Your robot experience started simple. You typed a question into a chatbot… just to see. Can it answer that question? I’d be impressed if it did. Your query was simple. A simple knowledge question that with a little effort using legacy tools like Google, you would have discovered yourself, but the robots made it trivial,… More

The robots and I were tinkering with the script, and I somehow asked ChatGPT to make three sentences sound like me, but… just a bit. There’s enough writing out there that the robots have a rough idea of my style, but this prompt somehow triggered deep research. The robot did a full analysis of all… More

I was in the city a few weeks ago and exclusively used Waymo for the entire trip. My biggest complaint? I needed to walk four minutes to a pick-up spot. Other than that, the car just showed up, traversed San Francisco streets easily, and the cost was reasonable1. Sitting in the back seat watching the… More

In the early days of this weblog, I was on MediaTemple using MoveableType for a good long time. Three things happened during these many years: MoveableType was mostly abandoned during this time. I’m sure well-intentioned folks were working on it (and it appears they still are), but the vibrancy of development had faded from my… More

You’re not going with that title, are you? I might. There are no actual trophies or awards. Correct. There are three Rands Useful App Awards this year, but before I award them, I will define the criteria I used to select these products. The application has substance. This is not a one-shot utility that does… More

There are two classes of songs I listen to when writing. Words and no words. Word songs are used when I the writing does not require flow — deep thought. The problem with words is they get in your head, bump around, and start creating more words. At a time when I am attempting to… More

Second year of UCSC. Decades ago. A predilection for Domino’s Pizza and a fundamental misunderstanding of how credit cards worked left me in a financial hole. I needed a job, any job, and the School of Social Sciences offered a job aligned with my computer science degree, lab technician. A solid interview with a prompt… More

Prologue. Westworld was an HBO reboot of the 1973 Michael Crichton movie. The pitch: we’ve built vast amusement parks populated with ultra-realistic robots (called “hosts”) who act their parts within the park. The first season is set into motion when the creator of the hosts, an inspiring Anthony Hopkins, uploads a new software update, which… More

You’ve had a small number of career-defining moments. These are the select few moments in time when the trajectory of your career changed instantly and drastically. I have two buckets of these: ones I expected and ones that completely blindsided me. While the surprise and subsequent scrambling involved in being blindsided are chock full of… More