LYING is an American Pastime

 Americans lie as if it is a hobby of theirs that they are trying to improve upon through practice...

As odd as that may seem, it is nonetheless true.

Parents lie to their children, to their neighbors, law enforlercement, and especially to the IRS.

Clergy lie to their congregations about what is or is not included inside  the covers of the Bible if it does not suit their purpose.

City Councils lie to their residents about future increases in taxes in order to divert anger down the road.

Sales people lie to their customers about the products that they are trying to sell hoping that nothing happens for a while.

Taxi cab drivers lie to their passengers to increase their fares especially if they are not local.

Husbands lie to their wives and wives lie to the husbands.  For every husband that cheats there has to be a corresponding female that cheats with him.

Plant managers lie to their workers regarding layoffs that are planned for the end of the month or the end of the year to keep productivity high.

Governors lie to their citizens about businesses that are planning to relocate there or those planning to leave the state.

And of course, most of us already know that our Congress men and women as well as our Senators, lie ALL THE TIME to get re-elected.

We do not think that Presidents lie, but since Jimmy Carter, we realize that President lie all the time in order to get what they want accomplished.

Government employees lie to the media about letting their political beliefs direct their actions.

And families lie to each other all the time in order not to hurt anyone's feelings.

AMERICANS HAVE GOTTEN VERY GOOD ABOUT LYING...

Humanity

Everything

 

Love

 

Nuclear Powered Spacecraft by 2027

The top official at the United States space agency NASA has said the country plans to test a spacecraft engine powered with nuclear fission by 2027, an advancement seen as key to long-haul missions including a manned journey to Mars.

NASA will partner with the US military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop the nuclear thermal propulsion engine and launch it into space, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said on Tuesday. The project has been named the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislpaunar Operations or DRACO.

“With the help of this new technology, astronauts could journey to and from deep space faster than ever – a major capability to prepare for crewed missions to Mars,” Nelson said in a statement.

The announcement comes amid a new nuclear space race between the US, Russia and China, with the three superpowers working to expand their extraterrestrial nuclear capabilities, including for use propelling spacecraft and powering colonies on the moon.  READ MORE...

Walter as Joe

 

Snow Sliding

 

Strictly Political

 

Technologies of the Future

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence, or AI, and machine learning refer to the ability of machines to learn and act intelligently, meaning they can make decisions, carry out tasks, and even predict future outcomes based on what they learn from data.


AI and machine learning already play a bigger role in everyday life than you might imagine. Alexa, Siri, Amazon's product recommendations, Netflix’s and Spotify’s personalized recommendations, every Google search you make, security checks for fraudulent credit card purchases, dating apps, fitness trackers... All are driven by AI.

AI is going to revolutionize almost every facet of modern life. Stephen Hawking said, “Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history.” And Hawking immediately followed that up with, “Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks."

There are potentially huge risks for society and human life as we know it, particularly when you consider some countries are racing to develop AI-enabled autonomous weapons. AI and machine learning are the foundation on which many other technologies are built. For instance, without AI, we wouldn't have achieved the amazing advances in the Internet of Things, virtual reality, chatbots, facial recognition, robotics, automation, or self-driving cars, just to name a few.  TO READ ABOUT THE OTHER FOUR, CLICK HERE...

Awareness

Getting Older

Because of You

Painting Was An Interest of Mine

 I wrote my first poem in high school (1962-1966) using green ink with a fountain pen that had refillable cartridges.  I did not get serious about writing poetry until 1972 when I was discharged from the military and returned to college.  

By then, I was married with a daughter and I would drive to McDonalds every morning before class and sit in a seat in the corner away from people and write for an hour while drinking a couple cups of coffee.  At that time, McDonalds had the best coffee in town.

In the late 70s and early 80s, I got involved with painting with oils and acrylics and while I had never had any lessons, I tried to teach myself what I needed to know which was not much.

Somewhere around the 1980s my mother was talking about putting up wall paper that had a green forest scene and without thinking, I told her that I could paint her wall for her and save her some money.  Of course, trying to stay with her original green forest theme, I purchase only green paints.

My trees weren't bad and they flowed freely but it was obvious when looking at the artwork on the wall, it was done by an amateur and not a professional.  Still my mother was happy with what I had done, because I had done it...  and, my father did not express any personal comments that would conflict with what she wanted to believe.

I continued painting for a few years after that but when I went to East TN in 1990, my focus on painting had ended and I concentrated on writing poems and opinion articles that I published on LinkedIn.

I've always wanted to return to my painting...  not to take lessons or anything...  but to just play around with something that I have always enjoyed doing.

About the Moon

Changing

Letting Go

 

Three Stage Authentication

In recent years, many computer scientists have been exploring the notion of metaverse, an online space in which users can access different virtual environments and immersive experiences, using VR and AR headsets. While navigating the metaverse, users might also share personal data, whether to purchase goods, connect with other users, or for other purposes.

Past studies have consistently highlighted the limitations of password authentication systems, as there are now many cyber-attacks and strategies for cracking them. To increase the security of users navigating the metaverse, therefore, password-based authentication would be far from ideal.

This inspired a team of researchers at VIT-AP University in India to create MetaSecure, a password-less authentication system for the metaverse. This system, introduced in a paper pre-published on arXiv, combines three different authentication techniques, namely device attestation, facial recognition and physical security keys.

"The concept of metaverse promotes the sustainable growth of human civilizations, enhancing communication on a virtual platform," Sibi Chakkaravarthy, Aditya Mitra and Anisha Ghosh, three of the researchers who carried out the study, told Tech Xplore. "In such a scenario, security of one's digital identity is a main concern. Thus, we came up with MetaSecure, a novel authentication system."

MetaSecure was designed to significantly increase the security of the metaverse, protecting users as they engage in a range of virtual activities. The authentication system can secure a wide range of personal data and possessions, including digital assets, online identities, avatars, and financial information.   TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Butterflly

 

Kissing

 

World Economic Outlook

One chaotic, disappointing year is ending. Another one is likely in store. In October, the IMF released its annual economic outlook projecting weak growth across the world in 2023. It placed particular emphasis on three issues: high inflation and central bank tightening, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the continued effects of Covid—especially in China.

HBR asked three experts about what to expect for the economy in 2023, and how things have evolved since October.

Mihir Desai is a professor of finance at Harvard Business School. Karen Dynan is a professor at Harvard and a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. And Matt Klein is an economic journalist and the author of The Overshoot newsletter. We put the same questions to all three; their replies, edited for length and clarity, are below.
Let’s start with inflation and interest rates: Where do things stand as the year comes to a close?

Mihir Desai: We’ve lived through a seismic change in rates that we’re still digesting. Those belated increases, along with improving supply-chain considerations, have done well in improving the inflation outlook. But the effects of those interest-rate increases are still being felt in terms of consumer behavior, firm investment plans, and asset prices.

While the runaway aspects of inflation have ameliorated, we are well below a sustainable rate of inflation. The final push toward sustainable inflation levels will require a longer period of sustained higher rates than people imagine. Said another way: Getting to 4-5% inflation will happen by May 2023, but getting back to 2%-3% inflation will take longer and be more painful, triggering a sustained debate regarding the dual mandate of the Federal Reserve.

Karen Dynan: Inflation is very high no matter how you cut it. I would put the underlying trend in the United States at around 5%, which is way above the Fed’s target and the highest level in four decades. Interest rates have risen sharply over the past year as a result of the higher inflation and the Fed tightening in response. Rates on new mortgages have more than doubled relative to where they were a year ago. They touched 7% in October and November, a level we have not seen since the early 2000s.

Matt Klein: The inflation of the past few years has been attributable to the pandemic and, to a lesser extent, to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Sudden changes in businesses’ ability to produce collided with sharp changes in the mix of goods and services that consumers wanted to buy, leading to both gluts and shortages across the economy.

The good news is that most of the inflation attributable to these one-off factors seems to be on its way out. Overall inflation probably peaked over the summer. The bad news is that there also seems to have been a modest uptick in the underlying rate of inflation from around 2% a year to 4-5% a year.  READ MORE...