Recent Posts
- Daylight Saving Time: A Century of Moving the Hands and Getting Nowhere
- Take the Extra Minute to Rest: The World, Upside-Down
- Bologna: The Meat That Sounds Like a Lie
- The AI Gold Rush: What Happens When Everyone Strikes the Same Claim?
- Why Are the Oceans Salty? Because People Have Been Peeing for 10,000 Years, Obviously.
Recent Comments
Tag Archives: technology
Daylight Saving Time: A Century of Moving the Hands and Getting Nowhere
Every year, twice a year, we participate in one of the strangest government sponsored rituals of modern civilization. We change the clocks. Today, we fell back to Standard Time, dutifully moving the hands of our clocks backward one hour. Somewhere, … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Science, Society
Tagged accident, agriculture, Biel Mean Time, Congress, daylight, Daylight Saving Time, debate, DST, energy, heart attack, history, school, science, Standard Time, Sun, Swatch Internet Time, technology, time, time zone, UTC, War Time
Leave a comment
Death by AI
We have seen this movie before, sometimes literally. A computer becomes intelligent. It realizes that humans are the problem. It takes control of something important. The humans discover what is happening somewhere around the point at which stopping it becomes … Continue reading
The Future We Have Yet to Build
I like science fiction, but not all of it. A great deal of science fiction is little more than technological window dressing wrapped around a familiar story. Somebody gets a spaceship, somebody else gets a laser gun, somebody discovers a … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Philosophy, Society
Tagged Alexander Belyaev, Arthur C Clarke, Dune, entertainment, Eragon, Fermat’s Last Theorem, future, Gene Roddenberry, Harry Potter, Isaac Asimov, Jules Verne, Robert A Heinlein, science, science fiction, space opera, Star Trek, Star Wars, technology, The Last Starfighter, The Lord of the Rings
Leave a comment
Beyond Plastic: Rediscovering the Materials That Served Humanity for Millennia
When I recently wrote about our civilization quietly poisoning itself with microplastics, one reader asked a perfectly reasonable question: “If not plastic, then what?” It’s the right question. We’ve become so accustomed to plastic that many people can’t imagine life … Continue reading
Posted in Science, Society, Technology
Tagged cast iron, ceramics, chemistry, cookware, glass, history, microplastics, nanoplastics, plastic, pollution, public health, science, silicone, steel, technology
Leave a comment
A Civilization Poisoned by Progress: From Lead Pipes to Microplastics
History rarely repeats itself perfectly, but it often rhymes in chilling ways. We often look back at the giants of the past and wonder how a civilization so advanced, so structured and so dominant could simply dissolve. No collapse comes … Continue reading
Posted in Science, Society
Tagged dystopia, economy, extinction, future, history, Imperial Rome, lead, microplastics, nanoplastics, plastic, pollution, public health, science, technology
Leave a comment
The Quiet Evolution: Adapting to an AI World
I’ve recently been invited to participate in a transformation initiative at work. At a large company, opportunities like this don’t come from raising your hand. They come from being tapped on the shoulder. Senior leadership looks across the organization and … Continue reading
Posted in Leadership, Technology
Tagged AI, artificial intelligence, future, innovation, leadership, technology, work
Leave a comment
Bluetooth or Bonkers – the Perilous Puzzle of Public Perception
There was a time, not so long ago, when it was relatively easy to distinguish the eccentric from the executive. You’d be strolling down Main Street, enjoying your ice cream cone or contemplating your lunch options, when suddenly you’d spot … Continue reading