I wrote about Artificial Intelligence (AI) last year, and I am going to revisit it, in fact, I may revisit it many times in future. There have been developments since: General Motors is shutting its traditional production lines in favour of investments in autonomous car technology, algorithms are moving into contextual search rather than key-word […]
Our Headlong Rush into…what? Read More »
I’ve often written stories in which my principal characters are offered a second chance to get it right. Either a new lover after a relationship went south, a new job after being fired from the previous one, or even a new world after the first one was destroyed. I’ve had all of the above second
A Meditation on Second Chances Read More »
We are so polarized and angry these days that I feel the pain emanating from almost everything I read on my smart phone. Facebook is full of wailing by the left or the right, braggadocio by the right or the left; women are screaming at men, men are defending their right to be men (whatever
This polarization is taking its toll Read More »
An ennui overcomes a writer between the writing of books: bad dreams, purposelessness, a sense of time running out, a lack of accomplishment, anger towards the muse who has deserted him, a chafing at the bit to get back into it. There is also another dilemma that one has to face today: what is the
Should I write another novel? Read More »
Once upon a time, a benevolent prime minister looked upon the land and decreed that we would no longer be diminished by books written in the UK and America, that Canadian writers would stand tall and be recognized for their talents. He opened a war chest of money to fund fledgling publishing houses and to
Feeding the Barbarians at the Gate Read More »
I was going to write something the other day, and paused. The words were not flowing as freely as they used to. Was I getting too old for this gig? When I figured it out, I realized I was editing as I wrote, that’s what was wrong. This was something I had never done before.
Self-Censorship leads to Self-Paralysis Read More »
Thanks to social media, we constantly joke about “shrinking attention spans,” as if this is a phenomenon embroiling only the younger generation. We lamented when Twitter forced everyone to concentrate for 140 bytes before surfacing for air. We renewed our interest in “a picture is worth a thousand words” when Instagram hogged the limelight from
Shrinking Attention Spans – an epidemic Read More »
Advertizing in politics is now under the microscope. Especially after Facebook was able to create custom ads that only the individual viewer could see, targeted to that viewer’s likes and dislikes; these ads were mostly of a negative nature and were walled off from public scrutiny and criticism. It had to come to this before
Custom Advertizing in Politics – Good, Bad or Ugly? Read More »
I have been following the evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, particularly in the corporate employment sphere, and I’m feeling both trepidation and relief, glad I don’t work in that environment anymore. Big Brother has arrived at the corporation. I’m also having difficulty separating the human from the robot, for the two are emerging from
Big Brother is Watching Read More »
As I sat down to write a eulogy to my mother who recently passed away, I scratched my head trying to find the many accomplishments in her life. On the surface, I came up with, “She was a devout Catholic, married at age 21, raised four children, was a homemaker who never worked outside the