to fake-news how do we build real knowledge and overcome our own biases? — Viruses, climate change, vaccines, trade policy, we now live in an environment where virtually any position and knowledge will be challenged, even when most experts agree. Unfortunately getting people to agree on who the experts are is just as hard as agreeing on whatever it is they might be experts…

Vivid experiences teach us about danger. But what about abstract risks such as unregulated AI or DNA editing? — Just one event, such as touching a hot stove, sears into our mind a level of respect. Yet sometimes people warn us about new developments that are as dangerous as the proverbial hot stove and we ignore them. This is true even if they come from trusted persons or sources…

You’ve got the idea, honed the pitch, but are you ready to go? Answering questions well is key to landing customers and investors. — Intro I’ve been blessed to experience the fun and chaos of founding a few companies. As I get ready to hit the road again, I realize that how I respond to questions is just as important as a great pitch and a fantastic demo. This piece provides a list of questions…

New AI Bots are able to write stories, music, poems, and code — almost as good as humans. What does this mean for human content? — Computer scientists are quickly writing the next generation automatic content writing engines using the latest artificial intelligence (AI). What do I mean by content? Well they can generate short stories, love letters, poems, music, and even write some code. Are they as good as human? No, but let’s set old…

Let’s just automate everything. Perfectly. — When the Automatons came for the assembly line makers I did not fear, for the factory still needed pipes and I kept them running. And the goods it made were cheaper. When the Automatons defeated the Chess players, and the Go players, I laughed at their game for I don’t…

How I unwound an accidental git reset that couldn’t be recovered using normal git checkout / cherry-pick procedures. — So I screwed up and accidentally hit a git reset — hard when I should have been paying attention more and lost all the files in my initial commit. ~~ admonishment about being more careful etc. ~~ At first I tried the normal checkout / cherry-pick etc. But those weren’t…

Sometimes product purchases bring unexpected features. — For many years, my wife Marzi and I had a cheap Mr. Coffee drip coffee maker. I think it cost us around fifteen dollars at Target on a close-out. It was simple, but it worked. I’d put in the ground coffee, a paper filter, and its water reservoir was good…

It was time to pass on the old dollhouse in the attic…or was it? — Little Debbie had just turned seven, and with that milestone, Ellie decided that it was time to pass on her childhood dollhouse. Slowly she made her way up to the attic, anticipating the look on Debbie’s face. …

Downtowns were built on the idea that droves of office workers are needed in major cities. What happens when they don’t return? — The office worker economy is forever changed. It’s tempting to think that people will eventually return to urban downtowns when the Covid19 pandemic subsides (the latest variants notwithstanding). But what if this is simply not true for purely technical, cost-savings, and personal reasons?