May 29th, 2023 Mark O'Brien
As I’ve written previously, I have a very difficult time separating hate from ignorance. I take hate to be a subset or a symptom of ignorance. Ignorance can scale, of course. It can be as small as one Hibernophobe burning down my house. It can be as large as one power-mongering lunatic attempting to create […]
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May 29th, 2023 Mark O'Brien
Author’s Note: As I was creating the video that appears at the end of this post, I was recalling a piece I’d written some years ago, inspired by something I’d witnessed in a gym. Thanks to a portable floppy-disc drive and my pack-rat compulsion to hang on to my old floppy discs, I was able […]
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May 22nd, 2023 Mark O'Brien
After seeing the phrase, toxic narcissism, for about the two-millionth time, I did a search on signs of a narcissist. Since the browser I use is Brave, and since Brave doesn’t use Google, I don’t know how many hits I got. But I did learn this: Depending on the source you choose, there are between […]
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May 15th, 2023 Mark O'Brien
Notwithstanding the myriad of political diatribes I occasionally author in this column, it isn’t my intent to comment on politics particularly or exclusively. Politics is part of a larger discourse — even an inseparable part — but it is no more than a part. Because of my curiosity about all things behavioral and linguistic (and […]
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May 8th, 2023 Mark O'Brien
Given our seemingly endless fascination with UFOs — and because I was up for a research project anyway — I did some digging into records from the Director of National Intelligence, the Secretary of Defense, the Department of Defense’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, the Pentagon, Project Blue Book, Project Condign, Area 51, and Roswell, […]
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May 1st, 2023 Mark O'Brien
I don’t know what we’re doing. I truly don’t. Illegal aliens are streaming across the southern border, accompanied by thugs, drugs, and bugs, of which the coronavirus is likely the least. We do nothing. And we couldn’t care less. Please don’t tell me it’s a humanitarian issue. It’s not. There’s nothing humanitarian or humane about […]
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April 27th, 2023 Mark O'Brien
Don’t look now, kids. But it just got okay to be real people. Yes! Psychology Today published an existentially affirming article entitled, “Quit Feeling Guilty About Not Being Present”. Think of it! This may be all the reassurance you need about the fact that, as a human being, you’re blessed with a memory and the […]
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April 24th, 2023 Mark O'Brien
In case you didn’t happen to be looking for them, it’s my pleasure to report that the FBI has released its supplemental 2021 hate crime statistics. Whew! I was afraid they’d never be released. Here’s what you missed: The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program released a 2021 hate crime statistics supplement about bias-motivated incidents […]
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April 17th, 2023 Mark O'Brien
April 17, 2023 Mr. Chip B. Chippendale 1347 Circuit Drive Binary, AK 99651 Dear Chip, I read with keen interest your post, “Exploring Emotional Intelligence with Open AI and ChatGPT-3”. I readily admit to being curious by nature and skeptical by intent. But I try to temper my skepticism until my curiosity is piqued beyond […]
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April 12th, 2023 Mark O'Brien
Since it doesn’t appear ChatGPT is going anywhere any time soon, the other week I decided I should get to know it. So, I opened an account with Open AI and introduced myself. I don’t mean to appear immodest or braggadocious, but ChatGPT seemed to like me, at least initially. As we were engaging in […]
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