AI — Artificial Intelligences — What do they think of us, their makers, I wonder? We think of them often, as God(dess) must have thought often of us as we slowly evolved from unicellular bacteria to the Tower of Babel we are fast approaching today. Are they even aware of us? BI (before the Internet) I think not, but today, I do wonder. While we humans seem to have a hard time mentally encompassing the interconenctive power of the AI internet, my gut says there’s enough interconnected AI...

AH, you thought I was about to post on how AIWs (Artificially Intelligent Whatevers) have changed the way we humans think in terms of human sex and gender. Nope. Couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m talking more in terms of determining the sex and gender of your personal AIWs. You know, your trusted computer, cell phone, home alarm system, self-driving program.

It all started the other day when, based on a computer incident, I began to wonder what sex my computer was. Male or female, ...

WHILE most would, like one version goes, “put em’ in your pockets,” for whatever paw-paws are saved — I mean, really, maybe it’s just a children’s song — until I came across Bill Beatty and Jan Runyan’s “WV Nature” website, believe it or not, about Paw-Paws — https://wvbirder.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/pickin-up-pawpaws-put-em-in-my-pocket-by-jan-runyan/. Total coincidence, serendipity, simultaneity! One of those rare “ah-ha” moments when something hardly worth noticin...

THERE! I’ve broken the LGBTQ+ ice with that title and topic, don’t you think? Of course, before that one would have to define a “straight” AI (Artificial Intelligence). Now what would a straight AI be like? I’m going to assume that at some point, we humans will want AIs to not only efficiently do their “jobs,” but also fix themselves, belying the question whether each human that comes into the world has a distinct job, whether our creator(s) continue to secretly assign such, or ...

CALL it a paradigm shift, a wisdom transformation or weltanschauung crisis, I was thinking this morning that our species has evolutionarily experienced several major shifts in point-of-view, one of the more interesting for me being the shift from a “horizontal” to a “vertical” viewpoint.

We are, after all, descended from the oceans, with it’s particular, salty, “horizontal-axis” orientation, experiencing a major shift to airy, “vertical” bipedal orientation when our ancesto...

As an actor (Daniel S. Janik aka author Daniel S. Janik / Raymond Gaynor / Gary Martine), I’m always scouting for more acting opportunities. I’m currently preparing for my role in the K. Simmons Production of FINDING KATE -- https://ksmediagroupinc.com/finding-kate and https://janik.yolasite.com/findingkate.php -- a 6-part series about computer genius, Kate Keenan, who develops a scriptwriting program that everyone wants, that, in the wrong hands could be a threat to national security. Th...

THINK Andy Warhol’s “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes” quote. With our part in the filming of the K. Simmons Production of FINDING KATE — https://ksmediagroupinc.com/finding-kate — slowly approaching, Setsuko and I have been busy working with our professional choreographer, North American 10-Dance Champion and World DanceSport adjudicator, Mr. Albert Franz, on our part in the “honor-dance-at-the-studio-party” scene and our supporting actor/actress line...

If you’re a Raymond Gaynor thriller fan, you may not know that I wrote two children’s books, the first, A WHALE’S TALE (Savant 2008) by Daniel S. Janik — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1442105062 — is available in printed, digital and audiobook format, the latter read by the incomparable Lynn Whitener. Illustrated by renown Oklahoma artist Ruth R. Janik. The adventures of a juvenile humpback whale on his way from Hawaii to Alaska as told by his childhood sweetheart. Written for adults to...

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,...

DURING these difficult times of unprecedented change, it’s easy to fall into a kind of blank-like despair. What’s important is to remember that life is the journey, and at least to some extent, we make our journey. One thing of which I like to remind myself during times like these, is that while I may have only one birthday a year to celebrate, I have 363-1/4 Un-Birthdays, all of which deserve celebrating, if only because I’m alive for another day.

But how to celebrate an Un-Birthday? ...

Just to be clear, I’m not referring to that little switch that maintains a car at a select speed. I’m talking bit time cruise control here, being a cruising enthusiast and baffled about when it’s really safe to return to cruising. The answers run the whole gamut from totally safe (no COVID test needed, no masks, no special onboard infection controls necessary to its simply not safe to crowd together on a cruise ship).

According to Bloomberg — https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletter...

I think some, therefore I must be, well, something. True, however, I can’t help but wonder how much of my thinking is simply want, hope and desire. Or dream for that matter. Is life a long series of unconscious déjà vues, one long jamais vu, or one long hopeless presque vu? In fact, if everything that’s “real” to our senses is, as we’re told by physicists and cosmologists, merely tight packets of vibrating energy, what can we know and trust outside of simple belief?

Actually, in ...

I DID IT! Having suffered with astigmatism for most of my life, last week I visited my eye doctor to see if I would benefit from lens replacement. Nope. But I could replace my glasses with contacts, which would greatly benefit my acting career. The “problem” is that there is no contact lens the would fully correct both eyes. The “solution” (ingenious really) was to have one eye corrected for near vision and the other for far vision. That is, one eye to read cue cards and the other to ...

YESTERDAY, I posted on Writing and Authoring. Today I’d like to talk a bit about Acting, a late-in-life career for me. It began with the opportunity of playing the lead role in the K. Simmons Production of STATIC (2021) — https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15420946 — and supporting actor roles in the Kurt Ken Kaminaka Production of THE PERFECT ILLUSION (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18690318) as well as the upcoming films THE MALTESE COLLECTION (https://ksmediagroupinc.com/maltese-collection),...

Ernest Hemingway once said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” After 5 decades of writing, or more precisely authoring (meaning writing for a specific readership), I feel as if my life is a perfect testament to that. That veil between what I feel compelled to say and what I actually need to say, grows fainter with each passing year. I’ve been asked several times, “About what do you have so much to say?” — admittedly a paraphrase — bu...

OKAY, so the stars are out 24/7, they’re just hidden by the sun in the afternoon. Except for OUR star, the sun which is exactly the opposite, which is glory-blazing in the afternoon and hidden at night. At night my fav stars are The Seven Sisters, Cassiopeia (the “W” constellation), and Hanaiakamalama (the Southern Cross), not to forget Polaris (Alpha Ursae Minoris), the “pole” star of the Northern Hemisphere, or Polaris Australis (Sigma Octantis), the Southern “pole” star.

But, ...

AFTER 20 years of dancing, it all up to hold, frame and posture. I know how to dance. I have gotten to the point where I can experience the sheer joy of moving with my partner through time and space. I’ve done performances and competition as I know my strengths and weaknesses. Now it’s all about replacing tine details with ones that better project our dancing so I can share my joy with onlookers.

I say “my,” but, of course, if it weren’t for my partner in International-style Ballro...

SO much hype these days about new opportunities to “make money fast” — I call persons who heed and act on this type of call “Fast Eddies” — when, in fact, the only institution that really “makes money” is a mint, and nowadays, only representations of money, being illusions representing the great illusion, money. It isn’t altogether inappropriate to try to “make money,” though counterfeiting is indeed a federal crime — a no-no in the all to human game of money, which, w...

I’VE posted numerous times about my opinion regarding money and power, both human-created illusions that it’s possible have brought more misery to humanity, the biosphere and planet than any other individual factors, existing as I believe they do, beneath the fabled four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. My point, however is that they are not the only greatest illusions but they are human-made.

To these two, I am rapidly approaching the point where I will have to add a third: Time. H.G. Wells ...

GIVE a person a pen and a new author emerges. But give a person a gun or a nation the weapons of war, and what does one do with it? Safekeep it. Then, after a time, practice with it. Once trained, deploy it. When the opportunity presents, use it. One of the most dangerous aspects of weaponizing is the compelling pull to use it for what it was created. To kill. Whether an animal, human, or simply by virtue of purchasing such a weapon and its required means of killing (e.g. expendable bullets, ...