In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> Seize the Grey wins 149th Preakness Stakes with Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan finishing second (More) | Manchester City wins a record fourth straight English Premier League title (More)

> Dabney Coleman, Emmy-winning character actor, dies at 92 (More) | Alice Stewart, CNN political commentator and GOP political adviser, dies at 58 (More)

> Xander Schauffele edges Bryson DeChambeau to win 2024 PGA Championship, Schauffele's first major title (More) | Oleksandr Usyk defeats Tyson Fury to become boxing's first undisputed heavyweight champion in 24 years (More)



Science & Technology
In partnership with Miso Robotics

> Geologists discover evidence of a now-dry branch of the Nile River near the Giza Pyramids; may help explain the pyramids' location and how they were built (More) | Explore the 3,000-year history of ancient Egypt in three minutes (More, w/video)

> Study links gut microbes produced by high-fat diets to tumor progression in mice; may help explain the correlation between obesity and increased risk of certain cancers (More)

> Engineers develop thin film that can provide continuous monitoring of air quality and the presence of toxic gases in industrial or home environments (More)

Business & Markets
> US stock markets close mixed Friday (S&P 500 +0.1%, Dow +0.3%, Nasdaq -0.1%), with the Dow closing above 40,000 points for the first time after temporarily surpassing the benchmark Thursday (More)

> Disneyland’s character performers vote to join the Actors' Equity Association after calling for higher wages and more dependable schedules (More) | Mercedes-Benz workers in Alabama vote against joining union (More)

> Elon Musk launches Starlink satellite internet service in Indonesia to support nation's health service and education sector across the 17,000-island archipelago; details of the agreement were not made public (More)



Politics & World Affairs
> The US and Saudi Arabia progress toward binational security deal in talks over the weekend; deal—reportedly days away—would include defense guarantees and cooperation on nuclear energy for civilian purposes, with a pathway for Israeli-Saudi normalization pending Israel's recognition of a Palestinian state (More)

> Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani charged with conspiracy, fraud, and forgery in Arizona case involving electors who defied state voters to cast votes for former President Donald Trump over President Joe Biden (More)

> London's High Court to decide today whether Julian Assange will be extradited to the US to face espionage charges; determination rests on US assurances about Assange's First Amendment rights and protection from death penalty (More)

SOURCE:  1440 News

Marriage

 

When I was growing up, those graduates who did not go to college, stayed home and worked and got married.

Many of those marriages ended in divorce 10-20 year later.

Why?

Those people who went to college and graduated, also got married after graduation as they began their careers and these marriages ended in divorce 10-20 years later as well.

Why?

Some of these divorces were caused by dramatic events, such as:

1. the death of a child
2. alcoholism or drugs
3. infidelity
4. a serious illness

For me, those are not really reasons for divorce, unless the seeds for the divorce had already been planted, and specific situations brought it to a head.

Most divorced people, BLAME the other person for the divorce, trying to convince themselves that they had very little to do with it.

That's BULLSHIT and could not be farther from the TRUTH.

Both parties are responsible for the divorce and while there can be exceptions, I suppose it is not the general rule.

The divorce rate in the USA is 50% and has been that way for several decades.

Living with another person is not easy especially someone who is of the opposite sex.

If divorced people get remarried, the odds are this second marriage will not last long either because neither party has changed themselves.  For example, if one spouse always finds fault with the other person and does not see that what they are doing is wrong, they will continue to display that behavior in all subsequent marriages.

When the first marriage lasts 25 years and the second marriages gets close to that 25-year period, it will start to break down as well.    However, in all likelihood, this second marriage will remain together because of the couple's age and financial situation.

This type of marriage will continue to be horrible until one member dies.

At 70 years old, not many people want to change who they are...

Musical

 

Mysterious Particle Called GLUEBALL

Scientists have long been on the lookout for 'glueballs', which are bound states of subatomic gluon particles on their own, without any quarks involved. Now, we may just have found them, hiding away in a particle accelerator experiment.


It promises to be a hugely significant breakthrough in physics, but for the benefit of everyone without a PhD in the subject, we'll start at the beginning. The main job of gluons is to hold quarks in place and keep atoms stable – quarks being the building blocks that make up protons and neutrons.


This role makes the gluon part of the strong nuclear force – one of the four fundamental forces of nature that hold the laws of physics together, along with gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak nuclear force.     READ MORE...READ MORE...

Live in Houston

 

Black Magic Woman

 

NASA's Proposed Plasma Rocket

The future of space travel depends on our ability to reach celestial pit stops faster and more efficiently. As such, NASA is working with a technology development company on a new propulsion system that could drop off humans on Mars in a relatively speedy two months’ time rather than the current nine month journey required to reach the Red Planet.

NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program recently selected six promising projects for additional funding and development, allowing them to graduate to the second stage of development. 

The new “science fiction-like concepts,” as described by John Nelson, NIAC program executive at NASA, include a lunar railway system and fluid-based telescopes, as well as a pulsed plasma rocket.

The potentially groundbreaking propulsion system is being developed by Arizona-based Howe Industries. To reach high velocities within a shorter period of time, the pulsed plasma rocket would use nuclear fission—the release of energy from atoms splitting apart—to generate packets of plasma for thrust.   READ MORE...

Black Cat

 

Florida Vacation Wrapup

 

My wife and I spent last week in Florida, first Ft. Lauderdale then St. Augustine.

While Florida has nice warm weather, it was a little too hot and humid in Ft. Lauderdale with temps in the 90s.  

A half day's drive north on I95 and we are in St. Augustine where the temps are 10 degrees cooler but there is rain during the day, ruining our time at the beach.

The motel we stayed at delivered breakfast each morning at no extra cost which was nice and kept us from having to add those meals to our grocery list.

While the room was a regular motel room and we are used to having condos, we were a little cramped for space, but we managed to work around it.  However, there was a crack in the floor of the shower near the drain that concerned us from a health perspective.

Each morning, if we wanted to go to the beach we had to walk 1/4 of a mile, half of which was a walkway, the other half was sand.  We came back to the room for lunch and to us the bathroom, so each day we walked at least 1.25 miles.

Cars are allowed on the beach in St. Augustine, close to the sand dunes and deep grooves are made in the sand from their tires.  I fell to the ground twice while pulling a buggy across those tire grooves.  While the fall did no damage to anything but my pride, it still illuminated that I was getting old.

My wife and I may drive down to southern Florida again to board a cruise ship but will not come down here again for a week of vacation on the beach.  We may try something on the Gulf like Gulfport but not anywhere in Florida.

Morning Fog

Mar's Largest Mountain

We often marvel at the largest peaks that grace our planet—Everest, K2, Denali—but there is a mountain that dwarfs all these giants not just by a little, but by an astronomical margin. Olympus Mons, is the largest volcano in our solar system. It’s located not on Earth, but on Mars.

Olympus Mons stands at a staggering height of about 22 kilometers (13.6 miles) with a base diameter of approximately 600 kilometers (373 miles). 

To put that into perspective, Mount Everest, Earth’s highest peak at approximately 8.8 kilometers (5.5 miles), is nearly 2.5 times shorter than Olympus Mons. 

The sheer scale of this Martian giant is not just impressive in terms of its height but also in its volume and area. Olympus Mons covers an area similar to the size of Arizona or Italy!  READ MORE...

Revolution

 

Sunday Misc

Sunday May 19 OpEd

 

The Universe

 

First Prehistoric Monument Found

A team of French archaeologists have discovered a prehistoric site in the commune of Marliens, just 12 miles southeast of Dijon—the first of its kind to be found in France.

Researchers from the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap) excavated a 15-acre site with the remnants of numerous enclosures, all scattered with relics dating to disparate eras, from prehistory through the early Iron Age (1200–500 B.C.E.) “This type of monument seems unprecedented and currently no comparison has been possible,” Inrap said in a statement.

Excavations concluded in February. The most visually compelling subject the team is examining is a potentially prehistoric network of interlocking enclosures. The circular one in the center measures over 36 feet in diameter. It has a horseshoe-shaped enclosure jutting off over 26 feet to the north, as well as an open-ended southern appendage.       READ MORE...

Sweet Home Alabama

 

In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> The 2024 WNBA season kicks off; see biggest storylines (More) | ... and season predictions (More) | NFL's regular season schedule released tonight (8 pm ET, NFL Network) (More)

> Alice Munro, Nobel Prize-winning short story writer, dies at 92 (More) | Filmmaker Roman Polanski acquitted in French court of defaming actress who accused Polanski of sexual assault (More)

> George Clooney to debut on Broadway in spring 2025 in stage adaptation of "Good Night, and Good Luck" (More) | Pop culture edition of "Jeopardy!" tapped for Amazon Prime Video (More)



Science & Technology
> Google reveals Project Astra, an AI-powered app that can answer queries based on an object in the camera's field of vision (More) | See all updates from Google I/O conference (More)

> Climate analysis finds 2023 was the warmest summer in the Northern Hemisphere over the past 2,000 years; tree ring analysis was used to supplement instrumental evidence, which dates back to 1850 (More) | How tree ring analysis provides climate data (More)

> Human embryos primarily develop from only one of two cells created during the first division of a fertilized egg, while the second cell develops into the yolk sac; discovery expected to help improve in-vitro fertilization treatments (More)


Business & Markets
> US stock markets close higher (S&P 500 +0.5%, Dow +0.3%, Nasdaq +0.8%) despite news of higher-than-expected wholesale prices in April, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell comments indicating interest rates to remain steady (More)

> Boeing allegedly violated a 2021 settlement that allowed the company to avoid criminal prosecution over deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019 involving its 737 Max aircraft, US Justice Department says in court filing (More)

> UK mining firm Anglo American plans to spin off or sell diamond company De Beers as it works to fend off $43B takeover bid from Australian rival BHP Group (More) | Walmart to lay off hundreds of corporate employees, require majority of remote workers to return to office most days (More)

SOURCE:  1440 News

Life's Been Good

 

I grew up (before high school) in Alexandria, Virginia - actually we lived 4 miles outside the city limits of Alexandria towards Mount Vernon.

There were several rural suburban communities around us that were separated by heavily wooded areas which made it perfect for young males.

There were two shopping centers on either side of our community about a half mile to a mile apart where we spent lots of our time in the drug stores drinking cherry cokes.  We would catch the bus into Alexandria to take in a movie, especially on Saturdays when they had cowboy movies in the morning.

High school was spent in Cairo, Egypt because my father worked for the American Embassy and when I graduated, there were only 28 students in our class from 14 different nationalities.  In the summers we would travel through Europe in groups buying Eurail passes for a month.

College was in North Carolina and after three years I left to join the military.  I joined the Navy Reserves, so my active-duty time was only two years, just like getting drafted.

After college, I worked locally until being offered an opportunity that could not be turned down in Tennessee and remained there ever since the relocation.  I prefer TN to NC because it is more akin to my simple lifestyle.

Kids today whether in Northern Virginia, the Piedmont of North Carolina, or the East Tennessee Valley, do not really have the same opportunities that we had in the 1950s and 1960s.  I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing but what is different today than back then is that we spent most of our time outside - this is no longer done.

So far, we have not been bothered by ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, but I am sure that this will change very shortly.

Most of the people around us in our community are retired but the only time we see each other is if we happen to be outside at the same time.  We don't make a point of going over to each other's house.

Financially, my wife and I are secure for the rest of our lives even if inflation continues.  We are lucky in that regard as there are many others in East TN that are not that fortunate even though they are still working.  Mainly it is because of their lifestyles that they are not yet, willing to change or modify.

Each day above ground is a good day for us and we try to enjoy it as best we can.  We stay busy and seldom sit around with nothing to do, except maybe when we got out for lunch or dinner or go on vacation.

Speaking of vacation, we are currently in St. Agustine, Florida and while we have never been here before, it is nice, but we like Myrtle Beach, SC better.  Still, it is a vacation, and we are making the most of it.

Somewhat Political