American Worker Retirement

 In 2022, the average american had between $5,000 to $6,000 in their savings accounts.  SOURCE:  www.cnbc.com

The suggested savings guidelines say you need about ten times your annual salary in savings as you reach your full retirement age. The median salary of a 65-year-old is $54,000 per year — which means you'd need approximately $540,000 saved if you want to retire at 65.    SOURCE: Western & Southern Financial Group

It would appear that most Americans have a long way to go in order to save the money they need for retirement.  Of course, once you are 67 years old, you can receive full SOCIAL SECURITY benefits which average about $1,200 to $1,500 each month.  And, if you work for a company that has 401Ks, then you already have a savings program in place.

If you work for state government, then there is a good possibility that they will still have retirement programs in place which might revolve around $2,000/month after 20/25 years.

The Social Security Trust Fund is running out of money as more and more Americans retire.  There is a good possibiity that in order to keep it solvent, the amount of monthy dispursements might reduce from 100% to 80% AND the age to draw full benefits might increase from 67 to 70.

Regardless of what our Federal Government decides to do or not to do, Americans should have their OWN PLAN for retirement.  This plan SHOULD INCLUDE paying off ALL DEBT before one retires...  in other words, it is not a good idea to retire with debt...  but then again, that is your decision to make.

FIFTEEN YEARS before my wife and I retired, we became DEBT FREE and began saving as much money as we could each year.  We also created an outside environment that would substitute for being at a beach resort.  We put in an above ground pool, built a deck around the pool, added a gazebo along with a 6 person hot tub.  While it is not a beach resort, it was our substitute an afforded us another chance to save money.

Our East TN location gives us another opportunity to live in a low cost of living environment.  It is possible to have monthly expenses of $3,500.  While our expenses are a little higher, Social Security pays for 75% of that.  We are lucky but you might not be that lucky...  this is exactly why you need to have a plan.  The earlier you start the better off you will be.

Imagine

 

Flying Bike

 

Dark Energy

This diagram reveals changes in the rate of expansion since the universe’s birth nearly 15 billion years ago. The more shallow the curve, the faster the rate of expansion. The curve changes noticeably about 7.5 billion years ago when objects in the universe began flying apart at a faster rate. Astronomers theorize that the faster expansion rate is due to a force called “dark energy” that is pulling galaxies apart. Credit: NASA/STSci/Ann Feild






Dark Energy Was Always Present, Everywhere and at Every Time


The Force is with us, according to cosmologists working to understand a mysterious “something” that’s making the universe expand. Its name? Dark energy. And, it turns out that it’s been present everywhere throughout cosmic history.

Astronomers have known since the 1920s that the universe is expanding. That understanding began with Edwin Hubble’s groundbreaking observation of a Type I supernova in the Andromeda Galaxy. 

And, astronomy trucked along for many years, using that expansion to measure distances and other parameters in the cosmos. Then, in 1998, something happened. Astronomers discovered that the cosmic expansion is speeding up.

The culprit? This completely not-at-all-understood dark energy force which can’t be seen, but with effects that can be detected. Some explain it as a property of space that causes the universe to expand faster and faster. 

Others suggest that it’s some kind of new energy fluid or a field that fits throughout space, but has an effect on the expansion of the Universe. It could also be something that doesn’t fit our current theories about gravity, and that a new theory of gravity could account for dark energy’s effects.

There’s no consensus yet about which of these theories is correct. However, its discovery immediately raised a bunch of questions, such as, when did the expansion rate accelerate? Will that change, too? Was it the same rate throughout the universe across all time?

Dark Energy, eROSITA, and Galaxy Clusters

To answer those, a group of researchers used something called eROSITA to look at a specific subset of galaxy clusters across time. eROSITA is the main X-ray-sensitive instrument aboard the Spectrum-ROENTGEN-GAMMA (SRG) mission launched in 2019. (Currently, it is shut down due to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.) 

One of its jobs is to do a complete all-sky survey in the medium energy X-ray range (up to 10 keV). The data it returns should help probe the nature and ubiquity of dark energy by studying up to 100,000 galaxy clusters and the material between them. It also studies obscured black holes in galaxies and looks at X-ray sources ranging from young stars and supernova remnants to X-ray binaries.

Astronomers I-Non Chieu of Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University and Matthias Klein, Sebastian Bocquet, and Joseph Mohr at Ludwig Maximilians-Universitat in Munich used eROSITA Final Equatorial Depth Survey (eFEDS) data taken before the shutdown to characterize about 500 low-mass galaxy clusters. 

It’s one of the largest such samples and it “saw” them over the past ten billion years. That’s around 3/4 of the age of the Universe.  READ MORE...

Fish Pod

 

Sanctioned Chef

 My wife and I retired in 2015 at the ages of 62 and 67 respectfully.  One of her demands was that she no longer spend time in the kitchen cooking, except for maybe Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I honored her demand without hesitation, but on the inside I was reluctant as I had never spent much time cooking except left over Christmas meal soups, biscuits, 15 bean soup with sausage, and rice (which I had gotten pretty good at).

Personally, I hate following recipes other than using the recipe as a guide.  Sometimes, my food turns our good, sometimes it doesn't...  go figure(?)...  lol...  however, I eat what I cook except for a few times where I had to throw it out with prejudice.

My main foundation when I am cooking most anything (with obvious exceptions) is:  onions or green onions, bell peppers, celery, mushrooms, garlic, pepper with the understanding that leeks can be substituted for onions.  I use vegetable, beef, or bone broth and sometimes put in 2-3 heaping tablespoons of some sort of creamy soup starter.

I use mainly chicken, vege sausage, turkey burgers but sometimes a small beef patty - most meats are diced or shredded.  I use a variety of beans to subsitute for meat like:  black, kidney, great northern, pinto, etc.  Pieces of other red meats are used for seasoning.  Pasta sometimes substitutes for Basmati white rice but I prefer rice over pasta unless it is a cold dish or spaghetti or lasagna.  All my veges and rices are washed.  My  veges might include:  potato, sweet potato, squash, zuchinni, peas, limas, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, kale, greens, celery, cucumber (and tomatoes), carrots, celery, bell peppers, leeks, onions (all types), garlic, and gabage -  I am sure I left out one or two or more.

When cooking beans, I always use the instapot and cook for 15 minutes.  While I have a pantry full of different varieties of beans, I prefer dried beans and let them soak in water overnight.  Some people, including myself, had gastrointestinal issues when first eating beans regularly.  After a few days to a week or two, my body adjusted and I am doing fine.  However, the max of beans I have combined at any one time has been four (4).

I also eat lots of fish but I never combine fish with anything else in the same pot.  I have used the oven, stove top, and air fyer.  I tried making a chowder using fish and corn but it was horrible....  I mean really horrible, so I am NEVER going to try that again.  My favorite fish is SALMON, with Cod and Tuna coming in second and third.  I like lobster tails and crab meat but they are expensive.  Any type of white fish is acceptable but so far what I have cooked is: cod, flounder, grouper, orange ruffy, and tilapia.

I have cooked a variety of different breakfasts, lunches, dinners, breads, and desserts.  What I like to cook the best is SOUPS and off the cuff mixtures.  I am a fan of one pot meals that makes enough for no more than 3 servings.  My meals are complex not just bacon and eggs for instance, except for maybe oatmeal and pancakes/waffles.  If I am going to cook eggs, then it is an omelette, quiche, or some kind of caserole.

When I was in college (1966-1974 [minus two years in the military]), I would take a can of vegetable soup, pour in a cup of water and a cup of rice in the popcorn maker.  The key there was keeping the lid on but stiring it often so it would not stick.  The popcorn maker unit's heat could not be regulated.  I also used it to boil water for hot instant coffee.

My final comments would be that I do not resent my wife because she stopped cooking as I rather enjoy doing my own cooking.  Being retired, I have plenty of time to prepare meals, cook, and clean up.  I don't necessarily recommend this for all couples but it does work for us.

Night Waves

 

Transforming CO2 Into Foosd

Researchers at the Technical University of Munich have developed a sustainable method to create the essential amino acid L-alanine from CO2. This process uses artificial photosynthesis, converting CO2 to methanol and then to L-alanine. This new method requires less space than traditional agriculture, highlighting the potential of combining bioeconomy and hydrogen economy for a more sustainable future.

Researchers produce important amino acid from greenhouse gas CO2

• Growing demand for food in the world
• Biotechnological process via methanol as intermediate product
• Less ground required than for plant cultivation

Ensuring the supply of food to the constantly growing world population and protecting the environment at the same time are often conflicting objectives. Now researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have successfully developed a method for the synthetic manufacture of nutritional protein using a type of artificial photosynthesis. The animal feed industry is the primary driver of high demand for large volumes of nutritional protein, which is also suitable for use in meat substitute products.

A group led by Prof. Volker Sieber at the TUM Campus Straubing for Biotechnology and Sustainability (TUMCS) has succeeded in producing the amino acid L-alanine, an essential building block in proteins, from the environmentally harmful gas CO2. Their indirect biotechnological process involves methanol as an intermediate. Until now, protein for animal feed has been typically produced in the southern hemisphere with large-scale agricultural space requirements and negative consequences for biodiversity.

Artificial photosynthesis for environmentally friendly food production, from left: PhD student Vivian Willers und Prof. Volker Sieber. Credit: Otto Zellmer / TUM

The CO2, which is removed from the atmosphere, is first turned into methanol using green electricity and hydrogen. The new method converts this intermediate into L-alanine in a multi-stage process using synthetic enzymes; the method is extremely effective and generates very high yields. L-alanine is one of the most important components of protein, which is essential to the nutrition of both humans and animals.  READ MORE...

Open Minded

 

Mysterious

 

Ark

 

A United America Divided

The phrase, UNITED WE STAND--DIVIDED WE FALL, has been attributed to the ancient Greek storyteller Aesop, both directly in his fable "The Four Oxen and the Lion" and indirectly in "The Bundle of Sticks". A similar phrase also appears in the biblical "New Testament" – translated into English from the historic Greek in Mark 3:25 as "And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand".


However, Americans typically think that it originated with them, specifically John Dickinson, one of our Founding Fathers... I have always found it amazing how ARROGRANT Americans try to be when it comes to showing our best side to the rest of the world.


The point here is that the phrase has a long tradition of usefulness that has typically relied upon history to prove its validity. That validity has been proven over and over again.


AND YET...
American leaders allow their country to remain divided.
"Stupid is as stupid does..." Forrest Gump


How is America DIVIDED?

1. Wealthy versus not wealthy
2. Liberal versus conservative
3. Black versus white
4. Northerners versus Southerners
5. Christians versus non christians
6. Educated versus non educated
7. Males versus females
8. Trans versus non trans
9. Married versus single
10. Old versus young

Politicians keep talking about how we need to unify the country but it is all talk because no one ever does anything about it.  That is really sad, but not half as sad as we are going to be when CHINA eats our lunch.  

If I was an adversay of America, now is when I would be attacking the country...  Blacks ain't gonna fight for the whites and whites ain't gonna fight for the blacks.  Screw them...  Screw each other...

Right now the country is obsessed with green energy and electric vehicles and are not looking past their noses to see if we have the frigging infrastructure to support those electric cars.

BUT more importantly is the anger that we are causing around the world because of our war on fossil fuels...  it has pissed off:

1. Saudi Arabia
2. China
3. India
4. Russia
5. Brazil
6. South Africa
7. Iran/Iraq
8. North Korea

Are we UNITED HERE IN AMERICA to do battle with these countries?

Will our WOKE military rise to the occassion?

Will the left support a war?

Will the wealthy support a war?

A DIVIDED AMERICA IS SELF-DETERMINED TO FAIL...

Steak Cuts Guide

 

Face off

 

Mixed Drinks

 

THe Reality of Wireless Energy

DARPA plans to create wireless energy transfer infrastructure to supply near-uninterruptable power to U.S. military bases worldwide. The plan, as reported by Popular Mechanics, is to use laser technology to beam electricity around the planet. Famously a dream of Nikola Tesla over 100 years ago, if successful, this technology, called fittingly enough POWER ("Persistent Optical Wireless Energy Relay"), would make the U.S. military less reliant on liquid fuel like diesel and vulnerable power lines, which can be intercepted or sabotaged by enemy forces.

“First of all, the environment has changed, and the need for more resilient energy transport methods for military operations is at a premium,” explained Col. Paul “Promo” Calhoun to Popular Mechanics in an exclusive interview. American forces operate globally like the special operations units he resupplied as a C-17 cargo pilot, from outposts in the South China Sea to the Iraqi desert. Since there is no simple way to power them, many forces use their radars, anti-drone microwave weapons, lasers, or other energy-intensive equipment. And with each passing year, the severity of the issue increases.

“On the technology side, significant advancements have been made in high-energy lasers, wavefront sensing, adaptive optics, high-altitude electric air platforms, safety interlocks, and narrow-bandgap-tuned high-efficiency photovoltaics,” Col. Calhoun explains.

“POWER is an optical power beaming program,” Calhoun says. “There are other potential power-beaming modalities, such as microwaves, that we intend to explore in future programs. For POWER, the propagating wave is a laser [that] provides long-range high-throughput capability when transmitted at high altitudes. The relays redirect the laser energy without conversion, and then the end-user converts that laser energy back into electricity using narrow-bandgap-tuned monochromatic photovoltaics,” he added.  READ MORE...

Sink Pool

 

Mud Racing

 

A New Hypersonic Plane

Venus Aerospace is building a hypersonic aircraft that can carry about a dozen passengers, traveling at Mach 9, nine times the speed of sound. The Stargazer, which measures 150 feet long by 100 feet wide, will travel between two cities in the world, says the Houston-based company, by flying 6,905 mph at an altitude of 170,000 feet.

Hypersonic is defined as five times the speed of sound. By comparison, the last commercial supersonic jet, the Concorde, traveled at Mach 2, or about, 1,535 mph. The fastest aircraft ever built, Lockheed’s SR-71 “Blackbird,” traveled at Mach 3.2 (2,455 mph).

Venus co-founder and CTO Andrew Duggleby plans to move Stargazer from science fiction to reality with a rotating-detonation engine that spins at 20,000 rotations per second. “Rotating detonation means the supersonic combustion happens continuously inside the engine and our video shows the detonation wave moving around the engine at supersonic speeds,” noted the company after its recent successful test of a prototype at its Spaceport Houston headquarters.

The Stargazer is one of several hypersonic aircraft trying to get off the ground.

Courtesy Venus Aerospace

The rotating-detonation concept, which burns 20 percent less fuel than a conventional engine, is being promoted by the US Navy. This technology has been successfully tested before. But the Venus test was the first time using a room-temperature storable propellant, which will make the engine more viable for aircraft. “We now have both the technical knowledge and engineering to fully advance into next steps of development and flight testing,” said Duggleby.

The 150,000-lb. Stargazer will take off with conventional jet engines, but then transition to rockets once it reaches altitude. The route it will fly is not technically on the edge of space, or the Karman line, which is 100 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. But it will be high enough to see the planet’s curve and the blackness of space.

“This represents a key advancement towards real flying systems, both for defense applications and ultimately commercial high-speed travel,” said Jim Bridenstine, former NASA administrator and US Congressman, following the test.  READ MORE...

Magic