Wednesday, March 22
Probably Not Thinking About Retirement, Are You?
If you are under 50, by the time you are eligible to retire the age will be 70 and Social Security may or may not be there, despite what politicians say today. Our national debt is huge and SS is the biggest culprit and as long as medical science keeps finding ways to extend life, the SS is on the losing end of the deal...
- How much money will you need at age 70 in order to pay your bills?
- How many more years will you live?
- Will you be in good to excellent health?
- Will you be debt free?
- Will you be married or single?
- Will your children be willing to take care of you?
- Will you need to arrange transportation?
- Will you need assistance with daily chores?
In some areas of the USA, $500,000 TODAY is enough to pay your bills with Social Security and a partner and debt free.
In some areas of the USA, you will need twice that much.
If you are 50 years old and only need $500,000 then you will need to save $25,000 each year or roughly $2,000 each month.
Using SS and estimating your monthly expenses at $4,000, you will need to withdraw $24,000 each year or $240,000 each decade or $480,000 for two decades, assuming you will not live past 90 years of age. This allows for minimal frills and extras. But, you can live a reasonable enjoyable retirement.
If you health is bad, then the odds are you will not make it to 90 years of age.
Most Medicare Supplements will cost you right around $500/month which includes Medicare's share that is taken out of your SS. Certain med are not covered 100% by your supplement.
For instance, my monthly cancer pills are $1,000/month out of my pocket. I have been fortunate enough to get a grant... but, grants may not be available when you get there.
Should you start worrying because of my comments??? HELL NO!!!
What you should do is START PLANNING...
Living The Good Life
- Free of illnesses...
- Becoming wealthy or extrememely wealthy...
- Dying at age 90... or age 100...
- Having children... and grandchildren..,.
- Never being married...
- Never being divorced...
- Never wanting to retire...
- Having a job you really, really like...
- Making and keeping many friends...
- Having just enough money to do whatever you want...
Not many people think about this... they just live their life at whatever level their income allows... not worrying about what they have or don't have... in that sense, ignorance is BLISS...
I remember my dad saying either at Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner that we were living "high on the hog tonight..." and, I never really asked him what that meant, I always just assumed that it meant we were well off.
I have spent my entire life, living life exactly as I wanted to live it, not necessarily as I should have lived it, could have lived it, or as someone else wanted me to live it...
- was I living the good life
- was I happy
- was I content
When I was diagnosed with cancer, heart issues, and had back surgery to fuse disks together, did that mean I stopped living the GOOD LIFE?
When my daughter decided she no longer wanted to have an association with me, did I stop living the GOOD LIFE?
When my brother and sister no longer wanted to deal with me, did that mean I stopped living the GOOD LIFE?
I DON'T THINK SO... I think the GOOD LIFE for me (not necessarily others) is accepting and living the life that I have in front of me, without regrets, without looking back, and without looking forward... although looking forward is somewhat necessary as we age.
- I need to make sure I eat healthy
- I need to make sure I exercise
- I need to make sure that I keep busy
- I need to make sure I take my pills
- I need to make sure I self-examine
- I need to make sure I can pay my bills
- I need to make sure someone can drive when I cannot
FOR ME...
the rest of my life should unfold in such a way that I consistently keep busy... keeping busy is the GOOD LIFE for me...
A Touch of Reality
Here is an Interesting Eight Question Survey with interesting National Results.
Before you see the Survey Results, answer the questions, and see how you score against the Nation & against the Facts:
- What percentage of the country is black?
- What percentage of marriages are mixed race?
- What percentage is "Latino"?
- How many families make over $500,000 a year?
- What percent of Americans are vegetarians?
- What percent of Americans live in NY city?
- What percentage of Americans are 'transgender?
The Poll Results
This should be a wake-up call if you don’t already know this… A recent poll was conducted by a national polling outfit. Names don't matter.
They are all the same. This one was "YouGov”. Results to these questions asked of average people on the street:
- What percentage of the country is black? Answers 41%... Actual 12%. If you watch commercials, you will think it is 90%.
- What percentage of marriages are mixed race? Answer 50%... Actual 1%. If you watch commercials, you will think it is 90%.
- What percentage is "Latino"? Answers 39%... Actual numbers 17%.
- How many families make over $500,000 a year? Answers 26%... Actual figure 1%. We think a quarter of the country is rich.
- What percent of Americans are vegetarians? Response? 30%… Actual 5%.
- What percent of Americans live in NY city? Answers? 30%... Actual 3%.
- What percentage of Americans are 'transgender? 22%... Actual number 1%
So why do people have such inaccurate thoughts on these counts? THE MEDIA! The media run race, gender, and wealth stories constantly. Result? You are being brainwashed by the national left with the media. Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels would be proud if he had half the success.
Disney just went full-on "gender" They will no longer welcome guests with the traditional "Welcome ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls" Why? Because 1% of the population dictates to the other 99% (that would be the vast majority) and corporate America falls for it.
Regardless of what you think. Less than 20% of Americans use "Twitter" yet Twitter controls 80% of public opinion, why? The Media.
Next time you are thinking Americans have changed and not in a good way, remember, it's fake. It's all a lie. Most people think just like you do but the media has brainwashed Americans with constant broadcasting of “LIES".
Its called social engineeering!...
Unintended Consequences of Monumental Inventions
To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.
It was said that Thomas Midgley Jr. had the finest lawn in America. Golf-club chairmen from across the Midwest would visit his estate on the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio, purely to admire the grounds; the Scott Seed Company eventually put an image of Midgley’s lawn on its letterhead. Midgley cultivated his acres of grass with the same compulsive innovation that characterized his entire career.
He installed a wind gauge on the roof that would sound an alarm in his bedroom, alerting him whenever the lawn risked being desiccated by a breeze. Fifty years before the arrival of smart-home devices, Midgley wired up the rotary telephone in his bedroom so that a few spins of the dial would operate the sprinklers.
In the fall of 1940, at age 51, Midgley contracted polio, and the dashing, charismatic inventor soon found himself in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down. At first he took on his disability with the same ingenuity that he applied to maintaining his legendary lawn, analyzing the problem and devising a novel solution to it — in this case, a mechanized harness with pulleys attached to his bed, allowing him to clamber into his wheelchair each morning without assistance. At the time, the contraption seemed emblematic of everything Midgley had stood for in his career as an inventor: determined, innovative thinking that took on a seemingly intractable challenge and somehow found a way around it.
Or at least it seemed like that until the morning of Nov. 2, 1944, when Midgley was found dead in his bedroom. The public was told he had been accidentally strangled to death by his own invention. Privately, his death was ruled a suicide. Either way, the machine he designed had become the instrument of his death.
Midgley was laid to rest as a brilliant American maverick of the first order. Newspapers ran eulogies recounting the heroic inventions he brought into the world, breakthroughs that advanced two of the most important technological revolutions of the age: automobiles and refrigeration. “The world has lost a truly great citizen in Mr. Midgley’s death,” Orville Wright declared. “I have been proud to call him friend.” But the dark story line of Midgley’s demise — the inventor killed by his own invention! — would take an even darker turn in the decades that followed.
In the fall of 1940, at age 51, Midgley contracted polio, and the dashing, charismatic inventor soon found himself in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down. At first he took on his disability with the same ingenuity that he applied to maintaining his legendary lawn, analyzing the problem and devising a novel solution to it — in this case, a mechanized harness with pulleys attached to his bed, allowing him to clamber into his wheelchair each morning without assistance. At the time, the contraption seemed emblematic of everything Midgley had stood for in his career as an inventor: determined, innovative thinking that took on a seemingly intractable challenge and somehow found a way around it.
Or at least it seemed like that until the morning of Nov. 2, 1944, when Midgley was found dead in his bedroom. The public was told he had been accidentally strangled to death by his own invention. Privately, his death was ruled a suicide. Either way, the machine he designed had become the instrument of his death.
Midgley was laid to rest as a brilliant American maverick of the first order. Newspapers ran eulogies recounting the heroic inventions he brought into the world, breakthroughs that advanced two of the most important technological revolutions of the age: automobiles and refrigeration. “The world has lost a truly great citizen in Mr. Midgley’s death,” Orville Wright declared. “I have been proud to call him friend.” But the dark story line of Midgley’s demise — the inventor killed by his own invention! — would take an even darker turn in the decades that followed.
While The Times praised him as “one of the nation’s outstanding chemists” in its obituary, today Midgley is best known for the terrible consequences of that chemistry, thanks to the stretch of his career from 1922 to 1928, during which he managed to invent leaded gasoline and also develop the first commercial use of the chlorofluorocarbons that would create a hole in the ozone layer. READ MORE...
Tuesday, March 21
Humanoid Robots
Human-shaped robots with dexterous hands will be staffing warehouses and retail stores, tending to the elderly and performing household chores within a decade or so, according to a Silicon Valley startup working toward that vision.
Why it matters: Demographic trends — such as a persistent labor shortage and the growing elder care crisis — make fully-functioning, AI-driven humanoid robots look tantalizingly appealing.
- Companies such as Amazon are reportedly worried about running out of warehouse workers, whose jobs are physically and mentally demanding with high attrition.
Driving the news: A heavy-hitting startup called Figure, which just emerged from stealth mode, is building a prototype of a humanoid robot that the company says will eventually be able to walk, climb stairs, open doors, use tools and lift boxes — perhaps even make dinner.
- The company is the brainchild of Brett Adcock, a tech entrepreneur who previously founded Archer Aviation (a "flying taxi" maker that went public) and Vettery (an online hiring marketplace that he and a partner sold for $100 million).
- He's assembled an all-star team of 40, including leading roboticists from Boston Dynamics and Tesla.
- They've moved into a 30,000-square-foot facility in Sunnyvale, California, where they plan to set up a mock warehouse to test their prototype.
- "We just got done in December with our full-scale humanoid," Adcock tells Axios. "We'll be walking that in the next 30 days."
Where it stands: The prototype — called Figure 01 — stands about 5'6" and weighs 130 pounds.
- It'll be fully electric, run for five hours on a charge and is intended for warehouse use.
- "We think we can get into commercial operation within a few years," Adcock tells Axios. "We should be able to do most jobs — physical labor jobs that humans don't want to do."
Yes, but: Humanoid robots are staggeringly difficult to build and engineer to perform reliably.
- There are a host of design challenges, from simple balance to replicating human movements.
- "We need to be able to push it and have it not fall down," says Adcock about the Figure 01. (Boston Dynamics has plenty of robot blooper videos on YouTube.)
- From there, programming a robot to move boxes in a warehouse is a lot easier than, say, engineering it to cook a meal.
What they're saying: "We face high risk and extremely low chances of success," Adcock wrote in a mission statement.
- But he exuded optimism in an interview: "This stuff just wasn't possible 10 years ago — I think it's possible now."
- A decade ago, "you just didn’t have the energy or the power density to make this work."
Reality check: Engineering robots is expensive. Adcock says he is self-financing Figure: "I put in $10 million last year." READ MORE...
Playing Around wih Samsung Tablet
So far, what I have been able to discover is that I can write a potential posting and save it or I can publish it... but, I cannot edit the date so that it will publish in the future. I can insert a photo but I cannot change its size or move it from one side of the page to the other, it simple pops up in the center... so, until I figure out how to do those two things, using the tablet's blogger app is not that advantagous. There is no spell check on this app either.
I also cannot enlarge the size of the font either which is frustrating since I like using a larger size most of the time. I cannot highlight or change the color of the text either.
So, while the tablet has its advantages, it seems to have more limitations which would prevent someone like me from using it more often...
Primordial Fractures in Space Time
The early universe may have been such a violent place that space-time itself fractured like a pane of glass. Those fractures would have released floods of gravitational waves, and a team of astronomers has discovered that we may have already detected these ripples in the fabric of space-time.
The team, who reported their results recently in a paper submitted for publication in the Journal of Computational Astrophysics and published on arXiv.org(opens in new tab), claim that they have seen evidence for so-called domain walls in the early universe.
When our universe was incredibly young, it was also incredibly exotic. The four forces of nature were bound up into a single, unified force. We do not know what that force looked like or how it operated, but we know that as the universe cooled and expanded, that unified force fractured into the four familiar forces we have today. First came gravity, then the strong nuclear force splintered off, and lastly, the electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces split from each other.
With each of these splittings, the universe completely remolded itself. New particles arose to replace ones that could exist only in extreme conditions previously. The fundamental quantum fields of space-time that dictate how particles and forces interact with each other reconfigured themselves. We do not know how smoothly or roughly these phase transitions took place, but it's perfectly possible that with each splitting, the universe settled into multiple identities at once.
This fracturing isn't as exotic as it sounds. It happens with all kinds of phase transitions, like water turning into ice. Different patches of water can form ice molecules with different orientations. No matter what, all the water turns into ice, but different domains can have differing molecular arrangements. Where those domains meet walls, or imperfections, fracturing will appear. READ MORE...
Monday, March 20
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