Category Archives: Short piece
The Marbled Mind
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 23rd December 2025Divergent analyses of the same information by people of equal insight, intelligence, and goodwill are a constant feature of human interactions. Politics is a prime example of this phenomenon, but they’re so contentious that either side of a political divide is likely to vigorously declare the other a prisoner of error rather than admit the…
› Read the full entry
Adventures in AI
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th September 2025I’ve been test driving a couple of AIs over the past few weeks. They’re quite proficient at assembling facts, dates, lists, and other information that would take a human a considerable amount of time to compile. But when it comes to opinions and judgments, it lacks proficiency and wisdom. The latter is tough to encode….
› Read the full entry
Why Really Smart People Can Be Really Stupid
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 4th September 2025Before I start, I must assure the reader that I will give no contemporary example that supports the premise of the title. To do so would alienate at least half my readers, who would in outrage, proclaim that I was the best proof of the title, or even worse, that I fit only the second…
› Read the full entry
The National Pastime
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th May 2025Wasting time. I know I’m stretching the title’s definition as it’s not agreeable, but it’s how we spend most of our waking hours. At least, those that don’t involve a screen. It’s waiting. And much of screen time is spent waiting for the desired screen to appear, receiving error messages, clicking on dead links, or…
› Read the full entry
More on Error
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 4th May 2025I’ve written about my old friend error before. Regardless of whether I acknowledge her presence or pretend she’s somewhere else, she’s always by my side ready to hurl the qui vive? when I stray from the path of accuracy, which alas is embarrassingly often. She has billions of sisters who are spread into every corner…
› Read the full entry
The New Pandemic – Very Unique Verbal Tics
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 5th January 2025There’s a current pandemic that no one seems to have noticed. Verbal tics and palsies have always been with us but they have grown to epidemic proportions since the recession of Covid. It has several variants, the most common of which is, you know. So pervasive is the you know variant that it has reached…
› Read the full entry
Credit Rating Agencies – Folie à Trois
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th December 2024There are three credit agencies that provide consumer reports. They are Transunion, Experian, and Equifax. They’re all addled. Below are the factors that they say they use to determine an individual’s credit score. Below that is what they really do. Payment historyOn-time payments is the number one factor credit scoring agencies use to assign a…
› Read the full entry
Joseph Schumpeter and a Broken Jar of Coffee
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 22nd December 2024Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) was an Austrian political economist. After a distinguished career in Germany, he emigrated to the US in 1932. He taught at Harvard for the remaining 18 years of his life. In 1942 he published his best-known work Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. He is famous for creative destruction a term he borrowed to…
› Read the full entry
Law, Lawyers, and Other Fables
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 9th September 2024“No one is above the law” is a bit of thick BS that usually comes from the mouth or pen of a person of malign intent whose goal is to deprive others of their liberty or property. Unspoken is their self-exemption from the principle which seems to have no real use save as a cudgel….
› Read the full entry
Remembrance of Things Past – A Fragment
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 31st July 2024It didn’t take a bit of cake dipped in tea, rather it oozed from my memory like an elderly snake as I paused between steps halted by the accumulation of years. A piece of the past, it came back to me in all its vivid complexity. I was a minor officer for a large medical…
› Read the full entry
