Artificial, but not intelligent Let’s begin with definitions: Intelligence: the ability to learn, understand, and make judgments or have opinions that are based on reason. Artificial: made by people, often as a copy of something natural. Artificial Intelligence: the study of how to produce machines that have some of the…

A personal roll-call of my favourites over the years — In the first place, I make no claims for any of these to be ‘great’ or ‘classic’ games. They are nothing more nor less than personal favourites. Secondly, there will likely be spoilers, if only because most of these are old games that people will know about. Finally, I am…

If an illness can be a superpower… — Full disclosure — I’m currently in counselling. After the deaths of my parents in December and January, I needed to unpack my relationship with them. Especially in view of the fact that the only emotions I seem to be experiencing are resignation, relief and disappointment. But as these things do…

If you gaze too long into the navel, the navel gazes back into you — Ok, that’s the title because I forgot how to stop spelling ‘philosophophosophopho’…oh, FFS! You know what I mean! A lot of people do a lot of this on Medium and in other places. A lot of it happens after you’ve opened the third bottle of wine, I’ve noticed. There are…

Exercising due care — Some Basics To begin with, I have no doubt that what we choose to call ‘aliens’ (they will call themselves ‘humans’) are out there. A significant minority of stars will have planets, a significant minority of planets will have life and a significant minority of those will have life-forms capable of interacting…

Not a game, either — What follows are my own thoughts. They are based upon a lifetimes’ observations and experiences. Upon much reading, including on this platform, and much work done by myself for disadvantaged or unfairly treated individuals. Nothing in here claims to be exhaustive, authoritative or definitive. Just a tired, aging, man’s thoughts. …

Because I promised — Alarm goes off. Mutter imprecations and stab at buttons until I hit the right one. Open one eye and look at clock. Look again with both eyes. Seven-thirty -it’s a school run morning. Heave self out from under warm duvet to accompaniment of crackling joints and creaking muscles. …

There’s a reason for that — The late Isaac Asimov, scientist, rationalist, prolific writer and molester of women, used to get into arguments with people when he talked about ‘flying saucers’, rather than UFOs. His response was that, if the object were flying, and nobody knew what was, then it was indeed an Unidentified Flying Object…

New guy at the meeting — “My name’s Tom, and I’m a Bad Guy.” He announced. “Hi, Tom.” Everyone chanted. “I suppose I’m a fairly typical bad guy.” Tom went on. “Father abandoned mother, mother died after giving birth, raised in an orphanage. A backgroud like that, you’re either a hero or a villain, right? “Well…