An irregular journal of Thoughts, Stories, Ideas, and Recollections
With all the news about A.I. it seems reasonable to recall Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. They first appeared in a 1942 short story entitled “Runaround”, which was later included in the 1950s collection “I Robot”. Asimov (1920-1992) was both a science fiction writer and a
There was a comedy game show on television not so long ago called “Whose Line is it Anyway?” The tagline was: Where the show is made up and the points don’t matter. I always thought that tagline could have been an insightful summary of the North American workplace. Was
Perhaps I should be more understanding. Perhaps he has spent decades fielding calls from computer-challenged people like me. In the words of Louis Armstrong, his theme song could be: Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen Nobody knows my sorrow Nowadays, everyone has an IT guy (usually a guy for
I have a superpower. My superpower is a cloak of invisibility. It’s the cloak bestowed upon elderly women, whether we want it or not. This cloak is hard to remove, and once relinquished, punishment is swift. Let me give you the most recent example of my invisibility. The other
I would like to think that Orwell and I have a few things in common, but I can confidently say that our bookshop experiences are quite similar. Orwell worked for a few years in a secondhand bookshop, and he memorialized some of that experience in two works. One was an
Before you read any further know this: I am Canadian. My parents were both Canadians, and my mother’s ancestors came here in the late 1500s. Yes, more than 400 hundred years ago. Some intermarried with the Mohawk First Nation at Kahnawake. I have always been quietly proud of being