“A palentir is a dangerous tool, Saruman,” Gandalf said. “We do not know who may be watching.”
Beware if you gaze into a palentir long…
March 23, 2026
Hacker finds he can control 7000 vacuum cleaners..
March 5, 2026
Incredible! What did he do with such power? As I said, he took his findings to the Verge. One of its reporters gave Azdoufal the serial number of a DJI Romo vacuum he’d just been testing for review; within minutes Azdoufal could see it cleaning the reporter’s living room, that it had 80% battery life remaining, and had it generate and transmit a floor plan of the house.
And the Internet of Things seemed like such a good idea…
Who is this “WE” and what do “WE” want AI to do?
March 5, 2026
“WE will decide the fate of our Country – NOT some out-of-control, Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about,” Trump wrote.
Hmm. OK, what did this “Radical Left AI company” want?
US defense officials have pushed for unfettered access to Claude’s capabilities that they say can help protect the country, while Anthropic has resisted allowing its product to be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons systems that can kill people without human input.
So the WE is actually just ME, then.
I’ve written repeatedly about the dangers of AI: it’s not really AI, it repeats very human bias and mistakes, and it will become potentially extremely dangerous to humanity if left unregulated.
But go on, keep using these programs. I’m sure it’ll all work out…
IndieReader Approved!
April 16, 2024
In BRINGER OF LIGHT, M. Thomas Apple crafts a satisfyingly complex future where mankind has moved off Earth but must fight and struggle against the harsh realities of physics—and each other—in order to survive.
https://indiereader.com/book_review/bringer-of-light/
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Today’s quote
March 2, 2024
Show me a completely smooth operation and I’ll show you someone who’s covering mistakes. Real boats rock.
Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune
Ah, timely, as usual, Duke Togo
November 22, 2023
Despite the fact that the manga Golgo 13 is about as conservative as you can get (openly misogynistic and racist at times, as well), I’ve been a fan since before coming to Japan in 1999. I hadn’t realized that the original anime movie that I saw back in Boston was based on what became the manga with the most printed volumes in the world in July 2021. This year marks its 50th anniversary, and the stories are being reproduced in larger format, grouped according to physical region.
The group of stories based in Japan came out a short while ago (I already got copies of stories based in France and the Middle East, and a book based in Italy is due soon). Interestingly, one of the stories is reproduced from December 2001 — four months after JAXA successfully launched the H-IIA rocket following a previous failure (hence, the “peeled metal plating” title).
Continue ReadingDear Diary – May 12, 1999
September 11, 2023
Just because you aren’t paranoid doesn’t mean that they aren’t out to get you.
Bringer of Light first draft completed (finally!)
September 10, 2023
Way back in 2015, my good friend Rami Z Cohen came to me with an idea for a story. He had written two or three scenes about a group of asteroid hunters who stumbled upon something bizarre. The idea of mining asteroids was news at the time (and still is, although probably too expensive right now and not a worthwhile investment until we actually get some people in space who need metals without relying on NASA/ESA/JAXA/ISRO/etc).
I was more interested in philosophical aspects of finding that we are all (as the late great Carl Sagan loved to put it) “star stuff” (he meant carbon being created by supernovas, but we also know that asteroids are the way we got amino acids to rain down on ancient Earth).
So Rami and I began to email ideas back and forth for a few weeks, then we started to flesh out his characters and plot. I wrote a synopsis and outline and we hashed out the background.
Continue ReadingDear Diary – January 4, 2019
August 31, 2023
It’s a lie. It’s all a lie.
When you believe in a lie, you fool yourself. When you say it with conviction, you fool others.
Get enough people fooled, and you got yourself a new religion.
Trapping light within metamaterial = ?
August 27, 2023
To explore new ways to control this fundamental force of nature, scientists from the City College of New York (CCNY) trapped light inside a magnetic metamaterial and made the material itself 10 times more magnetic in the process.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a44843071/scientists-trapped-light-inside-metamaterial-magnetic/
Next up, magnetic lasers and lots and lots of more magnetic memory savings.
(Note that Popular Mechanics links the phrase “magneto-optical technologies” to an article claiming that the US has somehow managed to reverse-engineer alien technology from crashed UFOs…Um…OK…)
M Thomas Apple Author Page 