Love and robots
It seems we humans have the ability to anthropomorphize (assign human feelings to) just about everything. That we do this with our pets is easy to understand. My family even manages to do it with vegetables. But machines? Evidently, according to as article in Live Science about studies that show robots can manipulate the emotions [...]
Update on my novel
Since so many of you (okay, no one) have asked, the novel is progressing slowly but surely. I’m probably within about 10,000 - 20,000 words of the end. Why is it going slowly? There are a few reasons: The NaNoWriMo “Write-’til-you-drop” model works well for one month. Beyond that life just refuses to be ignored any [...]
The pursuit of happiness
One of my goals this year is to learn how to be happy independent of others. I’ve been around the block long enough to have heard that happiness can be manufactured–that you can make yourself happy. But like so many others, it turns out, I have convinced myself that such happiness is artificial. If you [...]
Food, sex, and contradiction
Obesity is becoming a major issue on the national political stage. We have city governments putting restrictions on restaurants and trying to ban certain foods outright. We have politicians pressing to have sugar labeled as a harmful substance. We have Congress weighing in on whether school lunches should include french fries and pizza. But really, [...]
All the Thom that’s fit to print
If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold. Just who said the above is not certain, but it’s very, very true these days. Google gives us lots of cool tools for free, but they gather all the information we give them and sell it. Their motto is [...]
Bieber-fever
I’ve never been a fan of Justin Bieber, and there’s no reason I should be. I also have nothing against the guy. He’s a teen heartthrob. It’s great work if you can get it. And he seems to be doing it a little better than some. But it’s a definite point in his favor when [...]
Valentine’s Day 2012
There are plenty of songs I wish I could say I’d written. There are many songs that can say what I feel better than I could ever capture in words. One such song is Ghazal (Love Song) by Tangerine Dream. It comes pretty close to capturing the sweeping power of true love. Love starts out [...]
Walter’s bookcase
My older son has been running out of place for his books in his bedroom, so when he got a brand new, hard bound edition of Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stonefor Christmas he decided it was time to build a bookcase. I don’t remember now if it was his idea or mine that he [...]
My great little car
My car, a Toyota Corolla station wagon, will be twenty years old next year. Its burns oil. The paint, especially on the roof, is a variety of shades of decaying paint job. The stereo only has a tape deck, and it’s starting to eat tapes. I’ve owned this car for almost ten years. It still [...]
Meeting the Janitors (Author)
Last Saturday I visited my local Barnes & Noble with my kids. It turns out it was “writers day” or something, and they had at least a dozen local authors doing signings in the store. My daughter overheard on the intercom that Tyler Whitesides, author of Janitors, was in the store. One of her friends [...]
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