Gosh, what a week. Feels like Christmas is on us already. And winter. I’ve already sent some presents off to Ecuador, although apparently they got left behind by KLM in Schiphol. For some reason I have a way of trusting people in whose hands I place my life – people like doctors, surgeons, anaesthetists, pilots, sea captains, bus drivers… Maybe it’s misplaced trust. Maybe the alternative is just too terrifying.
However what I do not trust is the technology, the “intelligent” features build into every new release, features like the anti-stalling algorithm which combined with a faulty sensor, kept forcing the aircraft’s nose down leading to that recent crash. It’s the paradox where what is claimed to be “intelligence” is completely lacking in any wider understanding of the context or common sense. Artificial stupidity. And it also leads to de-skilling of humans whose role is relegated to just monitoring the machine.
Someone asked me “What is there at home that you want to go back to?” but the implicit answer is “my self” and the space, physical and mental, that I have constructed to live in. Bogart and Lauren Bacall, To Have and Have Not.
B: Walk around me, clear around me
L: Hmm
B: You find anything?
L: No. No Steve. There are no strings tied to you. Not yet.
Such an amazing scene. 
Not yet.