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AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude are best understood as thinking tools. They can help us clarify ideas, organize information, compare options, draft text, and explore possibilities. But they should not replace human judgment. That distinction is the foundation for using AI well. Used carefully, AI can make us sharper and more productive. Used carelessly, it can make us passive, overconfident, and less attentive to truth. What AI Is — And Is NotAI systems are trained on enormous amounts of text and data. They generate responses by recognizing patterns and producing likely, useful, and context-sensitive language. That means they can often:
But they do not understand the world the way you and I do. They do not have lived experience, values, responsibility, or concern for truth. They can sound confident without being correct. This is the first rule for using AI well: Fluent does not always mean true.
This is why these AI chatbots are useful and can sound so natural. They have learned many patterns of explanation, argument, tone, and structure. But prediction is not the same as verification. A response can be linguistically plausible and still factually wrong. AI Is Not Just SearchA search engine points you toward sources. AI often gives you an answer that sounds plausible and complete. That can be useful, but it can also be misleading. One should not think of AI as a tool that “finds facts”. It is better at shaping, organizing, and transforming information. It can help you think through a problem, but it should not be your final authority on reality. For current facts, technical details, science, legal issues, medical questions, financial decisions, or anything high-stakes, you still need verification from reliable sources.
Search is often better for finding sources. AI is often better for organizing, explaining, comparing, rewording, summarizing, and drafting. The strongest workflow is usually to combine both. Use AI to clarify and better understand the question, then verify important claims with reliable sources. Search is something AI models like ChatGPT already combine with generation, but one should still analyze outputs critically and verify. The Main RisksThe biggest risks are not mysterious. AI can hallucinate. It can invent facts, sources, quotations, or details that sound plausible. AI can be inconsistent. Ask the same question in a slightly different way and you will likely get a different answer. AI can reason shallowly. It may miss assumptions, edge cases, or contradictions. AI depends heavily on your prompt. A vague question usually produces a vague answer. Most importantly, AI can tempt you to outsource judgment. That is the real danger. Not that AI is useless, but that it is useful enough to make us lazy if we are not careful.
This is why hallucinations are so dangerous. They often do not look like errors. They look like normal explanations. Prompting Is Clear ThinkingPeople sometimes make “prompting” sound more complicated than it is. Much of it is just clear thinking. A weak prompt says: “Tell me about AI.” A stronger prompt says: “Explain how AI can be used well by ordinary people. Include strengths, limitations, risks, examples, and practical rules. Use plain language. Keep it clear and concise.” The second prompt works better because it gives the system a purpose, audience, structure, and standard. Good prompts usually include:
Using AI well often means making your own thinking more explicit.
A good prompt narrows the problem. It tells the system what kind of answer would count as useful. Final ThoughtAI is neither magic nor useless. It is a powerful language and reasoning tool with real strengths and real limits. The key is to understand what kind of tool it is. AI can help us organize, explain, compare, and draft. But it can also hallucinate, overstate, and mislead if we treat its fluency as proof of truth. In the next post, I will look at how to use AI more practically. Not just what to watch out for, but how to turn it into a useful partner for brainstorming, writing, learning, and decision-making.  Image generated with ChatGPT.
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Japan Trip Series, Part 9 After visiting Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and the museum, I also spent time with a different side of Hiroshima: Its castle, gardens, and food.
I enjoy castles in Japan. They sit somewhere between architecture, history, and atmosphere. Even when reconstructed, they help you understand the older shape of a city before modern streets and buildings took over.
The garden was originally created in the Edo period for Asano Nagaakira, the feudal lord of Hiroshima. It was damaged in the atomic bombing, later restored, and remains one of Hiroshima’s peaceful green spaces.
It was a nice change of pace. After heavier historical sites, Shukkeien offered quiet movement and beautiful nature. Walk, pause, look across the water, take a photo… repeat. And then: Okonomiyaki. 😋
 It is filling, savoury, and extremely satisfying after a long day of walking.  The atmosphere made it even better. A small upper-floor restaurant with a stellar cook and host.  This was the lighter side of Hiroshima for me: Castle grounds, garden paths, and a hot meal at the end of the day.  From there, it was time to catch the ferry to Miyajima Island. Note: All photos in this post were taken by me with an iPhone 17 Pro.
Japan Trip Series, Part 8 Hiroshima was one of the most packed and impactful stops on my trip. I was only there for part of the day, travelling from Osaka to Miyajima Island.  The Hiroshima Peace Memorial, also known as the Genbaku Dome or A-Bomb Dome, was originally the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall before it became one of the few structures left standing near the hypocentre of the atomic bomb dropped on August 6, 1945. It has since been preserved as a symbol of remembrance, peace, and hope for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Seeing it in person is difficult to describe. It is not dramatic in the way a monument is sometimes dramatic. It is quieter than that. The building stands there, damaged and skeletal, surrounded by a modern city that pulses with life. That contrast is the point. Memory and life exist beside one another there. Hiroshima does not hide what happened, nor does it allow tragedy to become the entirety of what the city is.
The Bell of Peace was another memorable stop. Visitors are allowed to ring it. The sound carries across the park in a solemn, echoing tone. It focuses the mind and encourages one to reflect on peace, loss, memory, and the shared responsibility of preventing such destruction from happening again.
The museum is emotionally heavy, as expected, but it is also important. It gives names, objects, images, and testimony to something that can otherwise be too abstract when discussed only as history. Hiroshima is often introduced through tragedy, but walking through the city also shows resilience. There are streets, shops, transit, parks, restaurants, and people living ordinary lives. That ordinariness matters too. A city can remember and still live.  Note: All photos and videos in this post were taken by me with an iPhone 17 Pro.
 Image generated with ChatGPT. One of the challenges of helping people find community supports is that they often do not know exactly what service they need. They just know they need help. That is where 211 Manitoba comes in. 211 is a free, confidential information and referral service that connects people with programs, services, and resources across Manitoba. It is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and helps people navigate everything from basic needs and housing to mental health, addictions, employment, education, income supports, newcomer services, programs for older adults, recreation opportunities, and much more. Callers are connected with trained Information and Referral Specialists, also known as Service Navigators, whose job is to help people identify and connect with appropriate services. You do not need to know exactly what you are looking for. You just need a place to start. The service is available by phone, online, email, and chat, and support is offered in more than 150 languages through interpretation services. While the website is an excellent resource, 211 recommends calling when possible, as staff can often help people navigate complex situations and identify options they may not have considered. For library staff, 211 is a reminder that we do not need to know every organization, program, or agency in Manitoba. Sometimes the most helpful thing we can do is connect someone with a service designed to help them find the right next step. A useful learning challenge for library staff is to visit mb.211.ca or call 211 and discover one community resource in their neighbourhood that they did not know existed. This is a simple way to build local knowledge and strengthen referrals for patrons. You can reach 211 by dialing 2-1-1, calling 1-855-275-1197, or visiting mb.211.ca. Know your resources. Share them wisely. Image generated with ChatGPT.
 Image generated with ChatGPT. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of those topics where the conversation can quickly become either utopian or apocalyptic. Depending on who you ask, AI is either going to solve every problem or take every job (and sometimes both). The truth, as usual, is more interesting and more complicated. That is why I found this video useful and wanted to share it. It takes a calm, practical look at artificial intelligence without pretending the risks are imaginary. The central message is a good one: AI is real, powerful, and disruptive, but it is still a tool.Today’s AI does not think, scheme, or secretly plan a robot uprising. It predicts patterns, generates plausible responses, analyzes data, and helps people navigate complex information. That makes it useful. It does not make it trustworthy by default. One of the strongest parts of the video is that it separates artificial intelligence from chatbots. Tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and image generators are the most visible examples of AI right now, but they are only one part of a much larger field. AI is already used in medicine, logistics, fraud detection, recommendation systems, spam filtering, scientific research, manufacturing, and infrastructure. In many cases, AI is not dramatic at all. It is invisible machinery helping complicated systems function better. That point matters for digital literacy. If we only think of AI as “the chatbot that writes essays or makes funny images”, we misunderstand both its usefulness and its risks. AI is better understood as a broad set of tools for recognizing patterns, generating drafts, sorting information, and supporting decisions. Sometimes that is extremely helpful. Sometimes it is dangerously misleading.The video also explains one of the most important habits for using AI well: Verification. Large language models are not databases of truth. They are pattern engines. They can summarize, draft, explain, translate, code, and brainstorm, but they can also produce confident nonsense. The practical lesson is not to reject AI or trust it blindly. The lesson is to guide it, question it, check it, and understand what kind of task it is suited for. I also appreciated the discussion of jobs. The video does not pretend disruption will be painless. Some work will be automated. Some career paths will change. Some people will be hurt by bad transitions. But it also avoids the simplistic conclusion that AI automatically makes human beings obsolete. New tools often amplify human capability.They change what skills matter, what work is valuable, and how people enter professions. That is one of the real questions for schools, libraries, workplaces, and public institutions: How do we help people adapt when the tools change this quickly?For anyone looking for a quick rundown of artificial intelligence, this video is a useful place to start. It is not a short five-minute explainer, but it is clear, accessible, and grounded. It covers the promise, the risks, the economic disruption, the limits, and the need for human judgment. My main takeaway is practical: Learn how AI works, use it carefully, do not surrender your judgment to it, and do not assume tomorrow’s machines are already here today. Don’t panic. Pay attention. Stay curious. Recommended Viewing: ‘Don’t Panic: A Guide to Artificial Intelligence’ by Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur. Neptune and Triton Series, Part 3 There is a point where outer Solar System science stops feeling merely distant and starts feeling genuinely strange.  Neptune: Great Dark Spot and Atmospheric Features Reconstructed from two images taken by NASA’s Voyager 2, this photograph shows Neptune’s Great Dark Spot, an Earth-sized anticyclonic storm, alongside bright methane-ice clouds that shift and reform rapidly. South of the storm is the fast-moving cloud feature known as “Scooter”. Neptune is one of those places.At a glance, Neptune can look serene. It’s a deep blue planet suspended in darkness. But the science behind that appearance is more dramatic. Neptune’s atmosphere is made mostly of hydrogen and helium, with methane as an important minor component. Methane helps produce Neptune’s blue colour by absorbing red light, and Neptune’s atmosphere hosts some of the fastest winds measured anywhere in the Solar System, reaching more than 2,000 kilometres per hour. That alone would be enough to make Neptune interesting. But the deeper story is even stranger.One of the most famous ideas associated with Neptune is diamond rain. This phrase is easy to sensationalize, so it is worth being precise. It does not mean that ordinary methane clouds high in Neptune’s visible atmosphere are dropping gemstones the way Earth clouds drop water. The scientific idea concerns the deep interior of the planet. Under the immense pressures and temperatures inside ice giants like Neptune and Uranus, carbon-bearing material derived from methane can be compressed into diamond. Laboratory experiments at SLAC and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory produced strong support for this process, observing diamond formation under relevant high-pressure conditions. Those diamonds are expected to sink deeper into the planet’s interior.  Neptune Interior and Diamond Formation In an experiment conducted at the Linac Coherent Light Source, the team studied plastic simulating compounds derived from methane. Methane forms hydrocarbon chains that, under high pressure and temperature, produce “diamond rain” in the interiors of icy giant planets like Neptune. Scientists recreated these conditions using high-powered optical lasers and observed small diamonds forming in real time with X-rays. This is where some of the more vivid imagery comes from. People describe Neptune as having a deep mantle where diamond material may accumulate, even in structures dramatic enough to invite phrases like “diamond icebergs”. The careful scientific claim is narrower than the most poetic versions, but still extraordinary. Deep within Neptune, conditions may literally create and separate out diamond. And Neptune’s moon Triton is strange in an entirely different way.When Voyager 2 flew past Neptune in 1989, it found that Triton was not a dead frozen relic. Instead, it discovered evidence of active geysers erupting from Triton’s surface. NASA notes that Voyager 2 saw geysers spewing icy material upward more than 8 kilometres. Triton is also extraordinarily cold, with surface temperatures around minus 235 degrees Celsius, yet it still showed signs of activity.
That combination is one of the reasons Triton keeps showing up in discussions of future exploration. It is cold, distant, likely captured, geologically intriguing, and possibly still active. It is not merely a moon at the edge of the Solar System. It is one of the more compelling unexplored worlds we know about. And there is that other humbling fact. All of this close-up knowledge still comes from one visit. Voyager 2 remains the only spacecraft ever to visit Neptune and Triton. That means our most direct observations of this strange planetary system still rest on a single flyby conducted in the summer of 1989. That perspective changes how I think about the Solar System.It is easy to assume that the great age of planetary discovery is mostly behind us, that what remains is refinement. Neptune and Triton argue otherwise. They suggest that even within our own Solar System, there are places where the first-order weirdness has not yet been exhausted. There are still worlds whose basic story is dramatic enough to feel almost fictional, yet fully scientific. Captured planets turned moons, active geysers in deep cold, and interiors where carbon may fall as diamonds. The strange part is not that such places exist.The strange part is that they are still, in many ways, barely known.Sources
Neptune and Triton Series, Part 2  Global Colour Mosaic of Triton Taken in 1989 by Voyager 2 during its flyby of the Neptune system. One of the most interesting things about Neptune is that one of its moons may not really have begun as a moon at all.Triton, Neptune’s largest moon, is unusual for a very specific reason. It travels around Neptune in a retrograde orbit, meaning it moves in the opposite direction of Neptune’s rotation. NASA notes that Triton is the only large moon in our Solar System with this kind of backward orbit. That alone makes it stand out. Retrograde motion on this scale is one of the strongest clues that Triton did not form quietly in orbit around Neptune the way many large moons did around the giant planets. Instead, the leading scientific explanation is that Triton was captured.More specifically, scientists think Triton was originally a Kuiper Belt object that Neptune gravitationally captured long ago. The Kuiper Belt is the broad region of icy bodies beyond Neptune, extending roughly from 30 AU to about 50 AU from the Sun. It includes Pluto and many other frozen remnants from the early Solar System. Triton’s orbit, composition, and broad similarities to Pluto all support the idea that it came from that outer population of worlds.  The Kuiper belt is a ring-shaped region of icy bodies beyond the outer edge of Neptune's orbit. This illustration depicts the Kuiper belt with a few of the space probes NASA has launched over the years. This is where the story becomes especially compelling.Triton is about 2,700 kilometres in diameter, while Pluto is about 2,377 kilometres across. They are not identical, but they are close enough in scale that the comparison feels meaningful, not superficial. NASA explicitly notes that Triton shares many similarities with Pluto. So when we say that Triton may have been captured from the Kuiper Belt, we are not just saying Neptune stole a random chunk of ice. We may be talking about a world broadly comparable to Pluto that ended up becoming a moon.  Pluto Dazzles in False Colour That is a remarkable category-crossing event.We tend to sort Solar System objects into tidy bins: Planet, moon, dwarf planet, comet, asteroid. Triton is a reminder that those categories describe present status, not necessarily original identity. A body can begin as one kind of thing and later become another in a dynamical sense. Triton may be one of the clearest examples of a dwarf-planet-like object becoming a moon.  The Neptune System (Labeled) by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Captured by NIRCam, this image shows Neptune's turbulent atmosphere, rings, several smaller moons, and the largest moon, Triton. And its story is not over.Because Triton orbits Neptune in the “wrong” direction, tidal interactions are expected to slowly alter its orbit over immense timescales. The broad scientific picture is that Triton is gradually spiralling inward toward Neptune. Far enough in the future, it could cross Neptune’s Roche limit and be torn apart, potentially forming a more substantial ring system. In other words, a captured outer Solar System world may eventually become a ring. That kind of long-term instability adds another layer of perspective. Even major moons are not always permanent in the way we casually imagine them to be. What looks stable on human timescales may be temporary on planetary ones. I think that is part of why Triton is so memorable. It is not just an object. It is a history lesson in motion: Formation, migration, capture, and eventual transformation. A moon, perhaps. But only after first being something else.Sources
Neptune and Triton Series, Part 1
When we look up at the night sky, Jupiter and Saturn still feel, in some sense, close. They are distant worlds, obviously, but they remain part of ordinary skywatching. You can point them out. You can notice them with the naked eye. They feel like members of the visible Solar System.
Neptune Full-Disk Portrait
Produced from images taken by NASA’s Voyager 2 in the summer of 1989. Neptune does not.
Neptune sits far beyond that familiar zone. It is the eighth planet from the Sun, more than 30 astronomical units away on average. An astronomical unit, or AU, is the average distance between Earth and the Sun, about 150 million kilometres. On that scale, Earth is at 1 AU, Jupiter is about 5.2 AU, Saturn about 9.5 AU, and Neptune a little over 30 AU from the Sun. Neptune is therefore roughly three times farther from the Sun than Saturn and nearly six times farther out than Jupiter. It is also so distant and faint that it is not visible to the naked eye.
The Neptune System by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope
Captured by NIRCam, this image displays Neptune's turbulent atmosphere, rings, and the prominent moon Triton (top left). That scale matters.
It is easy to memorize the order of the planets and still not really feel the geometry of the Solar System. Neptune helps correct that. If Earth were one metre from the Sun in a scale model, Jupiter would be about 5.2 metres away, Saturn about 9.5 metres away, and Neptune around 30 metres away. The outer Solar System is not just a little farther out. It is vastly farther out.
That distance also changes the character of sunlight itself. By the time sunlight reaches Neptune, it is far weaker than what we experience on Earth. Neptune is cold, dark, and remote, yet somehow still dynamic. NASA describes it as an ice giant whipped by supersonic winds, with methane in its atmosphere contributing to its famous blue colour. Methane absorbs red wavelengths of light, which is one reason Neptune appears blue in visible light.
And that, for me, is part of Neptune’s fascination. It would already be interesting if it were only distant. But it is not only distant. It is active, structured, meteorologically violent, and scientifically unfinished.
3D Visualization of Voyager 2 by NASA
We have only visited it once.
NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft flew past Neptune on August 25, 1989, and remains the only spacecraft ever to visit Neptune. That single flyby transformed Neptune from a remote blue point into a real planetary system with storms, rings, and a moon that turned out to be one of the strangest worlds in the Solar System.
There is something humbling about that. We speak of Neptune as if it were a known place, but in mission terms it has barely been explored at all. A single spacecraft passed by once, more than three decades ago, and much of what we know in detail still comes from that brief encounter, combined with telescope observations since then.
Perhaps that is the perspective Neptune offers best. It reminds us that even within our own Solar System, familiarity can be an illusion. We have maps, names, orbital diagrams, and broad classifications. But some places remain mostly untrodden.
Neptune is one of them.Sources
Japan Trip Series, Part 7  Nara is just a single train ride from Dotonbori in Osaka and offers a lot in a compact area: Relatively tame deer (you’ll notice many stores use sliding doors instead of automatic ones, likely because of them), a large and walkable park, a rewarding hike with views from Mount Wakakusa, and the architectural and cultural weight of Tōdai-ji.
Nara park spans about 660 hectares and is known for its free-roaming deer and concentration of historic sites.
How does a deer sound? Watch the videos above to find out. I spent some time there, took in the atmosphere, then continued on to Mount Wakakusa.
At the top, there were wide views over Nara, open sky, and deer moving across the hillside. It was windier up there, with autumn colours starting to come through. Definitely worth it. Practical Note: Use the washroom lower down in Nara Park before starting the hike. Many public toilets in Japanese parks do not have soap, and paper towels or hand dryers are uncommon. Bring hand sanitizer, and a small hand towel if that is your preference. Back down the mountain, my route led me through the Nandaimon Gate, the main southern entrance to Tōdai-ji. Inside are the large wooden Niō guardian statues, each over 8 metres tall and carved in the 13th century. They are imposing and full of motion, even at rest.
From there, I continued into Tōdai-ji.The Daibutsuden (Great Buddha Hall) is one of the largest wooden buildings in the world and houses the Great Buddha (Daibutsu), a massive bronze Vairocana Buddha. The current structure dates to the Edo period, after earlier fires destroyed previous versions. Inside, it is the scale that stands out first, then the detail. Massive space, heavy timber, and aged surfaces, with historic statues that reward a closer look. Nara works especially well as a day trip from Osaka. A spacious park, approachable wildlife, a short but rewarding hike with wide views, an imposing gate, and a monumental temple. That is a lot of awesome in a small area. Enjoy the park. Then keep going.All photos and videos in this post were taken by me with an iPhone 17 Pro.
Japan Trip Series, Part 6 Osaka’s Dotonbori District is peak city energy. Neon lights, canal walks, constant movement, and an absurd amount of food and shopping packed into a compact area. This is part 6 of my Japan Trip Series and in this post I’ll be focusing on Dotonbori specifically. It’s a place that’s most alive after dark, efficient in the morning, and incredibly well connected for day trips.  Where I Stayed: Dotonbori Hotel (the one with the giant heads)I stayed at the Dotonbori Hotel, recognizable immediately by the giant sculpted heads out front. The location is excellent. It’s close to the canal, surrounded by shopping, and near easy transit connections. I was only there for two nights, with a day trip to Nara sandwiched in the middle, so I unfortunately did not get to take advantage of everything the hotel offers. Rooms are small but very efficient, with everything you need.
The hotel offers an impressive range of complimentary amenities. There are massage chairs in the lobby, free soft drinks and alcohol, complimentary cup noodles, and drawers of amenities and toiletries (e.g. lotion, combs, shavers, toothbrush kits, shower caps). Cultural experiences and small events are occasionally hosted in the lobby as well. I unfortunately didn’t have time to try the massage chairs or attend any of the cultural activities, but they add to the sense that the hotel is trying to provide more than just a place to sleep. I plan to make better use of these offerings the next time I stay here.  Dotonbori at Night: Neon, Crowds, and the Greatest HitsEven if you’re not aiming to do anything specific, Dotonbori becomes a destination by default. You end up walking it multiple times because it’s the connective tissue between so many places. Nighttime highlights include: The Glico Running Man. This area is packed in the evening. The neon lights and iconic 3D signs that deliver that futuristic big city feel people travel to Japan to experience. The canal and bridges, which create natural pause points where the city becomes a moving diorama. Be aware that evenings are busy. Not “avoid at all costs” busy, more like “move with the flow and don’t expect empty photos” busy. Shopping: Surprisingly Great for Figures and Nerd Finds
Food: Endless Choices, Great Prices, and Satisfying
Why Dotonbori Works as a BaseDotonbori isn’t just a fun neighbourhood. It’s strategic and practical.
In other words, Dotonbori is a stellar base. It’s a great place to sleep, a great place to explore, a great place to shop, a great place to eat, and a great place to start from when heading out for a day trip or moving on to your next major destination.  If you are planning to visit Dotonbori, here is a practical checklist
Next up in part 7: A day trip to Nara, home to ancient temples, the Great Buddha, and the famously assertive deer of Nara Park. All photos and videos in this post were taken by me with an iPhone 17 Pro.
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