Mr. Clean to the Metaverse

While the world debates exactly what the metaverse will and ought to be, two multinationals made a game out of cleaning it up as they seek to determine their place in the internet of the future.

Retail giant Carrefour and consumer-products behemoth Procter & GamblePG -1.2% (P&G) invited wannabe metazens to a virtual party chez Mr. Clean (M. Propre in French) last week. The three-day experiment saw users log into P&G’s LifeLab, where they could help the bald-headed mascot tidy various parts of his home while exploring different P&G products. The goal? Clean as much as you can in two minutes. Users were then also entered in a giveaway with the chance to win a €40 coupon for use on the companies’ websites.

The house looks spotless upon entrance, yet each room has a special task: surf through kitchen counters on a sponge and clean up food splatters or dance while sweeping the bedroom floor.

While retail metaverse initiatives have largely come from the luxury and fashion industries, with Gucci, Prada and NikeNKE -0.4% taking the lead, the more prosaic pairing last week showed the technology could be used for immersive marketing to audiences beyond crypto fanatics and the ultra rich.

“We think that the metaverse is not only for a few people or for luxury brands, it can enter our everyday life and be accessible to all,” says Denise Rodrigues-Vielliard, press manager at Carrefour.  READ MORE...

Owlevator

 

Three Forms of Long COVID

There are three different kinds of long COVID, and all have their own set of symptoms, according to researchers.

In a new preprint study — which means it has yet to be peer reviewed — on MedRxiv, a site that distributes unpublished research in the health sciences, scientists from King’s College in London analyzed the experiences of thousands of people across the U.K that were infected with the virus.

Researchers focused on 1,459 people living with post-COVID syndrome — which study crafters defined as having symptoms for at least 12 weeks after being infected with the virus — and were able to place patients into three main “symptom profiles.”

PCS patients — which are also referred to colloquially as long COVID patients — placed in the first group suffered from respiratory symptoms like chest pain and shortness of breath or palpitations.

The second group was made up of long COVID patients who experienced neurological symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, poor memory and headaches, which researchers said was experienced most commonly among those that had been infected with the alpha or delta variants, according to the study.  READ MORE...

Spray Painting

 

Our Climate Change Agenda

 

• We want all of our cars electric
• We want all of our homes and buildings to use solar panels
• We want windmills to be used
• We want hydropower to be used

NO MORE GASOLINE unless it is commercial aircraft, military aircraft, or a celebrity's private jet.

We want everyone to own an electric vehicle regardless of income and social status, and/or public transportation if you don't have the income.   SOL if you live in an area with no public transportation.

And... we don't give a shit how long it takes to charge the vehicle because you should have thought about that before you left the house.

We will find substitutes for the 6000 products that are made from petroleum crude oil...  like plastics and fertilizers...  so you don't have to worry about that bros and sistas.

We also don't really give a shit if Russia or China or India do anything about climate change because the USA will do enough for them...  While we spend our money on climate and going green, Russia and China can spend their money taking over the world...   so that will fix our political problems as well including racism and equality.

If my comments have a tone of sarcasm to them, then you are paying attention because this whole essay was to be sarcastic.  We are moving into an area that we need to be moving into, but the speed at which we are moving is beyond our ability to adapt and adjust.

Going green in 2050 is a good goal but going green by 2030 is a foolish endeavor that will leave this country in economic disaster as it tries to deal with both gas and electric vehicles and not really be in a position to service either adequately.

First of all, we don't have the charging stations that will be needed if we go totally electric.

Second of all, we don't have the power capabilities to support all those electric vehicles as well as provide electricity to homes and businesses.

Third, how will electric vehicles be recharged if we start having brownouts?

Fourth, what will we do will all our gasoline cars?

Fifth, do we have all the raw materials that we need to make electric cars and solar panels?  Where are those raw materials located?  In the US or overseas?

Sixth, what will we do with all our private jets?  Will congress give us their jets?  Will millionaires and billionaires give up their jets?  Will celebrities give up their jets?  Will corporations give up their jets?

Seventh, will exhaust from private jets counterbalance what we save with electric vehicles and solar panels?

HOW CAN WE TAKE GOING GREEN SERIOUSLY?

End of the Week

 

Thank God It's Friday...  some people might say but what about those people who do not believe in God?  Are they allowed to use the same expression?  It would not have the same meaning to them...  but then who would they thank?

Being retired...  every day is not just like it is Friday...  but, every day is like collecting unemployment insurance and pretending that you are really looking for a job...  you don't really get serious about looking until you only have a couple of weeks left.

Being retired...  is like being on vacation every day at the beach without salt spray getting into your food and sand into your clothes and bed...  no matter how hard you try to keep that shit off...  it finds a way to hang on anyway.

Being retired...  is like not having to work unless you want to or unless your wife tells you that you have to or else???  No male has the "balls" to find out what or else really means.

Being retired...  is like reaching an age when you no longer pay any attention to what your wife says no matter what her level of threats might be.

But none of those really apply to me THANK GOD...  because being retired for me is having cooking to cook my own meals because my wife has retired from cooking...  and that really is ok with me because it actually gives me something to do and once you get into it, cooking is rather enjoyable...  once you get past having to eat the shit you cooked while you were still learning.

My days are spent drinking coffee, walking around the community, cooking meals just for me as my wife cooks her own, publishing stuff on my blogs, and writing novels.  However, much of that stuff is always interrupted because I have to go to these damn medical appointments about my heart, my back surgery, my teeth, my eyes, my hearing, my cancer treatments, my cancer tests, and follow-ups after being hospitalized due to a staph infection.

It sounds worse than it really is because it is only like once or twice a week...  but then there might be 2-3 weeks where I go nowhere...  and, then it starts again.

Being retired is being old and not really giving a shit when the end of the week arrives.

Wants to be Petted

 

Ultrasound Stickers See Inside the Body

MIT engineers designed an adhesive patch that produces ultrasound images of the body. The stamp-sized device sticks to skin and can provide continuous ultrasound imaging of internal organs for 48 hours. Credit: Felice Frankel



New stamp-sized ultrasound adhesives deliver clear images of the heart, lungs, and other internal organs.

When clinicians need live images of a patient’s internal organs, they often turn to ultrasound imaging for a safe and noninvasive window into the body’s workings. In order to capture these insightful images, trained technicians manipulate ultrasound wands and probes to direct sound waves into the body. These waves reflect back out and are used to produce high-resolution images of a patient’s heart, lungs, and other deep organs.

Ultrasound imaging currently requires bulky and specialized equipment available only in hospitals and doctor’s offices. However, a new design developed by MIT engineers might make the technology as wearable and accessible as buying Band-Aids at the drugstore.

The engineers presented the design for the new ultrasound sticker in a paper published on July 28 in the journal Science. The stamp-sized device sticks to skin and can provide continuous ultrasound imaging of internal organs for 48 hours.

To demonstrate the invention, the researchers applied the stickers to volunteers. They showed the devices produced live, high-resolution images of major blood vessels and deeper organs such as the heart, lungs, and stomach. As the volunteers performed various activities, including sitting, standing, jogging, and biking, the stickers maintained a strong adhesion and continued to capture changes in underlying organs.

In the current design, the stickers must be connected to instruments that translate the reflected sound waves into images. According to the researchers, the stickers could have immediate applications even in their current form. 

For example, the devices could be applied to patients in the hospital, similar to heart-monitoring EKG stickers, and could continuously image internal organs without requiring a technician to hold a probe in place for long periods of time.  READ MORE...

Artiste

 

Improving Yourself Takes Minutes Daily

Micro-habits are the antidote to a chaotic world, offering a pathway to sustainable change.

We live in a time of hyperconnectivity, complexity and fragmented attention.

For entertainment, humans used to watch stage performances that lasted several hours. Then came modern audiovisual films that run for 90 minutes. 

A decade ago, we welcomed YouTube, where the average video lasts 11.7 minutes. Even this proved too long for distracted minds, and social media found a sweet spot in 15-second TikTok clips, curated — on autoplay — by an algorithm that knows us better than we know ourselves.

We see this tendency in education. Degrees used to take three or more years. Then came diplomas and certificates. Now people engage in microlearning and proudly share their nano-badge or micro-credential, earned in a few weeks, days or hours.

Books became blinks, letters turned into tweets and hostility downsized into microaggressions. How can future leaders navigate a world of habituated busyness and micronized attention? 

Sustained focus is difficult. Left untethered, our minds seek out novelty and relief. Quick video clips, for example, require minimal commitment with the promise of a dopamine hit.

Is order crumbling into chaos? Can we ever again enjoy slow travel, deep work or a lengthy novel?  READ MORE...

Media Engines

 

Space Telescope Finds Supernova

ASTRONOMERS spotted something unusual happening in a distant galaxy in recent images from the James Webb Space Telescope — something that wasn’t there when Hubble last looked at the same galaxy.

"We suspect it's a supernova," astronomer Mike Engesser of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) tells Inverse. Finding short-lived cosmic events like supernovae isn’t what Webb was designed to do, but the newly-operational space telescope seems to be full of surprises. 

And this one could open the door for looking for the death throes of the universe's first generations of massive stars.  WHAT’S NEW – Engesser and his colleagues say the bright object is probably the first supernova spotted by the Webb Telescope. 

It's extremely bright compared to the rest of the galaxy, for one thing. And Webb observed the galaxy, called SDSS.J141930.11+5251593, twice, five days apart; the object dimmed, just slightly, over those five days — classic supernova behavior.

"We would need more time series data to make a determination, but the data we do have does match that of a supernova, so it's a very good candidate," says Engesser.  READ MORE...

Surfer Sally

 

Personal Finance

 Why don't we talk a little bit about inflation...

Inflation is the increase in the price of goods and services over time. Inflation causes your buying power to erode, meaning that the same dollar today buys less in the future.


1. Demand-pull inflation
Demand-pull inflation happens when the demand for certain goods and services is greater than the economy's ability to meet those demands. When this demand outpaces supply, there's an upward pressure on prices — causing inflation.

2. Cost-push inflation
Cost-push inflation is the increase of prices when the cost of wages and materials goes up. These costs are often passed down to consumers in the form of higher prices for those goods and services.

3. Increased money supply
Increased money supply is defined as the total amount of money in circulation, which includes cash, coins, and balances and bank accounts according to the Federal Reserve. If the money supply increases faster than the rate of production, this could result in inflation.

4. Devaluation
Devaluation is downward adjustment in a country's exchange rate, resulting in lower values for a country's currency.

5. Rising wages
Rising wages is exactly what it sounds like — an increase in what's being paid to workers. "Wages are a cost of production," adds Baker. "If wages rise a large amount, businesses will either have to pass the cost on, or live with lower margins. The exception is if they can offset wage growth with higher productivity."

6. Policies and regulations
Certain policies can also result in either a cost-push or demand-pull inflation. When the government issues tax subsidies for certain products, it can increase demand. If that demand is higher than supply, costs could rise.

What is currently happening in our country?

• Covid has caused less production
• People not working has caused less production
• Stimulus money has created more demand
• We have rising wages with less production
• We have increased costs from less production
• We have stopped producing the oil that we need, creating a shortage of supply

There are only a couple of ways to stop inflation...

ONE - take money out of the marketplace by increasing the interest rates and increasing individual taxes

TWO - increase production by hiring more workers...  but, if the workers don't want to work that is a problem.  Also, production increases must be greater than wage increases.

THREE - decrease government spending so that overall demand will decrease.

THE QUESTION THAT YOU MUST ASK YOURSELF IS WHAT IS THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION DOING?

1.  They are increasing the corporate tax rate to 15% which will cause businesses to hire fewer people and fewer products will be created.

2.  They are increasing spending by investing money into our GREEN ENERGY FUTURE...  this will increase demand for goods and services causing them to cost more.

THIS IS NOT THE SMART THING TO DO...

Lumbar Fusion Progress

 

Yesterday, marked 8 weeks since I had surgery to fuse together L2-L3-L4-L5-S1 but instead of meeting with the surgeon, I met with one of his NPs who has been well schooled and well instructed on what to do with patients like me.

My left hip pain was of some concern, so I am being sent to a therapist for 1 session to analyze the current parameters of my left hip and to instruct me in exercises that should eliminate that discomfort.

I was told not to mow the lawn anymore with the riding lawn mower even though I have already mowed it twice.  I was instructed not to bend over at the waist a lot but I could put on socks and shoes and tie the shoes.  I was also told not to lift anything more than 20 pounds.

While the NP would not confirm or deny that I would be sent to physical therapy sometime after my 12th week, the NP did say that by the end of the 12th week I should be walking 3 miles a day...  I am currently walking about 1.3 to 1.5 a day...  so I have until the end of this month to increase that.

All in all, my progress, including my ability to walk without assistance is in line with the progress I should have made by this time...  so I am neither ahead nor behind but right on the money...  as they say...

I am to come back at the end of September for another looksee either by the NP or by the surgeon depending upon who is available.  They will take more x-rays to make sure that all the metal in my body is still in the exact location that it should be in...

I suppose I am pleased and I am...  it is just that I was hoping that I would be farther along than I am...  but I am not supposed to be farther along than am I which is depressing because of all the current limitations.  It looks like their end result goal is 6 months from surgery and I should be back to normal with some minimal movement restrictions.

That 6-month goal for me would be end of November.

Walking By

 

What Not to Order at a Steakhouse

From superior fast-food chains to the merits of margarine, there's plenty to debate about in the wide world of food—but perhaps nothing is as rousing as the doneness of a steak.

Aside from the sheer science of whether certain cuts of steak are healthier than others (or…not), the doneness scale is a matter of personal preference that diners tend to adhere to—and rigorously defend against naysayers. While customers are technically always right, and opinions relating to steak doneness are a personal matter, there are still some hard facts that shouldn't be ignored.

From rare to well-done, there's a wide scale of cooking options for steaks of all cuts, and each temperature preference comes with its own pros and cons. The fact of the matter is that even if you're dining at one of the best steakhouses in the country, doneness makes a huge difference in the final product.

Simply put, the more cooking that is done to a steak, even if it's a top-tier cut of meat from a high-quality steakhouse chain, the more the integrity of the product is going to be hindered or masked. Spoiler alert: well-done steak is something you should never order at a steakhouse.

At Rare Steakhouse at Encore Boston Harbor, this is a tenet to live by. The swanky steakhouse, which takes its meat quality so seriously that doneness is literally cooked into its "rare" name, is all about "redefined creative classics and exceptional cuts."  READ MORE...

Simulation

 

Why Pancakes Taste Better At A Diner

Pancakes may be a breakfast staple, but making them — especially well — can be a tricky and time-consuming experience. If you've tried attempted pancakes before, you've likely experienced batches that were too thin, too lumpy, or too flavorless. 

Yet every time you order them at a restaurant or diner, you get fat, flavorful, fluffy stacks of flapjacks. What gives?

Insider claims that pancakes are just one of those foods that you're better off ordering at a restaurant or diner than trying to make at home, explaining that amateur chefs may not have access to the tools or ingredients that make restaurant pancakes so good. 

Plus, professional chefs and restaurant chains have perfected the ingredients ratios through trial and error. But if you were to make restaurant-quality pancakes at home, how would you do it?

Fortunately, it is possible to make restaurant-quality pancakes at home — but it might mean tweaking your recipes and technique a bit. 

In 2015, Marie Grimm, the vice president of culinary innovation at IHOP, told Delish a few of the chain's secrets, which can help you perfect your own pancake process.  READ MORE...

Crow Sings