The headline of this article was inspired by an excellent book by Erik Larson I have just finished reading called The Myth of Artificial Intelligence – Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do. In this book, the author argues that despite all the current hype about artificial intelligence, or AI, computers will never be able to think like a human or, for that matter, any animal. He points out that the brain is...
(First published on March 1, 2021)
Part 1: The Basics
Artificial Intelligence has people fretting. High-profile disagreements among tech gurus make us wonder, anxiously, what the future will be like for ordinary people. If geniuses like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and the late Stephen Hawking cannot agree on the usefulness and the relative benefits or dangers of AI, what hope is there for us to understand or even imagine how our lives will change? Will all...
The energy transition of the 21st century – the transformation of energy sources from primarily fossil fuels to a more diverse and resilient set of energy generators – is profoundly changing humanity’s demands on the earth’s resources.
Many of today’s key resources will continue to be important in the coming decades – e.g., iron ore, sand, and gravel, lime (for cement), coal, oil, natural gas, wood and other forest products are a few. But there...
I don't believe my friends would ever describe me as humble.
I am an extrovert who rarely wears a shirt during the summer (playing beach volleyball, not like walking through the mall), and I am a fairly prolific writer.
I have written hundreds of posts on LinkedIn, many quite controversial, and have penned more articles than any other journalist for the truth/integrity-focused media platform that I launched at BIG Media with a few associates last year.
This morning,...
In an article published by BIG Media Ltd. earlier this year, Lee Hunt presented an analysis of severe COVID-19 outcomes in children based on data from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
At the time of writing, both Pfizer and Moderna were seeking approval for their mRNA COVID vaccines for children under the age of 5 years, worldwide. That request was granted for the U.S. in mid-June 2022.
Since then, publicly available data...
The political spectrum is often thought of as a linear progression with extreme views at the far right, and extreme views at the far left. Moderates on each side are closer to the middle.
However, I see it as more of a curved continuum as shown in the diagram, modulated by a key factor: fear.
In my visualization, left and right meet in two places; low fear and high fear. Where left and right overlap in...
I have read many articles claiming that costs of wind and solar generation are lower than alternatives, and that rapidly declining costs seen in the past will continue unabated in the future, reducing the cost of electricity for consumers.
Is that all true? Have the costs of generating electricity from wind and solar generation actually declined in recent years? Will they decline rapidly in the future? And will such reductions, if realized, make electricity cheaper...
Canada outperformed 10 comparable OECD nations in the first two years of its pandemic response, concludes a study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
According to Razak et al., the country’s lower numbers of detected cases, COVID-19 deaths, and excess mortalities from all causes were linked to the persistence of Canada’s social restrictions and that Canadians were better vaccinated than people in comparable “peer” nations.
The study ranked the responses from Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy,...
Many would agree that the energy world has changed dramatically over the past couple of years. In early 2020, energy commodity prices, particularly oil, plummeted as response to COVID-19 devastated demand and producers could not sell their oil. Markets recovered slowly through 2021 as the world worked its way through the pandemic – then oil, gas, coal, and electricity prices exploded in 2022 as energy shortages became apparent, followed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine...
Just as the world seems to be turning the corner on COVID, suddenly the talk on the street is all about monkeypox. What is it? How dangerous is it? Is it the next COVID?
The following summary is based on information gleaned from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), and the National Health Services (NHS) of the U.K.
Unlike COVID, monkeypox has been around for decades,...
