Table Making

 

A Successful Life

What are justifications for a successful life?

1. a 12,000 square ft home
2. a Lexus or a Porsche
3. having over a million dollars
4. having over a billion dollars
5. not getting fired several times
6. owning your own business
7. living to age 100
8. living without disease
9. living without broken bones
10. living with good hearing & eyesight
11. living without a handicap
12. being married for 50 years
13. having tons of grandchildren
14. living debt free
15. having a ton of friends
16. having power and influence over others
17. holding a political office
18. leaving a legacy that people cannot forget or ignore
19. being faithful to your faith and religion
20. becoming a recognized celebrity

Personally,

• I am living with heart disease
• I am living with 2 different cancers
• I am living with lumbar fusion surgery
• I am living with failing eyes and hearing
• I am retired, living on social security
• I have been married twice
• I have no grandchildren
• I do have a strong faith
• I have no friends
• I am not close to my brother, sister, or daughter
• I was never financially wealthy
• I never really excelled at anything
• I do not have a great second marriage

But...  I consider myself SUCCESSFUL...  in that, I lived my life as I wanted to live my life and I accomplished stuff that many have not accomplished, and I spent my entire working career NEVER KiSSING ASS.

I consider myself SUCCESSFUL because:

• I am alive
• I exercise
• I eat healthily
• I appreciate nature
• I love all kinds of animals
• I have no lofty goals except continuing to continue
• I have enough money to live my desired lifestyle
• I am debt free
• I like to write & maintain blogs
• I like to think and drill down on topics
• I am learning about physics, theoretical physics, astronomy, astrology, cosmology, multiple dimensions, and string theory
• I have no trouble sleeping

I considered myself SUCCESSFUL because:

• I don't take illegal drugs
• I don't smoke cigarettes
• I don't drink alcohol
• I don't live a depressing life
• I am not suicidal
• I don't break the law
• I obey the speed limits 90% of the time
• I trust in my faith
• I am different from most people not better

I guess the biggest success fact is that I have everything I want or need.  I don't wish I had this or that...  of course, I need to lose about 8-10 more pounds...

Russia & China

 

A few years ago, I would have been worried about the Russian Military Threat to the USA and Global Democracies...  BUT...  after they invaded Ukraine and after numerous weeks, still have not been able to conquer without the use of nuclear weapons, leaves me seriously wondering what kind of frigging military does Russia have???  It damn sure ain't very good...  and, I would think that with each passing day, Valdimir Putin is weakened in the eyes of his fellow comrades in communism and should be feeling the heat of global embarrassment...

Now, lets take a looksee at the BULLY CHINA...

• China steals our copyrights and patents because they do not have the intelligence to develop shit on their own.
• China steals the intellectual property from our businesses because again they do not have the intelligence to develop it on their own.

However, the Xi Jinping would argue that they have the intelligence but that it is just easier to steal it from a country that has "no balls".

And...  as long as President Biden is in the Whitehouse, I would tend to agree with Jinping's assessment.

No matter what you think "airhead" Pelosi, she used female stubbornness to fly into Taiwan despite Xi Jinping's anger over it along with his threats if she did...

Now...  to show the rest of the world how pissed off he is, he fired missiles over the island of Taiwan, letting them know as well as the rest of the world know that, he is going to be just like his fellow comrade in arms Putin and invade Taiwan.

What Xi Jinping is not thinking clearly about is that while we are actively recruiting gays and transgendered into our military ranks we still have about 95% of our military in the RAMBO and Seal Team Six mentality about KICKING SOME ASS...

Going to war with the United States would be costly and extremely economically counterproductive...  but, if going to war is what this new game is going to be about...  then, Xi Jinping will experience our SECOND AMENDMENT FURY...  and, whoever comes out as the victory will have very little of anything to control and influence with their power.

And, one would think that the oriental from China would see that as clearly as one can see the sand through the Caribbean waters.

We all die sometimes...  sooner or later...  we all die...  if we were to die in the next few years due to radiation poisoning, 

we would no longer have to pay our income taxes  

• we would not longer get sick from COVID
• we would no longer be victims of cancer or other serious illnesses
• we would no longer have to worry about having sex
• we would no longer have to put up with inlaws
• we would no longer have to put up with bitchy wives

I believe Russia and China have miscalculated that a weak Biden is not really reflective of the American First Blood Mentality nor in our desire to seek out revenge and payback...

Pets Door

 

Earth is Suddenly Spinning Faster

Our planet set a record for completing one rotation faster than scientists had ever previously recorded, according to TimeAndDate.com. Earth rotated once around its axis on Wednesday, June 29, in 1.59 milliseconds less than 24 hours.

Hang on! Earth takes exactly 24 hours to rotate once on its axis, right? Almost, yes, but not exactly.

The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) had even begun adding leap seconds every now and again to make up for the slower spin (it last happened on December 31, 2016).

Over a longer time period that may still be the case—Earth’s rotation may, in general, still be slowing down.

After all, the Moon is gradually slowing down the Earth’s rotation. Its gravitational pull causes tides and makes the Earth’s orbital path around the Sun slightly elliptical.  READ MORE...

Gay Pride

 

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...