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Texting has contributed to the lost art of talking on the phone. I think we’ve forgotten about how fantastic phone calls really can be. We mistakenly think texting can serve the same purpose. Alas, it cannot.

When there is no voice, there is no originality. You can’t copy and paste a telephone conversation. A phone conversation is one of a kind. It is a wildly rare and fabulously distinct jewel shared only by two people.

When there is no talking, there is no listening.
Be honest, do you really read texts. Or just skim them? And does a simple “lol” or “I get that” work as a sufficient response, depending on the gist of the conversation. You can’t skim a phone conversation. When you pay half attention during a phone conversation the person on the other end is quick to call you out. “Are you listening? Okay, then what did I just say?”

You won’t have the luxury of scrolling up the screen to find your answer. During a phone conversation there is less time to think, giving the conversation more honesty. When there is more calculation – like in a text, there is less candor. You may think you rock over text. Mastered the art of gifs, emojis and witty one-liners, but is any of that really you.

I came across something interesting the other day. And yes, it was on the internet. It was posted in 2014 “When Will Newspapers Become Extinct?” Curious, I couldn’t not not click.

That prediction comes from The Future Exploration Network’s research on the future of media. According to the research, newspapers as we know them will be extinct across the entire globe by 2040.

By 2025, they predict newspapers will be extinct in nearly 20 countries around the world:

2017: United States
2019: United Kingdom and Iceland
2020: Canada and Norway
2021: Finland, Singapore, and Greenland
2022: Australia and Hong Kong
2023: Denmark
2024: New Zealand, Spain, Czech, and Taiwan
2025: Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland

CRA and SIN scams are ramping up.

DRPS and the RCMP have reported calls from residents saying they have received calls from a person claiming to be an officer from the CRA. The scammers are also asking for SIN numbers under the pretense they were compromised. In a new twist, scammers are using the DRPS non-emergency line, 905-579-1520, to appear legitimate.

Caller ID spoofing is the practice of causing the telephone network to indicate to the receiver of a call that the originator of the call is a person – or in this case a police station, other than the true originating station.

The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) with the capability to quickly cull the internet to answer any question with fully formed sentences is having a seismic effect on many but will AI replace writers and journalists? Will the use of AI diminish our value in the long run?

I did my research and went right to the source — in this case, ChatGPT. When I asked it whether AI will replace writers and journalists, the answer was pretty much what I had anticipated. And conveniently, without the limitation of copyrighted content ownership, I’m able to offer the bot’s instantaneously generated response here, in its entirety:

While AI has advanced significantly in recent years, it is unlikely that it will completely replace writers and journalists. AI can certainly generate written content, but it is currently limited in its ability to produce writing that is truly creative, nuanced, and insightful. AI-generated content tends to be formulaic and lacks the depth of understanding and creativity that human writers bring to the table.

With all the rain we’ve been having, it got me thinking… with all the talk of climate change and global warming, what ever happened to acid rain? Thirty years ago, it was all anyone could talk about. Is acid rain still something we should be worrying about?

Turns out, yes, acid rain is still around – and yes, it’s still a problem. It’s just a bit less of a problem.

Can acid rain kill you? I remember as a kid hearing about acid rain was scary. Vivid images were conjured up of people’s flesh being burned off, holes burned into the ground, into everything.

For those too young to remember, acid rain is a pretty straightforward appellation — it’s rain that’s been turned acidic by particles in the atmosphere. Rain is naturally slightly acidic, since it picks up carbon dioxide in the air, producing carbonic acid. But when it starts absorbing industrial pollutants like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, the acidity becomes troublesome.