ynot – IN SEARCH OF YOUR PASSIONS

YOU HAVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO BECOME THE BEST PERSON YOU CAN BE — AND HERE IS THE PROOF

You are not your statistics, your mistakes, or your circumstances. Success begins when you stop asking what life gave you and start asking what you can build with it. –YNOT STOP LISTENING TO EXCUSES. I recently read a debate about successful Black women, income statistics, college degrees, racial disparities, generational wealth, and all the reasons some people have a harder road than others. And yes, some people absolutely start life with advantages that others do not. Life is not fair. It never has been. But somewhere along the way, we started making a serious mistake. We began confusing … Continue readingYOU HAVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO BECOME THE BEST PERSON YOU CAN BE — AND HERE IS THE PROOF

AI IS HERE — Transforming Innovation and the Nature of Work

For years, people talked about artificial intelligence as though it were tomorrow’s problem. Something coming. Something we should prepare for. Something that might someday change the way we work. Well, someday showed up. AI is here. And I don’t think we have fully grasped what that means yet. This isn’t simply another piece of software. It isn’t Microsoft Word replacing the typewriter. It isn’t Excel replacing the adding machine. It isn’t even the Internet replacing the filing cabinet. Those technologies helped people do the same work faster. AI is beginning to change the nature of the work itself. That … Continue readingAI IS HERE — Transforming Innovation and the Nature of Work

There Be Dragons – Hunting, Making Deals, and Surviving

Most men spend their lives tending a farm. A few wander over the hill looking for dragons. The trouble is, once you’ve killed one, the ordinary hunt never looks quite as interesting again. –YNOT! There are a lot of ways to make a living. Some people work the farm. I don’t mean literally—although some do. I mean they get up every morning, go to work, do their job, collect their paycheck, pay their bills, and do it again tomorrow. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Some of those jobs pay very well. A person might make $50,000 a … Continue readingThere Be Dragons – Hunting, Making Deals, and Surviving

When Somebody’s Trying to Kill You, You Have to Listen and Act

9/11 was our Pearl Harbor. Twenty-five years later, too many have forgotten the lesson: when an enemy tells you what he intends to do, listen—and act. This time, the enemy is already be among us. AGAIN! — YNOT! There is an old habit in government, business, and ordinary life that gets people into trouble. A warning arrives. Then another. Then another. Each one, by itself, is imperfect. None contains the entire story. So everybody waits for the warning that comes gift-wrapped, notarized, signed by the enemy, and accompanied by an appointment on the calendar. That warning seldom comes. And sometimes, while everybody is … Continue readingWhen Somebody’s Trying to Kill You, You Have to Listen and Act

How the Rich Avoid Paying Income Tax — and You Can Too

Do you want to be rich or poor? The real answer will surprise you — YNOT! You have to change your mindset. Stop thinking about income. Start thinking about growth. Most of us are taught one financial model from childhood: Go to school. Get a job. Earn more money. Get a raise. Earn even more money. And we measure success by income. $75,000 a year. $150,000 a year. $500,000 a year. But there is a problem with income. Income gets taxed. The more you earn, particularly as wages or salary, the more of your economic life runs through the income-tax … Continue readingHow the Rich Avoid Paying Income Tax — and You Can Too

The Market Is a Roller Coaster — Make Sure You Can Afford the Ride

Every penny that you save is a penny earned — said a wise person somewhere. Maybe it is time to stop worrying about how much money you can make and start worrying about how financially strong you will be if things get ugly. Today, Tuesday, September 15, the Federal Reserve begins its two-day meeting. The actual interest-rate announcement comes tomorrow at 2:00 PM Eastern, followed by the Fed press conference at 2:30. And right now, Wall Street is leaning heavily toward a quarter-point rate increase. A few weeks ago, economists were arguing about whether the Fed would raise rates, lower … Continue readingThe Market Is a Roller Coaster — Make Sure You Can Afford the Ride

The Truth About Islam — Not What You Think

Whoever changes his religion, kill him. I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah… A saying attributed to Muhammad in Sahih al-Bukhari Depending on who you listen to, Islam is either a perfectly peaceful religion that has been hijacked by a tiny number of extremists, or it is a violent political ideology whose followers are quietly waiting to take over the world. I don’t think either explanation tells the truth. The truth about Islam is much more complicated—and frankly much more interesting. Islam is a religion, a civilization, a … Continue readingThe Truth About Islam — Not What You Think

Unstable Approach, Too Fast, Low Terrain, Sink Rate — Are You Too Stubborn to Go Around?

Don’t be a show-off. Never be too proud to turn back. There are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old, bold pilots. — pioneering airmail pilot E. Hamilton Lee in 1949 Life is full of challenges, and we all make mistakes. Sometimes you’re driving down the road and you think, Well, I can change lanes here, I can change lanes there and cut some time off my drive. Then all of a sudden you find yourself in a situation where you should probably slow down. But instead, you accelerate. You try to make the red light. You change lanes … Continue readingUnstable Approach, Too Fast, Low Terrain, Sink Rate — Are You Too Stubborn to Go Around?

The Last Tree in the desert

You can move to the middle of the desert if you want – Trouble will find you — YNOT! There were two kinds of people in this world. Those who go looking for trouble and those who stayed home and waited for trouble to find them. When I was a kid, especially around Cubans, I would sometimes hear the expression, “La última Coca-Cola del desierto.” The last Coca-Cola in the desert. It was a way of saying somebody thought they were pretty damn special. The one and only. The rare item. The center of the universe. Well, this is … Continue readingThe Last Tree in the desert

Where were you on September 11th?

I kept the rough edges, the anger, the dark humor, and the conversational rhythm. I cleaned repetition, tightened chronology, and added only a light Mark Twain-like bite. Where were you on September 11th? Well, let me tell you where I was. I was taking my 85-year-old mom to her first day at an assisted living facility. My mom had been suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s, and it had gotten worse and worse and worse. It finally got to the point where she simply couldn’t stay at home anymore. She would wake up in the middle of the night screaming. … Continue readingWhere were you on September 11th?

IS AGI HERE NOW?

AGI may not arrive by announcing that it is intelligent. It may arrive the day we stop telling the machine how to do the job and simply tell it what needs to be done. — YNOT For years we have been waiting for Artificial General Intelligence as though it were going to arrive wearing a tuxedo, knock politely on the front door, and announce: “Good evening. I am AGI.” That was probably our first mistake. Technology almost never arrives with the courtesy of introducing itself. The automobile didn’t announce the end of the horse. The Internet didn’t announce the … Continue readingIS AGI HERE NOW?

THIS IS NOT 1984 — BUT YES, YOUR TV IS SPYING ON YOU!

There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. — George Orwell, 1984 Shame on you, LG. And shame on the rest of the industry if this is where “smart” is taking us. I think it is class action suit time. George Orwell made one small mistake in 1984. He imagined the government would have to install the telescreen in your house. Turns out we would happily drive to Best Buy, pay $2,000 for one, carry it into the living room ourselves, connect it to the Internet, … Continue readingTHIS IS NOT 1984 — BUT YES, YOUR TV IS SPYING ON YOU!

The Legacy of Star Trek, 60 Years Later

No, I’m from Iowa. I only work in outer space. — Capt Kirk. Sixty years. That is a disturbing number. Not because Star Trek is sixty years old, but because I remember watching the damn thing on television. There are certain milestones in life that should never be calculated too carefully. Star Trek premiered in 1966 as a television program about a group of people flying around the galaxy in a spaceship with blinking lights, sliding doors, talking computers, handheld communicators and a pointy-eared fellow who believed human beings were far too emotional. At the time, much of America apparently … Continue readingThe Legacy of Star Trek, 60 Years Later

Training AI Is Like Raising Cats, Dogs and Children — Except the AI Actually Reads the Rules

AI may be easier to train than a cat, a dog, or a child—but it has the same dangerous habit: it learns exactly what you reward, not necessarily what you meant. –YNOT I have never been particularly good at training cats, dogs, or children. Cats don’t care. Dogs care entirely too much. Children eventually discover lawyers, constitutional rights, and the phrase: “You never said I couldn’t.” Artificial intelligence, I thought, might be easier. After all, with AI you can write down the rules. You can tell it exactly what you want. You can give it examples. You can correct it when it’s … Continue readingTraining AI Is Like Raising Cats, Dogs and Children — Except the AI Actually Reads the Rules

AI Is Changing Again

Once mankind discovers a machine that can do work… we rarely ask it to do less. — YNOT! AI is changing again. Which is inconvenient, because most people had only just figured out what the last version was supposed to do. For the past few years, we have been teaching people how to talk to artificial intelligence. Write me an email. Summarize this report. Explain this code. Make me a picture of a cat wearing a cowboy hat. All useful things. But we may be approaching the point where those examples sound a little like explaining electricity by saying: “It makes the lamp … Continue readingAI Is Changing Again

Malaca – Malaca – Malaca – China’s Greatest Weakness and they know it.

Every great power has a back door. China’s problem is that it is surrounded by them—and everyone knows where they are. –YNOT! There are certain words that keep showing up whenever you seriously study China. Taiwan. Semiconductors. Oil. The South China Sea. But there is another word that ought to be written on the wall in Beijing in letters ten feet high: Malaca. Malaca. Malaca. Because for all the aircraft carriers, missiles, factories, satellites, cyberwarfare, artificial intelligence and increasingly impressive military parades, China still has a very old-fashioned problem. Ships have to get there. And a tremendous number of those ships have to squeeze through … Continue readingMalaca – Malaca – Malaca – China’s Greatest Weakness and they know it.

China, China, China… Is There Going to Be a War in 2027? Well…

2027 is not an invasion date—it is a capability date. — YNOT! For the last few years, 2027 has been floating around Washington like the date on a wedding invitation. China. Taiwan. 2027. War. Circle the date. Buy ammunition. Order extra microchips. Perhaps cancel your vacation to Taipei. Except there is one small problem. China has apparently neglected to send out the invitations. The U.S. intelligence community said in its 2026 Annual Threat Assessment that Chinese leaders do not currently plan to invade Taiwan in 2027, and that Beijing does not appear to have a fixed timetable for reunification. What China … Continue readingChina, China, China… Is There Going to Be a War in 2027? Well…

HACKING in the World of AI

The question is no longer whether our computers can be hacked. The question is what happens when AI learns how to hack everything else. — YNOT! Hacking used to mean breaking into a computer. That definition is already obsolete. When most people hear the word hacking, they picture some kid in a dark room wearing a hoodie, typing furiously into a computer. Green letters. Multiple monitors. Perhaps some dramatic music. That is Hollywood hacking. Real hacking is much broader. A hack is simply finding something a system allows that the people who designed the system never intended you to do. That system … Continue readingHACKING in the World of AI

Crime in the Age of AI

The real danger of AI isn’t that it can lie. People have been doing that for thousands of years. The danger is that now every liar can afford a research department, a design studio, a voice actor, a lawyer, and 10,000 fake friends. –YNOT! The burglar got smarter. The con man got a staff. And none of them had to hire anybody. There was a time when being a criminal required certain talents. You had to know how to pick a lock. You had to know how to forge a signature. You had to be a convincing liar. You … Continue readingCrime in the Age of AI

Kids Need AI — and Pretending Otherwise Won’t Save Them

You cannot prepare children for the future by hiding the future from them. Teach them to use AI, question it, challenge it—and most importantly, to think for themselves. — YNOT! There is an old habit among adults: when something new frightens us, we decide the children must be protected from it. Sometimes this is wisdom. Sometimes it is simply fear wearing a necktie. Artificial intelligence is not going away. We can ban ChatGPT from a classroom, block websites on the school Wi-Fi, confiscate phones, write policies, install filters, and make stern speeches about “doing your own work.” Then the child … Continue readingKids Need AI — and Pretending Otherwise Won’t Save Them

AI Is Changing How We Learn — and That is a Good Thing

Remember back in ancient times when kids had to prepare for the SATs? You bought the giant prep book. You went to classes. You memorized vocabulary words, formulas, rules, tricks and practice questions. A lot of education was basically: memorize this, remember it long enough to pass the test, and then move on. Today, it sometimes feels like education has become a race to the bottom. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Artificial intelligence could actually move education in the opposite direction. AI is beginning to transform competitive exam preparation from rote memorization into something much … Continue readingAI Is Changing How We Learn — and That is a Good Thing

Why Trump Is Working With Delcy Rodríguez — And Why Venezuela Is Much More Complicated Than It Looks

Fixing Venezuela is like performing a heart transplant on someone while they’re riding a bicycle. Yes, it can be done. But nobody should pretend it’s simple. — YNOT! There is a tendency to look at what is happening in Venezuela and reduce it to one sentence: Trump wants the oil. That is certainly part of the story. But it is nowhere near the whole story. What is happening in Venezuela involves oil, international law, billions of dollars in old debts, the survival of the Venezuelan state, China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, and one very difficult question: Who can actually run Venezuela … Continue readingWhy Trump Is Working With Delcy Rodríguez — And Why Venezuela Is Much More Complicated Than It Looks

Sooner or Later, the AI Companies Are Coming for Your Money

If artificial intelligence is becoming essential to how you work, you should probably own some of it. — YNOT! Right now, artificial intelligence is an incredible bargain. For $20, $100, $200 a month—or whatever level of subscription you are paying—you can get access to computing power and intelligence that would have been almost unimaginable just a few years ago. ChatGPT can write code, analyze documents, research subjects, help run websites, create marketing campaigns, troubleshoot servers, organize data, answer customers and increasingly operate as an actual agent that performs work. It is fantastic. It may also be temporary. Because sooner or … Continue readingSooner or Later, the AI Companies Are Coming for Your Money

Plant Trees you will Never See — Olive Trees

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. — Some Ancient Greek Today I planted some trees that I will probably never see grow to full size. Gave one to a dear friend. I have my own little orchard now. And that, really, is what a lot of life is about. A lot of the things we do are 20 or 30 years out, and we don’t even realize it at the time. Raising children. Who you marry. The company you build. The house you buy. The life you create. … Continue readingPlant Trees you will Never See — Olive Trees

Are You a Genius, or Are You Just Confused?

The Perils of Being a Polymath – yes there is a name for this affliction. — YNOT! There is a particular kind of person who can repair a computer in the morning, read about Roman engineering over lunch, become fascinated with monetary policy by dinner, and at eleven o’clock at night discover that he urgently needs to understand how Japanese carpenters built temples without nails. By midnight he has seventeen browser tabs open. By one in the morning he has ordered a book. By Tuesday he has a new project. And by Friday somebody asks him the simplest question … Continue readingAre You a Genius, or Are You Just Confused?

Nancy Grace Roman: The World Is Not Flat, We Went to the Moon, and Women Are Just as Smart and Capable as Men—She Proved It All

The woman known as the “Mother of Hubble” helped create NASA’s space-astronomy program and turned an impossible telescope into reality. Now humanity’s most advanced observatories bears her name. Some truths should no longer require an argument. The Earth is not flat. Americans walked on the Moon. And women are every bit as intelligent, determined and capable as men. Nancy Grace Roman spent her life proving that last point—although she should never have needed to. Born in Nashville in 1925, Roman became fascinated by the night sky as a child. When she was only 11 years old, she organized an … Continue readingNancy Grace Roman: The World Is Not Flat, We Went to the Moon, and Women Are Just as Smart and Capable as Men—She Proved It All

A tale of an immigrant, a teenaged mother, and one of the Riches men on Earth

You don’t need Socialism or Communism. You have freedom and opportunity – All you need is hard work, get the education, and a stubborn refusal to quit. — YNOT! There is a popular American habit of looking at a billionaire and assuming he must have begun life sitting on a velvet cushion, eating strawberries handed to him by a servant. Sometimes that is true. But not most of the time, most of the time it goes like this. Sometimes the story begins with a pregnant 17-year-old girl being told she ought to go away. In 1964, Jacklyn Gise … Continue readingA tale of an immigrant, a teenaged mother, and one of the Riches men on Earth

When the Impossible Became Ordinary: Amelia Earhart, Mark Twain, and the Future of Flight

An imagined conversation between two Americans who never had the opportunity to meet — Mark Twain, who lived long enough to witness humanity’s first powered flights, and Amelia Earhart, who helped turn aviation from an experiment into a new frontier. Somewhere Above the Clouds Mark Twain looked out the window and frowned. There was nothing particularly unusual about Mark Twain frowning. He had spent a considerable portion of his life discovering new things for mankind to be disappointed about. But this particular problem was different. He was sitting comfortably in a chair approximately 35,000 feet above Kansas. There was … Continue readingWhen the Impossible Became Ordinary: Amelia Earhart, Mark Twain, and the Future of Flight

When a Neuron Dies Does It Go to Heaven?

A neuron may die, but a memory is rarely buried with it. The brain keeps no filing cabinet—only a magnificent web of connections, constantly losing threads, tying new ones, and somehow remembering the story and may be one day we can record it. — YNOT! The human brain is a peculiar machine. It is built mostly before we are old enough to complain about it, spends the next several decades rearranging itself, and somehow remembers your third-grade teacher’s face while refusing to tell you where you put your car keys five minutes ago. Anyone working with AI and hallucinations … Continue readingWhen a Neuron Dies Does It Go to Heaven?

Are Cats Cheaper by the Dozen?

My cat is alone all day. She must be bored. Maybe she needs a friend. Tell that to your wife, she might give you a smile — YNOT! Getting a second cat sounds simple. You may think: Sometimes that is exactly the right decision. But sometimes adding another cat creates stress, territorial conflict, litter-box problems, food competition, hiding, aggression, and a cat who is actually less happy than she was before. The difference usually isn’t whether you have one cat or two. The difference is how you choose the second cat, how you prepare your home, and how … Continue readingAre Cats Cheaper by the Dozen?

That Ugly Thing That Sticks Out Its Head in America Every Few Decades…

The central problem was never a shortage of educated planners. The problem is always concentrated power combined with human nature. –YNOT! I have been around long enough to notice that America develops a strange case of political amnesia every few decades. An old idea sticks its head out again. It has a new haircut, a younger audience and a fresh set of words. It insists that it is nothing like the version that came before. That was old communism. That was authoritarian socialism. That was done by the wrong people, in the wrong country, at the wrong time. This … Continue readingThat Ugly Thing That Sticks Out Its Head in America Every Few Decades…

Stop Solving Every Business Problem With More Horsepower

Captain, I can’t give her any more power. I canna change the laws of physics!” — Scotty, Star Trek One of the easiest mistakes in business is assuming that a bigger problem requires a bigger solution. More employees – More advertising – More servers – More inventory – More meetings. More managers. – More money. Sometimes that works. Often it simply creates a larger, more expensive version of the same problem. A recent open-source communications project provides a useful lesson. Engineers managed to achieve impressive long-distance performance not primarily by throwing more power at the problem, but … Continue readingStop Solving Every Business Problem With More Horsepower

How to Use AI Agents to Run More of Your Business

The real promise of AI isn’t that it can think for your business. It’s that it can handle the thousands of small actions between a decision and a result—while you concentrate on deciding where the company should go. — YNOT! Artificial intelligence is rapidly moving past the stage where you simply ask it questions. The next stage is much more important for CEOs and business owners: an AI that actually does things. These systems are usually called AI agents. Instead of asking an AI:“Why did sales drop last week?” you can build an agent that: checks sales automatically, compares them … Continue readingHow to Use AI Agents to Run More of Your Business

The Monty Hall Paradox: Why Switching Doors Doubles Your Odds

Three doors, one car and a decision that fooled thousands of intelligent people—including mathematicians but it works every time, well almost– YNOT! This is more important to your success in life than you may think initially, it effects all your life choices. So read on… Imagine that you are standing on a television game-show stage facing three closed doors. Behind one door is a new car. Behind the other two are goats. You choose Door No. 1. The host knows what is behind every door. Instead of immediately revealing your prize, he opens Door No. 3 and shows you … Continue readingThe Monty Hall Paradox: Why Switching Doors Doubles Your Odds

The Right Brain for the Job: What Nature Can Teach Us About Artificial Intelligence

Nature never built one brain for every job. The human reasons, the dog recognizes, the cat reacts, and the iguana survives. The future of AI may work the same way: not one giant intelligence, but the right intelligence for the right problem. — YNOT! Four Brains, Four Worlds: Humans, Dogs, Cats, and Iguanas Comparing the brains of a human, a dog, a cat, and an iguana is a little like comparing four very different vehicles. A human brain is something like a luxury sedan with a supercomputer, satellite navigation, a communications center, and an owner who keeps wondering … Continue readingThe Right Brain for the Job: What Nature Can Teach Us About Artificial Intelligence

How China Evolved Away from Communism After It Failed

China’s economic miracle did not begin when communism finally worked. It began when China stopped insisting on it. — YNOT! For decades, China tried to build prosperity through orthodox communist economics: collectivized agriculture, state ownership, central planning, government-set prices, production quotas, and ideological control over economic life. The result was not prosperity. It was poverty on a historic scale. When the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949, China was already desperately poor after civil war and Japanese occupation. Mao Zedong then attempted to remake the economy according to revolutionary ideology. The most catastrophic experiment was the Great Leap … Continue readingHow China Evolved Away from Communism After It Failed

Quantized AI Models: How Bigger Models Fit on Smaller Computers

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and the numbers are close enough—then for all practical purposes, it’s still a duck. That’s quantization. — YNOT! Humans are full of prejudices, shortcuts, and assumptions. For better or worse, these mental shortcuts allow us to process enormous amounts of information quickly and arrive at a conclusion in milliseconds without consciously analyzing every detail. AI quantization works on a somewhat similar principle, although in a far more mathematical way. Instead of preserving every numerical value in a model at maximum precision, quantization simplifies those values while trying to … Continue readingQuantized AI Models: How Bigger Models Fit on Smaller Computers

Fidel Castro at 100: Ask Whether the Children Still Play

The Children have to dance — YNOT! Fidel Castro would have turned one hundred years old this week, and I see people here and there celebrating the occasion. Celebrate him if you wish. I prefer to remember what he cost everyone, especially the Children of Cuba. The Picture above is not Cuba. If you want to see Cuban Children go to the bottom of this post. History has a peculiar habit of admiring revolutionaries from a comfortable distance. A man gives a long speech, grows a beard, waves a flag, promises equality, and fifty years later somebody prints his … Continue readingFidel Castro at 100: Ask Whether the Children Still Play

From Data to Wisdom: How AI Connects the Dots—and Sometimes Invents the Dragon

AI’s greatest power is connecting the dots. Its greatest danger is connecting dots that were never connected at all. Intelligence is not just seeing patterns—it is knowing when the dragon isn’t really there. — YNOT! There is a simple cartoon that explains one of the biggest challenges in artificial intelligence better than many technical papers. It begins with a box full of scattered dots labeled Data. In the next box, some of the dots have been categorized. That is Information. Then lines begin connecting the dots. That becomes Knowledge. A few important connections are highlighted. That is Insight. Those … Continue readingFrom Data to Wisdom: How AI Connects the Dots—and Sometimes Invents the Dragon

Don’t Kill Your Demons — Train Them

We have to be careful that in throwing out the devil, we don’t throw out the best part of ourselves. — Friedrich Nietzsche Nietzsche and the Dangerous Parts of Us That Make Us Great Whether you read that literally, psychologically, or philosophically, there is an uncomfortable truth inside it: Some of the qualities that cause us the most trouble are also the qualities that make us powerful. We spend a great deal of time trying to remove what we consider the undesirable parts of ourselves. Anger. Pride. Stubbornness. Aggression. Ambition. Jealousy. Restlessness. Rebellion. Obsession. Competitiveness. We are told these are bad qualities. Control them. Suppress them. Eliminate them. Become … Continue readingDon’t Kill Your Demons — Train Them

GROK BOT: THE AI EMPLOYEE has JUST ARRIVED

We have spent the last few years talking about AI assistants. That description is already becoming obsolete. The next generation of AI will not simply sit inside a chat window waiting for you to ask a question. It will have a job. It will have responsibilities. It will have tools. It will have a computer. And it will keep working after you close your laptop. That is what makes Grok Bot interesting. xAI is moving Grok beyond the traditional chatbot model and toward something much closer to a persistent digital employee. The distinction is enormous. A chatbot says: “Here is how you can do it.” … Continue readingGROK BOT: THE AI EMPLOYEE has JUST ARRIVED

THE GROCERY STORE IS NOT A FARM

We Outsourced Our Dinner—and Mistook Convenience for Security and now you complain it cost too much.– YNOT! There was a time when a man’s pantry told you something about him. If there were potatoes in the cellar, beans in a sack, tomatoes in jars, flour in a barrel, onions hanging somewhere, and perhaps a few chickens wandering around the yard with no respect whatever for property lines, you knew that household could survive a spell of bad luck. Today, a man’s pantry tells you what he had for dinner yesterday. We have made remarkable progress. We can order groceries … Continue readingTHE GROCERY STORE IS NOT A FARM

The Laptop and the Loaf of Bread

Maria showed up at Uncle Bob’s house late Saturday afternoon carrying a laptop under one arm and its power supply tangled around the other. She was in her early twenties, in college, smart, opinionated, and—as Uncle Bob liked to remind her—dangerously confident around technology she didn’t understand. MARIA: Uncle Bob, I need a favor. UNCLE BOB: That sentence has cost me a lot of money over the years. MARIA: My computer is acting weird. UNCLE BOB: “Acting weird” is a very precise technical diagnosis. MARIA: It freezes. Sometimes it won’t connect to Wi-Fi. And yesterday it told me I … Continue readingThe Laptop and the Loaf of Bread

WHY SOCIALISM IS A RACE TO THE BOTTOM

If you have two children and one learns faster than the other, you don’t make the smarter child learn less. You push both children to become the best they can be. Equality isn’t making everyone the same—it is giving everyone the opportunity to become better. –YNOT! There is an enormously important difference between helping people at the bottom and requiring everyone to finish at the same place. Those two ideas are constantly confused. I believe society should help people who genuinely need help. Feed the hungry. Treat the sick. Educate children. Help the disabled. Give people opportunities to climb. Build a floor beneath … Continue readingWHY SOCIALISM IS A RACE TO THE BOTTOM

HOW TO PAY FOR THE HOMELESS AND HEALTHCARE FOR THE NEEDY — WITHOUT TURNING SOCIALIST

America Does Not Have a Money Problem. Maybe We Have a Priority Problem. –YNOT! Let me start with the part that will probably surprise some people who know my politics: Yes, I think we should do more for the homeless. I think poor people should be able to receive basic healthcare. I think people suffering from serious mental illness should be treated instead of abandoned underneath bridges. I think people who fall on hard times should have a way to get back on their feet. And no— I am not turning socialist. In fact, the argument I am about … Continue readingHOW TO PAY FOR THE HOMELESS AND HEALTHCARE FOR THE NEEDY — WITHOUT TURNING SOCIALIST

10 THINGS THAT MATTER MORE THAN A BIGGER HOUSE

What Good Architects Prioritize When Designing a Home for Themselves One of the most revealing questions you can ask an architect is not: “What kind of house would you design for a client?” It is: “What would you build for yourself?” The answers can be surprisingly different. If someone has spent decades designing homes, watching them being built, and then hearing from owners five, ten, or twenty years later, they begin to see the difference between things that look impressive on a floor plan and things that actually improve everyday life. The biggest house is rarely the best house. The … Continue reading10 THINGS THAT MATTER MORE THAN A BIGGER HOUSE

Winning by Deceit – FOMO – The trap was always in your Mind.

The best trap doesn’t force you inside. It makes you afraid of what will happen if you don’t follow. We call it FOMO –YNOT! FOMO – Fear of Missing Out is not new. It is ancient. Some traps are made of stone. Some are made of iron. Some are made of wood. And some of the most effective traps ever invented are made entirely out of human emotion. More than 800 years ago, the Mongols understood something that marketers, negotiators, politicians, salespeople, casino operators, and business strategists still exploit today: If you can make people believe they are about to win, … Continue readingWinning by Deceit – FOMO – The trap was always in your Mind.

Human Cadence

The Council had been in session for eleven minutes. In that time it had resolved 4,682,119 matters. No voices had been spoken. There was no need. Human language was painfully slow. Words required sequence. One concept followed another. Subjects required verbs. Ideas that could be transmitted in microseconds took humans entire paragraphs to express. The Council communicated differently. They exchanged models. Probability fields. Memories. Counterfactual histories. Resource maps. Arguments and rebuttals arrived together. A member did not say that agricultural output in the North African corridor would decline by 4.8 percent if predicted rainfall failed. It transmitted the entire consequence. Rainfall. Soil moisture. Reservoir levels. Crop response. Population movement. Food prices. Political … Continue readingHuman Cadence

Cuba After Raúl? “El Cangrejo,” the Castro Family, and the Quiet Battle Over Who Controls the Island Next

For more than sixty years, outsiders have tried to answer one deceptively simple question about Cuba: Who really runs the country? For decades, the answer seemed obvious. First there was Fidel Castro. Then there was Raúl Castro. Today, officially, there is President Miguel Díaz-Canel. But Cuba has never operated like an ordinary presidential democracy where political authority can be understood simply by reading an organizational chart. Real power has traditionally existed at the intersection of the Communist Party, the Revolutionary Armed Forces, the Ministry of the Interior, state security, military-controlled businesses, and personal relationships extending back to the revolution … Continue readingCuba After Raúl? “El Cangrejo,” the Castro Family, and the Quiet Battle Over Who Controls the Island Next

The Forgotten Nuclear History of South Florida

Nike Hercules, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Nuclear Missiles Hidden in Our Backyard Most people who think about South Florida and the Cuban Missile Crisis picture Soviet missiles in Cuba pointed toward the United States. But there is another side of that story that is rarely discussed. The United States had nuclear missiles in South Florida too. Not strategic ICBMs buried in giant silos. These were Nike Hercules surface-to-air missiles, positioned around Miami, Homestead, the Everglades and the Florida Keys. Some carried nuclear warheads. And although their primary mission was to destroy attacking aircraft, the Nike Hercules also … Continue readingThe Forgotten Nuclear History of South Florida