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A Mysterious Story…

February 25, 2023

It was the summer of 1990 and my wife Michelle and I were in London for an adventure. It was a fun time and she had arranged for us to meet an old colleague of hers (and his partner) for a dinner at their townhouse one evening. Michelle is a…

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How Real is AI?

February 24, 2023

Since late 2022 it’s been nearly impossible to ignore all of the onrush of writeups, videos, and wild over-enthusiastic reactions to the major steps that have been made with artificial intelligence (AI), specificially OpenAI and its ChatGPT. Like you have probably been doing, I’ve been staying aware of the baby…

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Best Deepfake Yet?

January 27, 2023

Watching a new deepfake video I’ve embedded below was *very* sobering to watch this morning. It points out how incredibly far we’ve gone with deepfakes and, most importantly, how I found this one almost impossible to detect as a fake video. The obvious tipoff this is fake is that both…

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Containers on L.A. Trains Being Robbed

January 19, 2022

Is this nuts or what? No, I don’t mean Inside Edition doing some actual serious reporting, but rather that not much is being done by L.A. police to stop it. The laws that trivialize theft of this nature don’t factor in all of time, effort, energy and expense that a…

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How Much Memory Does My MacBook Pro 14″ Need?

November 8, 2021

Ten days ago I decided to replace my aging 27″ iMac Pro with the 14″ model of the new MacBook Pros for 2021. Knowing that my needs have changed, and my preference was to have a laptop that I could take anywhere with me as I traveled around, I opted…

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Signal and Cellebrite … the Controversy Continues

May 16, 2021

If you care about privacy and the security of your communications, Signal app is likely already on your phone, tablet or computer. If not, it should be and you should be using it. Some time ago I became troubled that Cellebrite, an Israeli “digital forensics” tool, was law enforcement and…

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How I See Today’s Facebook

March 17, 2021

Sad, but true.

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National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence Final Report Has Been Published

March 2, 2021

It’s finally published. This report is a stunning body of work and emphasizes the overwhelming need the United States has to be a (the?) dominant player in artificial intelligence (AI). National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence Final Report

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Sniff…looks like my iMac is going to be “retired”

December 1, 2020

Today Apple added the first Retina 5k iMacs to its “vintage” product list. That means that parts availability will be OK until they run out, and then no longer supported for repair or Genius Bar support. See Apple Adds First iMac Models With Retina 5K Display to Vintage Products List…

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Voting in California

October 19, 2020

Wow…today is the day my wife and I decided to complete our vote and now we’ll drive it to the Orange County Registrar of Voters to deliver it personally (vs. using the on-purpose-slowed-down U.S. Postal service). We love our country and democracy and take our voting right as sacred, regardless…

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Web Stories: The Time Has Come

September 25, 2020

I’d be remiss if I did not bring to your attention to an accelerating trend sweeping over the web right now, and one I view as timely since our attention is being pulled in dozens of directions at once and there is simply too much content to consume! The trend…

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Should Free Speech Be For All Of Us, Or Only For Those Who Hold ‘Correct’ Opinions?

August 6, 2020

We are living in a time where the lines between free speech, and hate/fake news type speech, are blurring. Increasingly it seems that the arbiters of free speech are for-profit social media and search companies. As such, I now find myself deeply troubled by where we’re headed with what is,…

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