When you see somebody with spinach in their teeth, the kind thing to do is to tell them privately. If you tell them to their face, in front of a group of friends and strangers, you get the same end result; the spinach gets removed. However in doing so you bring attention to the problem, and shame the participant in the process. So what could have been an act of kindness, quickly turns into an act of cruelty and public humiliation.
Stories of mass underemployment due to the rise of Artificial Intelligence have been popping up all over the place the past 18 months. It would be easy to dismiss them as crack-pot theories, were it not for the credibility of their authors; from scientists like Stephen Hawkins to industrialists like Elon Musk.
I learnt to dive the PADI way, safe in the knowledge that my "buddy" would be there to help if I needed them. So if I was struggling to get my fins on they'd steady me, if I got caught in some fishing line they'd untangle me, and in the unlikely event that I ran out of air, we could breath from the same source. The "buddy system" provides a great comfort blanket and makes recreational diving that much safer.
Looking back, my adolescence seems like a halcyon time, devoid of mobile phones and status updates. Heading into the big city was an adventure into the unknown, and even something as mundane as meeting up with friends was fraught with uncertainty and excitement.
Like many geeks in the UK, the Tower Bridge Twitter account was one of the first Twitter Mashups I'd seen. It was also the point where I realised that Twitter was more than just a simple communication tool; it was a powerful and scriptable platform.
There are a handful of people who follow me on Twitter who continually moan about the way I use the service. Some complain when I tweet about what I've eaten, who I've met or what I've done that day. Others complain when I use Gowalla or Foursquare to announce my location or post a stream of consciousness on a topic that is currently bugging me.