A collection of essays, poetry, and fiction I’ve written over the years.
When refrigerator poetry gets AI
Ultimately, the kind of ground shift in technological advancement that Verner Vinge predicts in "The Coming Technological Singularity" is only scary in the sense that it's a paradigm shift with a worn out clutch. A theoretical Singularity that is centuries from even being possible is one thing, but imminent, radical change is much harder to accept without conjuring images of people-hunting monster machines.
Swimming with the clown fish
What we have to do is ditch the idea that, because we create content, we‘re entitled to profit from it. We still have to earn our money, even after we‘ve created the content the public seems to be clammering for all over the Internet. We earn it by getting people to stay on our site once they get there via Digg or Google, and by giving them a reason to become invested in what we do because we give them a great user experience and a very high signal to noise ratio.
It's not there anymore
I pushed the door open with both hands and sauntered to the soda counter. Sitting on an old high stool I gazed around and took in the shelves that ran floor to ceiling. The smell of mildew stung the air and I felt as if I were trespassing time itself.
Fatherhood
Fatherhood is funny thing. It turns a man who is well-respected at work, considered to be intelligent by his colleagues and clever by his friends, into a complete idiot. I‘m not a father yet, but I‘m already beginning to see that mine isn‘t nearly as stupid as he used to be.
First Taste of Fall
I noticed a little something different as I stepped out the door this morning. There was a crispness in the air that I haven't felt for months. The oppressive heat that had assaulted my nostrils was gone, replaced by cool, fresh air and the scent of freshly turned earth that follows a soaking rain.
I walked grimly
I was living in Switzerland on September 11, 2001. The night of the attacks on the World Trade Center, I walked the streets of my little neighborhood in a town called Sorengo. After my walk, I composed this poem.