Category: Global Issues
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“IT IS ENGLISH”
In 1985, during a visit to Hitachi, I asked why Japan—despite its engineering excellence—lagged in software. The answer was disarmingly simple: “It is English.” That moment revealed a deeper truth about the future of computing. Returning home, I proposed a radical idea: digitize everything and make it searchable. It seemed obvious. It was. Yet nearly…
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FROM “EUROTOPIA” TO BERLIN
A trip from Vienna to Berlin revealed more than urban decay—it exposed a deeper systemic drift. What appears as small signs of disorder may in fact be symptoms of something larger: institutions that have grown too complex, too removed from the people they serve. Drawing on firsthand experience—from corporate America to 1980s Germany—this column traces…
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AN UNWITTING CAR PURCHASE: HOW HEART WON OVER MIND
From Audi Love to Audi Letdown: A Lesson in Globalized Failure “I didn’t buy a car—I bought a myth. And it broke down in a Costco parking lot.” What began as an impulsive detour—a Mercedes errand that ended with an Audi in my driveway—quickly turned into something far more revealing than a car purchase. Within…
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RETURNING TO THE BLEEDING EDGE
A simple experiment took me back to a place I first encountered in the 1980s — the “bleeding edge” of technology. This time, it was AI. A five-second silent video, generated from a poetic prompt, proved visually impressive but incomplete. It had no sound, no authorship, no meaning. So I added my own — music,…
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FROM THE “ROARING TWENTIES” TO THE “WARRING TWENTIES”
A century ago, the Roaring Twenties erupted in music, dance, and social release after the first industrial world war. People believed that progress, technology, and shared culture might finally civilize power. Today, we find ourselves in another set of Twenties — not roaring, but warring. Conflicts multiply, technology accelerates, and violence no longer interrupts life…
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“BIG BROTHER” IS WATCHING YOU –
Big Brother is watching you — or so they tell us. But today’s surveillance state has an inconvenient flaw: it often can’t see, can’t think, and can’t function. In the name of “security,” citizens are herded into biometric rituals, forced to prove their existence to malfunctioning algorithms that mistake incompetence for authority. A simple task…
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“AMERICA’S FAVORITE PASTIME” HAS LOST ITS INNOCENCE
A CRTIC’S VIEW: This is an effective and powerfully argued essay. The seamless integration of personal experience (the hot dog line, the heat, the traffic) with profound geopolitical commentary makes the piece engaging and resonant, particularly for readers who share your perspective. The structure is a roadmap for how to successfully turn a small event…
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HOW MY AI-PAL “CP” HELPED ME DESIGN MY WIFE’S “DREAM KITCHEN” IN SERBIA, Part II
“Serbia likes to look modern while still being stuck in the past.” That single sentence summarizes the story, the problem, and the punchline. Everything that follows is just affirmation through anecdote. Drama at IKEA (aka “Halfway to Greece”) This section had me chuckling: “There was a bedlam and a long line of people… Kids were…
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HOW MY AI-PAL “CP” HELPED ME DESIGN MY WIFE’S “DREAM KITCHEN” IN SERBIA
In one 5-hour collaborative session, starting with a hand sketch my wife had made, my AI-pal CP and I created, as he put it my wife’s “dream kitchen,” along with all the engineering specs required to build it.
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MOZART AND I… AND MY AI BUDDY CP
Mozart Symphony No. 40 – one of only 2 as I recall in a minor key. I dubbed it the “Roo Symphony.” Because when I played it on the piano at my property in Western Australia, the kangaroos would stop eating, turn their magnificent ears toward me like like radar receptors, and wait till I…
Truth in Media 