Author: Steve Ainslie

Even though I’ve been retired for 5 years, I am still interested in technology and business. So it’s probably no surprise that I’ve been following AI. I’ve messed around with various free AI systems – mostly ChatGPT and it’s competitors and found them to be more hype than anything else currently. This week, I tested…

I take my car to the dealer for its annual inspection for the past 5 years because the dealer gives me free oil changes for life. In addition to the mandatory annual NC state inspection and oil change, I have them rotate the tires, do alignments and perform other routine Honda maintenance. Each year, I…

In general, my default practice is to only load essential apps that I use regularly on my phone. I don’t want to provide data about my location, internet habits, app usage or any other private data to app providers and their “trusted partners”. So for me, that means I’ll never install Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and…

In recent years there’s been a lot of ranting about the “negative effects of social media on children” from media pundits, politicians, tech journalists, sociologists, authors, teachers and anyone else with (ironically) a social media account. Something all of these opiners have in common is that they are old. Like old people of every generation,…

In a post last week, I wrote about the wrong crowd. This week, I was thinking about the people who make up my community of loose connections. These are people who I interact with on a regular basis – some everyday, some weekly and some monthly. These people are all admirable. They are kind, conscientious…

In Michael Easter’s book, “The Scarcity Brain” he writes about the Our Lady Of Guadalupe Monastery in New Mexico and spending several days with the monks who live and work there. These monks live according to the Rule of St. Benedict, which proscribes a life focused on work and prayer for this isolated, self-sustaining monastery….

Yesterday, as I was about to enter the vet to get my dog’d nails cut man approached me and said, “Un momento?” I immediately expected him to ask me for money, since that seems to be what anyone who approaches me in a parking lot does. Instead he showed me his phone, pointed to some…

Coca Cola and Pepsi lost me as a lifetime customer a few years ago when both took advantage of the pandemic and post-pandemic years to raise their prices 3x. Being price gouged irritated me more than wanting the pleasure of drinking my daily Diet Coke & Diet Mt. Dew. F**k both of them. Goodbye and…

My friend recently went indoor rock climbing with his girlfriend and called to tell me about it. He, like me, is very into fitness, movement and physical challenges. And, unlike me, he’s been gifted with natural strength, flexibility and balance. So of course, he absolutely loved it. As he extolled the virtues of rock climbing…

I still miss My Little Sunshine Puppy Snickers. It’s been a year since the worst few months of our lives together, when she was suffering from dementia but I had not yet recognized the symptoms. When I am checking for something in my journal from those days, it makes my stomach hurt as I read…