Content with the point of view of an older guyu
AI Part 4 When the Machine Sounds Certain but Isn’t Ask an AI who invented jazz and it will answer without hesitation: starting with background of African music blended with European, then citing some of the early black musicians around New Orleans including Jelly Roll Morton or perhaps skipping the early movements and citing players…
Robots Part 4 What we’ve seen so far about robots is mostly pieces of a larger dream — factory arms that weld with precision, delivery carts humming through warehouse aisles, driver-assist cars edging toward autonomy, and household gadgets like the Roomba bumping their way around furniture. Our expectations, meanwhile, are shaped by movies: elegant, articulate…
I like to include some good alternative items among all of the supposed bigger topics. So here is October’s gardening to do list. Look for some other irrelevant items soon. This information is mostly complements of HGTV. I have tried to make this generally applicable to Northern Nevada but has good general information for most…
Large language models (LLMs) have become the public face of artificial intelligence. They write essays, answer questions, draft business plans, and even generate code. But how do they actually come into being? What’s inside them, and how do they learn? The story isn’t magic — it’s a blend of mathematics, computer science, infrastructure, and people…
Part 3: From Factory Floor to Living Room When most people imagine robots in their lives, they picture home helpers: folding laundry, cooking dinner, maybe even watching the kids — a useful assistant around the house. But the reality is different. For decades, robots have thrived not in the family room, but on the factory…
Harvest Comforts and the Not-So-Last Barbecue Every September, I hear the same phrase: “It’s the last barbecue of the year.” Somewhere else, maybe. Here in Reno, we usually get good grilling weather well through October, sometimes beyond. That means September isn’t a farewell to barbecue — it’s an opportunity. The overlap of late-summer produce and…
Artificial intelligence (AI) –Part 2 Every new technology sparks the same fear: that the machine will take over. When calculators arrived in classrooms, some worried students would never learn math again. When spreadsheets hit the office, people thought accountants were finished. When search engines matured, teachers fretted that research would be reduced to typing a…
Part 2: Learning to Learn — Dexterity, Data, and the Objective Question Think about a baby tying shoelaces. At first it’s fumbled, uneven, and sometimes impossible. But after enough tries, the skill “clicks.” What’s remarkable is not just the act of tying shoes — it’s the ability to generalize that learning. The same hand–eye coordination…
Giants vs. Dodgers For most of this season, the Giants’ bullpen has been talked about as a strength — maybe even the one part of the roster that could tilt close games in San Francisco’s favor. That reputation didn’t survive this week’s series with the Dodgers. In three games, the Giants gave up 23 runs…
Artificial Intelligence — Part 1 Artificial Intelligence. The phrase conjures up images of machines plotting in secret, or maybe a Hollywood scene where the glowing computer screen suddenly talks back. But behind the hype, the breakthroughs, and the sometimes breathless headlines, AI is not sorcery. It’s not “alive.” It’s not a new species waiting to…
What We Thought vs. What We Got (revisited) The Robot in Your Imagination vs. the One in Your Kitchen Part 1 Say the word “robot” and the pictures in our heads arrive by decade. For some of us, it’s Rosie from The Jetsons—a wise‑cracking housekeeper with a full calendar and a faster comeback. A little…
Continued Thoughts from One Year of Blogging What I Learned and What I’ll Do Next I started this blog for me. It gives me a reason to chase ideas, put thoughts in order, and—on good days—make sense of the world out loud. I figured that if I published steadily and let posts ripple to Facebook,…
Mostly borrowed from HGTV Plant Fall Annuals Watch for pansies at your favorite plant shopping spot and pick up enough to fill pots and planting beds. Fall-planted pansies stage a flower show all autumn long in most regions. In warmer zones, pansies deliver fresh-faced color through winter. Ideal temperatures for flower development are nights in the 40s…
Why AI Feels Overhyped Now— and How It Still Reshapes the Next Decade I’ve watched a few revolutions roll through: mainframes to PCs, dial-up to broadband, brick-and-mortar to dot-com. The pattern isn’t mysterious anymore. New tech shows up, excitement explodes, money rushes in, and for a while it looks like the future is arriving on…
Even with the right ingredients, you still need the right kitchen. For early Earth, that could mean a hot, seething deep-sea vent… a quiet, shallow pool warmed by the sun… or a frozen landscape where reactions happened in slow motion. Here are the top contenders: Deep-Sea Vents Found along mid-ocean ridges, these underwater chimneys spew…
If life is a recipe, what goes in the pot? The first living things on Earth didn’t have grocery stores, farms, or even sunlight in some cases — just whatever chemistry the planet (and maybe the cosmos) could provide. Scientists are still working to figure out the minimum ingredient list for life. Some seem obvious….
Where did life come from? It’s the biggest question in science — and one we still can’t answer with certainty. In this three-part series, we’ll explore the leading ideas about how life began: from its possible birthplace, to the essential “ingredients” it needed, to the environments that may have been the first kitchens for biology….
Here’s a breakdown of the most important rule changes fans should know heading into the season: Dynamic Kickoffs & Onside Kick Liberty The “dynamic kickoff”, introduced in 2024, is now permanent. This setup aligns players closer to resembling a scrimmage and limits pre-contact movement, aiming to boost return rates and safety.Giants+3jetnation.com+3zoelyman.pages.dev+3Talksport+5NBC+5Giants+5 Onside kicks can now…
It August! My zucchini are going wild and my peach trees are nearly over loaded. Here are some recipes that will use both of these ingredients and will provide a great meal in the process. It start with a great cold drink and finished with a mouth watering dessert, Enjoy! Peach Thyme Smash. Ingredients 1/2 cup fresh…
This post may give you the suggestion that I am running out of things to write about. Not the case! I am in Alaska this week so I decided to do some easier things. Living in Reno, you get used to certain sights — snow on the mountains, casino lights downtown, and, every summer, a…
How the Rise of Sports Wagers Is Supercharging NFL Superstitions I’ve long accepted that NFL fans (really all sports fans) are a superstitious bunch. There are the lucky hats, the pregame snacks, and the “don’t you dare change the channel” or other behavior rules. My wife, for example, has a “lucky T-shirt” for her team….
I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that the movies being delivered by the traditional Hollywood studios are mostly a rehash of well-worn themes — superhero reboots, mega-franchise sequels, and blockbuster special-effects extravaganzas. Whatever happened to originality and innovation in movies? It’s hard to get excited about Fast & Furious 65 or…
Modern Writers Who Prove They Don’t Need a Dead Man’s Name I am off on a week’s vacation next week and then again in September. So, I am searching for books to load up my Kindle for those two weeks (should take about six new books for my collection). But there’s a special kind of…
—and Remembering When We Saw It Before A fan’s reflection on Scottie Scheffler, the legends before him, and what greatness really means There’s a moment in every sports fan’s life when you realize: you’re watching greatness happen in real time. You’ve seen it before—maybe in flashes, maybe stretched over seasons—and now, here it is again….
A few Sundays ago, I was watching a tech segment on one of the national morning shows. The guest was explaining, with great confidence that we are facing the greatest change in how we live, that AI was going to change all our lives—our work, our homes, and perhaps even our sense of purpose. I…
Well, we have reached August which in baseball are the dog days of summer. But for the backyard, it’s time for summer barbecues and parties. So, I thought it’s time to provide some more recipes for the season. Here are my suggestions: Grilled piri-piri chicken wings Smash burgers with bconnaise Beer can chicken Farm stand…
How Older Adults Are Rewriting the Script on Aging Forget the stereotypes. The golden years aren’t all early bird dinners and endless television reruns. Across the world, older adults are pushing back against isolation not by retreating into passive routines, but by creating, connecting, and contributing. When I was born, the average life expectancy in…
Adventures in Peeing After 70 I never thought I’d write publicly about peeing. But here we are. And if you’re over a certain age—and honest with yourself—you’ve probably thought about it a lot more than you used to. Getting up two or more times each night is something that you have to get used to…
The Musk Model Under Stress In business school and boardrooms alike, we learn that vision is the spark. There have been a lot of sparks over the years that have not resulted in thriving businesses. That’s because it takes systems, structure, and sustained attention to turn that spark into a thriving enterprise. And while few…
Baby Back Ribs Made Simple I realize it’s after the Fourth of July, the biggest barbecue event of the summer. But let’s be honest—grilled ribs are a treat any time. They don’t need a holiday, just a little time, a bit of heat, and a good rub. This article isn’t about smoking ribs for 24…
