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The 23 Memorable People & ‘Peccadillos’ of ’23 – Part One

The 23 Memorable People & ‘Peccadillos’ of ’23 – Part One

Image by Rosy / Bad Homburg / Germany from Pixabay

Remember all the dumb things you did when you were 23 and thought you knew everything? No, the year wasn’t all bad. Then again, when you were 23, you had your moments, too…

We’ve made our list and checked it twice, so without further ado, the people and peccadillos of the year that’s coming to an end, but the real question is, in many cases, when – and where – does it stop?

  1. Sam Bankman-Fried. He held our attention for quite a spell, as tales of his exploits were revealed: defrauding investors left and right and spending money like it grew on trees. Which it did for him: shake the tree and there were even more funds in the FTX coffers. The one-time crypto king believed that his true strength was in his hair and that those carefully unkempt locks made all the difference in his meteoric rise. Maybe they did for a spell, but speaking of locks, fraud is fraud and the former wunderkind is heading to prison for an even longer spell.
  2. The new cryminal class. SBF tops long list of crypto hot shots facing legal reckoning. “His case was far from the first — or last — time that crypto founders and executives found themselves in legal hot water related to their digital-asset activities,” the Toronto Sun pointed out. There was also Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon; Alex Mashinsky, the former chief executive of Celsius Network; Su Zhu, co-founder of the bankrupt Three Arrows Capital hedge fund and Thomas Smith, Kyle Nagy, and Braden Karony — the people behind the crypto token SafeMoon, who were accused by federal prosecutors of using millions in investors’ funds to buy luxury homes and McClaren sports cars. When you can live that large is so short an amount of time, chances are there’s a small cell in your future.

Biometrics collection is certainly growing. Read More...

The Bad Boys of Tech, Part 2

The Bad Boys of Tech, Part 2

 Unless you’ve been cut off from all worldly communications, you’ve heard that co-founder and CEO Sam Altman was very unceremoniously booted from OpenAI – and was informed in a Google Meet, despite Microsoft being a major OpenAI investor and partner.

No one seems to know the precise reason why he was terminated. Malfeasance? Was it his reported lack of transparency with the board, which now consists of three independent directors holding no equity, and its Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever? A coup?

Or something quite different transpiring behind the curtain… Read More...

Speaking of Terrorism, Let’s Talk About Tech

Speaking of Terrorism, Let’s Talk About Tech

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Given the present situation in the Middle East, it’s not easy to write about something like, say, the FEMA emergency broadcasting system test alert that we all experienced October 4, like it or not, and attention does need to be paid there – coming!

The invasion by Hamas into Israel and the attacks and wholesale murder and/or kidnappings of innocent civilians was amoral, to put it mildly. The world is gobsmacked, no matter which side you’re on, and since we opine on tech rather than politics, there is very much a lesson here for us all in tech overreach.

Huh? Read More...

The Rise of the Rest?

The Rise of the Rest?

Photo by Hans Isaacson on Unsplash

It’s mid-August and thoughts of back-to-school and returning to work are in high gear. Or at least amping up.

Especially since tech companies are tightening their rules on remote work.

“Zoom, once the poster child for remote work during the pandemic, is now forcing a significant number of its employees back to the office, joining the growing chorus of tech companies pivoting away from remote work. Despite its explosive growth and popularity as a virtual communication tool, Zoom seems to have caught the in-office fever. The company’s hybrid approach demands that employees within 50 miles of an office show up in person at least two days a week, supposedly to foster team interaction,” the New York Times reported. Read More...

Technology is Like a Box of Chocolates…

Technology is Like a Box of Chocolates…

Image by Albi2342022 from Pixabay

Of course, that’s a play on the line from the movie, Forrest Gump. That life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.

We tend to shake our heads whenever a shiny new thing comes along, especially one which requires people to surrender even more of their personal information.

Sam Altman rolled out his new Worldcoin—a cryptocurrency traceable on the blockchain that requires users to first prove their identity, soon to be available in 35 cities across 20 countries – and talk about security first, as ArsTechnica reported, “Central to the effort is an eye-scanning physical “orb,” which Worldcoin’s founders say is necessary for a future in which distinguishing between humans and robots becomes increasingly challenging due to a surge in artificial intelligence technology. Once users have proven they are not robots, they can be issued one of the company’s tokens.” Read More...

Technology’s Marks of Evil?

Technology’s Marks of Evil?

Image by Alexa from Pixabay

What is it with that name and the need to control? Or manipulate. We refer to the Mar(c)(k)s Andreessen and Zuckerberg, respectively.

Although the spellings may be different to deceive the clueless.

Marc Andreessen, who a while back explained Why Software Is Eating the World, is now instructing us on Why AI Will Save The World. Mind you, in his earlier a16Z blog post, while he was right about how technology would take over, he didn’t bother to mention what we’d have to surrender for the privilege: our privacy and all our personal information. Read More...

Barreling Towards The Terminator Trifecta

Barreling Towards The Terminator Trifecta

 With summer just a few weeks away, the lists of summer movies are starting to appear. Entertainment talk lately has turned to whether or not James Cameron (The Terminator, Avatar, Titanic et al) will make yet another Terminator movie and what does this have to do with tech? Read on.

The movie, if you will recall, is about a future where sentient robots have taken over the world. Their goal: eradicate humanity. It was science fiction, but how often do these films turn out to be prescient? (How a movie predicted Ohio’s toxic derailment)

We can also tell you on fairly good authority that another Terminator movie is in the serious discussion stages, especially since we seem to be at least close to Skynet going live – the last part of The Terminator tech trifecta. Read More...

The Long Tale of the Shortcut

The Long Tale of the Shortcut

Image by Roland Schwerdhöfer from Pixabay

Bill Gates was a college dropout. Steve Jobs quit after one semester. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t finish, either.  So it was no wonder that, when the tech sector rose to prominence, kids believed that dropping out of college and starting a company was de rigueur for success in life. And to be wealthy and lionized.

The Age of Social loved tech ‘luminaries’ such as Zuck and Jack Dorsey and how convenient that their genius could be amplified on the very platforms they created. Tech founders were the rockstars of the computer age.

We know things move faster in the online world, but how did these guys get so rich and powerful in so short an amount of time? Read More...

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love ChatGPT

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love ChatGPT

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

The reference is to Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

We were a bit under the weather this past week, and unable to do our usual research due to the raging headache associated with this flu. So, it was suggested that why didn’t we use some iteration of ChatGPT to compose this week’s editorial?

Well, we did keep up with some articles, and here are just a few re Generative AIs: Read More...