Once upon a time, stories were just stories. They were fantasies that took people to a new world. In the 21st century, cultural pundits insisted that books, films, video games and television shape our personalities. It began in the 1980s when Democrats wanted to censor lyrics in music, and then video games in the 1990s, and then smoking and guns out of films, and now they ban books by...
read moreArtificial Intelligence is artificial, but it is not intelligence. That could change some day but it isn't happening soon, Large Language Models are fine for a few things but limited in most. That is why Ben Affleck can talk in a hurry and assure fellow film creatives that their jobs are safe. LLMs can't write a great script.read...
read moreItaly as we know it today had not been such since the days of the Roman Empire. You can see that last remnant today in the existence of The Vatican smack in the middle of Rome but at one point they held a substantial amount of territory. Like Americans, Italians are inherently rebellious. If you are on a plane flight and a flight attendant complains about someone smoking a cigarette, savvy...
read moreIn 2008, fresh off a decisive victory over Democratic establishment candidate Senator Hillary Clinton in the primary and one over highly-regarded Senator John McCain in the general election, President-elect Obama began to engage in worrisome behavior.His transition team, those who set the tone for his Cabinet and first 100 days, was over-represented with UFO believers. His inner circle included a...
read moreIf cultural pundits can invent an Anthropocene Epoch then a Digital Epoch makes even more sense. In 2000, only in Japan did you see people on trains four inches from other humans chatting other humans on other trains, most of whom they'd never meet. Now that is everyone in the developed world.read...
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