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Professionally, I’m a retired professor of accounting and former chair of the School of Accounting at the University of South Carolina’s Moore School of Business. My academic work explored how people make decisions in complex systems, especially when information is imperfect or overwhelming. I’ve published in a fair number of journals that few people read voluntarily, and I spent decades thinking about how technology shapes human behavior. These days, my time is divided between managing a small flock of chickens, herding goats, chatting on amateur radio (KO4LMP), and living just on the edge of the grid—literally and metaphorically. I’m a father to five daughters, a grandfather to 17, and a great-grandfather to three. Somewhere along the way, I realized that what I enjoy most is simply talking about the world we live in—and how to make sense of it.

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  • 🩺AI Takes on Social Media Health Advertising

    The red text below was copied from a typical Facebook advertisement suggesting that cinnamon cures type 2 diabetes. It represents a broad category of advertisements for a large variety of products, from secret cure health supplements to gadgets that perform miracles. Hint: You might want to skim the red or even just entirely skip to…

  • 🎓When Parents Give No Choice

    Once I had a college student who I suggested she should choose a different major, one that she actually liked and was good at. She exclaimed that she wished very much that she could, but both her parents were accountants, and they gave her no other choice but also to be an accountant. That little…

  • 🐕Reforming Crazy Jim

    I asked ChatGPT: Here’s a snippet from a book I wrote, Chronicles of an Awkward Adult on Amazon, and I’d like your detailed analysis about what is true, what is based on truth but elaborated on, and what is totally fiction. Hermit-like people abound in the forlorn stretches of Utah’s no man’s land. Strangely, hermits…

  • 🪲Are Ticks Behind the Rising Meat Allergy Rates?

    I had an electrician doing some work for me, and he told me that he watched a podcast in which a farmer claimed that on his farm he found boxes full of ticks infected with a disease that makes people allergic to meat. The podcast guest claimed the boxes had apparently been dropped from the…

  • 🐟Goldfish Wedding Disaster

    Years ago, Elaine and I went to a wedding reception of someone who will remain nameless. For decorations, each table was liberally adorned with beautiful flowers, et cetera, highlighted by a goldfish inside a bowl of sparkling water. It was a very pleasant concept. The only problem was that the water temperature changed in the…

  • 🐟The Life Lessons from a Goldfish Who Wouldn’t Die

    My dad relates a story about his mother, my grandmother. She transferred a little goldfish to a new temporary bowl so that she could wash and clean the permanent bowl. The temperature difference of the water was too great and the fragile fish immediately went belly up. Wanting to give the goldfish a proper burial…

  • 📻Getting Started with Handheld GMRS Radio

    I ordered a handheld two-way GMRS radio and had it drop shipped directly to my dad. After spending about an hour with him on the phone trying to program it to talk on a local repeater, it became clear that they had sent him instructions for a different radio than we were using. I downloaded…

  • ⌛Ghosts of Washington, Telsa, Mao, Queen Victoria, Aristotle, Gandhi, King, and Napoleon Convene a Round Table

    Chat history You said: I’d like you to continue our mind experiment as you have conjured up some historically significant people and had them respond to the current world and U.S. national situations AS THEY WOULD RESPOND not as one group or another today think they would respond. This time could you have Martin Luther…

  • ⌛What Would Aristotle Say If He Were Alive Today? Insights on Modern Society

    Chat history You said: Please continue our conversation about the state of the world and the U.S. but this time conjure up Aristotle if that is possible. It is helpful when you explain how you arrived at your response. ChatGPT said: Let’s bring  into the room—not as a modern pundit in a toga, but as the…

  • ⌛What Would Tesla Say if He Were Alive Today? Reflections on Our Modern Energy and Communication

    Chat history You said: Our conversations with historical figures about our times have proven to be very interesting indeed. Please continue our conversation about the state of the world and the U.S. but this time conjure up Nikola Tesla. It was helpful when you explained how you arrived at your response. ChatGPT said: Let’s bring…