Science fiction's full of wishful thinking about artificial intelligence: It'll spring up on its own. It'll become smarter than us in no time. Ted Chiang's new novella, The Life Cycle of Software Objects, will change how you think about A.I.

Spoilers ahead! Although I'll try to avoid giving away anything major.

And not only that, but Chiang's longest work to date is pure idea crack. Writing a longer work doesn't make the award-winning short-story writer spread out his legendary inventiveness and gift for challenging the reader — if anything, he goes into overdrive. The Life Cycle of Software Objects keeps surprising you. Not just in the sense that you think the story's going one direction, and then it suddenly veers in a new, totally logical, direction. But also in the sense that the story isn't really about what you think it's about. New ideas, new ways of looking at the conundrum of artificial intelligence, keep coming up, although they feel as though they're organic to the story and the characters.

Anybody interested in artificial intelligence must read Chiang's novella — but the same goes for anybody who cares about science fiction and wants to see it done well.

Calligraphy, the art of beautiful writing, has a deep history in much of Buddhist Asia. At one level, the art of writing can be an act of merit: repeatedly copying sutras or mantras. It can also be a practice of mindfulness: being absorbed in the moment, focusing fully on the movements of the hand, the flow of the ink, the feel of the pen or brush on the paper, the repetition of letters.

At another level calligraphy is deeply tied to Tantric schools of Buddhism. The visualization of a seed syllable (b?ja) or mantra as part of meditation is made easier by learning to write them. Particularly beautifully written letters are valued in this context.

Is it possible to make a Soto Zen sangha flourish in a small rural town in Eastern Africa? Apparently, it is. This article describes the dojo of Morogoro town, in rural Tanzania, but also explores my feelings of amazement when I visited it. For years, I have asked myself how to reconcile the need to attend the sangha back home, in Europe, with my deep passion to work in developing countries as a humanitarian nutritionist.

In February this year, during a sesshin in Spain, I asked my Zen Master Roland Yuno: “…I have lived for many years in developing countries and I have realized that my practice has become stiff, lonely and sometimes sterile because of the absence of a sangha. Soon I will go back home to Kenya and I do not know what I should do really”. The Master, in the most direct and easy way ever, popped up the solution I had been seeking for years (and I never dared to ask): “Well, my Belgian disciple lives in Tanzania (neighboring Kenya!). He also works in humanitarian activities, and has set up a sangha. He is an ordained monk. Why not get in touch with him?”

If men and women tend towards different strengths and interests, it is due to a complex developmental dance between nature and nurture that leaves ample room to promote non-traditional skills in both sexes.

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So should we abandon our search for the “real” differences between the sexes? Yes. There is almost nothing we do with our brains that is hard-wired: every skill, attribute, and personality trait is molded by experience. At no time are children’s brains more malleable than in early life – the time when parents are so eager to learn the baby’s sex, project it to others and unconsciously express stereotyped impressions of their child.