A couple of weeks back, I spotted this article by David Brooks about understanding ones emotions and the way in which emotional literacy is at least as important as cognitive skills in determining ones success. It’s a case well made, and I recommend you read the article for it – his words are better than… Read More »

A couple of weeks ago, we said goodbye to Quoala. After a year of defining our product, building an MVP, and putting it in front of customers and learning rapidly, circumstances came about such that shutting it down was the best decision for everyone. It’s more complicated than that, of course, but you’ll have to… Read More »

I quite enjoyed this short video from Google, about the challenge of spotting ethical issues when developing AI applications and, for that matter, applications in XR and other emerging technologies.  The challenge is that while it’s relatively easy for groups to define ethical principles that they plan to operate by, it’s much harder to actually… Read More »

As I discussed in a previous post, 2023 has been a long, hard year. Svanaug Sørheim Nilsen My mother’s memorial came immediately as I recovered from a bout of Covid, and so I did not prepare a written eulogy. Rather, I let me sister take the lead and made some notes from which I spoke… Read More »

I haven’t posted here much in the last year and a half. First and foremost among the reasons for this are stress and emotional disarray due to the illness and death of my parents; my mother on May 4 2023, and then my father on November 27 2023. Other unfortunate circumstances included 9 months of… Read More »

Read a really fantastic explainer article last night about mechanical watches. Aside from explaining a complex technical object in a clear and easy to understand way, the article stands out by its use of small interactive 3D scenes to demonstrate the physics and interactions between various elements of the mechanism. Definitely worth a look for… Read More »

I asked Dall-E Mini for “Donald Trump dressed as Elvis Presley”. The results were … distressing. For those who haven’t played with it yet, go to https://www.craiyon.com/ and type in something fun (or horrifying). The AI will then attempt to create an image of your idea.

I woke up this morning from a rather strange dream. It was framed as a movie trailer about a warehouse manager who tried to attain world peace by giving people cardboard boxes to play with, as if we’re all cats and babies. There was a moment where this character, played by Jim Carrey, suddenly exclaimed… Read More »

Cross-posting from my Facebook wall, for posterity. This morning, I wrote the following: I don’t want to comment on current affairs and specific events because I don’t know enough and my analytical nature isn’t welcome when emotions are raw. I’ll just say this: I stand in solidarity with the fight for justice and with anyone… Read More »

How do we choose between economic losses and the likelihood of people dying in a pandemic? Is that even a moral question to contemplate? Like it or not, it’s something we have to think about now. The classic approach is to come up with a Value of Statistical Life figure, basically the amount that society… Read More »