You’ve probably heard about the New York Times reporter who was creeped out by his conversation with Microsoft’s new chatbot. The reporter kept pressing questions to which there was no factual answer, and the chatbot eventually started returning responses that, if uttered by a person, would seem kind of ominous. That includes professing love […]
Bonfire of my vanity
Take a look at the composite picture above: What do the five faces have in common? I’ll just wait here while you ponder. Hint: It’s not the Dave Clark Five. It’s not the Five Amigos. It’s not the Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It’s not the Five Guys. It’s not the Five Pillars of […]
Gadgets galore
The other day I was thinking about getting an Amazon Echo. No reason, really, other than being a total sucker for electronic gadgets of all kinds. I’m also a sucker for slick marketing and word of mouth, which has made a strong case that life without Alexa is barren and futile. I really should […]
Borrowed knowledge is better than none
Over the past couple of days I’ve built a new computer. That was the easy part. Now it’s a matter of getting everything to work as it should — not just all the speedy new hardware, but the new operating system known as Windows 8. So far I don’t like the OS much, but […]
Rolling the dice on a new ISP
Today I’m hanging around waiting for the Comcast guy to show up. You know how that works: They give you a two- or three-hour window for when they’ll be there, so you can’t go for a run, or take a shower or walk the dog. I’m even reluctant to go out back and pull […]
Don’t pick up the SOPA
I won’t be joining today’s protest over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), since a quick glance of my site traffic reveals that nobody would notice if I did. It’s a two-edged sword, running an unread blog: You are completely free of responsibility, but you are also completely without influence. Ah, well. At least […]