You ever hire someone to do a job, and then halfway through, you start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, you would’ve been better off asking your pet goldfish for help? Yeah, well, let me tell you about the time I decided to hire a contractor to recaulk my shower. I know what you’re thinking,…
Author: Norman
Legislating Emotion
You ever hear about this new trend? Governments deciding that, since they’ve got nothing better to do, they’re gonna start outlawing unpopular speech. Yeah, you heard me right. Not terrorist threats, not communist proclamations, not degradation of civility, but unpopular speech. The kind of speech that makes you go, “Well, I don’t much care for…
Uncanny Valley
I’ve been thinking about these AI systems lately. They’re supposed to be the pinnacle of human achievement, right? The cream of the digital crop. The kind of thing you’d expect to pass the Turing Test while making you a cup of coffee and telling you a joke. Only, it turns out, they might just be…
HR is Furious
My coworkers, bless their hearts, they’ve got this thing for sharing. And I don’t mean staplers or a nice cup of Joe. I’m talking about their personal lives, their intimate preferences. It’s like they’re an open book, but unfortunately, it’s a book that nobody asked to read. Now, I’m all for being open and honest….
Grifting Elites
If you’ve ever turned on the ol’ television set, browsed through the interwebs, or chanced upon a newspaper (remember those?), you’d know that Western politics is, and I say this with the utmost respect, a bit of a circus. Now, I don’t mean the kind with fluffy cotton candy and delightful elephant tricks. No, this…
Socially Useless Jobs
That old pal COVID really pulled back the curtain on a few things. I mean, first off, it’s like we all collectively woke up one day and realized, “Hey, do we really need to cram ourselves into these office buildings like sardines in a can, just to tap on keyboards and gab on the phone?”…
Gender Obsession
Have you ever wondered why history seems to repeat itself? Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s because we humans have a knack for finding trouble where there isn’t any. And that’s especially true when it comes to the collapse of civilizations. Now, let’s take a walk down memory lane and visit the good…
Strange New Loyalty Tests
Norman Vincent Peale once said, “Most of us would be upset if we were accused of being ‘silly.’ But the word ‘silly’ comes from the old English word ‘selig,’ and its literal definition is ‘to be blessed, happy, healthy and prosperous.’” Now, you’d think being silly in the face of totalitarianism is quite the daft…
Kaczynski on AI
Ted Kaczynski was a guy who was ahead of his time. You gotta hand it to him, the guy was no hypocrite. Here we are, all whining about climate change and plastic in the ocean, meanwhile this guy was out there living in a cabin in the woods. Not a cabin like you see in…
Reluctant Technosaur
There’s an old saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Now, I don’t know about dogs, but when it comes to us humans, especially us older folks, it seems we’re not too keen on learning new tricks either, especially when those tricks involve fancy gadgets and interwebs. Picture this: You’ve spent half a…
The Upside of a Downward Slide
Boy oh boy, you want to hear something funny? You see, we’ve got a regime here, folks. They’re all buttoned up, smiling for the cameras, making big decisions, and setting the course of our lives. And guess what? They’re just a bunch of clowns, and not the fun kind who do tricks and make balloon…
Open-Office Oxymoron
The open office is that place where everybody’s working side by side, without a wall in sight. It’s a space designed for collaboration and communication, where the exchange of ideas flows like water, or so they say. But I’ve got news for you: the open office isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. In fact,…