the iMentor

Hints & rants

This weB-LOG is about the musing of a technical consultant. It is the iMentor's thoughts on technology and the human condition.

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Noema

July 22, 2025 Uncategorized No Comments
Episode #860 July 26. 2025 I have observed that users of AI ask a question to receive an answer.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bul10h6dM_w This Q and A approach is like a Google summary, a conversational vending machine, stocked with facts, trivia, and the occasional clever turn of phrase. My approach with ChatGPT has been different. I didn’t come to the AI for answers. I came for engagement. For exploration. I came to ask questions, not to end the search, but to begin a conversation. In this unfolding relationship, I’ve learned that the real power of AI lies not in its database,...
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Improvise

July 16, 2025 Uncategorized 2 Comments
Episode #859 July 19, 2025   In this life the go-to plan B is Improvise.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heB8qqsIKC4&list=RDheB8qqsIKC4&start_radio=1   It was the height of the Great Depression. In May of 1930, my grandfather had run out of construction work. He, and everyone else in Los Angeles, were literally starving for a job. Byron Combs got wind of job openings at the newly opened Samson Tire and Rubber Company factory. When he arrived at the factory, its Assyrian Revival Mesopotamian architecture stood on Slauson Avenue like an Egyptian temple. There was a line of men that stretched along the building’s facade....
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Rhythm of Existence

July 10, 2025 Uncategorized 1 Comment
Episode #858 July 12, 2025   Some quantum strings vibrate in 4:4 time.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_LwJCxR7F4 I spoke of the vibrations of quantum strings with my friend. She is a physicist and a musician. I quoted Siddhartha: “The river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere, and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future.” Here is a summary of our conversation: What if the reason...
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In a Flash

July 1, 2025 Uncategorized 5 Comments
Episode #857 July 5, 2025   Hospice has been exhausting.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyTTi2BZxO0 I lie in my bed with the quiet clink of dinner dishes and whispered conversations floating upstairs. Out of the window, the neighborhood murmur is drowned by the rattle of my breathing. My breath comes broken. It is chains whipping in a metal pipe. Each draw of air scrapes the silence raw. Suddenly, my breathing stops. The loudest sound is the quiet between heartbeats. I look up through the skylight over my bed. I see my earliest memory, a newly leafed acacia tree in the purple bloom...
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Science

June 26, 2025 Uncategorized 1 Comment
Episode #856 June 28, 2025 Science is a process and a method.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3hrPrJfXz4   “Science is not the truth. Science is finding the truth. When science changes its opinion, it didn't lie to you. It learned more.” — Brené Brown It is easy to question science when it seems to contradict itself. The truth is not absolute; it is revealed reiteratively. The basic steps of the Scientific Method are: Observation Question Hypothesis Experiment Analysis Conclusion Communicate Results Invite review (loops back to Observation) We are all pretty good at Observation. Scrutiny, Focus, Comprehension and Comparison are key to...
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Business getting done

June 16, 2025 Uncategorized No Comments
Episode #855 June 21, 2025 Business getting done by Ricki T Thues     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnVkLbfhL9g   The tradeshow exhibit office is alive with sound. The wide-format printer whirrs as the paper feed rustles and rolls. Salesmen pitch the newest booth design on their telephones in a persistent monologue, persuasive and impatient at once. Designers squeak markers on drawing boards. My assistant taps his pen on an estimate form. Blended with the rhythm of the business is the ring of telephones, the shuffle of feet and the booming interruption of a PA page. Behind it all is the low hum of...
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