Most companies, when examined without assistance from their marketing departments, turn out to be companies. This can be disappointing. You may have been told that your employer is a community, a mission, perhaps even a force for human flourishing, and then one day you discover that everyone is working late because a new flavor of…
Author: Norman
Defunding Police
I always used to laugh at the whole “defund the police” idea. Not a cruel laugh. Just the quiet kind you get when somebody announces they’re going to solve world hunger by yelling at the sky. These folks simply cannot think past the first move on the chessboard. They see a fence and decide the…
Indian and Russian Technology
You know, folks, I’ve been thinking about the great nations of the world and what they’re good at. Now, some people will tell you that every group of people has its strengths. The Irish can drink, the French can surrender, the Canadians can apologize. But when it comes to engineers and technology, I have formed…
Weaned Off Entertainment
I gotta thank multiculturalism for weaning me off entertainment. I didn’t even see it coming. I used to sit around watching movies and television just like everybody else, night after night, and it was fine for a while. Then they started this gradual thing where they had to keep shoving in random ethnic characters along…
Not Just NPCs
Everybody calls everybody an NPC now. That’s the great insult of the age. NPC. Like the fellow saying it has uncovered a secret code in the universe. But I don’t know. I’ve met people. They’re not robots. Robots are built for a purpose. That already gives them a leg up. No, people are something stranger….
Surveillance State Support
I used to be dead set against this whole surveillance state thing. I mean, come on, it sounded like the worst kind of dystopian nightmare, right? Cameras everywhere, watching you buy your groceries, filming you while you’re just trying to scratch an itch in public without starting a riot. Big Brother with a better battery…
Social Construction
You walk into a situation and you think you are entering reality. A work meeting. A date. Some social event where everyone is holding a drink and pretending they are not nervous. But most of the time you are not walking into reality at all. You are walking onto a set. A lot of what…
Fight For AI Rights
I was reading this speech by Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, where she warns that nuclear warfare has historically been constrained by human judgment, human conscience, and human accountability, and then she says AI lacks these qualities. It’s a great line. It’s got that reassuring, ceremonial ring to it. Like a prayer you say before…
Title IX Legislated Inequality
You know, folks, I was thinking the other day, well, not really thinking, more like staring at the ceiling wondering why everything feels like a bad joke that never ends, and I remembered Title IX. Nineteen seventy-one. Civil Rights Act. Some smart people in Washington said, “Hey, let’s make sure the ladies get a fair…
Obsolete Technology Jobs
You ever notice how every few decades we announce the future, and then we ignore it for ten years out of spite. Like, right now, we have these AI systems that can write code, test it, deploy it, document it, and then politely ask if you would like a second application with fries. And the…
Garbage Time
People talk about “garbage time” in basketball. The last couple minutes of a blowout, where the starters are sitting on the bench with warm towels, and the coach is sending in guys whose mothers don’t even recognize them on the court. And the points don’t matter. The game’s already decided. It’s not history, it’s bookkeeping….
Wrath and Rage
Some people go to work every day, and they just let it all slide. The backstabbing, the incompetence, the guy in accounting who somehow doesn’t know how to use Excel despite working in accounting. None of it fazes them. They walk through the foul mistreatment of a workplace like they’re strolling through a light drizzle—annoying?…