Saturday, March 25
Budget Thinking
My gas can is 5 gallons and it lasts about 3 tanks so I will fill it up about 8-10 times. At $3/gallon, I will spend $150 mowing the lawn this spring-summer-fall.
While that may not seem like much money, for some people it is a lot of money. It takes about an hour to mow and another hour to weed eat. So, 26 weeks times 2 hours is a total of 52 hours spent on lawn maintenance. If I paid myself $10/hour, I would spend another $500 and if I paid myself $20/hour, it would be $1,000+/-...
By thinking this through, I am able to prepare a budget that will incorporate lawn maintenance and gasoline... Do I use the cost of labor or just the supplies?
I ask this because the two hours that I spend working on lawn maintenance are two hours that physically impact my body negatively. The riding lawn mower that I use, goes over rippled ground, so I am constantly bouncing up and down which is bad for the disks in my back. When I weed eat, the eater is not long enough for my body and I must bend over just slightly and that puts a strain on my body as well.
My cancer treatments require that I stay out of the sun, so I must wear UV protective clothing, otherwise my skin turns pink and red and I am not sure what other impact it may have on my cancer cells that are trying to grow inside me.
So, several things must be taken into consideration when planning out a budget, just for lawn maintenance. Of course, there is wear and tear on the riding lawn mower and each year of usage, the wear and tear increases just like with the human body. Lawn mower maintenance cost is about $150 each year as well.
Then one must also consider grass seed, straw, fertilizer, and water. Then there again is the labor when using these things as well as the labor watering the grass seed.
I don't rake leaves, I mow them up so I am saving myself some physical exertion there. Many of my neighbors rake up their leaves... not sure why they do that.
When you think about budgets, figure out your total annual cost for something, then prorate it over 12 months... for example, car insurance comes out twice a year, but if you spread it out over 12 months, you will already have that money set aside.
More budget tips in future articles...
Time Reflections
The explanation of spatial reflections—whether by light or by sound—are pretty intuitive. Electromagnetic radiation in the form of light or sound waves hit a mirror or wall, respectively, and change course.
This allows our eyes to see a reflection or echo of the original input. However, for more than 50 years, scientists have theorized that there’s another kind of reflection in quantum mechanics known as time reflection.
This term might conjure up images of a nuclear-powered DeLorean or a particular police box (that’s bigger on the inside), but that’s not quite what scientists mean by the term.
This term might conjure up images of a nuclear-powered DeLorean or a particular police box (that’s bigger on the inside), but that’s not quite what scientists mean by the term.
Instead, time reflections occur when the entire medium in which an electromagnetic wave travels suddenly changes course. This causes a portion of that wave to reverse and its frequency transforms into another one.
Because these time reflections require a uniform variation across an entire electromagnetic field, scientists assumed it would require too much energy to actually observe time reflections in action.
Because these time reflections require a uniform variation across an entire electromagnetic field, scientists assumed it would require too much energy to actually observe time reflections in action.
But scientists from the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) in New York City successfully observed time reflections by sending broadband signals into a strip of metal filled with electronic switches that were connected to reservoir capacitors. READ MORE...
American Education
There was an increased emphasis on going to college and making high grades so you would be accepted. Students started memorizing for the tests without retaining knowedge or remembering what they memorized. Those graduates ended up in college and found that they were not properly prepared. Pressure was placed on the faculty to retain student and not loose revenue so the professors lowered their standards.
In the business world in the 1970s realized their employees did not know basic high school math even though they had graudated. These companies had to spend millions to educate the workforce and consequently passed those costs onto the consumer with high prices.
Businesses also started realizing that college graduates were coming out of college uneducated and instead of putting pressure on the educational institutions, they just started hiring international students who were better prepared academically. Many of these well educated student were Asians and/or from India.
Throughout my 45 year career and while I was mainly in administration, I logged a substantial amount of hours in the classroom teaching both degree seeking and non-degree seeking students. I have noticed over the years a decline in the retention of knowledge, problem solving skills, reading, communications, and presentation skills. I also have noticed that students do not want to drill down on a subject to learn more or learn more than they have to learn for the grade.
THESE LACK OF SKILL IS WHAT THEY ARE BRINGING TO THE MARKETPLACE AS THEY SEARCH FOR EMPLOYMENT...
Friday, March 24
DaVnci's Mother an Enslaved Teenager
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A new collection of documents found within the State Archives of Florence suggests that da Vinci's mother was an enslaved girl kidnapped from the Caucasus.
Leonardo da Vinci's mother was kidnapped and enslaved as a teenager in the Caucasus and sent to Italy, a new analysis of nearly 600-year-old documents suggests.
The documents, discovered by an Italian historian, suggest that da Vinci's mother, Caterina, was kidnapped and torn from her home by the Black Sea in Circassia before being shipped to Venice.
If they're accurate, it would mean that Leonardo da Vinci, considered to be one of the greatest painters and scientists of the Italian Renaissance, was only half-Italian. Carlo Vecce, the documents' finder and a professor of Italian literature at the University "L’Orientale" of Naples, has used the discovery as the subject of a historical novel.
The book — called "Il Sorriso di Caterina(opens in new tab)," or "The Smile of Caterina, the Mother of Leonardo" — contains factually accurate details from his research, Vecce said. The findings, however, have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. READ MORE...
Taking Care of Business
In 1987, at the age of 40, I quit smoking cigarettes, consciously decreased my intake of alcohol, sugars, fried foods, and red meat. I also consciously and with determination began an exercise program that began with running 3-5 miles a week that abruptly changed into walking those same miles because my knees could not tolerate the asphalt on which I was running.
THIRTY-FIVE years later, at the age of 75, I am still following the program I started in 1987. I really enjoy eating a cheeseburger, and a few slices of a meat lover's pizza and do so about 2-3 times a year. I probably eat a steak once a year and have not even had a glass of wine since 2015 or about 7 years ago.
BTW, my total cholesterol count (both bad and good) is 84...
My Cardiologist loves that level and wants me to keep it up...
I also have made a determined effort to eat less than 2,000 calories each day with the focus on staying between 1,500 to 1,800... it is not all that easy but very manageable... My eating habits increase when I do not keep myself busy or when I am watching a movie or a series. Knowing that weakness, I try to snack as healthy as possible or fill my belly up with 8 ounces of coffee and french vanilla mix. I sip slowly to extend the consumption.
My height is 6'1" and my weight is 220 which is down from 250 and I would like to get to 200 but these last 20 pounds are not that easy... at least for me.
My main diet revolves around chicken, turkey, salmon, cod, tuna, white rice, and all sorts of veges that are mainly beans, peas, limas, broccoli, onions, green onion, mushrooms, leeks, bell peppers, celery, garlic, Pita bread, and English Muffins. My meats are cooked in an air fryer, or in a soup along with rice.
If the contents of my cooking exceed 3 meals, then the overage is frozen to be eaten later.
One of the best ways to loose weight is not through exercise but by reducing the amount of food that is eaten at each meal. Some experts believe that 5 small meals should be eaten each day instead of 3. I eat 3 meals and try to keep my portions small. Perhaps, 2 snacks a day.
Do I miss smoking cigarettes? NO
Do I miss not drinking alcohol? NO
Both of these vices cost lots of money... and, while many people use them as a way of reducing stress, there are other ways to reduce stress that are HEALTHY.
My personal opinion is that SMOKING and ALCOHOL are CRUTCHES rather than relying on yourself and your own internal controls to enjoy life and reduce stress. Exercise is a good stress reducer, but do you walk or exercise inside a gym or is it done outside, where you can expose yourself to the beauty of nature and fresh air...
Of course, if you live inside a city, there is very little fresh air... unlike the fresh air found out in the countryside.
Quantum Phononic Processor
Quantum computing systems have the potential to outperform classical computers on some tasks, helping to solve complex real-world problems in shorter times. Research teams worldwide have thus been trying to realize this quantum advantage over traditional computers, by creating and testing different quantum systems.
Researchers at Tsinghua University recently developed a new programmable quantum phononic processor with trapped ions. This processor, introduced in a paper in Nature Physics, could be easier to scale up in size than other previously proposed photonic quantum processors, which could ultimately enable better performances on complex problems.
"Originally, we were interested in the proposal of Scott Aaronson and others about Boson sampling, which might show the quantum advantages of simple linear optics and photons," Kihwan Kim, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. "We were wondering if it is possible to realize it with the phonons in a trapped ion system."
The use of phonons (i.e., sound waves or elementary vibrations) to create quantum computing systems was theoretically explored for some time. In recent years, however, physicists created trapped-ion systems created the technology necessary to use phonons as a quantum information processing resource, rather than mere mediators for entangling qubits.
"It has been shown that phonons at a harmonic potential can coherently transfer to the other harmonic potential and these phonons can interfere with each other," Kihwan Kim explained. "When we learned that a modified boson sampling (Gaussian boson sampling) can also be applied to a chemical problem (i.e., vibrational sampling) we demonstrated the sampling of SO2 molecules and developed a method to create a highly entangled phononic state; yet this was limited to a single ion. In this work, we finally implemented the phononic network in a scalable way, overcoming the limits of single ions."
The system created by Kihwan Kim and his colleagues is a programmable bosonic network, a network consisting of a set of bosonic modes, connected to each other via controllable beam splitters. They realized this network using phonons, excitations of collective vibrational modes that are also bosons. READ MORE...
Thursday, March 23
Upside Down & Inside Out
One issue has not changed and that is the trinity of GREED - POWER - CONTROL...
The black population was content until a white cop killed Rodney King with his boot on the boy's neck and now they are CRYING...
BLM - CRT - WOKE - REPARATIONS
And... if the truth be known, it is simply their greed for money, hoping that the white man will give it to them so they will not have to go out and work for it...
With all their new money, they will still be black and they will still only represent 12% of the population... and there will still be the feeling that whites would rather work with Asians and Hispanics than with Blacks...
They will still be the MINORITY...
Now matter how hard I try and no matter how much money I earn or save, I will still be lower middle class...
Nothing is going to change that reality for me.
Our technologies have destroyed our environment and now we are trying to save our environment... but that costs money... So, what do we spend money on?
- Social Programs
- Infrastructure
- Healthcare
- Military/National Security
- Education
- Housing
- Space Programs
- Technology
Do, we pay off our debt first?
Do we borrow more money?
Do we print more money?
Do we end fossil fuels?
America's labor is the most expensive in the world when one adds in all the benefits we demand...
- If we give pay increases, then prices go up...
- If prices don't go up, then profits go down and shareholders don't get dividends...
- Who is more important?
- Employees or shareholders?
We want for everyone to buy EVs but we don't have the power grid to support all those EVs nor do we have the infrastructure of charging stations...
WHY???
All of that costs money...
Has anyone figured out how long it takes to charge an EV?
Do you want to go on vacation and half way there, spend several hours charging your car??? That is to so, providing that there is not a line at the charging station...
HAS TECHNOLOGY MADE OUR LIVES BETTER OR WORSE? OR BOTH?
Nuclear Reactor on Moon
LONDON — The UK Space Agency said Friday it would back research by Rolls-Royce looking at the use of nuclear power on the moon.
In a statement, the government agency said researchers from Rolls-Royce had been working on a Micro-Reactor program “to develop technology that will provide power needed for humans to live and work on the Moon.”
The UKSA will now provide £2.9 million (around $3.52 million) of funding for the project, which it said would “deliver an initial demonstration of a UK lunar modular nuclear reactor.”
The new money builds upon £249,000 provided by the UKSA to fund a study in 2022.
“All space missions depend on a power source, to support systems for communications, life-support and science experiments,” it said.
“Nuclear power has the potential to dramatically increase the duration of future Lunar missions and their scientific value.”
Rolls-Royce is set to work with a range of organizations on the project, including the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre and Nuclear AMRC, and the University of Oxford.
“Developing space nuclear power offers a unique chance to support innovative technologies and grow our nuclear, science and space engineering skills base,” Paul Bate, chief executive of the UK Space Agency, said.
Bate added that Rolls-Royce’s research “could lay the groundwork for powering continuous human presence on the Moon, while enhancing the wider UK space sector, creating jobs and generating further investment.”
According to the UKSA, Rolls-Royce — not to be confused with Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, which is owned by BMW — is aiming “to have a reactor ready to send to the Moon by 2029.”
Dhara Patel, space expert at the National Space Centre in Leicester, England, told CNBC that humans returning to the moon would need “a reliable power source” so astronauts could “live and work on our lunar neighbour for long-term missions.”
“Solar power would seem an obvious choice but the Moon’s rotation results in a two-week day followed by a fortnight of darkness or night time — not ideal,” Patel went on to explain.
“With little air and no liquid water on the surface, other renewable sources of energy aren’t possible,” she said. “Nuclear power could enable a continuous source of power regardless of the physical environment and conditions on the lunar surface.”
Using nuclear power on the moon, Patel noted, could boost the lifetime of lunar missions. READ MORE...
Ongoing Global Conflicts
TO SEE A CLEARER IMAGE, CLICK HERE...
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We only know about this war, because our media only chooses to report the news of this war, as the perceive it impacts us the most... all the others are just not news worthy...
The news outlets report all the crime and violence going on in the big cities throughout the USA, and some report on the illegal immigration that is taking place along with all the illegal drugs that are pouring into our country...
However...
in East TN, we are immune to all of this shit that the rest of you have to put up with... there is no big city within spitting distance of where we live, so we are not exposed to crime and violence nor are we exposed to illegal drugs. And, as far as the illegal immigrants are concerned... well, they just have not made their way up to East TN yet and if they do, we here in TN will simply ignore them... until they mess with us and then.... since we are a right to carry state, I believe we will start seeing local residents wearing handguns on this hips... it's nothing personal, it just our property and we aim to protect it...
It's weird, ain't it, how wearing a firearm, prevents violence... We also have the CASTLE LAW, so step onto our property (castle) and we'll blow your ass away quicker than stink on shit.
Me personally... I don't own a gun and never will... Will I support the 2nd Amendment, I believe it was a temporary measure... but since it is still around then it has to be honored like all of our laws... except for the law of illegal immigration as that one seems to be ignored.
TN is a land-locked state so when the north ans south poles start melting, we may have beach front property... won't that be a hoot.
Hydrogen Vehicles
Green energy is where the world is headed. Even though hydrogen isn’t as popular as EVs are, the energy source is booming with potential and seems far more practical than other zero-emission alternatives.
While hydrogen is popular in its fuel-cell guise, an internal combustion version is perhaps not as familiar. Although previous hydrogen engine attempts have made headlines, it’s JCB that's really pushing the engineering boundaries here.
JCB’s newly-developed hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine is a zero-emission alternative to electric cars and fuel cells. As a manufacturer of heavy-duty machinery, JCB is well aware of the issues with electrifying an excavator or a backhoe loader.
JCB’s newly-developed hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine is a zero-emission alternative to electric cars and fuel cells. As a manufacturer of heavy-duty machinery, JCB is well aware of the issues with electrifying an excavator or a backhoe loader.
Mind you, the company has multiple working electric and fuel-cell machines in their lineup. So it’s not like they haven't tried them.
The British heavy equipment manufacturer reckons hydrogen engines can bridge the gap between utilizing existing combustion technology while keeping things simple, inexpensive, and emissions-free.
The British heavy equipment manufacturer reckons hydrogen engines can bridge the gap between utilizing existing combustion technology while keeping things simple, inexpensive, and emissions-free.
In this latest Harry’s Garage video, JCB explains how their hydrogen technology is almost production-ready and that it's the future of all such heavy machinery. Who knows, it might even, one day, trickle down to passenger cars. READ MORE...
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