They are in the news – every day and all over. Chatbots are doing homework, writing novels and poems, taking exams, solving mysteries, fooling people, sometimes fooling themselves. It’s incredible – but everyone is worried. It doesn’t make sense. Shouldn’t we be celebrating?
change
The ‘forgetting curve’ is familiar to most of us. Occasionally a blessing, most of the time the opposite – like in the case at hand: Privacy died many years ago, but most of the world forgot. We’re pretending it’s alive if not well, and spend enormous resources trying to change that – to make it well, make it work. Maybe a short trip down memory lane can get us back on track?
USB-C is the law. And so much better. Let’s move on, right? Of course. Except USB-A is all over the place. And it’s not going away any time soon. The reason? Simplicity rules …
I had to doublecheck, but I read it correctly: ‘Fake music’. How can music be fake? Unless we’re looking at something pretending to be something else. But that’s not it. ‘Fake music’ is real. Apparently I’m listening to it every day. What makes it ‘fake’?
It sounds brutal, but those of us who’ve built businesses know it’s the truth. Business – like nature – is trial and error, death feeding life, pain feeding gain, survival of the fittest – meaning ‘the most adaptable’. Therefore, government ‘life support’ for businesses in rough times is almost always a bad choice. Bad for business, bad for the future.
‘Retrocomputing’ sounds old. That’s exactly what it is: About systems and software from yesteryear and long before that. And since things change extremely fast in the tech-business, ‘retro’ must mean obsolete – with a scent of museum. But wait. Not everything changes all that fast. Some things hardly change at all – and continue to run the same old stuff forever. Who’s taking care of that?
Want to learn from the best? Make sure you don’t repeat their mistakes? Save time and money, collect the glory? Of course. That’s what Best Practices has been about – for ages. And for a long time it worked. Now it doesn’t – for obvious reasons. Why are we still using it?
Your medical records need protection. Not from spies, hackers and nosy neighbors but from bureaucrats, politicians and all kinds of ‘data protection agencies’. They don’t care about you. They care about themselves. They have ‘bullshit jobs’ to protect – and may kill you in the process. You’ve heard, read or seen…
It’s truly amazing what’s going on on Mars these days. Smart people, great planning and incredible technology is moving cargo from Earth to Mars more or less automatically. Then conducting experiments, even having a helicopter working autonomously – in totally unknown terrain. While here on Earth even the simplest emergency planning seems to be a big challenge – and controversial. Why?
Pardon the spelling, but it fits. It has been 35 years since passwords were deemed inadequate for reasonable security. Yet here we are, still using them – and 12345678 is still the world’s favorite. Too bad AI doesn’t exist. We could really need some help on the intelligence side of things.