Meyers Briggs and AI

Say you’re a job-seeker who’s got a pretty good idea of what employers want to hear. Like many companies these days, your potential new workplace will give you a personality test as part of the hiring process. You plan to give answers that show you’re enthusiastic, a hard worker and a real people person.

Then they put you on camera while you take the test verbally, and you frown slightly during one of your answers, and their facial-analysis program decides you’re “difficult.”

Sorry, next please!

This is just one of many problems with the increasing use of artificial intelligence in hiring, contends the new documentary “Persona: The Dark Truth Behind Personality Tests,” premiering Thursday on HBO Max.

The film, from director Tim Travers Hawkins, begins with the origins of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality test. The mid-20th century brainchild of a mother-daughter team, it sorts people based on four factors: introversion/extraversion, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling and judging/perceiving. The quiz, which has an astrology-like cult following for its 16 four-lettered “types,” has evolved into a hiring tool used throughout corporate America, along with successors such as the “Big Five,” which measures five major personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.  SOURCE:  NYPOST.com               TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE, Click Here...

Stimulus Checks

My wife and I have not worked since the COVID Pandemic Lockdown that started in the first quarter of  2020 and extended into the first quarter of 2021 with the likelihood that the lockdown will continue in some fashion in some States well until the 4th quarter...  However, the lockdown and the fact that we have not worked does not bother either one of us because WE ARE RETIRED and receiving Social Security Benefits whether we work or not, along with income from a Trust Fund set up years ago.  Our financial security is guaranteed until the day we both die however long that is from today...  but, we both know that it is bound to happen.

This new COVID RELIEF package soon to be passed by the HOUSE, will not help us at all in that we do not need the money and plan to save the money for a later use since we have NO DEBT to pay off.  Actually, my wife and I have been debt free for over 15 years and have only been retired for 5 years.  The fact that we cannot really go anywhere does not bother us either because we have plenty of activities outside our house to keep us entertained.  We do go to doctor's appointment, the grocery store, and have gone out to eat about a dozen times since the lockdown as restaurants in TN are for the most part OPEN even though social distancing is still maintained inside.

What we were HOPING FOR more so than Stimulus Checks was a substantial increase in Social Security and now that the Democrats are in power and like to spend money, perhaps that will happen sooner or later.  The other concept that we were HOPING FOR was to have MEDICARE cover more services than it currently is covering.  Our supplemental health insurance covers what Medicare does not, still there are more out-of-pocket expenses than we anticipated...  and it would be nice if the Democrats did something about that.

Minimum Wage does not do a thing for us, especially since we are not working and especially since we have worked all our career in a State that pays low wages anyway which has resulted in us being very careful how we spend our money.

However, increasing prices would bother us...  and, it would appear that the Biden Administration is putting scenarios into play that will increase prices rather than maintain stable prices as we have seen for the last several years.  Increasing prices contradicts the minimum wage increase and will actually put those workers in a financially worse situation than before even though they are earning more money.

Gasoline Prices have been increasing in our area and there are increases in prices at the grocery stores as well as at restaurants because they have to spend more money on cleaning tables.  Although, it will not slow down the people in this State who like to go out and eat.

A Division of the Republic

 Lee Drutman of THE ATLANTIC writes...

John Adams worried that “a division of the republic into two great parties … is to be dreaded as the great political evil.” And that’s exactly what has come to pass.

George Washington’s farewell address is often remembered for its warning against hyper-partisanship: “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.” John Adams, Washington’s successor, similarly worried that “a division of the republic into two great parties … is to be dreaded as the great political evil.”

America has now become that dreaded divided republic. The existential menace is as foretold, and it is breaking the system of government the Founders put in place with the Constitution.

Though America’s two-party system goes back centuries, the threat today is new and different because the two parties are now truly distinct, a development that I date to the 2010 midterms. Until then, the two parties contained enough overlapping multitudes within them that the sort of bargaining and coalition-building natural to multiparty democracy could work inside the two-party system. No more. America now has just two parties, and that’s it.

The theory that guided Washington and Adams was simple, and widespread at the time. If a consistent partisan majority ever united to take control of the government, it would use its power to oppress the minority. The fragile consent of the governed would break down, and violence and authoritarianism would follow. This was how previous republics had fallen into civil wars, and the Framers were intent on learning from history, not repeating its mistakes.  TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE, Click here...

More Expensive Oil

 

Swirlons

Meet the swirlon, a new kind of matter that bends the laws of physics
By Stephanie Pappas - Live Science Contributor 5 days ago

Researchers discover a...

Physical laws such as Newton's second law of motion — which states that as a force applied to an object increases, its acceleration increases, and that as the object's mass increases, its acceleration decreases — apply to passive, nonliving matter, ranging from atoms to planets. But much of the matter in the world is active matter and moves under its own, self-directed, force, said Nikolai Brilliantov, a mathematician at Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Russia and the University of Leicester in England. Living things as diverse as bacteria, birds and humans can interact with the forces upon them. There are examples of non-living active matter, too. Nanoparticles known as "Janus particles," are made up of two sides with different chemical properties. The interactions between the two sides create self-propelled movement.

To explore active matter, Brilliantov and his colleagues used a computer to simulate particles that could self-propel. These particles weren't consciously interacting with the environment, Brilliantov told Live Science. Rather, they were more akin to simple bacteria or nanoparticles with internal sources of energy, but without information-processing abilities.  TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE, Click Here...

Biden's Covid Relief Bill

 

Three Squares and a Room

In the United States of America, our prison population is 2,300,000 and the average cost per inmate is $35,...  the cost to maintain our prison is the burden of taxpayers and as of the writing of this article only 45 of 50 States have prisons...  even though all States have jails in which people are kept for crimes until they are sentenced...

But, the bigger question here is not so much whether it is right or wrong to keep people in prison who have committed crimes, but to take another person's life by having a DEATH PENALTY.  In 2020, there were 2,553 DEATH ROW INMATES.  In case you are interested, it costs $1.26 million per inmate to implement the death penalty which includes the cost of a trial, jail time, and the actual execution.  And...  the median cost to keep an inmate in jail until they are released is $740,000.

While there is a rather large price tag to put an inmate to death, the greater question here is the MORAL IMPLICATIONS of killing another person, even after they have killed one or more individuals which landed them in jail in the first place.  Of course, there is also the facts surrounding the case and how terrible or horrific the actual crime was or was not.

Should we take another person's life?

Successful or not...

Why are some successful and others are not?

It is easy to be successful when one is born into money or when one has the support of someone with money...  but, when money is not the foundation of it all...  why does one person succeed and another person does not?

Education can be a deciding factor...

Experience can be a deciding factor as well...  but, what if neither of those opportunities are available...  meaning, one must start from scratch...

There are some characteristics that successful people share, such as:

1. determination
2. never giving up
3. self-confidence
4. willing to put family second
5. willing to work long hours
6. affirmations of positive thinking
7. Having a plan and executing it
8. goal setting
9. don't accept defeat
10. long term thinking

Sometimes these characteristics are learned and acquired but more often than not, they are already inside the successful person and they just simply emerge as the situation dictates.  Some will work 15-18 hours a day and not be satisfied while other are only willing to work 10-12 hours so that they can make time for family.

New Sub Atomic Particles

Physicists Just Found 4 New Subatomic Particles That May Test The Laws of Nature

PATRICK KOPPENBURG, THE CONVERSATION  --  5 MARCH 2021

This month is a time to celebrate. CERN has just announced the discovery of four brand new particles at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva.

This means that the LHC has now found a total of 59 new particles, in addition to the Nobel prize-winning Higgs boson, since it started colliding protons – particles that make up the atomic nucleus along with neutrons – in 2009.


Excitingly, while some of these new particles were expected based on our established theories, some were altogether more surprising.

The LHC's goal is to explore the structure of matter at the shortest distances and highest energies ever probed in the lab – testing our current best theory of nature: the Standard Model of Particle Physics. And the LHC has delivered the goods – it enabled scientists to discover the Higgs boson, the last missing piece of the model. That said, the theory is still far from being fully understood.

One of its most troublesome features is its description of the strong force which holds the atomic nucleus together. The nucleus is made up of protons and neutrons, which are in turn each composed of three tiny particles called quarks (there are six different kinds of quarks: up, down, charm, strange, top and bottom).



If we switched the strong force off for a second, all matter would immediately disintegrate into a soup of loose quarks – a state that existed for a fleeting instant at the beginning of the universe.

Don't get us wrong: the theory of the strong interaction, pretentiously called "quantum chromodynamics", is on very solid footing. It describes how quarks interact through the strong force by exchanging particles called gluons. You can think of gluons as analogues of the more familiar photon, the particle of light and carrier of the electromagnetic force.  SOURCE:  ScienceAlert.com

"Twenty Four"

Using a ROKU device purchased a while back, we purchased subscriptions to NETFLIX and HULU to access a variety of extra services that were not available on CABLE without paying very high monthly fees...  and, while we still have to pay fees for these additional services, they are not as high as CABLE.

It would appear at least from my perspective that HULU offers a better variety of choices than NETFLIX...  one of these choices is the HULU offered series "24," which has a total of nine seasons which is a long time for any kind of recent series.  Among other well known actors, the main actor is Kiefer Sutherland who I never much cared for as a young actor and who has seemed to have improved as he has gotten older.  His father, Donald Sutherland, always played weird roles and his facial expressions made him perfect for those roles.  Kiefer does not have those facial expressions but he does seem to be a better overall actor than his father...  at least as far as this series is concerned.

HOWEVER...

the series is flawed and season after season they have perpetuated those same flaws so it would appear that neither the writers or the Director saw them as flaws, rendering my comments constructive but without support from Hollywood.

Here are my reasons:

1.  While the overall series is interested and each episode of each season is unpredictable, the same basic premise is played out each of the nine seasons, making it rather predictable  in general with unexpected twists and turns resulting in an inevitable outcome or conclusion.

2.  Every season and every episode relies on workplace incompetence and workplace egos which really is difficult to believe would take place in a COUNTER TERRORIST UNIT.  Maybe it could happen once, but this incompetence manifests itself in every single episode in every season as if these people have never learned anything from previous experiences.

3.  It is believable that spies could have penetrated a government organization, but the foundation of this series is that SPIES are at ALL LEVELS of our Military and Federal Government which is highly unlikely which causes the series to lose some credibility with the assumptions that have been made.  Not only are there SPIES in the government but there are spies in high levels of business organizations that have contracts with the government.

4.  Like Raiders of the Lost Ark, each episode of each season is filled will unbelievable twists and turns that could never take place and the reason that they continue to take place in this series is that many of the characters involved MAKE STUPID MISTAKES over and over again, which again is not that realistic.

5.  While the plots are PLAUSIBLE they always involve terrorists from a foreign country, usually in the Middle East, who wants to get revenge on the USA because of something the USA did to the people of their country, even though the USA had been invited to take military action in their country.  Also, each of the nine seasons involve some sort of nuclear device and the terrorist always seem to get the codes to make these nuclear devices active.  Again, the USA never seems to learn from previous experiences even though some characters continue to play role in subsequent seasons.

6.  Kiefer Sutherland plays the main character in all nine seasons and goes by the name of JACK BAUER.  Jack Bauer seems to have RAMBO like characteristics and no matter how often JB gets shot, stabbed, or suffers broken ribs from a brutal fight, he always seems to get back into the action without resting or recuperating as would be the case of a normal man.  Not only does he have the ability to recuperating fast, he seems to be impervious to ALL TYPES of torture both mentally, physically, and psychologically.

The Norwegian Krone

Why the Norwegian krone could be the 

world’s first global currency

The value of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, fed on its oil and gas receipts, is growing so much faster than the country’s GDP that the Norwegian krone may well become the world’s first global currency. Not the world’s most important currency or a reserve currency like the US dollar, but the first currency whose value is determined largely by the movement of global markets and only minimally by its country’s economic activity.

This won’t make the krone itself a target for investors overseas. It isn’t liquid enough for that; there aren’t enough krone to go around. Nor will it become a bellwether; observing the krone and deducing which aspect of the world’s financial markets is influencing its fluctuations won’t be easy. But the expansion of the fund will make it into an investor of immense means, with a singular capacity to transform green energy, infrastructure, and other causes Norway cares about.

Since 1996, Norway’s oil fund—formally called the Government Pension Fund Global—has been investing fossil fuel revenues in fixed-income assets, equities, and real estate overseas, trying to build a financial reserve for its citizens in a post-oil future. On its website, the fund hosts a live ticker of its value, which now hovers around $1.3 trillion—making it the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund.

The oil fund owns more than 1.5% of all the listed stocks worldwide, and its returns alone were worth a third of Norway’s GDP in 2020—even amidst the pandemic. “It’s as if every Norwegian has a personal offshore investment portfolio of $240,000,” said Tor Vollalokken, a senior advisor at the New York-based investment analysis firm Exante Data.

Vollalokken, who has tracked the krone for decades, recently extrapolated both the oil fund and Norway’s GDP forward over 30 years, using past rates of growth as a guide. At the moment, the fund’s value is roughly three times that of the GDP. By 2030, the fund will near $9 trillion—more than 14 times the value of the GDP. By that point, the krone will undergo a dramatic shift.  SOURCE:  QZ.com

WOKENESS

 

Komic Korner Kartoons

 

$1.9 Trillion COVID Relief Bill Passed by Senate

THE DEMOCRATS ARE ON A ROLL...

AND...

the wealthy are going to pay for it all...  that is to say those wealthy individuals and families that DO NOT have their monies sheltered away from taxes in off shore bank accounts.

AND...

what money our government cannot get from the wealthy, they will either BORROW from CHINA or they will simply print up more money.

AND...

if they print up more money, the the value of the dollar will DECREASE.

AND...

if they borrow from CHINA, then future generations will be the ones that will be forced to pay off our debt.

AND...

retired people like my wife and I will BENEFIT from all of this.

PERSONALLY, 

I don't care if California and New York get bailed out by our Federal Government or not because our government should REWARD those States who have mismanaged their tax dollars...  the more these States screw up the more our Federal Government should be in a position to financially control them.

These States are like children who have not yet learned how to manage their money because they want to give their residents everything they can in the hopes of getting re-elected.

The bureaucracy of any government, by default, is INEFFECIENT and INEFFECTIVE in the way that they conduct business.  When one has a guarantee of employment, one has little desire to improve one's production or output...

What The People Want

The Democrats are passing bills because they make the CLAIM that this is what the people want...

The Republicans were passing bill because they made the CLAIM that this is what the people want...

BUT...

is this really what the people want?

The 2015 election showed us that the United States of America was basically divided politically between Democrats and Republicans...

The 2020 election showed us that the United States of America was STILL DIVIDED between Democrats and Republicans again...

Therefore...

neither party can really make the claim that this is what the people want because that is simply not true...

However...

each political party can make the claim that this is what HALF THE PEOPLE WANT...  and, I doubt that either party will actually promote that TRUTH.

The fact remains...  that each political party makes the FALSE CLAIM that this is what the People Want and consequently how can THE PEOPLE actually believe either political party...

Cancel Culture

 [ [ [  [  Cancel Culture  ]  ] ] ]

We live in a society that for all intents and purposes has been turned upside down and the mainstream media seems to be supporting this approach without researching to see what the downside of this approach might be...

If I do not agree with you, then I am cancelled...

Opposing views are not being allowed...

Is this democratic? ? ?

I have spent my entire life opposing those people who want me to believe like they believe or wanting to believe like they want me to believe...  consequently, I have lost my job 10 times during a 45 year career...  because I refused to do this...  and, I would suspect that there are many other people out there who are like me...  perhaps, a little more diplomatic but they are there nonetheless...

The United States is quickly becoming a country that is losing the respect of other countries throughout the world.  The United State used to be a country where opposing views were encouraged and no other country in the world had the freedom of speech like we had...  that is changing...

WAKE UP AMERICA...

The Debate Continues

Americans have complicated feelings about their relationship with big technology companies. While they have appreciated the impact of technology over recent decades and rely on these companies’ products to communicate, shop and get news, many have also grown critical of the industry and have expressed concerns about the executives who run them.

This has become a particularly pointed issue in politics – with critics accusing tech firms of political bias and stifling open discussion. Amid these concerns, a Pew Research Center survey conducted in June finds that roughly three-quarters of U.S. adults say it is very (37%) or somewhat (36%) likely that social media sites intentionally censor political viewpoints that they find objectionable. Just 25% believe this is not likely the case.

Majorities in both major parties believe censorship is likely occurring, but this belief is especially common – and growing – among Republicans. Nine-in-ten Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party say it’s at least somewhat likely that social media platforms censor political viewpoints they find objectionable, up slightly from 85% in 2018, when the Center last asked this question.

At the same time, the idea that major technology companies back liberal views over conservative ones is far more widespread among Republicans. Today, 69% of Republicans and Republican leaners say major technology companies generally support the views of liberals over conservatives, compared with 25% of Democrats and Democratic leaners. Again, these sentiments among Republicans have risen slightly over the past two years.  

Countries that Censor Freedom of Speech

TOP COUNTRIES that censor Freedom of Speech

1. Eritrea
2. North Korea
3. Saudi Arabia
4. Ethiopia
5. Azerbaijan
6. Vietnam
7. Iran
8. China
9. Myanmar
10. Cuba

AND...

all I can say here is aren't you glad that you live in the US of A...  where censorship does not happen...  and, opposing views are allowed to ripen on the vine like grapes and be harvested...

BUT...

have I spoken too quickly?

Do we really have FREEDOM OF SPEECH here in the US of A where all views are tolerated...  Twenty years ago, I would have said yes!!!

Ten years ago, I would have said yes!!!

2015 changed everything here in the US of A...

LIBERAL VOICES, THOUGHTS, and OPINIONS are the only ones that are being tolerated these days...  and conservative voices, thoughts, and opinions are trying to be suppressed...

We are living in the years of the CANCEL CULTURE...

We are living in the years of the WOKE MOB...

It is these two groups who do not want opposing views...

It is these two groups who want only their voices to be heard...

WAKE UP AMERICA...

Eliminate The Republican Party

America's two-party system is based on laws, party rules and custom, not specifically outlined in the US Constitution. Several third parties also operate in the U.S., and from time to time elect someone to local office. The modern two-party system consists of the "Democratic" Party and the "Republican" Party.

The US has a two-party political system because of two structural features in American politics: single-member districts and winner-take-all elections. Both features encourage the existence of 2 major parties, as smaller parties face great difficulty in winning elective office.

There can be no doubt that the Electoral College has encouraged and helps to maintain a two- party system in the United States. This is true simply because it is extremely difficult for a new or minor party to win enough popular votes in enough States to have a chance of winning the presidency.

The Second Party System increased American political engagement by democratizing politics when previously elected officials were chosen primarily by the wealthy elite.  Supporters of the system's two dominant parties were divided along philosophical and socio-economic lines.

What would happen in the USA if the Republican Party was destroyed or eliminated by voting and only the Democratic Party remained to decide how the government was operated?

We cannot consider one party system as a good option because this is not a democratic option. Any democratic system must allow at least two parties to compete in elections and provide a fair chance for the competing parties to come to power. Moreover people do not get any choice in this system.

China and North Korea have a one party government...  even Russia does not have a one party government...

Cancel Culture

 

If you do not agree with me I will simply cancel you out as if you never existed at all...  

The last time something like this took place was in NAZI Germany and their specific target was the JEWS and all those who sympathized with the Jews...  the Jews were taken to concentration camps and medically experimented upon and subsequently killed in gas chambers.

Cancel Culture in America wants to do away with the conservative voice and all those who support or sympathize with the conservative voice.  Cancel Culture in America has teamed up with Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA basically because they believe that they will NEVER BE SUCCESSFUL unless the white race is destroyed...  specifically, the conservative white race because the liberal white race is sympathetic to their cause...

Cancel Culture in America wants to defund with police and take those monies and set up programs for blacks so that they have a better chance of being successful.  

Cancel Culture in America wants to do away with the CONSTITUTION and write a new constitution that is partial to the black man instead of all Americans.

Cancel Culture in America wants to rewrite the history books and remove all connections to slavery as if it never existed and those references to slavery will state HOW EVIL THE WHITE MAN IS and continues to be against the blacks.

Is America really willing to let something like this happen???