Freedom of Speech

 

I am a believer in free speech that includes both sides of the argument not just one.  Let me hear both sides so that I can make up my own mind.  I dislike someone telling me how I should think.

If I think one way and that way is later discovered to be wrong, then sobeit...  it is wrong...  and we move forward onto the next concept.

I have listened to the rhetoric of both the liberals and conservatives and have discovered that both sides are obviously biased, but it seems that the conservatives as less biased than the liberals.

Not only less biased, but they are far LESS LIKELY to pass along misinformation or disinformation aimed at discrediting the opposing side.

Unfortunately, I know many people who are absolutely confident that the misinformation that they heard is correct and it matters not what I say, I will never be able to change their minds.

I have stopped trying and just accept whatever it is that they want to believe...  and let it go at that.

Insider

 

Trash

 

Homan

 

Cut

 

Adam & Eve

 

In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> New York Mets sign former New York Yankees superstar Juan Soto to 15-year, $765M contract, the most lucrative deal in sports history (More) | Dave Parker and Dick Allen elected to Baseball Hall of Fame via Classic Baseball Era Committee (More)

> President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Elon Musk among shortlist of candidates for Time magazine's 2024 Person of the Year (More)

> “Emilia Pérez” leads all films with 10 nominations for the 2025 Golden Globe Awards; "The Bear" tops on the TV side with five nods (More) | US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to perform in Broadway musical "& Juliet" this Saturday (More)


Science & Technology
> Nature Magazine releases its annual list of the top 10 people shaping science and technology in 2024; efforts range from AI weather prediction to the detection of fraud in academic papers (More)

> Social forum platform Reddit to test a conversational AI feature, allowing US users to ask questions and curate responses; model trained on years of user-generated content (More)

> Physicists make first-ever observation of the antimatter partner of hyperhelium, using Europe's Large Hadron Collider; study provides insight into first fractions of a second following the Big Bang (More) | The antimatter mystery (More)


Business & Markets
> US stock markets close lower (S&P 500 -0.6%, Dow -0.5%, Nasdaq -0.6%); investors await tomorrow's release of key inflation data—the consumer price index report (More) | Want to learn about Wall Street, the markets, and everything in between? Sign up for 1440 Business & Finance (Join here)

> Nvidia faces probe in China over possible antitrust violations related to the chipmaker's 2020 acquisition of Israeli tech company Mellanox (More) | Hershey shares close up nearly 11% on reports of Cadbury-owner Mondelez exploring acquisition; Hershey previously rejected Mondelez's $23B takeover bid in 2016 (More)

> Rupert Murdoch loses court bid to change his family’s trust to consolidate his eldest son Lachlan’s control of News Corp. and Fox Corp; the trust currently ensures all four of Murdoch's children have equal say in governing his media empire (More)


Politics & World Affairs
> Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take the witness stand for first time in ongoing corruption trial on accusations of fraud, breach of trust, and accepting bribes in three separate instances (More)

> Former Marine Daniel Penny acquitted of criminally negligent homicide in the May 2023 New York City subway death of Jordan Neely; jury's decision came three days after a more serious charge of manslaughter was dismissed (More)

> Haitian gang kills over 180 people, mostly elderly, in the capital of Port-au-Prince; gang leader reportedly targeted the group after consulting a voodoo priest who blamed them for giving the leader's son a severe illness through witchcraft (More)

SOURCE:  1440 NEWS

Premedicated Killing of a CEO

 

A United-Healthcare CEO was shot in the back by an assassin and a good majority of the population said the killing was justified because this CEO caused the death of numerous people by slow-walking or refusing their claims.

A bartender can be held accountable if the drunk leaving their bar is responsible for killing someone while they are driving.

Should this apply to healthcare CEOs as well?

More importantly is the question:   is the shooter who killed the CEO justified in doing so on behalf of the others who died?

The shooter stalked his victim and waited until the right time, so there is PREMEDITATION.

Now...

what if the jury is sympathetic to the plight of those who lost their lives as a result of this slow-walking or declining CEO and finds the assassin innocent:  can and should the judge OVERRIDE?

Judges can do this, but it is rare.

Also important here is what will United-Healthcare do in retaliation for the killing of their CEO?

Will this case ever be resolved fairly for either side?

Somewhat Political

 

NASA: We Were Incorrect About the Universe

For decades, scientists have been grappling with what is considered to be the most fundamental question about the cosmos: How fast is our universe expanding?

The rate of expansion influences everything from how galaxies form to how they might one day drift apart.

Determining the expansion rate of the universe, a number called the “Hubble constant,” shapes our entire understanding of the cosmos, its age, and its ultimate fate.

“Hubble tension” expansion conundrum
Unfortunately, though many brilliant minds have dedicated their lives to finding the answer to this riddle, all who have tried thus far have failed, running repeatedly into a brick wall that has come to be known as the “Hubble tension.”

Adam Riess, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, has been at the forefront of this debate. “With measurement errors negated, what remains is the real and exciting possibility that we have misunderstood the universe,” Riess admitted.     READ MORE...

The Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil (Official Video) [4K]

Guilty

 

Learned

 

Protect

 

Army

 

Tax Returns

 

In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> Los Angeles Galaxy top New York Red Bulls 2-1 to win a record 6th MLS Cup (More) | Inter Miami star Lionel Messi named 2024 MLS MVP (More)

> Taylor Swift ends "Eras" tour with final performance in Vancouver, Canada (More) | The $2.2B tour was the highest-grossing of all time (More) | "Moana 2" tops $600M at global box office, surpassing original film's total haul in 10 days (More) | Steve Mensch, president of Tyler Perry Studios, dies at 62 in plane crash (More)

> The 2024 Kennedy Center Honors recognizes the Grateful Dead, director Francis Ford Coppola, jazz musician Arturo Sandoval, singer-songwriter Bonnie Raitt, and New York City's Apollo Theater with artistic lifetime achievement awards (More)


Science & Technology
> New AI-powered brain scans found to be twice as effective as doctors at pinpointing when strokes occurred in patients, providing assessments on how much damage is reversible (More)

> Scientists reveal chemistry in tick saliva enabling insects to form a cement cone around their bite; the process allows them to bind to hosts for days (More)

> Engineers develop biodegradable alternative to microbeads—tiny plastic pellets that pose significant environmental and health risks—used in consumer health and beauty products (More)


Business & Markets
> US stock markets close mixed Friday (S&P 500 +0.3%, Dow -0.3%, Nasdaq +0.8%) after November jobs report beat expectations, unemployment rate rose slightly (More)

> Google sues to prevent the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from supervising Google Payment Corp. like a bank; CFPB says Google failed to investigate fraud in its peer-to-peer Google Pay app, meant to rival Venmo (More) | Why did Google discontinue its Google Pay app in the US? (More)

> President-elect Donald Trump names former PayPal Chief Operating Officer David Sacks as artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency advisor (More)


Politics & World Affairs
> South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol survives impeachment vote Saturday amid boycott from members of his conservative party; opposition party can reintroduce motion to impeach Wednesday (More) | See previous write-up on the country's six hours of martial law (More)

> Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris holds its first mass in five years following 2019 fire and subsequent $1B restoration (More) | See before-and-after photos (More)

> Ghana ousts ruling party, reelects former President John Mahama; election comes amid cost-of-living crisis following 2022 default on $30B in sovereign debt (More)

SOURCE:  1440 NEWS

Out of Pocket Medical Expenses

 If President elect Trump reduces Social Security allocations and/or reduces what Medicare pays that will increase out-of-pocket expenses for patients, there will be consequences.

The public may be forced to tolerate that for FOUR YEARS but at the end of those FOUR YEARS, Trump will be gone, and the general public will get its revenge by voting out of office every republican House of Representatives members as well as Senators.

In other words, I doubt very seriously if another Republican ever got elected to another Federal Office.

There are a lot of cancer patients for instance, that will be sick or the rest of their lives and expect Medicare to cover most of their medical bills except for the monthly premiums they pay.  Those people cannot afford to pay increased expenses.

It was the anger of the public that put Trump into office, and it will be the anger of the people that will start removing Republicans.

This is not a THREAT...  this is more like a promise.

Somewhat Political

 

Largest Universe Simulation EVER

The world’s largest simulation of the cosmos lays a new computational foundation for simultaneous extreme-scale dark matter and astrophysical investigations.

Researchers used the Frontier supercomputer to conduct the largest astrophysical simulation to date, simulating both atomic and dark matter across universe-sized scales. This was facilitated by advancements in HACC, a code developed to run on exascale-class supercomputers, now capable of performing quintillion calculations per second. 

This breakthrough in cosmological hydrodynamics simulations will aid in matching observational data with theoretical models.

Universe Simulation Breakthrough

The universe just expanded—at least in the realm of computer simulations.

Earlier this month, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory harnessed the power of the world’s fastest supercomputer to execute the largest astrophysical simulation of the universe ever achieved.   READ MORE...

The Doors - The End (Edit Version From The Film Apocalypse Now)

HATE

 

Sweden

 

Rude

 

EVs

 

Question

 

Chocolate

 

Don't Worry

 

The world is a messed-up place right now with wars in Ukraine, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and threats in the south China sea between China and Japan and Taiwan.

Analysists and Military Experts are predicting that we are on the verge of getting ourselves into a WWIII.  I don't know if that's true or not but if it is, then I hope it won't be nuclear.

Is this all happening because a new US President is about to take office or because it is just coincidence that all of this is happening at the same time?

From age 19 to my current age of 77, new government or other country's pissing contests never adversely influenced my life except once that that was the Vietnam war when I was 19.

Prices go up, prices go down, but my wife and I have always still done what we wanted to do, regardless of who was President of what was going on in the world.

What has helped me the most is the following:

• My wife and I have been debt free for over 20 years
• My wife and I have a simple lifestyle
• My wife and I buy what we need not want

LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO WORRY...

If you must worry, worry about those things that you can control like:

• buying habits
• vacation habits
• Lifestyle
• Exercise/eating habits
• stress reduction

Somewhat Political

 

Technology Trends for 2025

👋 Hi, I am Mark. I am a strategic futurist and innovation keynote speaker. I advise governments and enterprises on emerging technologies such as AI or the metaverse. My subscribers receive a free weekly newsletter on cutting-edge technology.


Time flies when experiencing exponential change! With 2025 approaching, it's time for my annual technology trend predictions—a tradition I've maintained since 2012 and one I deeply enjoy. Writing these articles allows me to reflect on the past year's predictions and explore the future with renewed curiosity.

In 2024, I named the year “The Year of Science Reality,” as technologies once confined to science fiction became tangible. Looking back, most of my predictions aligned closely with the developments we witnessed, though some advanced faster than anticipated, while others remain on the horizon. 

Here’s a quick recap:

Spot-on Predictions: 

Humanoids integrated with multimodal LLMs, exemplified by Figure 1’s conversational capabilities, and conversational IoT devices, like LG’s empathetic AI home hub, validated my expectations. Similarly, the rise of deepfakes underscored the growing “fake reality,” and Edge AI adoption accelerated, enabling real-time processing on devices.

Emerging Trends: 

AI-quantum computing convergence shows promise but remains in its infancy, and some researchers now question whether we need quantum computing if we have advanced AI. Synthetic biology, though advancing, is yet to enter the mainstream.     READ MORE...

Bob Seger Against the wind

In The NEWS

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol faces impeachment vote.

The National Assembly is poised to vote Saturday evening local time on whether to impeach Yoon after the conservative president temporarily declared martial law earlier in the week. Yoon's decision was based on the alleged presence of antistate, pro-North Korean influences within the country. Members of Yoon's party and the opposition liberal coalition have pushed for impeachment. See updates here.



Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral reopens this weekend after 2019 fire.

A reopening service will be held tonight for over 1,500 invite-only guests, followed by an inaugural Mass tomorrow. Over 50 heads of state and government are expected to attend. The reopening comes more than five years after a fire in 2019 caused the now-861-year-old landmark's roof to collapse. Public viewing areas for 40,000 spectators will be set up along the southern bank of the Seine.



Appeals court upholds law requiring sale or ban of TikTok in US.

A federal appeals court upheld a US law requiring TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to either sell the app or face a ban in the US by mid-January. The ruling dismissed TikTok's claim that the law infringes on First Amendment rights, emphasizing the US government's actions aim to protect its citizens from potential foreign adversarial threats. TikTok said it will take its case to the Supreme Court.



Manslaughter charge against former marine Daniel Penny dismissed.

The jury in the trial of Penny had reported Friday they were deadlocked and unable to reach a unanimous decision on whether he was guilty of manslaughter in the May 2023 death of Jordan Neely on a New York City subway. The judge dismissed the manslaughter charge after a request from prosecutors and instructed the jury to consider a lesser count of criminally negligent homicide.



US economy adds 227,000 jobs in November, more than expected.

The nonfarm payroll growth is up from a revised growth of 36,000 in October and beats economist estimates of 214,000 jobs. The unemployment rate edged higher to 4.2% from 4.1%, as expected. Average hourly earnings rose 0.4% month-over-month and 4% year-over-year—both 0.1 percentage point higher than expected. See all data here.



Romanian top court annuls presidential election result over interference.

Romania's Constitutional Court annulled the first round of the presidential election after intelligence services warned about a Russian influence campaign supporting conservative populist candidate Calin Georgescu. The decision means the entire first round of voting will be redone, with a new date to be set, following concerns about foreign interference and the integrity of the electoral process.

SOURCE:  1440 NEWS

Baby Boomer

 I belong to a group of people referred to as BABY BOOMERS...  Those who were born after WWII...  in my case it was 1947.

I am not sure if the BABY BOOMERS did anything more than start the ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT movement and then when we became middle-aged, became part of the establishment.

I remember saying when I was 50 years old...  "let's stick it to the man...  Wait a minute, I am the man..."

Some BABY BOOMERS became very wealthy, but I was not that concerned with building my wealth as I was with maintaining a simple lifestyle.

Consequently, I stayed in the South where low wages were prevalent and in 2,000 became debt free and maintained that status ever since.

My wives (two marriages) and I have always owned our homes with the first purchase being 1970.

I have never worked with an organization long enough to have a retirement program, so my current wife and I are living on social security and what we have saved.  Not sure if it will be enough but somehow, we will make it work.

I don't regret anything that I have done or not done in my life so far and I would not change anything if I had it to do over again.

Somewhat Political

 

Hydrogen Teleported for the First Time

There is decarbonization that the world seems to be racing toward; hydrogen is seen to be one of the players in the clean energy revolution. Storage and transport remain big challenges in hydrogen, but innovations such as Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers or LOHC are remolding the face of hydrogen, making it more affordable and efficient in distributing it. 

Recently, pioneering projects that prove the high-demand and transformative use of this technology in the UK and Scotland are occurring for global implications about greener tomorrow.

Green hydrogen transport utilizing oil infrastructure is a pioneering effort by Exolum

In a historic first, Exolum has created the world’s first commercial-size project that uses existing oil infrastructure to transport and store green hydrogen. It is based at the largest freight port in England, Immingham, and the project depends on organic hydrogen carriers, compounds that can store hydrogen in liquid form in a safe manner.     READ MORE...

Deep Purple - Smoke On the Water (Official Music Video)

In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> Los Angeles Galaxy take on New York Red Bulls in 2024 MLS Cup Final tomorrow (4 pm ET, Fox) (More) | 2025 FIFA Club World Cup draw revealed; see full preview for the 32-team tournament (More)

> "Scrubs" television series reboot in the works at ABC (More) | HBO's "Harry Potter" television series to begin filming in mid-summer 2025 (More)

> Art Basel, thought to be North America's largest art fair, begins today from Miami Beach; see full preview of events and exhibitions (More)


Science & Technology
> NASA delays mission returning humans to the moon from 2026 to mid-2027, citing a flaw in the heat shield of the crewed landing module (More) | The history of NASA in four minutes (More, w/video)

> OpenAI releases its new o1 large language model; company says it can perform complex reasoning tasks and has 34% lower error rates on advanced problems (More) | Everything you need to know about OpenAI, from its failed coup to becoming the industry leader (More)

> Dietary fructose can promote tumor growth, with the liver breaking down the substance into nutrients used by cancer cells for fuel; estimates suggest fructose consumption has increased 15-fold over the past century (More)

Business & Markets
> US stock markets close lower (S&P 500 -0.2%, Dow -0.6%, Nasdaq -0.2%) ahead of latest jobs report to be released today (More) | Bitcoin retreats from $100K record (More) | Heard about bitcoin but don't know how it works? Click here (More)

> US judge rejects Boeing's guilty plea deal over 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people; judge says appointment of an independent legal compliance monitor should focus solely on competency, not diversity requirements (More)

> Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield announces, quickly reverses plan to limit length of time anesthesia can be covered during medical procedures in Connecticut, New York, and Missouri following backlash (More)


Politics & World Affairs
> Bullet casings discovered at scene of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's shooting were inscribed with the words "deny," "defend," and "depose"; police have released additional photos of the suspect as search for shooter continues (More)

> 7.0-magnitude earthquake off of the coast of Northern California prompts temporary tsunami warnings, evacuation orders (More)

> Democratic Republic of Congo investigates suspected respiratory illness behind at least 71 deaths last month; government says it is on high alert as it awaits laboratory results (More)

SOURCE:  1440 NEWS

Life Happens

 

"Life happens when you are making other plans."  John Lennon

Such a simple statement but obviously full of total truth.

How many times has this happened to you?  It seems to happen to me quite often.  Earlier I might have said, it happens every 3-5 years, but now, I think it happens quarterly.

Maybe when one is younger one is better equipped to handle the unexpected, so when it happens it is hardly ever noticed unless it is really traumatic.

Who knows...

Some say that it is the unexpected that makes life rich and fulfilling, but I am sure that Yoko did not think that when her husband, John Lennon, was murdered.

Of course, that is an extreme situation and most of the time, we are dealing with:

• vehicle issues
• house issues
• children's issues
• health issues
• family issues
• work issues

Some of which can be mild, while others not so mild, like getting laid off unexpectedly.

The main part of life is, not worrying that much about all the downturns but making sure that you pick yourself back up and deal with it and not letting it deal with you.

One must have the right mindset to deal with life like that. Most people feel bad about themselves when setbacks happen...  as if it was something they did wrong.  That is usually not true.

Be proactive and turn a negative into a positive...  and, believe me, that trait only comes with practice.

Somewhat Political