Ranchers may be getting worried.  The Cattlemen’s Association has asked the government to “’define ‘meat’ as a product ‘derived from animals.’” (“Faux Sure!” by Clive Thompson, Wired, Jan. 2019, pg. 26.) Apparently, they feel threatened by growth in the “fake”

I am  sick of Facebook.  I’m tired of its cutesy messages.  I don’t want to celebrate the fact that Rudolf Valentino and I have been friends for 3 days. Nor do I want reports on the number of “likes” my comments receive in a week. Frankly, Facebook, I don’t give a damn. 

I recently upgraded my computer.  The new hard drive resides in a box the size of a deck of playing cards. When my installer finished his work, he stood back, with his arms folded.  “You’re going to love this,” he assured me.  “It’s so much faster.” Sadly, “faster”

For me, computers pose a mystery.  They are as confusing as a black hole or as simple as a line of 0s and 1s.  When we get to algorithms, life gets tricky.  I haven’t a clue about computer programing, but I remember something from calculus about the difficulty of choosing random

Geometry was my downfall in high school.  Languages weren’t much better.  I have an aversion to memorizing material.  All those theorems and all that vocabulary made my head spin.   On the other hand,  my brief but spectacular introduction to organic chemistry was a delight. 

Clutter can be a sign of a creative mind at work.  Clive Thompson writes that a person with pack rat behavior may have an effective “organizational strategy.” Call it, “serendipity.” (“Clutter Clash,” by Clive Thompson, Wired, March 2016, pg. 49.)  When disparate

In a recent opinion piece, Clive Thompson begins with the question, “What do you do when you discover you are wrong?” (“Retraction Heroes,” by Clive Thompson, Wired, Feb, 2018, pg. 034.)  He goes on to extol the merits of an evolutionary biologist, Daniel Bolnick, who pub

Unlike a declining number of people on the planet, I can remember when my life wasn’t documented.  I can recall researching the subject of ear wax at the library without finding my mailbox stuffed the next day with discount coupons for drops or scrapers to facilitate its removal. 

Donald Trump’s truth varies minute by minute.  It’s like listening to Variations of a Theme of Paganini but less pleasant. Trump doesn’t seem to worry about these variations, which his critics call lies. Rather, he twists the truth, I suspect, to convince his subjects that one

In an earlier blog (10/27/16), I referred to an article by Clive Thompson about artificial intelligence.  He warned we know so little about what’s going on inside those wired machines, we should consider what this lack of transparency means.  Are we being foolhardy when we put too