Any fully open system of digital communication will corrode over time. Bad messages will crowd out the good ones. The new normal: Someone finds a database of every residential property, then another of cell phones. An AI is trained to call every homeowner, every day, asking if they’re thinking of selling their home. Millions of calls an hour....

I haven’t done a Google search in months. Perplexity is more powerful, more pleasant and more effective. Instead of being corrupted by invasive ads, surveillance and sneaky dark patterns, it presents you with a simple, footnoted explanation of exactly what you’re looking for. Asked and answered. And I like that there’s...

They serve different purposes. The fence near the train tracks is a boundary. You can go near it without risk. The electrified third rail, on the other hand, is a limit. If you touch it, you’re done. Boundaries can give us room to innovate and thrive. Budgets, schedules and specifications all exist to show us where the safe areas...

Why do we buy the pitch of the snake oil salesman, the flim-flam man, the con artist, the demagogue or the trickster? As our modern world becomes more informed and more rational, we see an increase (not the expected decrease) in scams, hustles, and chaos. There are Jokers and Riddlers on every corner, and our email box and mailbox are filled...

Plenty of creative pundits are decrying the speed and cost of creating pretty good work with an AI. It can often draw, write and compose as well as a mediocre freelancer, sometimes better. But why were there mediocre freelancers? The system that pushed us to turn our writing into oatmeal and our art into paint by numbers was here...

There’s nothing wrong with abundance and joy. But being spoiled causes two real problems: it makes it difficult to appreciate what you have. If perfect is the standard, it’s rarely met and never exceeded. it leads to tantrums. Tantrums about sharing, about the lack of ‘more’ and about the endless poverty of comparison....