Bernie Goldbach

What Happened to the Blue Wave of Enthusiasm

Wondering why a fresh blue wave failed to wake up America–it looks like Donald Trump will never need to leave the White House. What I’m seeing at sunrise after the 2024 US elections is a big win for Russia, a loss for Ukraine, win for big business, loss for the environment, big win for …

Sharing things inside my shoulder bag

I’m planning a hands-on AI workshop for OEB.global at the end of November, sharing some of the contents of my sling sack. #OEB24 The workshop is billed as a “Hands-on Practical Workflows with AI Tools”. I need to make videos in square format, based on how this content pushed out to …

Loving NotebookLM

While using NotebookLM, I discovered that each source can have up to 500,000 words. So I compiled a collection of snippets that I’ve saved inside Readwise into a single notebook. I have more than 5000 quotes in a single notebook.I capture hundreds of quotes every year by highlighting passages …

Meet America's Most Successful (Illegal) Immigrant

Elon Musk, enemy of “open borders,” launched his career working illegally, according to Maria Sacchetti, Faiz Siddiqui, and Nick Miroff in the Washington Post. Investors in Musk’s first company worried about “our founder being deported” and gave him a deadline for obtaining a work visa. …

Those Educated Irish Women

Irish women are among the most-educated in the world–especially compared to American women. According to the OECD, “Secondary attainment improved across most OECD countries. Educational and labour-market outcomes have improved for the young adults most at risk of falling behind. Girls …

Empowered with Ideas. Helped by visualising them.

We’re using three different AIs in a action-packed session with young teens today. Otter.ai is recording thoughts about problems and the link takes you to an unedited transcript. Meta.ai is taking photos with Ray-Ban smart glasses and you can see some of those photos inside the Meta View album …

Personal Knowledge Management in a Vault

I’m a big fan of personal knowledge management (PKM) and I have a dog-eared copy of Building a Second Brain as proof that I’m deep into the idea. I teach the fundamentals of keeping a vault on a laptop, syncing core materials to a handset, and maintaining a public view of a PKM online. …

Pseudo-Productivity and Knowledge Work

Since late 2022, while using AI toolsets nearly every day, I have noticed it is easy for me to think I am productive just because I am running ChatGPT prompts. And after sharing examples of my workflow with more than 200 people during AI training sessions, I realise I am not alone in challenging …

The Essence of Lingering

Laura van den Berg shares a story and recalls the joy of walking Oscar, a mixed Lab. “When Oscar was younger, I would sometimes grow impatient with how much time he could spend smelling one little spot. Then a dog trainer told me, ‘Imagine someone says, ‘I’m going to take you to an …

Talking to my virtual assistant

One of my go-to collaborators is Perplexity, my virtual assistant. I ask her questions several times a day, often to check facts or to memoralise notes to self. Today, while toggling between Mairead Pratschke’s excellent new work and some course notes for UX students, I asked Perplexity to go …

Fake Profile Alarms Politician

I’m reading a report in The Sunday Times of Ireland about a swingers' site that published a profile of an Irish politician. The account has been taken down but the presence of the profile has raised concerns in some circles. “Senator feared for her safety over fake profile on swingers …

Slipstick Memories

Some people consider the slide rule as an icon of computational obsolescence. I think the slide rule is alive an well in the artillery community in the form of a graphical firing table. Despite the Ukrainians having $50,000 fire direction computers to calculate data, soldiers in the field still use …

Thoughts from Zuck about Free Speech and Misinformation

Zuck is grappling with the challenge of maintaining a platform that supports free speech while also combating misinformation. He has vowed to push back against government pressure to censor content in the future. Meta has changed its internal policies so it no longer demotes content while waiting …

While the Wayback Machine continues to get bashed by hackers, I’m so glad bog-standard forums like Boards.ie and the CESI List keep on providing valuable continuity. aftermath.site/best-acti…

I have become very appreciative of “Designed by Apple in California” because of the clever user experience enabled by Airpods Pro.

Breakthroughs with AI Mobile Voice

Some of the best insights are Trust Insights. I learn a lot from following Christopher Penn as he shows readers and listeners and viewers how to leverage voice interfaces on mobiles. And how to turn ChatGPT into a podcast host. Every week, I enjoy big reveals from Christopher, Neville Hobson, and …

Wondering if you can federate audio

Trying to figure out if audio can be federated by starting at my microblog mobile screen with a meandering clip recorded on Spreaker at open.spreaker.com/CoeeYGHPx… So I will look for cross-publishing on Bluesky and Threads. If making a single five minute clip on a subscription audio platform …

We potty train scavengers who visit. And we have an album of more felines.

Porting my Readwise to NotrbookLM

I am trying to create my own LLM by leveraging thousands of highlights I have made with web clippings, podcast notes, research abstracts, Instapaper articles, Otter summaries, and Kindle highlights. These things are stored inside Readwise. I have packed 5280 quotes inside a single notebook which …

Thoughts about Bluesky for Class Discussion

I am teaching four different academic modules this semester and think we need to talk about Bluesky as a watering hole. On my University campus, 15 of the first 150 people to use Twitter in Ireland came from classrooms where we discussed that social network. Much has changed since 2007 when we had …

Elvis Evolution in London 2025

I am waitlisted by the ExCel in London when the Elvis Evolution opens in early 2025. The King of Rock and Roll’s immersive biopic captures Elvis in hologram form. Layered Reality, the production studio, used real-life performances, facial movements, and voice structure from hundreds of hours …

TEKenabled DX

I teach digital transformation on a government-funded Springboard programme in Ireland. I need to talk to TEKenable to get their take on the thought space. I noticed TEKenable has 20 jobs available in its aviation division, including sales, dev, support, mktg, and management. The new jobs come on …

Tell People You Are an Intern

I tell young students to list their current “job” as “desired job title intern” on LinkedIn so the algo generates more meaningful jobs info. One talented animation student listed the name of the restaurant and “waitress” as her job title so all she gets is …

Debating a Loser

Simply by turning off the sound of their televised meeting, you could tell who won the debate between Trump (who looked like an incumbent) and Harris (who appeared as a challenger). The debate highlighted stark contrasts in their demeanor and messaging. Trump appeared frustrated, interrupting …

Taxing my hair

Irish haircuts have become more expensive since barbers are part of the hospitality sector and their VAT rate has increased. So I pay for my cuts because the govt is taking more from my hair Nearly 600 hospitality businesses closed in the past 12 months because the VAT rate went from 9% to 13.5%. So …