Welcome to my new occasional newsletter.

1. What is AI? A podcast from MIT Technology Review. I really like this new podcast from MIT. It's brief, but strictly to the point. This one explains AI in an energetic game-show-like presentation. https://www.technologyreview.com/podcast/in-machines-we-trust/ or https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-machines-we-trust/id1523584878

2. I spoke at the IoT Workshop of the Precision Metalforming Association and MetalForming magazine virtual IoT Experience. https://www.pma.org/iot/default.asp with some ideas about IoT projects why and how.

3. The great IT/OT chasm still gets some notice. I continually notice that it's not as bad these days as 20 years ago. In an interview regarding a survey of security attitudes, Steve Applegate told me that currently it's more of a situation of misunderstanding of common terms than a gulf between the two groups. Cultural IT and OT Divide Blocks Many a Unified Cybersecurity Strategy

4. The new Rockwell Automation. Rockwell PR assembled five press conference sessions where 6-8 of us were in the room and many more watched online. Probably the new model. Many either cannot or desire to travel to so many conferences. Some notable non-product observations—a senior vice president who did not grow up in the Rockwell system but comes with a software background. Female senior vice presidents. Executive leadership for sustainability, workforce diversity, workforce development. Rockwell is growing, its stock price continues to shoot up, and it looks like a new company. https://themanufacturingconnection.com/2021/11/new-positions-at-rockwell-indicate-strategic-directions/

5. Worth pondering—Writer David Foster Wallace on the importance of controlling your attention: "Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about "teaching you how to think" is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed." Source: This is Water

Gary