April 7, 2026

Psst. Come in, come in! I’ve got a weird and wonderful book for you.  There are books that feel like neatly arranged shelves. Then there are books like The Circus of Dr. Lao, which feels more like someone opened a door in the back of the room and a carnival wandered in, trailing incense and a…

March 31, 2026

A lot of people talk to their AI buddies as if they have little friends that live in their phones. It doesn’t come naturally to me. I’ve been using ChatGPT and Gemini as if they are amazing upgrades to Google search. It doesn’t occur to me to open my phone for a casual chat. But…

March 24, 2026

Isaac Asimov published the novella “The Mule” in Astounding Science Fiction magazine in 1945. A few years later it became the second half of Foundation and Empire, the second book of the Foundation trilogy. Asimov’s Foundation books are among the most celebrated works in science fiction, crowned with a special Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series. There’s a lesson…

March 10, 2026

It’s Anti-AI week! Protests and petitions and boycotts and resignations, oh my. OpenAI (ChatGPT) is the villain. Anthropic (Claude) is the hero, topping the download charts after a burst of headlines about AI and the Pentagon and are you kidding me, AI-controlled killer drones? It’s an interesting story but it’s 2026 so, trigger warning, it’s also a very dark story. Plus there’s a wonky…