July, 2022 The American dreamscape. A strange topology beneath the moon that our oddly faceless icons walked on, then abandoned, an issue suddenly as dead as the dust under their nasa boots. We Americans inhabit stories and myths, not reality. We’re fictional characters who believe ourselves to be real, but disbelieve the real world. We’re… Continue reading

Originally published May 2023 A couple of years back, Cory Doctorow coined a word, “enshittification,” that’s a perfect summation of why we can’t have nice things. Enshittification is the process that takes a service, or a system, or a tradition, or even an institution, and degrades it to the extent that it’s just no good any… Continue reading

Originally published April 2023 There’s a lot of, um, chat going around about ChatGPT, the well-known large-language-model generative chatbot. I’m holding off on calling it an “Artificial Intelligence,” but I will go as far as calling it an AEM — Artificial English Major.  ChatGPT and its pals really are a lot like the typical caricature… Continue reading

I keep circling back to Descartes. René freaking Descartes. Maybe the original tech bro. Guy decided animals were machines. It wouldn’t have made any difference, except the jerk was an a-list persuader and people listened to the things he said and for some reason (this reason is still around and you know it) took the things… Continue reading