Showing 1 - 9 of 9
Marketeers have simple choices
Life, James Hein, Published on 18/02/2026
» If you use a mobile phone for playing any games, then typically along with that comes all of the advertisements and marketing presentations. First however, there is the "free download", this means you can download it for free, install and run it. After that, things may not be free at all. This is to be expected as advertising is one of the few ways to make any income from the games being played by millions of people across the planet.
The hidden dangers of AI
Life, James Hein, Published on 24/09/2025
» There's going to be a lot on artificial intelligence topics this week so let's get started. For the time being, the most common way to leverage an AI product is using a prompt of some kind. To that end, you will see lots of posts on platforms declaring that they have the best god-level prompts for large language models (LLMs). A prompt is something like, "What are the top ten songs from Depeche Mode?", or "Draw me a picture of a frog on a toadstool in the style of Alice In Wonderland with vivid colours". The more detailed and nuanced the prompt, the better the desired outcome tends to be. As with everything in the computer world, there are bad actors looking to take advantage of this.
Microsoft stock booming on AI run
Life, James Hein, Published on 07/06/2023
» It's not a good time to be working for Microsoft, but it is a good time to be a shareholder or executive. Stock is up over 30%, net income is up and the CEO Satya Nadella got a nice 10% raise. Regular workers received no pay rise, or effectively a 5% pay cut due to inflation. Microsoft has rationalised it as pat and generic reasons like a "competitive environment" and the "global macroeconomic uncertainties". In reality, Microsoft is using the money to jump into the AI wave through a multibillion-dollar partnership with OpenAI.
SA follows CCP's lead?
Life, James Hein, Published on 19/08/2020
» The South African government is working to pass the Films and Publications Amendment Bill. Any quick read will give the conclusion that South Africa wants to be like China, i.e. they can censor anything they don't like from animated GIFs to non-commercial bloggers. Basically, anything that can be streamed, written or posted online will be subject to review. The strange thing about this story is that I have yet to see even the tiniest mention of it in the usual media sources. Instead I found it in a Parler post echoed by a blogger I follow there. Covid seems to have overrun all the other world news.
The internet grows darker
Life, James Hein, Published on 08/05/2019
» Social media has reached danger levels of influence and like anything powerful it can be used for positive or negative purposes. In countries like China you can say as many good things about the government on social media as you like but anything negative typically triggers a rapid response. The US and UK has its own sets of problems, with a tug-of-war between liberals and conservatives over the truth, with each side seeking to banish the other from social media. Self-defined open, inclusive and balanced social media platforms like Twitter are removing accounts on one side of politics in countries before elections, effectively meddling in elections.
Human override here to stay
Life, James Hein, Published on 10/04/2019
» Computers are useful tools and they will emotionlessly churn through thousands of operations in the blink of an eye to produce whatever results they were programmed to do. Most of the time the results are welcomed. When it comes to malware the results generate a different reaction, and then there are those spaces in the middle. The situation surrounding the Boeing 737 Max MCAS aircraft and the recent crash is an excellent example. The latest analysis would seem to indicate that the computer engineers made some choices that have had unintended consequences. In this case overriding the wishes of the pilots by assuming the plane was crashing, when it wasn't, and not allowing the human pilots to correct the computer's decisions.
The problem with censoring social media
Life, James Hein, Published on 27/03/2019
» In the aftermath of a recent violent event, there are calls to apply greater censorship to commentary on all social-media platforms. Those living in some Asian nations and elsewhere will already be used to the concept of censorship. That does not mean that others should follow this trend but instead should actively resist, as the ability to freely debate and exchange ideas was the original reason the internet was brought into being. The biggest problem with censorship is perspective. Consider two nation states with completely different cultures and perspectives. Which one and who gets to decide what is a valid opinion when the two are so different? This is the danger that now faces a number of Western nations, and apart from the US, where rights are enshrined in the Constitution, there is little protection. If you live in such a nation, let others know that freedom of speech and debate is a much better option than the alternatives.
What does 2019 have in store?
Life, James Hein, Published on 02/01/2019
» We've made it to 2019. There are a lot of buzzwords being touted for this year; top of the list are artificial intelligence, Blockchain and, once again, the internet of things (IoT). Yes, it's that time of year where I don my pointy hat of stars and guess what the year ahead might bring.
Cloud tech is no castle in the sky
Life, James Hein, Published on 06/06/2018
» So, who has the best cloud? Gartner has been looking into that for you and the results are in. Amazon's Web Services and Microsoft Azure are the top two with a combination of maturity, ability to execute and a completeness of vision. As cloud technologies have evolved people are no longer looking for simply some rented space for data storage but are demanding more functionality. They also want stable availability, good security along with great performance. Of the eight vendors examined, IBM and Oracle finished at the bottom showing that just having a long history doesn't necessarily keep you near the top.