Or, the Continued Challenges of Artificial Non-intelligence.
I was in Denver last week for the first in-person meeting of my online entrepreneur mastermind group since Covid. One point of discussion was to use “A.I.” large language models to proofread articles.
What happens when you talk to an artificial intelligence language model about the value of something it can’t actually do? Thinking, I mean.
Last Week’s Blog Post asking that readers Be Smarter about phishing emails was read thousands of times, but apparently not by one long-time reader who sent me (yes, he sent it, not malware) an email with the subject, “O. M. G. -----The Darwin Awards are out!”
When NASA first started sending astronauts to space, they knew ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity.
Last May, I wrote that after going to a meeting on biohacking, I’d have more to say on the “tech stuff” I’ve learned about after I play with it a little. “The theory of operation,” I said, “is really interesting!” It has taken much longer to “play with it” than I had hoped before I came up with my conclusions.
True contributor Alexander Cohen and I had quite the discussion about the Canadian woman desperately trying to get police help when there was an intruder in her home.
Probably the Most Thorough Interview I’ve been subjected to happened in mid-June. It took journalist Simon Owens (who writes with great insight about the “Creator Economy”) until today to distill his notes down …to only 4,000 words! He was boggled that True was able to start, let alone survive, in the ancient days of the Internet, when there were no tools to do what I’ve been doing since 1994.
My thoughts on Amazon’s new personal robot …and why I’ll NEVER have one in my home.
Sometimes, the Lives of Readers intersect with mine in interesting ways. This is one such story, and it started in 1971 — though I didn’t realize the connection until much more recently.
In This Episode: The title — Don’t Die in the Next Five Years — is an unofficial motto of an organization my wife and I joined, and we went to our first conference with them as members last week. They say this because of coming advances in medicine in the next several years, and we got a glimpse into some of those advances, including some things that aren’t even published yet in medical journals, that were mind-blowing. This episode is my first report on what I learned.
In This Episode: A story in This is True struck me as an astonishing example of Uncommon Sense, so I thought I’d tell you about it to see some really out-of-the-box thinking, and provide some practical advice that could save your life. Here’s a hint: no one thinks they’re going to get lost and need rescue. Yet there are tens of thousands of rescues every year in the U.S. alone. What will increase your odds of being safe? Uncommon Sense.
It’s time for us to move beyond fax machines, which are still in wide use in healthcare. If you’re an American who has been prescribed a drug in the past several years, it’s extremely likely your doctor sent that prescription to the pharmacy via fax “technology.”
Yet Another Case of a Certain Kind of Story (which I usually ignore, rather than feature in True) has led to a new This is True word:
peckertrace (pĕk′ər trās)
The lead story this week is mind-blowing …especially to me as a current first responder medic and former deputy sheriff. Here, I go through the incident step by step to show just how fast the deputy had to react — and make a life-altering decision along the way.
In This Episode: Previous episodes have pointed out that children can indeed have Uncommon Sense. So much so, they can truly contribute to society. So this week, I’ll tell you about Nora Keegan. She’s 14, and has been doing something extraordinary for five years now.
In This Episode: When you really look into something that’s “obvious” and “common sense,” sometimes you’ll find that …the “experts” are wrong! This is the story of a man who was pretty sure the industry experts were wrong about something, and boy did it take him a lot of effort to turn that industry around. But he did, because his Uncommon Sense beat their common sense.
I’m Excited About My New Podcast Host. There’s no Uncommon Sense Podcast episode this week: I spent my podcast time last week moving everything to a new hosting site since I’ve been unhappy with the old one. The new host lets me do something special, especially for those of you who aren’t really techie: give you really easy access via your smartphone or tablet.
The Georgia State Trooper scandal has some True-worthy details that didn’t fit into the story. First, let’s start with that story, from True’s 16 February 2020 issue:
In This Episode: When you follow your gut and push to be the best, amazing things can happen. James Flanagan did that, and the domino effect that followed is so amazing, you’ll find it hard to believe that one guy’s efforts are probably a part of your life every day — even though he’s been dead for several years.