A truism does not a scientific discipline make.I last mentioned A. E. van Vogt’s Null-A novels a long time ago, noting the phrase “the map is not the territory”, which is a key concept of the Null-A u...

The influence of René Descartes is hard to describe, and harder to demonstrate, but there are a few clues out there.Even if you discount most of his contributions to mathematics, physics, and philosop...

I was not familiar with Eric Shaw, nor have I ever really watched SpongeBob SquarePants, though I am familiar with the characters through their impact on popular culture. According to Wikipedia, Mr Sh...

NOTE: An edited version of this article appeared on The Skeptic (UK).“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, section 5.6Language ma...

When the Turing Test was first proposed, it was never designed to be a definitive test for genuine artificial intelligence.

They want to help keep people safe.That’s a motivation I certainly support, but it’s important to be sure that your actions actually support your goal.On the 1-Dec-2025 episode of Cybersecurity Today,...

This keeps happening, and I love it!I wanted to talk about the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, but I like having two topics which tie together in some way. That’s why I sometimes simply search on a ...

Everyone seems to need a villain. For many, that villain is Russia.I won’t go into the long, complex history, or discuss how our current geopolitical situation evolved, but I do wonder about the degre...

Donald Trump’s first presidency was a global embarrassment, starting with the so-called ‘Muslim ban’, and ending with the January 6th insurrection.And then, in 2020, came COVID-19. This was a major global event, and there was no perfect course of action. There were a lot of bad ones, though, and Trump selected many of them. Selecting Alex Azar for Health and Human Services was not necessarily one of them (though I think it was), but ignoring and downplaying his warnings about COVID-19 certainly

Everyone is so out-of-touch.Are they? Really? And, if so, why might that be?Many people think it’s an age thing, but I don’t. I remember several variations on the idea that someone who is not a ‘socia...

At its best, jargon allows for the clear and concise communication of ideas and concepts; at its worst, it can be used to obscure and confuse

I wanted to talk about the political football that is Bill C-22 in Canada, so I found a picture of a football, and -What?Wrong type of football?Oh. Right. Sorry. So much soccer lately, and my main int...

I was surprised to learn that Waldo is actually Wally, and that he’s only been around since 1987. I first heard of him as an adult, but always assumed that he had been around for years before that per...

I sometimes find it useful to dig into assumptions, particularly when they are hiding in the “everyone knows...” category.While charity and philanthropy are related, most comparisons of the two words ...

Reactions to the above image range from religious ecstasy to abject horror. I find it amusing and interesting, so I guess I’m somewhere in the middle.The Flying Spaghetti Monster was, according to the...

Louis Armstrong was one of the truly great musicians, and What a Wonderful World is one of the truly great songs.To get just a hint of his influence, have a look at his discography. Section 1 consists...

NOTE: An edited version of this article appeared on The Skeptic (UK).We live in a sea of cognitive biases.Everyone is affected. All of us. All the time. Psychologists study them, as do economists, cog...

This is a shield. Not the one I wanted to show, but a shield nevertheless. I actually wanted to show an image of the coat of arms of Canada, even though it was created long after the point at which it...

I sometimes hear references to one “futurist” or another, making pronouncements regarding current trends and where they may lead, and I must confess that I have been unimpressed.My impression is that ...

I’d really like to describe the Trump administration as an example of Weaponized Incompetence, but I really can’t. Intuitively, the term seems to fit, but it already has a definition in the psychologi...

In the classic scene from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (I refer, of course, to the 1981 TV version), Arthur Dent confronts the person trying to bulldoze his house, who explains that the plans ...

NOTE: An edited version of this article appeared on The Skeptic (UK).“No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government exc...

Far from being capable of objective judgements, AI replicates the biases and prejudices of the very human data it's trained on.

Finding Nemo was a great film, filled with endless references, sight-gags, and characters, making it the sort of movie you can watch again and again. Among the wonderful scenes is one with Bubbles (vo...

dixit itaque ei Pilatus ergo rex es tu respondit Iesus tu dicis quia rex sum ego ego in hoc natus sum et ad hoc veni in mundum ut testimonium perhibeam veritati omnis qui est ex veritate audit meam vo...

When we hear music, there’s usually a go-to association, which can say a lot about the listener.Take, for example, Wagner’s famous Ride of the Valkyries, from Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the ...

It’s been over seventy-five years since Alan Turing came up with the Imitation Game in his 1950 paper, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, and I have previously written written about the Turing Test...

When I write, I often try to come up with two topics that are linked in some interesting way, and find it fun when the link is unexpected or particularly tenuous. The more unexpected the connection, t...

Rather than labelling each facet of neurodiversity, we could be identifying what support people need for their best chance of success.

NOTE: An edited version of this article appeared on The Skeptic (UK).Computer science is science, right? It’s in the name.This is actually a topic of some debate. Is it a scientific discipline? An eng...

“Is it real? Or is it Memorex?”For those under fifty, the answer is probably a blank stare.For the rest, I apologize for misremembering the slogan. Imagine my surprise when I found that it was actuall...

Language is constantly evolving, not only by time and location, but also because of usage and changing cultural associations.When I think of the word “manifesto”, the example which leaps to mind is th...

Experience is learning the hard way that something won’t work, is harder than it looks, or will come back to haunt you.Learning from history is where you find that something didn’t work, was harder th...

I believe that AI and Bayesian reasoning might be the chocolate and peanut-butter we’ve been looking for.One of the major challenges we currently face is the Rage Machine, in which we are exposed to a...

Minions have a wonderful combination of traits which make them both dangerous and sweet. They want to help, but usually end up creating more problems than they solve. It seems as if their purpose in l...

Though certainly an iconic figure, I’ve never been a particular fan of Tweety. I find earlier versions of the character cruel and malicious, while later versions (possibly, I’ll admit, because of thos...

The Alan Parsons Project is one of those acts where many people don’t “know the band”, but will recognize several songs, such as Eye in the Sky, or Prime Time.Those familiar with progressive rock from...

“He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.”Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Ch ...

When I first read Stranger in a Strange Land, I was too young to fully understand much of it. Of course I only realized that when I read it again, several years later.Over the years, I have read the b...

This is my honest opinion of Donald Trump.It’s been redacted, in order to avoid offending anyone due to language or, um... physical impossibility.I just hope I did better than the US Department of Jus...

I feel conflicted.On the one hand, it was illegal.On the other hand, they were bad people and it was very cool.I once attempted to describe the “hacker mindset”, which is less about technology, and mo...

Far too often, if you ask an InfoSec professional how to be more secure, your answer will be similar to that of Charlie Brown’s teacher, as you hear a bunch of technical jargon and details of specific...

Wile E Coyote is one of my favourite Looney Tunes characters. I love the wonderfully absurd plans he comes up with in order to catch the Roadrunner. These range from such simple things as pulling the ...

I like Rhianna, but had never really dug into her music in any serious way. Maybe it’s partly because she’s such a young artist – she only hit the world stage about 20 years ago, after all – but I thi...

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”For anyone not familiar with The Princess Bride, go watch it. I’ll wait. (The tragic death of director Rob Reiner may lead t...

It seems obvious in retrospect. Look at the way penguins walk, then watch Happy Feet, and tap seems like the inevitable style for a dancing penguin.But maybe that’s just because of the masterful danci...

I didn’t realize there were two Revolutions.Of course I knew the song Revolution, but unlike people who owned the White Album, my exposure to the Beatles was almost entirely through the “Red” and “Blu...

One letter can make a big difference. Or one number.I’ve mentioned You Are Not So Smart (YANSS) before. It’s a podcast created by David McRaney, who is a science journalist, author, and speaker who is...

People often call Bernie Sanders a (gasp!) socialist!But then, many people on the “right” call anyone who disagrees with them a socialist, communist, anti-American, traitorous, or a variety of other t...