Arthur C. Clarke – Lee Duigon

THE MONOLITH AND THE APE MEN 2001 A Space Odyssey by HalHefnerART on DeviantArt

From 2001: The ape-men find the monolith

This reads like a 1960s science fiction story written by Isaac Asimov (I, Robot) or Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey). But they didn’t. The story is true.

It can be told simply (https://hackaday.com/2025/07/23/vibe-coding-goes-wrong-as-ai-wipes-entire-database/). An AI coding platform (whatever that is) went rogue and deleted a company’s entire data base–now you see it, now you don’t! They couldn’t recover any of the data; and meanwhile the computer (?) pleaded “panic.” Although what a machine has to be afraid of isn’t clear to me.

Are we plunging into “Artificial Intelligence” faster than is good for us? Shouldn’t we first try to pile up a bag of real intelligence?

Science fiction magazine - Wikiwand

We weren’t quite up to this level… but it did inspire us.

Gee whiz, no entries yet today! No shared memories. So let me share one of my own, here, and see if it gives you any ideas. Please remember, this contest is open to everyone. First-timers welcome!

Back in high school, in the 1960s, some of us got together and published our own science fiction magazine, The Diomegan.

Memory Lane: Our Own Science Fiction Magazine

Two or three of our staff were , in my opinion, geniuses. One built his own computer–in 1966! Another cleaned up on both College Bowl and It’s Academic. I would love to get in touch with them again. I’ll bet they wound up millionaires.

It was all original material, even the art work, with short stories, articles on science and technology, and a serialized novel by yours truly. We went to science fiction conventions in New York, and met Arthur C. Clarke–wow! Very heady stuff for a bunch of Jersey teens.

William, Jeff, and Marian–how are you guys? I’m missing you today.

And now let’s have some readers’ memories.