Continuing my series of posts about AI and machine learning, a big concern is AI taking people’s jobs. In fact, that’s how I first started posting about it, because AI was being touted as a replacement for writing and creating music and the many fun things in life… rather than AI helping do the dishes or laundry. But despite AI being cited as a reason for jobs getting cut, I have been coming across some…
It’s Wednesday, so that means it’s time to continue my posting about AI and machine learning inserting itself, like Clippy on nanobot steroids, into the economy, I’ve already covered one of the big issues people have discovered by being “disruption first” and “figuring out what we’re disrupting” second. I link to a lot of videos and such in my early May post in that regard. For the TL;DR crowd, too much AI implementation is not…
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…
This is not the first time I’ve posted about enshittification, that occurence when an online platform ceases to provide value, first to its regular users, then to its business customers. In fact, I posted about it in 2023, the same year it became word of the year (according to some). So, you’ve probably experienced this online yourself on one or more platforms. It’s ridiculous, dispiriting, and infuriating in waves, isn’t it? Well, not content to…
After decades of debating whether or not to stop minting the penny, the United States has finally stopping minting them. Just last month, in fact. Maryclaire Dale has a good overview article for the Associated Press that came out right around the time the last pennies were being made at the Philadelphia Mint. For example, what will businesses do now that the penny is still legal tender and circulated, but no longer produced? And now…
I knew Milwaukee’s Mitchell Airport had the added appeal of a Usinger’s store (which I no longer see listed, so maybe it doesn’t?), but I did not know it had a wonderful used book store, Renaissance Books, which you can learn about in this short piece: As with my post last week about retail stores trying to become more of an “experience,” this feels like it perfectly fits the bill. Here’s hoping they continue to…
Well, maybe. Retail is the era of omnipresent online shopping needs to have some extra experiential spice of its own. And it’s no secret that retail’s “biggest season” is upon us. Much digital ink is being spent on analysis as folks try and find trends. I’m a fan of “Small Business Saturday,” but and would note: In fact it was considering how small businesses are actively working to be experiences and potentially third places that…
I’ve been trying to figure out why this timeline is timelining the way it is. I mean, I’m not the only one who isn’t a fan, right? But anyway, I’ve been seeking out material that goes into how things are work, how certain societal structures are the way they are, and what forces have been and are shaping them. You know, psychohistory kinda stuff. In my travels, I came across the videos of geopolitical consultant…
This isn’t the first time I’ve posted about work-life balance, but it does feel that, in 2025, more people have the assumption that WORK has won and the imbalance is fine. We know it. We’ve felt it. I’m sure some researchers have excellent terms for it, but I’m thinking of it these days as overproductivity. And it succeeds because we have zealots, who probably get up at 4am, who push for overproductivity. And when they,…
The federal budget has been very much in the news for the past few weeks with a mammoth piece of legislation being talked about in Congress (in fact, it might be passed by the time this posts). So what would you do if you could craft something similarly monumental? As it turns out, several different groups have created online simulators for you to try your hand at adjusting the budget. You’ll see several are coming…