Writers are sometimes asked if they fall into one of two camps. First is the plotter: someone who outlines their work assiduously and only then begins their draft. Second is the pantser: someone who discovers the plot as they write. There is a third proposed faction called plantsers, which I may arguably belong to, but I do not identify as such. On the one hand, being a plantser sounds like a condition for which I…
Speaking of all good things coming to an end as I was on Tuesday, tonight is a good thing I definitely don’t want to end: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Tonight is its last night. In fact, they may have finished recording their final episode by the time you’re reading this. And I was reminded by a fellow theatrical how important a theater space is. That it can be like a garden where people…
They say all good things come to an end, which mainly makes me feel “They” need to stop doomscrolling and go outside. However, one thing I don’t remember them touching upon is how some good things don’t just end, they wither. And that withering often comes from a serious of decisions. For instance, take Panera… and if a bunch of you just reflectively reacted “No, please no!” you know where this is going. Back in…
I am, perhaps, remiss in having a regular post around the 17th of May, because the second oldest constitution in use deserves some democratic love, but if you haven’t seen this one, it’s a humdinger. There are many places around the United States that celebrate Norway’s Constitution Day, but no one should be surprised that towns in Wisconsin and Minnesota celebrate it. Enter Stoughton, Wisconsin, founded by Norwegian immigrants and don’t you forget it! In…
Discussions at the dayjob have included the both the risks of AI and the risks of not implementing AI. I mean, the problems of AI as an accelerator for cybercrime were already apparent and are now becoming iridescent (metaphorically). But my guess is that most of you are dealing with workplaces where there’s a cohort of people wanting to implement AI to do everything. They want a silver bullet. They really need to understand some…
Yes, given the posts earlier this week, I couldn’t resist… but let’s face it: AI, in the form of our current crop of large language models, has been touted as the technology that will change everything. Well, for humans, anyway. And for humans, AI has proven problematic. Because, when it comes to Chosen Ones, you generally want them to do good. That’s one of the reasons they get the moniker of “Chosen One” versus “Eternal…
After May the Fourth became the official unofficial Star Wars holiday (much to the consternation of Orthodox Star Wars fans, who only celebrate May 25th and maybe Life Day) the people who can start singing “Yub Nub” at the drop of a Stormtrooper helmet tried to extend the revelry into the rest of the week. Hence Revenge of the Fifth. Hence this video. I have to say, it works for me, not that I’d tell…
The Empire Strikes Back came out in 1980, a time long before today’s norms where you can wait a few months for any film in theaters to make it to streaming. So it was not uncommon to go back and see a film in the theater again. Alas, unbeknownst to us young Star Wars fans, Empire had an additional enticement for cinema-goers in the UK, Australia, and Scandinavia. George Lucas liked the idea of playing…
As I mentioned back in February, I’ve been musing about a longer piece about AI, the catch-all if imprecise term lobbed at the current crop of large language models (e.g. ChatGPT, Claude, Co-Pilot, Grok, Gemini, etc.). I get more examples of videos and articles motivating me to write that longer piece on AI every week. The current hucksterism selling AI strikes me as the same overconfident idiocy that led some to believe microwaves would replace…
Okay, so it’s a couple months since the Super Bowl, so I’m arguably late to the post-SB-party, but I haven’t stopped thinking about one of the commercials that aired as it was cheerfully pro-dystopia: Yeah, even people who think “Orwell” might be a brand of microwave popcorn found their spidey-sense tingling. Well, it turns out the lawyer folks at LegalEagle really took notice and they have a very informative video validating your fears and explaining…