AUTHORS like me, Daniel Janik (aka Raymond Gaynor/Gary Martine), used to call them our “readers” in a respectful voice. ACTORS like me, Daniel S. Janik, used to call them our “fans,” treating every fan like royalty with appreciation. POLITICIANS, BUSINESSPERSONS, ADVERTISERS and INFLUENCERS typically call them or at least regard them as minions, with a decidedly derogatory tone, and, unfortunately, that attitude is spreading from business to everything business touches these days. In ...

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PROMISED by Reds and Blues alike for decades, but especially after the COVID “shot across the bow,” updating our nation’s infrastructures has been much hooted, but barely addressed issue that is now beginning to impact all citizens more and more.

Take the internet, for example. The key to doing business in the future is a necessary shift from “in-person crowd sales” at brick and mortar stores, to “individual service via distance online” stores. The problem: the internet. What u...

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HAVING just recently posted a number of times about AIs (Artificial Intelligences), it surprised me when several days ago weird things began happening, all AI-related.

First, my AI-controlled car door locks began failing off and on.

Then, my Macintosh MacBook Pro and iPhone started acting wonky.

At the same time, I suddenly couldn’t access my WordPress blog account, and worse yet, internet connectivity on my supposedly private dedicated subscriber line (DSL) began losing bandwidth, makin...

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HEARD of or experienced Pishing? Or the latest; what I call “swishing” in emailing? I recently was informed that my email had been “hacked,” but following up on this, I discovered someone with an entirely different email address simply had put my name on it their email. And, of course, this was supposedly accompanied by all sorts of nefariousness from within the account, much of it, I suspect phishing. The point is, as unethical, often criminal activity spreads within the email world,...

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ACTUALLY, I’ve had this feeling for quite a long time now, since well before the Great Pandemic (though admittedly that certainly added substantially to the feeling). As an author, I’ve been presented with increasing numbers of opportunities to provide content to businesses at either no payment, or worse, increasing personal cost. Huh? This certainly isn’t Kansas anymore! So who’s getting paid for my increasingly voluntary literary “donations?” I can personally attest to the fact ...

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If the currency of business is money (ask President Trump), then the currency of education, or, more accurately academia, is truth. Academic (truth) was always the counterweight for business (money), holding us in the end to a moral/ethical standard. But what today constitutes truth? It's a slippery slope at best these days. 

I still recall a time before computers first appeared! Couple that with the sheer magnitude and ease of access of the Internet, and I also recall the first academic paper...
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I'm often asked where in the great scheme of things educational I think our current American system of education falls.  On the surface it seems like an easy question that begs a simple "rank" answer.  Think about it awhile, however, and both the question and any answer that might result become complexly rank.  As an academician, I value clearity, completeness and conciseness, in that order, so, I have decided to take on this "simple" question as the topic of today's entry. 

Hold your nose!  ...
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