Naked

 

Economy Coming to an End

Warren Buffett, whose economic insights are craved for Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s deep ties to the American economy, had a gloomy prediction for his own businesses: the good times may be over.

The billionaire investor expects earnings at the majority of Berkshire’s operations to fall this year as a long-predicted downturn slows economic activity. He made his comments at the conglomerate’s annual general meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, after Berkshire posted an almost 13% gain in operating earnings to $8.07 billion for the first quarter.

“The majority of our businesses will report lower earnings this year than last year,” Buffett, 92, said, before crowds of thousands at the event on Saturday. During the last six months or so, the “incredible period” for the US economy has been coming to an end, he said.

Berkshire is often seen as a proxy for economic health owing to the expansive nature of its businesses ranging from railroad to electric utilities and retail. Buffett himself has said Berkshire owes its success to the incredible growth of the US economy over the decades, but his prediction for a slowdown at his firms comes as upheaval at regional banks threatens to curtail lending as inflation and higher rates continue to bite.

Buffett’s long-time business partner Charlie Munger, 99, who joined him on stage, said the more-difficult economic environment will also make it harder for value investors, who typically buy stocks that look cheap compared to the intrinsic value of the businesses.

“Get used to making less,” Munger said.

Geico Revived
Still, Buffett said he expects earnings at its insurance underwriting operations — which are less correlated to business activity — to improve this year. Berkshire already reported higher earnings at those businesses including auto-insurer Geico, which swung to profitability following six quarters of losses.  READ MORE...

Lone Tree

 

Solar Flare

 

Americans Are Becoming Less Produtive

Brian Bouser, 22, says his recent experiences in the workforce have prompted him to go into business for himself.  Brian Bouser

All of the quiet quitting rolling through the country is starting to make some real economic noise.

Data now shows that the U.S. workforce is not as productive as just a year ago — it seems people are not producing as much in the hours between clocking in and clocking out each day. 

In the end, this could have a profound effect on the country's well-being, according to economists.

For Brian Bouser, 22, questions about how much effort to put in at work began when he received a text in the middle of art history class at the University of Louisville last year. 

His boss at the car rental company where he made $25 an hour informed him his pay was going down to $13.50 an hour, without any explanation.

Bouser learned that all of his colleagues had seen their wages basically cut in half, and at a moment when companies were desperate for workers and pay was rising across the country. 

Still, he said that in his short time in the American workforce, where he'd already been laid off from another job at the beginning of the pandemic, he knew this is just how it goes with companies.  READ MORE...

Hummus

 

Books

 

Shift

 

REPARATIONS

The government of the United States, my government, our government, has treated groups of people horribly throughout the years.  

For instance:

• Native Americans
• Slavery of Blacks
• Japanese Americans
• Chinese Americans

Because of what we did to our Native Americans, we gave them the opportunity to build casinos and recoup their loses (financially)...  while it was a poor subsitute for all the death we caused...  MONEY does seem to make those that we oppressed FEEL BETTER ABOUT THEMSELVES.

I would like to propose the same for BLACKS...  let them have casinos.  I would even support our tax dollars building those casinos.  But, to give them reparations for what our ANCESTORS did is WRONG...  I am not responsible for what my ancestors did...  and, to give them reparations would only cause our RACISM PROBLEM TO WORSEN...

Blacks are now randomly shooting whites because they are white...

What happens if whites start to randomly shoot blacks in retaliation???

DO WE WANT RACE WARS IN THE USA?

12% blacks

60% whites

Since there are more whites than blacks, everything will favor whites unless we intentionally force everyone to deal with blacks before they deal with whites.

For instance:

1. Hire blacks before whites regardless of qualifications
2. Restaurants serving blacks before whites
3. Hospitals treating blacks before whites regardless of triage
4. Educators giving blacks better grades than whites even though their scores are lower
5. The military deploying whites before blacks if they are to be sent into a war zone
6. Prosecuting more whites than blacks to equalize the racial balance in jails
7. Selling homes to blacks before whites
8. The IRS taxing whites at a higher rate than whites
9. Restricting earnings potential of white millionaires
10. Allowing blacks to sell illegal drugs to whites but not vice versa
11. Limiting the number of white professional athletes to always favor blacks
12. Hollywood hiring more black actors than whites
13. More black movies produced than white movies
14. Hiring more black educators than white educators
15. Only allowing black candidates to run for political office
16. Selling tickets blacks on commercial aircraft before whites, making sure the ratio favors blacks
17. Forcing cruise ships to fill cabins with blacks first and make sure the onboard ratio favors blacks
18. Having social security to pay higher benefits to blacks than to whites regardless of quarters worked

NOW...  if we do this, then we should assume that they WHITES will not retaliate somehow...

GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!!!

Opinions

 

New Earth

 

Understanding

 

Years Ago Human Brains Changed Forever

Like treasured recipes passed down from generation to generation, there are just some regions of DNA that evolution doesn't dare tweak. Mammals far and wide share a variety of such encoded sequences, for example, which have remained untouched for millions of years.


Humans are a strange exception to this club. For some reason, recipes long preserved by our ancient ancestors were suddenly 'spiced up' within a short evolutionary period of time.

Because we're the only species in which these regions have been rewritten so rapidly, they are called 'human accelerated regions' (or HARs). What's more, scientists think at least some HARs could be behind many of the qualities that set humans apart from their close relatives, like chimpanzees and bonobos.

Led by computational biologist Katie Pollard, director of the Gladstone Institute of Data Science and Biotechnology in the US, a team of researchers identified HARs nearly two decades ago while comparing human and chimpanzee genomes.

In a new study, Pollard's team found the 3D folding of human DNA in the nucleus is a key factor in this pivotal moment for our species.


Imagine a length of DNA from our last common ancestor with chimpanzees as a long scarf wrapped around your neck, with stripes of various colors running across its weave down its entire length.

Now picture someone tried to make the exact same scarf, but they didn't quite follow the original pattern. Some of the stripes are narrower, some are wider, and some feature colors in a different order than the original.  READ MORE...

Watching

 

My Ongoing Battle With Cancer

HEADS UP FOR THOSE IN A SIMILIAR SITUATION

My cancer journey began in 2007 when I was 60 years old.  Prior to that I was never sick (after typical childhood illnesses), not even with a cold or the flu.  I exercised regularly, lifted weight, 80% active, and ate healthy.  I had also stopped smoking and stopped drinking alcohol 20 years earlier.

My first diagnosis was non-Hodgkins Lymphoma (SLL) and went on a monthy infusion regimen of Rituxan (infusion lasted 6 hours).  No side effects.  A few years later, I woked in Northern KY (came home on the weekends) and that Oncologist put me on a regimen of Rituxan, Cytoxin, and Fludara (over two days).  Side effects were extreme and I ended up in the ER two days later to stop cronic vomiting.

HINT:  ask for 2 different kinds of nausea meds with 4-6 hour intervals.  That way, you can take a nausea pill every 2 hours.

HINT: start taking nausea meds two hours after the end of your infusion...  DO NOT WAIT UNTIL YOU FEEL SICK...  TOO LATE...

Twelve (12) months later, I returned to TN, and my original Oncologist put me on a regimen of a monthly infusion of Triandra (2-3 hours).

Three years later, I was diagnosed with Melanoma which some experts say was actually caused by the repeated use of Cytoxin and Fludara.  However, malpractice would have never been proved.

My melanoma started in my foot, moved to my groin, then moved to my neck.  The movement took place 4 years after, a surgeon removed the melanoma from my foot with clean margins.

NOTE:  bear in mind, that my Oncologist had to deal with two cancers simulataneously (and still does) both of which had turned aggressive and surgery was out of the question.  What worked for me was Odivo/Yervoy combination for a few months, then Opdivo and Radiation.  The radiation supercharges the Opdivo.  For me, it worked....

Whenever you are given chemotherapy or immunotherapy you will be given steroid to reduce the risk of nausea plus other meds as well.  These steroids will make you gain weight.  I gain 50 pounds in 10 years and manged to lose 30 pounds.

NOTE:  the way I lost weight, which may not work for everyone, is counting my calories.  I focused on eating 1,500 to 1,800 but not over 2,000.  I also ate small meals five times a day and my focus was on SOUPS.

I am now in my 15th year of being treated for cancer and in my 12th year of being treated for 2 cancers simultaneously.

Here is what I constantly live with:

1. Low white blood count (no immune system)

2.  Low red blood count (anemia)

3. Low Platelet count (blood clotting issuse)

4. Constant fatigue (mild to severe - varies)

5.  Loss of taste

6. Thyroid problems

7. Lymphodemo (moderate)

8. Depression (mild to moderate)

9. Weight gain

10. Diarrhea/Constipation (mild to moderate)

11. Mouth Sores (mild to moderate)

12.  Must avoid direct sunlight exposure (UV Clothing)

13. COVID might have killed me so I was very careful!!!

14.  Must avoid being in large crowds in closed in areas

15.  Must maintain a strict diet

NOTE:  My cancer(s) are made worse by a triple bypass heart attack that I had also when 60 years old.  Plus, a five level lower back fusion.

Classic Sunday Morning Newspaper Cartoons

 

Retirement Downsizing

My wife and I retired in 2015, about 7 years ago and for the first 5 years did an enormous amount of traveling...  so much so that we got the traveling bug out of our systems.  COVID hit and stopped our traveling for two years.  It was COVID that helped us mentally curtail our desires to travel.

Our home that we purchased over 20 years ago has a full basement and an acre of land.  We loved the space and took advantage of all the land we had.  We put in a pool, deck, gazebo, hot tub, and had areas behind that area where we grew vegetables each summer.  

After twenty years, we are tired of going up and down the stairs as well as taking care of the outside yard.  While it only takes us a few of hours each week to take of our yard, but our 70 year old bodies do not respond well to that physical trauma on our bodies.

This week we found a house that is about the same size as our home but with no basement.  Our yard reduces down from an acre to just a small plot that would take 30 minutes to mow.  The outside yard is the biggest problem for our age along with the stairs, so we eliminated both concerns.

Fortunately, the house is in the same neighborhood so we are in the perfect community we want to be in.  

The purchase of this new house was not contingent upon the sale of our current home, so we can take our time moving our stuff from one house to the other.  Then when everything is moved, we will have a yard sale with the items we don't want to take.  When that is done, we will put our house up for sale and see what happens.  

Sometime between the middle of June and the middle of July, everything should be resolved...

Our last twenty years will not be as stressful worrying about taking care of a larger house...

Gotcha

 

AI and ChatGPT Threaten Humanity

As tech experts warn that the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence could threaten humanity, OpenAI's ChatGPT weighed in with its own predictions on how humanity could be wiped off the face of the Earth.

Fox News Digital asked the chatbot to weigh in on the apocalypse, and it shared four possible scenarios how humanity could ultimately be wiped out.

"It's important to note that predicting the end of the world is a difficult and highly speculative task, and any predictions in this regard should be viewed with skepticism," the bot responded. "However, there are several trends and potential developments that could significantly impact the trajectory of humanity and potentially contribute to its downfall."

Fears that AI could spell the end of humanity has for years been fodder for fiction but has become a legitimate talking point among experts as tech rapidly evolves – with British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking issuing a dire warning back in 2014  

"The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race," he said then. Hawking died in 2018.

The sentiment has only intensified among some experts nearly a decade later, with tech giant Elon Musk saying this year that the tech "has the potential of civilizational destruction."   READ MORE...

It's Super Dog

 

One Year After 5-Level Back Fusion Surgery

Within a couple of days, I experienced back fusion surgery 12 months ago.  Primarily due to old age, L2-L3-L4-L5-S1 were fused together in a 3-hour surgery by an orthopedic surgeon.  There was some discussion about having this done by a neurosurgeon, especially since my surgeon had repeated my 5-level surgery over 1,500 times.  

The surgery itself lasted about 3 hours and I stayed two nights in the hospital because I had excessive bleeding with no other complications.

My other experiences staying over night were with non-profit hospitals but this one was a for-profit hospital and when they said they were going to discharge me first thing the next morning, I was sitting in a wheel chair waiting for my wife to arrive by 8:15 am.  These people did not fool around.

I never took any pain pills after my surgery and on my first night (in the hospital) I was sleeping on my back, without any pain at all.

However, my movement was severly restricted and had to force myself to walk for 5-10-15-20-30 minutes the first couple of months.  After about 6 weeks or so, I was walking a mile a day.  That first mile took me 58 minutes and I had to stop twice for 2-3 minutes to rest.

There was difficulty with walking up hill and up stairs.  However, this gradually got easier as time passed but I still have problems with both of those even after 12 months.

Limitation:  I can walk fine...  maybe there is a slight limp with one leg...  but, I cannot walk fast.

I am walking a mile in about 20/21 minutes and while I am walking only every other day, I will soon walk twice a day every other day or walk every day.  I am pretty sure that walking twice is better than walking more often or longer or faster.  My stride is long which is good and walking up hills has gotten a "tad" easier.

All the research that I have done has given me the impression that it could take 12-18 months before returning to normal...  it looks like I am going to be on the 18 month side of that range.

I have no problems bending over or lifting, although I am still careful about lifting too much.  Also, I am sure if I was younger, it would have been easier for me walk more.  Since I have retired, 2015, I spend more time sitting than walking around because my hobby is blogging and writing.

While there are many articles on the web regarding WHY NOT to do fusions greater than 3 levels, I was fortunate enough not to have any problems.  I think that was due to my surgeon's experience but also the fact that I maintained a well-exercised body until the age of 60-65.  If I was over-weight, it may have been much worse.

 

Bank Robbers

 

Spacetime - Is It Real?

An illustration of heavily curved spacetime, outside the event horizon of a black hole. As you get closer and closer to the mass’s location, space becomes more severely curved, eventually leading to a location from within which even light cannot escape: the event horizon. At large distances, the spatial curvature is indistinguishable for equal mass black holes, neutron stars, white dwarfs, or any other comparably massed object. Credit: JohnsonMartin/Pixabay




When most of us think about the Universe, we think about the material objects that are out there across the great cosmic distances. Matter collapses under its own gravity to form cosmic structures like galaxies, while gas clouds contract to form stars and planets. Stars then emit light by burning their fuel through nuclear fusion, and then that light travels throughout the Universe, illuminating anything it comes into contact with. 

But there’s more to the Universe than the objects within it. There’s also the fabric of spacetime, which has its own set of rules that it plays by: General Relativity. The fabric of spacetime is curved by the presence of matter and energy, and curved spacetime itself tells matter and energy how to move through it.

But what, exactly, is the physical nature of spacetime? Is it a real, physical thing, like atoms are, or is it merely a calculational tool that we use to give the right answers for the motion and behavior of the matter within the Universe?


It’s an excellent question and a tough one to wrap your head around. Moreover, before Einstein came along, our conception of the Universe was very different from the one we have today. Let’s go way back to the Universe before we even had the concept of spacetime, and then come forward to where we are today.

The journey from macroscopic scales down to subatomic ones spans many orders of magnitude, but going down in small steps can make each new one more accessible from the previous one. Humans are made of organs, cells, organelles, molecules, atoms, then electrons and nuclei, then protons and neutrons, and then quarks and gluons inside of them. This is the limit to how far we’ve ever probed nature.Credit: Magdalena Kowalska/CERN/ISOLDE team

At a fundamental level, we had long supposed that if you took everything that was in the Universe and cut it up into smaller and smaller constituents, you’d eventually reach something that was indivisible. Quite literally, that’s what the word “atom” means: from the Greek ἄτομος: not able to be cut. 

The first record we have of this idea goes back some 2400 years to Democritus of Abdera, but it’s plausible that it may go back even farther. These “uncuttable” entities do exist; each one is known as a quantum particle. Despite the fact that we took the name “atom” for the elements of the periodic table, it’s actually subatomic particles like quarks, gluons, and electrons (as well as particles that aren’t found in atoms at all) that are truly indivisible.   READ MORE...

Bananas

 

Mountain View

 

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