Geek Wisdom

  *** HELP WANTED *** It was a dark and stormy night - okay well actually it was about 9AM on a Friday the 13th that I received a Facebook (messenger) message from Matt Gabrielson.. but the story starts a little earlier than that. About one year earlier, to be precise, on Jan 13th 2022, I sent Matt a message asking if I could write a guest blog on his site.  It took him over 1 year to respond - not because he wasn't fast at responding but because it took over 1 year for the message to show up in his Facebook Messenger. So we did an interview together for his YouTube channel it is called " What is GeekWisdom ", it was an opportunity to discuss GeekWisdom , how it started and what it meant. As of the time of this article, that video had more views then any of his other interview thus far, so when a few weeks later he contacted me as if I wanted to start a podcast with him, I jumped at the opportunity. The format is pretty simple, at least once a month (on the 4th), we are g

 This post is about buy local, but not the way you might think. It fact, it's more of a 'Think Local', and by that I mean supporting the 'small business' in the tech industry. We all know who the tech giants are out there, so not much point of me linking to them (and advertising them for free). You can get your social networking for free, your email for free. I'm willing to bet the very web browser you are reading this on now was guess what -- free! The internet, for all it's positives and negatives, is effective at bringing people together, at letting us communicate with others half way around the globe, like they were a neighbor in our own back yard. So when offered something for free many people jump on it downloading he latest free browser, signing up for free webmail, joining large social networks - and why not right? The thing is none of this is really for 'free' these big companies are in it for big profit, and they do it simply by selling you

  I was looking for a file today on a Microsoft Teams site, so I go into teams, look under files, when all of a sudden I see a chat request from another member in another teams site, so I jump over to help answer their question. Feeling proud of myself I then head back to do some more work on my plate. Ten minutes later I realized, wait a minute - wasn't I just looking for that file? We live in a world, full to the brim of distractions.  One of my favorite perks of 'work from home' is at least people can't just 'walk into my cubicle' asking questions whenever they feel like it. I have much more time to focus on what I promised to deliver when I promised, and people really appreciate that. Software Tools should help us be more productive, and not provide us with new and novel distractions. But like most things in life, it's just not that simple! When my kids were young, I bought them some electronic toys, a robot for example that walked around made funny beep

 Recently on Twitter, there is an upcoming twitter space talking about Artificial General Intelligence and ChatGPT. The question posed is indeed interesting. In is important to note that this question occurs frequently throughout our history. One of the very first chatbots Eliza  stunned users into thinking it was possible to create an artificially intelligent machine.  The notion of "artificial general intelligence" wasn't even an idea in someone's mind. The term only needed to be added to our vernacular once it was agreed that the algorithms being created did in fact perform at a level beyond what human intelligence could do within a specific context. (eg: computer beats human at chess, at Go, at Jeopardy), software can interpret human speech, read handwriting, understand the context of a sentence, and even prove theorems, and produce new artistic  works never created or known before by humans.  All items only dreamed of only in science fiction a mere 50-60 years a

On Saturday Dec 3rd, 2022, I was asked to be a keynote speaker at a local chess tournament for ages 14 and under , and I was very honored and excited for this opportunity. They then further honored me with this trophy at the end and I am again humbled. Below is a written version of my speech " Chess, Leadership and the Imagination" The first thing I want to do today, is test if everyone's hands and arms are working. If you like to play chess, can I please see you raise you hand up high, and please keep it in the air [Pause] Okay, second question, if you think chess is an EASY game to play, please keep your hand up high, if you think CHESS is HARD please put your hand down Okay.. [Pause] Last question - Think back to the very first time you played chess, maybe it was last week, last month, or 3 years ago, try to remember that first game, maybe it's that first person showing you the rules, the way the difference pieces moved, the first 'real' game you played?  -

Disclaimer: This post deals with pseudo-legal matters, and while I have attempted to keep it within more of a philosophical realm, I am not a lawyer, and all statements below are my own personal opinion and should not be taken as legal facts or precedence. This is not legal advice merely opinion, if you are seeking legal advice - please seek a qualified lawyer in your area. The statements below only represent myself and are unrelated to any organization, association, or workplace to which I am involved or otherwise employed. Oh Politics !  it is not something I enjoy hearing or talking about, and as I general rule I try to stay at least at arms length about it. This is not to say I do not believe in voting - I do, it is simply to say that many matters I find discussed do not seem to have much personal relevance in my daily life. It becomes different though, when you feel like you know the people involved. Far removed from knowing Prime Ministers, or similar heads of state, it is eas