The Curious Engineer

All blogs / Essays / personal

Life Since the Baby Boom

albertcory50.substack.com

Amusing stuff from a Boomer Flâneur in high tech. Click to read Life Since the Baby Boom, by Albert Cory, a Substack publication.

Essays / personalGeneralSociety / politics / economy

’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
289 from 29 May 2022 to 5 Oct 2026
Posting
monthly (23 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
Feed
https://albertcory50.substack.com/feed

2026 20

  1. Phones are the New Cigarettes, Part 1
  2. Who Benefits from the “High-Speed Train”?
  3. Why Can THEY Build High-Speed Rail, Part 2
  4. Why Can THEY Build High-Speed Rail, Part 1
  5. Those Dangerous Bagels
  6. How Blood, Sweat, and Tears Died
  7. What is a Political Hire?
  8. Out With The Instant Pot
  9. Run for Whatever
  10. Medical Judgment and Your Dog
  11. Treating the Smartphone Addiction
  12. Treating the Smartphone Addiction
  13. How to Teach Your Dog Tricks
  14. The "Bullet Train" - Where Does the Money Go?
  15. My Cousin Ron
  16. Why I Don't Like Live Steely Dan
  17. When Reality Hits You Over the Head
  18. Meditation Without the Woo-Woo
  19. Marty Supreme
  20. Who are the Social Media Sites For?

2025 64

  1. Night Train to Lisbon
  2. What the Elites Get Wrong About Immigration
  3. Parricide
  4. Who'll Be the Next Walter Duranty?
  5. The Future: Who Wants It?
  6. The First Truck Drivin' Song
  7. Homemade Pizza: Not Difficult
  8. Whatever Happened to Mitch Miller?
  9. No, Software Patents are not Innovation
  10. How Grift Works
  11. Some Serial Fiction For You
  12. Yes, You Can Sing
  13. You're Going to Be a Programmer
  14. Literature in the Octagon
  15. Don't Try This at Yellowstone
  16. Is This STEM?
  17. Socrates and Montaigne On the Internet
  18. Baseball Players in the Wrong Profession
  19. AI Musical Slop
  20. American Express, the Roach Motel
  21. Grow Herbs, not Vegetables
  22. The Aging Athlete
  23. A Fun (And Predictable) New Zealand Flick
  24. Artists Outside Their Comfort Zones, 1.0
  25. Middlemarch
  26. Term Limits and the Political Class
  27. Dipping a Toe into Bollywood
  28. Whatever Happened To ... Part 2
  29. No Nukes
  30. Whatever Happened To ....
  31. They Still Don't Get it
  32. The California "Bullet Train"
  33. Something Went Wrong. Never Mind What.
  34. What the Google Monopoly Verdict Means
  35. I Write Like...
  36. Why is Sunday 4/13 Passover
  37. AI Illustrates Rock Lyrics: The Answers
  38. Cracking an Egg One-Handed
  39. AI Ruins Your Fun
  40. AI Illustrates Rock Lyrics, Updated
  41. AI Invents a Book For Me
  42. Last White Folks in the Neighborhood
  43. Author Talks I Hosted, Part Two
  44. My Intellectual Heroes, Part 4
  45. Author Talks I Hosted, Part 1
  46. That Time I Was on the Radio
  47. Broadcast TV: It Only Looks Dead
  48. Twitter and Content Moderation
  49. Let My People Go
  50. My Intellectual Heroes, Part 3
  51. Have the Democrats Learned Nothing?
  52. Big Bird Saves Public TV
  53. Raising a Puppy
  54. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 33
  55. Orwell Was Way Ahead of You
  56. Notes on Chapter 32
  57. Great Movies You Might Not Have Seen, Part 4
  58. A Mostly Fire-Free LA
  59. My Intellectual Heroes, Part 2
  60. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 32
  61. Notes on Chapter 31
  62. Great Movies You Might Not Have Seen, Part 3
  63. My Intellectual Heroes, Part 1
  64. Great Movies You Might Not Have Seen, Part 2

2024 132

  1. Great Movies You Might Not Have Seen
  2. A Complete Unknown
  3. AI is an Assistant
  4. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 31
  5. Notes on Chapter 30
  6. Waffles From Scratch
  7. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 30
  8. Notes on Chapter 29
  9. Wokeness Dismantled, Part 3
  10. Thoughts of Chairman Mao on GenZ
  11. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 29
  12. Notes on Chapter 28
  13. Wokeness Dismantled, Part 2
  14. Wokeness Dismantled, Part 1
  15. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 28
  16. Notes on Chapter 27
  17. Will Elondia Be Like Fordlandia?
  18. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 27
  19. Notes on Chapter 26
  20. Ford's Colonialism in the Jungle
  21. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 26
  22. Notes on Chapter 25
  23. Movie Review: Anora
  24. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 25
  25. Notes on Chapter 24
  26. Technology to the Rescue!
  27. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 24
  28. Notes on Chapter 23
  29. Breaking Up Google
  30. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 23
  31. Notes on Chapter 22
  32. If You Can't Handle Spicy Food...
  33. 20 Years of YouTube Comments
  34. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 22
  35. Notes on Chapter 21
  36. The US Guano Islands Act of 1856
  37. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 21
  38. Notes on Chapter 20
  39. More Travel Stories From the 80's
  40. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 20
  41. Notes on Chapter 19
  42. "Traffic Violence" : The Grifters Go After Cars
  43. Rescuing Some 80's Travel Slides
  44. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 19
  45. Notes on Chapter 18
  46. Travel Disasters
  47. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 18
  48. Notes on Chapter 17
  49. Bad Sleep in the Hotel
  50. Bob's Big Boys
  51. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 17
  52. Notes on Chapter 16
  53. GenZ and its "Sense of Humor"
  54. Bikeshedding for Fun and Profit
  55. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 16
  56. Notes on Chapter 15
  57. A (Real) Lynching in San Jose
  58. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 15
  59. Notes on Chapter 14
  60. Seafood Linguine
  61. Did I Call It or What?
  62. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 14
  63. Notes on Chapter 13
  64. Fremont Older Sends Ruef to Prison
  65. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 13
  66. Notes on Chapter 12
  67. The No-Smartphone Gym
  68. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 12
  69. Notes on Chapter 11
  70. When the Open Office Didn't Work
  71. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 11
  72. Notes on Chapter 10
  73. That Dream Job
  74. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 10
  75. Notes on Chapter 9
  76. The Rule of Law, or Not
  77. Music: Is It Dead?
  78. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 9
  79. Fremont Older and the Gimlet
  80. The Smell Was Elephant S*** All Along
  81. Notes on Chapter 8
  82. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 8
  83. Fremont Older Picks a Mayor: James Phelan
  84. Are the White Sox a Replacement Team?
  85. Notes on Chapter 7
  86. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 7
  87. Notes on Chapter 6
  88. The All-Hyphens Baseball Team
  89. My Dad: A Life
  90. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 6
  91. Ken Burns, Faux "Storyteller"
  92. Notes on Chapter 5
  93. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 5
  94. Fenger's Most Famous Alumnus: Eliot Ness
  95. Notes on Chapter 4
  96. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 4
  97. Lecturing Birds on How to Fly
  98. Notes on Chapter 3
  99. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 3
  100. Joni Mitchell
  101. “Terrorists” on Air Canada
  102. Notes on Chapter 2
  103. This New Internet Thing, Chapter 2
  104. The Iranian Hostage Crisis and "Argo"
  105. Notes on Chapter 1
  106. This New Internet Thing
  107. Who Won The Pullman Strike?
  108. Words I Want to Use Someday
  109. The Pullman Strike: Aftermath
  110. Why the "Napoleon" Movie Was So Bad
  111. Anarchy in the US, Part 4
  112. This New Internet Thing
  113. Live Theater Comes to Google
  114. Anarchy in the US, Part 3
  115. AI Does Journalism
  116. Anarchy in the US, Part 2
  117. Flat Tire on Your Rental Car
  118. Anarchy in the US, Part 1
  119. Sudden Career Change
  120. Chicken-Fried Rice
  121. Guerrilla Filmmaking at Xerox
  122. Baseball, Without a Chauffeur
  123. Bring Back Private Offices, Part II
  124. Bring Back Private Offices
  125. Mandatory Labelling for Social Apps
  126. Who Wouldn't Enjoy Torturing Lawyers?
  127. Coming: New Book
  128. "City of New Orleans": Arlo Guthrie, Right?
  129. Substack Won't Make You Rich
  130. A Musical Education
  131. Buddhism Meets AI
  132. My Parents' Music

2023 52

  1. Chet Atkins
  2. Public Speaking
  3. Introduction
  4. Drive-By Charity
  5. The Big Lookback: Steely Dan, 1974
  6. Google Busts a Coffee Myth
  7. How I went from Type A to Type H
  8. When Black Friday Comes
  9. What's Missing with American CEO's?
  10. A Story Idea for You
  11. Whatever Happened to Creedence?
  12. In Tony Bennett We Trust
  13. Wilson Pickett Goes to Alabama to Make Some Funky Records
  14. Let God Design Your Garden
  15. New Material Coming
  16. Rock, Paper, Scissors
  17. Domo: Cautionary Tale of Hype & Inefficiency
  18. Back to School
  19. Gram Parsons - Fallen Angel
  20. A rock 'n' roll Camelot
  21. Lowell George - Feats First
  22. Optimism, Hubris, and Strategic Misrepresentation
  23. Management Lessons from Alice Cooper
  24. Why Big Software Projects Become Disasters, Part One
  25. This week: "Hired Gun"
  26. Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice
  27. 20 Feet from Stardom
  28. Once Were Brothers
  29. The Art of Leadership: Lessons from Art Blakey
  30. Beware of Mr. Baker
  31. Echo in the Canyon
  32. Muscle Shoals
  33. The Wrecking Crew
  34. Standing in the Shadows of Motown
  35. Music Movies for This Weekend
  36. How About NOT Overcoming Fear?
  37. ChatGPT LARP'ing as a Beluga Whale
  38. Let's Vote on It
  39. No Source Code == No Patent
  40. Reasons Why Software Patents Should Die: Part One
  41. How to Finish a Software Project on Time
  42. Who Does Layoffs Better: AI or Amazon's CEO?
  43. ChatGPT is Laying You Off
  44. When Talent is Not Enough
  45. Coming Monday, 3/13
  46. Working at Google: Maps Continued
  47. Coming Attractions
  48. For All My New Subscribers
  49. Working at Google: Maps
  50. Working at Google: Ads, Continued
  51. Working at Google: Ads
  52. Working at Google: Enterprise

2022 21

  1. What's Coming Up
  2. Public Speaking For Engineers
  3. In Larry's Kingdom (Part 2)
  4. In Larry's Kingdom (Part 1)
  5. What Next?
  6. Culture at Google: More Authors Plus Miscellaneous
  7. Culture at Google, Part Two: The Authors
  8. Should Elon Lay Off All Those Developers?
  9. Culture at Google: Part One, the Movies
  10. Baby, Please Don't Go
  11. Solo Travel Disasters
  12. Coming to America
  13. My Summer of Nixon and Watergate
  14. How I Beat the Draft
  15. The Weekly Schedule
  16. The Best Summer Job Ever
  17. No Compliments at the Miniature Golf Place
  18. Only Do Exercises You Like, On the Days You Want To
  19. What Do You Care What Other People Think?
  20. 50 Years of Running
  21. Coming soon