Just a Free Thinker at Large

The Thanksgiving Day War!

Hey everyone, It's me. I know I'm fashionably late to the party—a couple of days behind for the folks in the U.S., but hey, just over ten months ahead for us Canadians, right? But let's not get bogged down in the details. Many of you know that I've

Lest We Forget...

Remembering the past is what this post is about and on this November 11, 2023, I once again find myself thinking about wars past, wars present, and sadly, the wars to come. This year, in particular, there are two high profile wars going, one in Ukraine, and the other in

The Real History of the Middle Finger. Maybe.

Some stories just keep coming round and round again. That's why God invented Snopes; to helpfully and hopefully explore the veracity of stories shared by your friends on social media. Put another way, there are places to see if a story is bullshit. That stuff shows up everywhere, but Facebook

Superhero Fashion 101

On Halloween night, while waiting for kids to come begging for candy, I sat on the couch and started throwing strange but simple prompts at DALL-E 3, and basically just having fun. In case you haven't spent much time with DALL-E 3, it's different in that, on the back end,

The Soul for Getting Down: The Spirited History of Halloween Parties

Feeling a little on edge? Like someone is looking over your shoulder? Do you hear a creaking sound in an otherwise silent room? Wait! Was there something moving in the shadows? You could swear you just heard a low kind of moaning sound, as though the saddest, loneliest creature in

A No BS Guide to Getting Rid of Your Back Pain!

Let’s start with my tragic backstory. I suffered with crippling back pain for more than twenty years. I’m talking about being out on my back, unable to drive, barely able to walk, or work. I spent every moment trying to deal with the pain while doing my best

Everything's Coming Up AI Roses

TRIGGER WARNING! This post paints AI in a largely positive way. Readers who feel threatened by positive outlooks may want to avoid this one. Too often, discussions about AI's future pit humanity against machine, as if preparing for some cataclysmic showdown. Yet, this perspective fails to recognize the symbiotic relationship

Bromelain for Nasal Polyps: Personal Experience

If you don't know what I'm talking about here, consider yourself lucky and just move on. This isn't likely to be too interesting for you and it might just gross you out. If you do know about nasal polyps, or you know of someone who suffers with nasal polyps, you

Confusing Religion and Technology

"If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." – Abraham Maslow I'm not entirely sure why, but I've been putting off responding to this. I suppose it's partly because I had such a visceral reaction to it. Maybe I wanted to write from detached criticism rather than

Your Smartphone Camera's Deep, Dark, AI Secret

As viral art apps from Stable Diffusion, to Midjourney, to DALL-E 2, stoke fears about machines stealing human creativity, it’s worth remembering we’ve been training AI to enhance our creative skills longer than you may realize. Every snapshot you’ve taken with your smartphone camera in the last

AI Generated Videos, In Minutes!

Years ago, when we bought our first Google Home unit (as soon as it was available), I described the technology as "magic". I demonstrated it to my kids, pointing out the fact that you could ask the Assistant for the weather, or to explain something, or translate from one language

The Quill vs. The Algorithm: Can Writers and AI Coexist?

As I write this, the WGA, the Writers Guild of America, has been on strike for three months; the strike started May 2, 2023. Just over a month later, the union, which represents screenwriters who work on movies and television (including streaming media), was joined on the picket line by

Generative AI Goes to Church

On June 9th, 2023, ChatGPT took its place in the pulpit and started preaching to a packed assembly at St. Paul's Lutheran church in the Bavarian town of Fuerth, in Germany. Theologian, Jonas Simmerlein, created a 40-minute service using ChatGPT, but also included other AI elements throughout. On a huge

Philosophy

The New Bicameral Minds

Every morning, I get up early and start getting lunches ready for the kids, prep the table for breakfast, sweep around said table, fill water bottles, and so on. This is my Monday to Friday routine, at least until school gets out in a couple of weeks. While I go

Balancing Doomsday and AI

A couple of years ago, there was this combination science-fiction, disaster, not to mention heavily satirical film called, "Don't Look Up". The movie was written, produced, and directed by Adam McKay and David Sirota. The film included a star-studded cast that included Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill,

AI Whisperer: Job of the Future?

I was thinking about this idea that a high-paying job of the future is going be prompt engineer. An "AI whisperer" if you like. This person is able to talk to the AI in a way that consistently provides the output they are looking for. One place where you can

Yes, You Are Living in a Simulation

I've always loved the question, "Are you living in a computer simulation?" The question was made famous in a 2003 paper by philosopher Nick Bostrom, who suggested that we are almost certainly living in a simulation. You can go back and read the paper after you're done reading this, but

The 15-Minute City Conspiracy

Ah, the 15-minute city! An exciting new urban planning concept that has been gaining momentum in recent years. This idea is simple, yet powerful: create neighborhoods or districts where residents can access all of their daily needs within a 15-minute walk or bike ride from their home. This includes access

Genius In. Genius Out. (Episode 032 of the TIC TEK TOE podcast)

Amazingly, it has just occurred to me that I should probably post podcast episodes here as well, so I'll start today. I do a semi-regular podcast with Evan Leibovitch; semi-regular because the schedule should be less thought of as a schedule and more of a 'whenever it happens' kind of

Artificial Intelligence

Silicon Valley's Magic School Bus

Greetings, fellow humans. And sure, if the AIs of the world want to listen in and read, I'm okay with that, too. Ready for a little nostalgia? A little trip down memory lane? Just climb aboard for a wild ride on the Magic School Bus with your guide and driver,

What Do You Do With Your New AI Superpowers?

This morning, I was thinking about how we (or some of us) are always talking about how cool it would be to have superpowers. I've played that game with my kids and, to be honest, with other adults, or people that society would consider adults, anyhow. To be 100% completely

Thoughts on Capitalism, Universal Basic Income, and Automation

Welcome to the world of generative AI, folks! Have a seat, get comfortable, and for heaven's sake, buckle up. It might be a bumpy ride. The rise of generative AI technologies like ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion, and other advanced machine learning models has the potential to revolutionize the way we work,

Alcohol, Canada, and the CCSA Report: The Devil’s in the Details

Alcohol is back in the news in Canada and the new report from The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) is making waves. The CCSA report updates their guidelines on safe alcohol consumption, and this is the first update in 11 years. The TL:DR on this one

Does Artificial Intelligence Think?

A few days ago, over on LinkedIn, a friend, Fred Richards, posted a poll question. Does AI think? 11% of people said "Yes" while the "No" camp took home 79% of the vote. "Maybe" stood alone with 0% of the vote while the remaining 11% said, "Keep throwing $$ at it!

Little Red Riding Hood, In Space!

I should start by pointing out that what follows is inspired by a video I watched with Elizabeth Ann West. She was demonstrating some advances with an AI tool called Sudowrite, an amazing tool for writers. In the demonstration, she asked the audience for story ideas and one of them