Bygone Hollywood’s days lost to a future with Artificial Intelligence — A few decades ago I was teaching a course covering science and technology in society. I wanted to show students a world where anything will be possible, both marvelous and mundane. We looked at knowledge and applications, and just how they shaped the quotidian aspects of everyday life. Things you…

A storm surge and festival in an African Eden A few weeks ago, my dear friends, Brad and Angela Long told me they had a letter from me, one I had written to them many years ago about an adventurous night in a faraway place. They were kind enough to share it back with me and now I share…

…and That Just May Be a Very Good Thing. Species can move around, particularly when there are dynamic changes taking place in the environment. Organisms exploit opportunities or flee disruptions and have done so since the beginning. These shifts in a species’ distribution in response to environmental change are normal…

The extinction event may be better thought of as a still-shot from a video. Once the Earth was dominated by a diverse group of amazing animals, the dinosaurs. While there are competing taxonomies, there are about 700 known species of dinosaurs in about 300 genera. Dinosaurs filled niches across ecosystems…

In most cases, there’s no reason to kill these animals — and hardly worth the risk. Photo by ANGELO CASTO on Unsplash At some point, you will be confronted with a group of bees, wasps, or hornets. These social insects have a few things in common. They only live in…

Are We What Might Have Been? The Simulation Argument says yes. — Nick Bostrom’s trilemma and Simulation Argument 1) “The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage (that is, one capable of running high-fidelity ancestor simulations) is very close to zero”, or 2) “The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero”, or

And I’m back to “raking it in” — My short-lived saga of deportation and exile is over. After getting the Media boot I am back in from the cold and once again warmed at the fires of the Partner Program. All told I was down for six days, and back up and running by the seventh day. …

A hundred followers to hold off the empire — Some 24 centuries ago, over the course of three days, the Spartan King Leonidas I held off the army of the Persian Empire of Xerxes I at the Battle of Thermopylae. The actual numbers of soldiers on either side of the conflict have been in debate for millennia, although the…

Come on, Medium, writers just want to be paid. — I have been posting on Medium now for several years. I am not always regular with my uploaded essays and stories but enjoy both the writing and feedback I get from the ideas I have shared. It’s been a pretty good deal. …