Category: Science and Technology

Let Us Reflect in Wonder & Hope for the James Webb Space Telescope

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“We’ve Never Done Anything Like Any of This” – A Project Engineer

Son of Hubble

The Hubble Telescope has been the most amazing, gratifying, useful thing of modern science. Off to a rough start with lenses imprecisely ground (an error resulting in one part of the team using meters, the other using inches. Imagine that.). But all was well once an equally amazing rescue mission was launched,  installing “contact lenses” on the telescope, with perfect results as an outcome.

I hit the Hubble web site and similar sites regularly, still amazed at the science and the beauty just waiting for you almost every day.

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Why the Chip Shortage is So Important

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This is a Vulnerability. It is Also a World-Class Opportunity

 

A Chip! A Chip! My Kingdom for a Chip!

All due apologies to William Shakespeare and King Richard III for the borrowed line above. It seems to fit exactly how a lot of people feel about this global shortage of computer chips we have all been hearing about over the last few months.

The shortage truly is global, in both geographical terms and in terms of what systems are affected. People are waiting for months to get a new car because automakers cannot get the chips needed.

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Sharing Some Good News

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Synopsis and Links to Encouraging and Inspiring Articles

Cheer Up!

Goodness knows we have had more than our share of discouraging or unnerving news of late, especially in the political realm. OK, also in the social realm, climate, weather, medical, economics….

We could use some good news.

Take heart. I am about to share a short synopsis with links of six recent stories that offer hope and encouragement. Most are based in science or medicine, but a couple are just about folks who decided to have lives well lived; in one story,

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Is There Anything in Transportation Better Than a Train Ride?

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No. There is Not Anything Even Close.

A Life-Long Love Affair Continues

I suppose I tipped my hand a bit in the opening lines for this post. I do indeed love just about everything related to trains. There have been times when AMTRAK tested that love mightily (more on that later, with  good news).

Much of my life has been spent in one form of transit or another. A lot of it in airplanes (sometimes landing with them, sometimes jumping out before they landed). More miles than I can count on roads and highways,

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Here’s a Phrase You Don’t Often Hear

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“I Have Some TV Programs to Recommend” – You Really Will Want to Watch These

Wasteland or Golden Age?

People often lament that there is “nothing good on TV.” References are often made to the remark made decades ago that TV was a vast wasteland. I have friends today who take great pride in the fact that they don’t even own a TV.

I often say to such folks that they really are missing some good programming. This is when they sometimes reply that they watch programming via streaming on a computer. Why that is a more pure act than watching TV seems a strained interpretation to me,

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Employment Will Never Be the Same Again

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Not for Employees, Not for Employers. A New Era is Upon Us

Mixed Indicators All Over the Country

I mentioned in the last post that we would take some time to look at what is going on in employment, both long term and short term. What is going on will – already is – affect us all for quite a while, often profoundly.

Others have certainly noticed all this. There has been a flood of very good articles, local and national, trying to assess what is going on. One set of numbers that jumps out is that there are about 8 million people out of work and about 10 million jobs unfilled.

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If I Were King for a Day

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A Short List of Things to Make the World a Better Place- In My Humble Opinion

Ever Play “King for a Day?”

We all did this as kids. Let’s do a grown-up version. If I were granted the power to do anything, including some fanciful things, this is my short To-Do list of a dozen items as it stands today. Enjoy!

Physiology

  1. An Engine Check Light for People– We are far enough along in science and medicine now that we should have one of those all-purpose trouble lights just like in our cars.

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Hey! Did You See This?

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A Small But Varied Collection of Fun/Interesting Things Found Online

 

Smorgasbord Time

Every so often we take a break from focusing on one thing to share some assorted tidbits that seem worth sharing. Today is such a day. Hope you enjoy these as much as I have. Most are short descriptions of and reflections on interesting articles, along with links to those articles. The last two are simply me thinking out loud. One never knows what will bubble to the top of my (or your) brain; here are a couple for today.

10 Books About Geopolitics

One of my disappointments in high school (boy,

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How About a Happy Story of a Tech Company Doing Right by People?

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Proof Positive That One Can Do Good, Make a Profit, and Serve the Public

 

First, a Reminder of What We Don’t Like

By now, we all know that pretty much everything we do on Facebook and on Google (and its various entities) is tracked and fed into various tools designed to feed us ads more likely to ring a bell with us. In principle, not a terrible thing. It could be helpful to get ads more relevant to our interests.

But there surely is a dark side. We have no transparency and very little say over what is recorded about us,

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How Bad is This Ransomware Thing? Worse Than You Ever Imagined.

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Fortunately, We Finally Have an Administration Who Gets It

 

Who is Doing This?

It appears three groups are doing the dirty deed.

One is plain old-fashioned criminals, out to make a buck whenever and wherever they can. These groups are truly international now, as well as domestic. The sad reality is that this sort of crime in not all that hard to carry out and it is hard to stop or trace (more on that later). Suffice it to say there is an abundance of low-life types getting into this arena.

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