Category: facts
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an argument in favor of artificial intelligence
What a week. I’m writing this on Canada Day – July 1 – 2016. One week ago, the world awoke to discover that the British people had voted conclusively to leave the EU. The decision triggered convulsions of all kinds – social, economic, political – in Britain and abroad, and will continue to do so…
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#tellthemnow – my version
A recent survey of boomer-age people asked what they most regretted as they approached old age. A significant majority cited ‘unresolved issues with parents, who were now deceased’. I totally get that. As, it seems, do many of my peers. As we collectively shuffle along this mortal coil, many of my cohort are hustling to…
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is this the real life?
Some years ago, an anthropologist was doing field work with a tribe in Africa which lived exclusively in the deep jungle. He lived among them for some time, and became a trusted friend. At one point during the sojourn, the anthropologist needed to make a journey to visit another tribe which lived not far away,…
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am i the worker of the future?
Annacis Island is a heavily industrial enclave in the southern reaches of metropolitan Vancouver. It is not a pedestrian or bike friendly environment; the thoroughfares are broad and businesslike, designed for their primary users: big trucks, and lots of them. They come and go endlessly, everywhere: trucks, trucks, and more trucks. On a recent visit,…
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one morning on the way to melaque
Sometimes life presents poetry unannounced and unadorned. Be open to it. About halfway up Mexico’s west coast is a sleepy little fishing village called Barra de Navidad. A couple of miles north lies Melaque, a larger market town popular with snowbirding Canadians. The two towns are connected by a road, but they also lie at…
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getting an education: priceless
It being graduation season, the air is abuzz with newly released studies evaluating the ROI’s and CBA’s of PhD’s and MSc’s. Each new finding stirs up a fresh flurry of discourse about the ‘worth’ and ‘value’ of a university education. It’s not a new discussion. The debate over whether a university education is ‘worth it’…
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remembering ray
The third week of April 2013 was, by any measure, a bad one, filled with dark feelings and horrible events. The epicenter was Boston but the aftershocks were felt far and wide, from Vancouver to London and beyond. The Boston Marathon bombings transplanted a new, more foreign form of terrorism onto American soil. It’s a…
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be elsewhere always
I’m not sure exactly when, but sometime in the past couple of years western society took the well-worn quasi-zen credo of ‘Be here now’ and turned it completely on its head. The contemporary mantra is surely: be elsewhere, always. You’ll see it in any pocket of western society: everyone is consumed by ‘that hopeless little…
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it’s the stupid economy
Venice is sinking. No news there. But the threat to that indescribably beautiful, unique and fragile city is being exacerbated by, of all things, excessive cruise ship traffic. Ever-larger ships, arriving in ever-larger numbers to the congested, enclosed lagoon in which Venice sits are displacing ever-larger volumes of water. The effect on Venice is simple…
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deep time
Consider the Earth’s history as the old measure of the English yard, the distance from the King’s nose to the tip of his outstretched hand. One stroke of a nail file on his middle finger erases human history