I was fascinated to read how silliness and puns energized the people of Somerville, Massachusetts to solve a common problem — and it made me wonder about whether home-grown humor could to save the world from everything else that threatens it. A grate idea in Somerville Here’s Boston Globe writer Steve Annear on how Somerville…
Amanda Gorman composed her poem The Hill We Climb for Joe Biden’s inauguration. Now, based on one feckless parent’s complaint, an elementary school in Miami has removed it so children can no longer access it without a parent’s permission. Here’s the whole poem; judge for yourself. Is this text going to corrupt young people? I’ve…
Logline: When a band of smart thieves successfully steals a $1 trillion coin minted by the US government, they hold the country hostage in a daring game of cat-and-mouse. Opening Scene: We see the interior of the US Treasury building in Washington D.C. – an ornate and imposing structure filled with busy bureaucrats and security…
Write what you mean. It’s my most fundamental writing advice. Tucker Carlson apparently did that. According to a text revealed by the New York Times, here’s a text that Tucker Carlson sent the day after the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol: Tucker Carlson January 7, 2021 — 04:18:04 PM UTC A couple of weeks ago, I…
In 1951, the science fiction writer Cyril M. Kornbluth published a story called “The Marching Morons” in Galaxy Magazine. (You can read the whole thing here.) It tells the story of a near future world in which stupid people with limited skills overpopulate the world, forcing a dwindling group of intelligent people to take on…
More than 1,000 people including Elon Musk, Andrew Yang, and Steve Wozniak signed a statement calling for a six-month pause in development of large-language-model-based artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT. “Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable,” the statement says….
As a consumer, you probably subscribe to a lot of ongoing (monthly or yearly) services. If regulations required you to proactively renew them, we’d wash a lot of stupid, poor corporate behavior out of the system. Should this be the law? Let’s explore what it might mean. What do you subscribe to? What do you…
The January 6 insurrection failed, right? The objective of the insurrection was to stop the certification of Joe Biden as president, and in the end, he was certified, so they failed. But that perspective ignores the insurrection’s longer-term goal. The insurrection’s purpose was to stop the government from functioning in the normal way. That includes…
Today, December 26, is known as Boxing Day in some parts of the world. If you don’t celebrate Boxing Day, were you offended that I wished you a happy Boxing Day? Or did you just say, “Whatever, thanks, I guess.” And if you do celebrate Boxing Day, were you offended that people who talk to…