At the retirement center, I sank into a chair opposite a man who once had a distinguished career. Knowing he wasn’t a loquacious individual, I started the conversation, asking how he’d spent his afternoon.  “Reading,” he replied.  “It passes the hours.” The previous day,

  Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest novel, Klara And The Sun speculates on how a robot might learn to adapt to humans.  The question he poses is interesting, but we humans should spend time thinking about how we ought to adapt to them.  First, we should consider what we want from robot

During the second impeachment hearing for Donald Trump, a woman with a sense of irony shared this line from George Orwell’s novel, 1984 on her Facebook page. The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.  The quote garn

Despite the misinformation he’s allowed to spread on Facebook,  I admire Mark Zuckerberg’s intention to create a global community that can promote human understanding. To foresee the many ways his dream could be misused would require the powers of Nostradamus, so I don’t hold h

While browsing through the internet the other day, I learned about an exciting new discovery in quantum physics.  Scientists have learned that some quantum particles adhere to one another, not by electromagnetism, as we supposed, but by something called the strong force. I will ventu

A friend sent me an email this morning to say that in honor of the times in which we live, she was writing a new version of the Jabberwock.  I replied to her post as follows: “I woke up today with a new first stanza of the poem tumbling in my head.” For those who have yet to meet

A young woman from Kenya sent me a friendship request on Facebook the other day.  Because I  lived in east Arica for a time, I agreed. Seconds later a new message popped up.  This one was from Facebook. The woman whose friendship I’d accepted had 5,000 already. The website wouldn

My near-death fantasy is to be conscious as I depart not only this earth but also the world-wide-web. To be honest, the web hasn’t been kind to me of late. First, the Russians attacked my blog in 2016.  Then Facebook became positively hostile and banned me from its pages for severa

I admit it.  The older I get the more stupid I become.  It has nothing to do with an aging brain and everything to do with having experienced enough to know life is complex.  Designed to interlock right down to the mud of matter, the quantum level, if one part of the universe shive

Since the 2016 election, we’ve heard a good deal about fake news.  Bogus sources seem to spring up overnight.  Even Gig data can’t be trusted.  Click)  How do we tell the news from propaganda in this environment?  With 2.2 billion users sharing information on Faceboo