By now, you may have read something about the report to Congress about unidentified flying objects. Editors like to get things a little ahead of time, and I’m writing this
Folks who worry about a particularly abstract racism want to get rid of statues of such accused old-time racists as Christopher Columbus and Frank Rizzo, and will probably think of
There seem to be a lot of articles about artificial intelligence in newspapers and magazines these days. Some of the other stuff in print makes me think that what we need is more regular intelligence,
Last week, the legislative branch of the 27-country European Union headquartered in Brussels announced plans to restrict the use of artificial intelligence. Itâs an attempt to head off abuse of artificial intelligence technology, instead of waiting for it to be a problem the way the United States does.
Artificial intelligence simulates human intelligence in computers that are programmed to think and act like human beings. (Hey, what could go wrong?)
Youâre reading a newspaper. Thank you. Iâm writing for one, and there soon may not be many left.
According to the 1960 World Almanac, which I carefully selected as my source because I happen to have a copy, there were 1,791 daily newspapers in the United States, with a combined circulation of 57,413, 319 on weekdays and 46,984,686 on Sundays.
Google, that computer know-it-all, reports that in 2020 there were only 1,260 dailies. It says that 488 daily newspapers have disappeared over the last half-century!
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My father was a prodigious reader, and when I was a little boy we had four Philadelphia newspapers delivered to the house. In the morning came the Morning Ledger and The Record. Dad wouldnât buy the Inquirer, because he claimed it was anti-union.   Â
Our NASA and the European Space Agency plan to launch the billion dollar James Webb Telescope into orbit from the ESA spaceport in French Guiana on Halloween, though itâs neither a trick nor a treat.
The telescope is designed to look deep into space to see the earliest stars and galaxies that formed in the universe. Soon, astronomers will be able to use it to get a close look at thousands of planets. Maybe they will discover some other planets that are inhabited.
But now, along comes theoretical physicist Machio Kaku, a well-known professor at the City College of New York, to throw astronomical cold water on the idea.