Global Biden

 

do you believe our president biden is a strong global leader who will stand up to:

• China
• Russia
• Iran
• North Korea

or... is he more concerned with:

• BLM
• Critical Race Theory
• Climate Change
• Cancel Culture
• Defunding the Police
• Spending money and
• Raising Taxes???

REMEMBER...  if you are wrong, the American people will pay the price....

If you doubt that CHINA wants to dominate the world, then you are intellectually foolish...  not to mention rather politically ignorant...  and, do not pay attention to the global news or care about what happens to your future or the future of your children...

Solar Storms

A few days ago, millions of tons of super-heated gas shot off from the surface of the sun and hurtled 90 million miles toward Earth.

The eruption, called a coronal mass ejection, wasn't particularly powerful on the space-weather scale, but when it hit the Earth's magnetic field it triggered the strongest geomagnetic storm seen for years. There wasn't much disruption this time—few people probably even knew it happened—but it served as a reminder the sun has woken from a years long slumber.

While invisible and harmless to anyone on the Earth's surface, the geomagnetic waves unleashed by solar storms can cripple power grids, jam radio communications, bathe airline crews in dangerous levels of radiation and knock critical satellites off kilter. The sun began a new 11-year cycle last year and as it reaches its peak in 2025 the specter of powerful space weather creating havoc for humans grows, threatening chaos in a world that has become ever more reliant on technology since the last big storms hit 17 years ago. A recent study suggested hardening the grid could lead to $27 billion worth of benefits to the U.S. power industry.

"It is still remarkable to me the number of people, companies, who think space weather is Hollywood fiction," said Caitlin Durkovich, a special assistant to President Joe Biden and senior director of resilience and response in the National Security Council, during a talk at a solar-weather conference last month.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Wake Up AMERICA

The great thing about the internet is that most of the shit is FREE and all that stuff that people pay for...  well, a lot of us simply don't need it.  For example, I watch and listen to FOX News every morning and the reason why I do it is not just because it is free with my purchase of a ROKU device and WIFI access, but that it does not keep news from me like CNN and CBS like to do.  However, FOX News is selling subscriptions to this new service that provides all sorts of special programs, interviews, and investigations...  I ain't about to buy none of that shit...  if it ain't free it ain't worth having after I have paid my initial setup fees.

Right now, I am zoning out to classic music from the 60's and 70's with minimal commercials and when they run a commercial it is almost as brief as being constipated.  My wife hates most if not all of my graphic illustrations...  but, she ain't here...  you catch my drift?

Hell no...  I don't act like I am 73...  nor do I act like I am 18 or even 25...  I am retired and free, living large on SS and a few investments.  I ain't wealthy or even well off...  I am comfortably numb financially...  living only on what I need overlooking that which I want or used to want.

I eat dinner at Cheddars in Knoxville and for $13,00, I can get an 8 oz Salmon filet perfected blackened, along with rice, baked potato, and a cup of broccoli...  I eat half and take the other half home and have two meals for $6.50...   plus tax...  cannot forget that.

This morning we went to Perkins about 8 miles from the house and I had an EVERYTHING OMELETTE with breakfast potatoes and 3 buttermilk pancakes that were 6" in diameter...  all for $13.50 and that included all the coffee that I wanted to drink.  Again, I cut the omelette in half and divided the breakfast potatoes in half as well for a second breakfast tomorrow...  and then, I will eat a pancake each morning for the next three days with jelly...  OR, a total of 5  $3 meals even though some meals are more filling than others.

If I did not enjoy eating either meal, I would not have purchased them in the first place or ordered them once and selected something else the next time.  Why live in a bigger city and pay more for less when eating out?

All of Biden's drunken sailor spending is not going to change that much other than the restaurants not being able to find help because of extended unemployment insurance benefits.  Which is RATHER STUPID if one wants to grow the NATIONAL ECONOMY...

While the USA is falling over backwards for Black Lives Matter Crap, and trying to defund the police, and teach Critical Race Theory in public schools, and Cancel people and things that don't agree with their mindset rather than simply accepting opposing views....  WELL...  the frigging CHINESE are building up their military and building up their economies and don't give a shit about equality or equity or whatever and paying people to stay home and not work and have made the statement THAT CHINA WILL CONTROL THE USA IN FIFTEEN YEARS...

Fifteen years from now is 2035 and I'll be 88 years old and I'll be DAMNED if I want to learn Mandarin...

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!

Sunday Morning in East TN

 AND...  it don't git no mo' better than this...

I always look forward to Sunday mornings here because we have a local restaurant chain PERKINS, that has a philosophy where each owner can pretty much do his/her own thing...  I have been going to Perkins here since 1993, and about that time I met the owner who only goes by the name of OTTO...  obviously, he is of German descent and manages his restaurant like a precision German Watch Manufacturer when building and assembling the parts.

I have visited other Perkins restaurant both north and south of this location and NONE OF THEM come close to comparing to the quality of food that OTTO and his team prepares daily.  Otto is retired and his son is the new manager but every once in a while, we see OTTO somewhere around helping out as he provides the right example rather than providing the right orders and/or instructions.

When my wife and I go there Sunday mornings it is usually for breakfast and I always get an EVERYTHING OMELETT
E with breakfast potatoes, and three pancakes and endless coffee.  AND...  every Sunday morning, I always eat half the omelet and half the breakfast potatoes and none of the pancakes, taking it all home.  So, I have the other half of the omelet and breakfast potatoes on Monday, and Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday eat my three pancakes with sugar free Strawberry jelly.  

FIVE MEALS for the price of one.

An American President

 From the NY Post...


Biden says China believes it will ‘own America’ within 15 years

President Biden dropped an ominous note into his remarks to American service members at a Virginia military base Friday, telling them that his Chinese counterpart believes Beijing will “own America” inside the next 15 years.

“We’re in a battle between democracies and autocracies,” Biden told troops at Joint Base Langley Eustis in Hampton. “The more complicated the world becomes, the more difficult it is for democracies to come together and reach consensus.

“I’ve spent more time with President Xi [Jinping] of China than any world leader has — for 24 hours of private meetings with him with just an interpreter, 17,000 miles traveling with him in China and here,” the president added. “He firmly believes that China, before the year [20]30, ’35, is going to own America because autocracies can make quick decisions.”

The president did not elaborate on what was meant by “own America.” He made no other mention of China during his 23-minute remarks.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

WTF...

Does this President even know what he is saying?

China has a bigger Army than the USA

China has a bigger Navy than the USA

China has a bigger Air Force than the USA

China's economy could be stronger than the USA in 2030

AND...  Biden wants to cut MILITARY SPENDING in favor of giving citizen free money each month so they don't have to work...

IS THIS STUPID OR WHAT?

Facts About Most Americans

 We all know...  and, it is well understood that:

1. most Americans, except the lazy ones, do not want anyone especially the Federal Government telling them what to do.
2. most Americans like to drink some form of alcohol either daily or just on the weekends and holidays.
3. most Americans like the fact that they are obese and do not want to exercise or eat healthy.
4. most Americans have no desire to get themselves out of debt or stop spending money on unnecessary items.
5. half of the married couples are having extramarital affairs without their spouse's consent or knowledge.
6. most Americans are greedy for more money without having to put forth more effort.
7. most Americans, except half-bait LIBERALS do not want to pay more taxes to the Federal Government.
8. most Americans want products to be made in China to keep costs down in USA.
9. most Americans want illegal immigrants to pick their fruits and vegetables instead of themselves.
10. most Americans care more about popular rock music than they do terrorism.

What is your most enjoyable fact about most Americans?

End... then... Begin...

For 73 years, I have ended and begun again 12 times a year...  that is to say for 71 years, I have ended and begun anew 12 different months with the understanding that my first year, there were only 2 months, and my current year I have only gone through 5 months.  Consequently, I have experienced  860 ends and beginnings...

What is the point of evening thinking about something as meaningless as this?

First of all, nothing in life is meaningless and secondly, endings and beginnings are the fundamental aspect of life itself as we are saying goodbye to our youth, to our high school, to our college if applicable, to our military if also applicable, to our marriage, if we have been married, divorced, then remarried, and to our work if we are fortunate, like yours truly, to be retired.

When we awake each morning, we have the privilege of beginning a new day and in my case I have experienced and begun over 26,000 old/new days.  And, there were lessons to be learned, if open to it, from each day to which we have said goodbye..

So...  beginnings and endings are a integral aspect of our lives whether we think about it in that context or not...  We should learn something everyday and it does not have to be something new, it could be a reinforcement of an idea or concept or feeling that we have already experienced.

Each day, at least for me, is a BLESSING...  and, until you experience each new day with that attitude, you have no idea how that feels or what that might mean to someone...

So...  that alone gives us an opportunity to learn something new...

A Looksee at North Korea

 

Under New Management

 

Quantum Machine Learning

A black hole permanently scrambles information that can’t be recovered with any quantum machine learning algorithm, shedding new light on the classic Hayden-Preskill thought experiment.

A new theorem from the field of quantum machine learning has poked a major hole in the accepted understanding about information scrambling.

“Our theorem implies that we are not going to be able to use quantum machine learning to learn typical random or chaotic processes, such as black holes. In this sense, it places a fundamental limit on the learnability of unknown processes,” said Zoe Holmes, a post-doc at Los Alamos National Laboratory and coauthor of the paper describing the work published on May 12, 2021, in Physical Review Letters.

“Thankfully, because most physically interesting processes are sufficiently simple or structured so that they do not resemble a random process, the results don’t condemn quantum machine learning, but rather highlight the importance of understanding its limits,” Holmes said.

In the classic Hayden-Preskill thought experiment, a fictitious Alice tosses information such as a book into a black hole that scrambles the text. Her companion, Bob, can still retrieve it using entanglement, a unique feature of quantum physics. However, the new work proves that fundamental constraints on Bob’s ability to learn the particulars of a given black hole’s physics means that reconstructing the information in the book is going to be very difficult or even impossible.

“Any information run through an information scrambler such as a black hole will reach a point where the machine learning algorithm stalls out on a barren plateau and thus becomes untrainable. That means the algorithm can’t learn scrambling processes,” said Andrew Sornborger a computer scientist at Los Alamos and coauthor of the paper. Sornborger is Director of Quantum Science Center at Los Alamos and leader of the Center’s algorithms and simulation thrust. The Center is a multi-institutional collaboration led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Barren plateaus are regions in the mathematical space of optimization algorithms where the ability to solve the problem becomes exponentially harder as the size of the system being studied increases. This phenomenon, which severely limits the trainability of large scale quantum neural networks, was described in a recent paper by a related Los Alamos team.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

The Moral High Ground

 

Life on Mars

Amid the latest exploration and search for life on Mars, a Cornell scientist wonders what kind of microbe humans could have accidentally “carried into space and survived the trip to make its new home on Mars.”

Cornell University geneticist Christopher Mason wrote in an May 10 piece for the BBC that life discovered on the red planet might have actually originated on earth in NASA labs, despite thorough on-site cleaning procedures and spacecraft assembly in specialized rooms.

Spacecraft, like the Perseverance Rover, are built in meticulously sterilized rooms piece by piece with each component cleaned before being added. This should theoretically ensure that no bacteria or organism survives the assembly process, according to Mason. Filtration systems in the spartan rooms offer an extra layer of protection so “only a few hundred particles can contaminate each square foot.”

“But, it is almost impossible to get to zero biomass. Microbes have been on Earth for billions of years, and they are everywhere,” Mason wrote. “They are inside us, on our bodies, and all around us. Some can sneak through even the cleanest of clean rooms.”

Mason says his own theoretical research has shown evidence of microbes that have the potential to be problematic during space missions, as the microbes contain increased genes that make them better able to resist radiation and cold environments.

“It turns out that clean rooms might serve as an evolutionary selection process for the hardiest bugs that then may have a greater chance of surviving a journey to Mars,” Mason wrote.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

An Alternate Voice

IF YOU HAVE NOT DONE SO YET, CHECK OUT THIS WEBSITE...

I have posted a few a few photos from this website on precious days but currently Blogger is telling me that there is some kind of glitch in the system that is preventing me from posting these photos...

Like FACEBOOK, this is a form of censorship...  and, being an American and having First Amendment rights guaranteed to me by the US Constitution, I am somewhat annoyed that this is happening...

However, being powerless as I am, I can do nothing...  or very little... and wait for the SILENT MAJORITY to rain their virtual wrath down on this country...  for me, it will be like returning to the 1960's and the Hippies...  and, free love and the music of The Beatles, The Door, Steppenwolf, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane/Starship, The Rolling Stones, CCR, Jimi Hendrix, The Cream, LZ, and many many more the least of which is Bob Dylan, and not the poet Dylan Thomas.

Home Protection

 

Our Milky Way Galaxy

The Milky Way as we know it today was shaped by a collision with a dwarf galaxy about 10 billion years ago. But most of the modern galaxy was already in place even at that early date, new research shows.

Ages of stars left behind by the galactic interloper are a bit younger or on par with stars in the Milky Way’s main disk, researchers report May 17 in Nature Astronomy. And that could mean that the Milky Way grew up faster than astronomers expected, says study author Ted Mackereth, an astrophysicist at the University of Toronto.

“The Milky Way had already built up a lot of itself before this big merger happened,” he says.

Our galaxy’s history is one of violent conquest. Like other giant spiral galaxies in the universe, the Milky Way probably built up its bulk by colliding and merging with smaller galaxies over time. Stars from the unfortunate devoured galaxies got mixed into the Milky Way like cream into coffee, making it difficult to figure out what the galaxies were like before they merged.

In 2018, astronomers realized that they could identify stars from the last major merger using detailed maps of several million stars from the European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft (SN: 5/9/18). Streams of stars orbit the galactic center at an angle to the main disk of stars. Those stars’ motions and chemistries suggest they once belonged to a separate galaxy that plunged into the Milky Way about 10 billion years ago (SN: 11/1/2018).

“Those stars are left there like fossil remnants of the galaxy,” Mackereth says.

Two groups discovered evidence of the ancient galaxy at around the same time. One called the galaxy Gaia-Enceladus; the other group called it the Sausage. The name that stuck was Gaia-Enceladus Sausage.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Ain't It Obvious?

 

Biden's Gas Price

 

Mach Speeds and More

From The University of Central Florida...

The UCF-developed propulsion system could allow for flight speeds of Mach 6 to 17 (more than 4,600 to 13,000 miles per hour) and would have applications in air and space travel.

University of Central Florida researchers are building on their technology that could pave the way for hypersonic flight, such as travel from New York to Los Angeles in under 30 minutes.

In their latest research published recently in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers discovered a way to stabilize the detonation needed for hypersonic propulsion by creating a special hypersonic reaction chamber for jet engines.

“There is an intensifying international effort to develop robust propulsion systems for hypersonic and supersonic flight that would allow flight through our atmosphere at very high speeds and also allow efficient entry and exit from planetary atmospheres,” says study co-author Kareem Ahmed, an associate professor in UCF’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. “The discovery of stabilizing a detonation — the most powerful form of intense reaction and energy release — has the potential to revolutionize hypersonic propulsion and energy systems.”  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Really???

There Are Only Two Sexes...

 

A Truism

 

The Millennial Generation

A new Apartment List report that surveyed 5,000 Americans and analyzed US Census data has confirmed the migration narrative of 2020: Remote work ignited a rebound in residential migration as the number of movers increased to 16% in 2020, up from 14% in 2019 — it was the first US migration increase in over a decade.

This has big implications for millennial homebuying in particular and wealth inequality in general. The Apartment List data showed that the migrants were largely high-income earners, meaning the migration was K-shaped, just like the uneven economy born as a result of the pandemic. 

With migration has come a boom in homebuying, and millennials have taken the lead in homebuying, with high-net-worth millennials at the top of the K.

Although the study doesn't break down generational data, millennials likely make up many of the high-income households, defined as those earning over $150,000. A previous Apartment List report showed that the millennial homeownership rate climbed to 47.9% from 40% just three years ago. 

Many of these millennial homebuyers were likely the same as the 16% of high-income workers who moved over the past year, a 39% jump from the Census Bureau's estimate of American migrants in 2019.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Time to Think

 

Government Forcing Illegals on TN

 

Tennessee lawmakers alarmed by reports White House secretly flying migrant children into state

Republicans say they were not informed about administration's plans and are seeking answers

Lawmakers from Tennessee are sounding the alarm after reports that the Biden administration has been flying unaccompanied minors into the state in the middle of the night without their knowledge.

The White House is transporting migrants into an airport in Chattanooga from where they are bused to cities within the Southeast, as first reported by local news outlet WRCB-TV Channel 3.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said in a statement to Fox News that the transportation of migrants is taking place in "the dead of night without the knowledge or permission of the communities involved."  TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE, CLICK HERE...

Personally, I live in the state of TN and it really does offend me that the Democrats think that they can force these illegal immigrants on us without our approval...  and, makes me resent everyone involved who is allowing this to happen.

Government should not have that kind of power over its citizens...  and what they are doing seems to be violating my basic rights...

This will not end well.

Fourteen Years Ago in July

Almost a decade and a half ago, my wife and I purchased a 24 foot round above ground pool, a Hot Springs Prodigy Hot Tub and had a deck built around the pool and the hot tub for HALF THE PRICE of what it would cost us to have the same thing done TODAY...

In my neck of the backwoods, we call that INFLATION...  and, it typically means our financial situation is getting worse not better.

My Hot Tub has been worked on a couple of times because I was not told by the salespeople NOT TO USE powders for this particular type of hot tub and its internal components...  but, the cost of repairs has still been way under what we paid originally.

As far as our pool is concerned, we have had to replace the motor and the regulating device that sits on top of the pump sand container...  plus, the liquids and tablets that we have to put into the pool to balance the water quality.  Additionally, we have found that a pool cover only lasts two years...

All in all, we have probably come close to doubling our investment, not including the price of materials and labor to build the large deck.  However, every 3 years or so, we have been staining our deck which typically takes about 7 gallons or so of stain.

This year, we discovered that during the winter our pool had lost an additional 5-6 inches of water which means that we have a slow leak...  and, will probably have a new liner installed this Fall.

My wife and I figure that we only have about 10-12 years more or so to enjoy our above ground pool and deck, before we will be too old to climb up and down the outside stairs to get there.  So, we have concluded that it is still worth the financial investment to maintain our outside leisure area for another decade or so.

That would put me at the age of 83/84 and my wife at the age of 78 and at that time we will probably sell our house and move into a smaller house or an apartment to live out our final days.  We also believe that we will continue traveling to Myrtle Beach, SC every summer each month for the 5-6 months of warm weather until we move as well.

We currently have and will continue to have a comfortable retirement regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans are in power.  In fact, the Democrats would probably benefit us more than the Republicans because they like to give away money.

Relocation Frenzy

 As soon as I discovered that CNN, CBS, NBC, and ABC were not providing their viewing public with both sides of the story that was balanced, I switched to FOX NEWS who was doing a better job of that.

While I was raised a liberal, I get OFFENDED when the NEWS is censored as I perceive myself to be smart enough to hear both sides and decide which side I want to follow.

Consequently, those other media outlets will no longer get my viewing support and I believe that more and more Americans are agreeing with me.

Meanwhile...

there is a group of us...  that is to say about 50% of the current population, who, do not particularly care about the direction the rest of the country is heading.

WE SUPPORT THE POLICE

WE SUPPORT OWNING FIREARMS

WE SUPPORT THE CONSTITUTION

WE SUPPORT LEGAL IMMIGRATION

WE SUPPORT WORKING FOR A LIVING

WE SUPPORT A STRONG MILITARY

However...  I also like to smoke a joint every now and then and reflect back upon the 1960's when my fellow hippies and I had no cares in the world except avoiding the VIETNAM War.

What I am seeing now is,

companies and people relocating from those Democratic managed States because of two basic issues:

• Increase in Taxes
• Defunding the Police

Personally, I have no problems with defunding the police because I really do like to exceed the speed limits on the Interstate Highways and since CRIME is really low in where I am currently living, I see no need at all to have a bunch of cops riding around in their police cruisers intimidating the residents with their presence.

BUT...

I am not going to be a happy camper if those damn people who are leaving Democratic States come into this area of East TN and change the damn politics...  I am here because of the politics and because it is cheaper to live.

As far as I am concerned, they can relocate in Texas, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and North Carolina...  just not here in East TN...  although, Memphis or Nashville would be ok...

Fighting Back

In the previous two elections, 2016 and again in 2020, those of us who still care about out country, saw a DIVIDED US...  and as the LEFT pushed the RIGHT with:

• BLM
• ANTIFA
• Cancel Culture
• WOKE Mob
• Censoring conservatives
• Critical Race Theory
• Defund the Police

the RiGHT has started pushing back and have been standing up to those who are trying to change this country to more reflect that which ONLY THEY BELIEVE..

Perhaps the LEFT did not expect the RIGHT to push back but we have and will continue to PUSH BACK until the LEFT decides to BACK OFF...

It may take several years for a new compromise to take place and if that is the case, sobeit.

The rest of the world, doesn't give a shit about our internal conflicts just as we don't give a shit about their internal conflicts...  with the only difference being that those other powers like:

• China
• Russia
• North Korea
• Iran/Iraa
• Middle East

want to see all citizens of the USA DEAD...  or, under their control.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES of that which is happening here now will, in the next few years, turn our country upside down and it will no longer be the great couintry that it once was...

Interestingly, I believe what cause this change to take place was actually two things:

FIRST - our Democratic Republic Form of Government

SECOND - our First Amendment Rights

Final Message

 

Space Race Inevitability

There is no doubt in my mind that Russia, China, and the USA will be the three governments that will be battling each other for control of outer space...  and that these conflicts will take place around the year 2030 or 9 years from now.

However, there will be a 4th group of people who will be out there in outer space and that group will be represented by the world's BILLIONAIRES...  and perhaps, the billionaires will actually get there before the governments get there and will be selling governments the right to descend and land on their property by rights of getting there first.

By the year 2050 (20 years later) traveling within our own solar system will be no different than flying between NYC and London, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, or Athens.

In 2021, we do not give this idea much thought because it still seems too far out-of-reach and yet the only thing that is out-of-reach is our own awareness of what is actually going on around it...

SpaceX is an example of the privatization of our race to space and while it is now working in conjunction with our Federal Government, it will soon break away because our Federal Government has other priorities in how it wants to spend our money.

After SpaceX, I think that China will arrive in space and establish bases before Russia and the USA because it is in that direction that China is spending its money...  not on social programs that won't be worth a hill of beans in the future.

We are about to lose our position on top.

CHANGE: Immigration, The CDC, and Education

The United States of America is changing...  some say this change is for the worst while other say it is for the best...  and, typically this argument is between conservatives and liberals...  however, there are simply people on both sides that do not like what is going on and don't like all the money that is being spent in the economy...  and not because they don't want this extra money but because this extra money is going to cause INFLATON.

Neither side wants inflation...

Immigration these days is being attributed to Trump and his policy of NO ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION...  because now that Biden has allowed illegal immigration, all sort of immigrants are flooding into this county.

• Immigrants take our jobs
• Immigrants take our healthcare
• Immigrants bring disease
• Immigrants bring in drugs
• Immigrants bring in crime

The other issue that is changing in this country is how the CDC is perceiving this pandemic.  One day it is wear a mask, then next day is don't wear a mask, and the next day is another recommendation...  but they say they are following the SCIENCE.

ISSUE:  facemasks do not protect the one who is wearing the facemask, they only protect the other person.  So, if you have both COVID vaccine shots, then you ain't transmitting nothing...  and you have a 95% chance of not catching a variation of the virus.

SO...  why are many of our cities and schools still SHUT DOWN?

As far as education is concerned...  we have screwed ourselves tremendously by shutting down schools for over a year.

These students had to learn on their own or through online classes and if anyone has ever taken an online class, the actually learning process SUCKS and there is very little learning that takes place.

Most of the Democratic State Governors shut their cities and schools down while most of the Republican State Governors kept their cities and schools open...  and, the EVIDENCE shows that no harm was done in the Republican States, in fact, their states are stronger than ever now...

DIVIDED AMERICA....

• BLM divides America
• Cancel Culture divides America
• Critical Race Theory divides America
• Defund the Police divides America

Check This Out

 

Our Minds/Brains

My daughter told me after she had graduated from college that she had a photographic memory that all she had to do was read something and she would remember it.

I knew a person in college who had a photographic memory and he never went to class because when it came time for mid-term exams or final exams, he would just read the chapters and ACE whatever test was put in front of him.

Are people who have that skill and/or ability smarter than the rest of us?

Is having that skill and/or ability the only key to a successful career?

Personally, I had no problems remember stuff about which I was interested and that is fine as long as one has a wide range of interests which I did not have at the time was in college and to this day still don't have a wide range of interests.  But, I still had a successful career although I guess it really depends on how one quantifies success.

I suppose one could study the information and through that process remember information but I always found studying to be boring, especially those classes that were totally based upon memorizing the data.  For me, memorizing is not learning.

BUT... for what other reason have we been given a brain or mind depending upon which word sound better to you.  And, are our minds clearly our own...  that is to say do we really control our own thoughts, beliefs, and dreams?

Does the person with a photographic memory have the ability to daydream and believe that their daydreams are their own and nothing something that they read about somewhere along the way?

The same holds true for one's ideas.  Are they their ideas or someone else's idea about which they read along the way?

Does it really matter if their bosses accept their ideas and are never aware that they came about from reading another person's ideas?

Success is success I suppose no matter what the capability of one's brain/mind is...  as the key to life is getting to that point where you can retire or continue working.

Just By Imagining

An experimental device that turns thoughts into text has allowed a man who was left paralyzed by an accident to construct sentences swiftly on a computer screen.

The man was able to type with 95% accuracy just by imagining he was handwriting letters on a sheet of paper, a team reported Wednesday in the journal Nature.

"What we found, surprisingly, is that [he] can type at about 90 characters per minute," says Krishna Shenoy of Stanford University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

The device would be most useful to someone who could neither move nor speak, says Dr. Jaimie Henderson, a neurosurgeon at Stanford and co-director, with Shenoy, of the Stanford Neural Prosthetics Translational Laboratory.

"We can also envision it being used by someone who might have had a spinal cord injury who wants to use email," Henderson says, "or, say, a computer programmer who wants to go back to work."

Both Henderson and Shenoy have a proprietary interest in commercializing the experimental approach used to decode brain signals.

The idea of decoding the brain activity involved in handwriting is "just brilliant," says John Ngai, who directs the National Institutes of Health's BRAIN Initiative, which helped fund the research.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Cities Without Governments

After dominating Silicon Valley in the past two decades, hiking up rent prices in the area and filling the streets with fleece vests and wool sneakers, they’re now spreading into other regions, such as Austin and North Carolina.

But merely setting up shop in a hot new spot just isn’t enough for one group of techies, now formulating a plan to build their very own dream city – away from the US entirely and governed by themselves.

Twenty-five-year-olds Dryden Brown of New York University, and Charlie Callinan of Boston College, co-founded Bluebook Cities in 2019 — described as a “full-stack city builder,” which “partners with communities to develop beautiful, energetic, resident-owned cities,” the website states.

So far, their community remains online, in “the cloud.” But they expect to enlist around 2,000 willing participants (about the size of a small college town) to pack up and move to their yet-to-be-built city. No word yet on where the concept will touch down — but the two hope to land somewhere in the Mediterranean.

Currently, Brown and Callinan are looking to partner with a country in the region who wants to attract a slice of Silicon Valley and is “down to forge a partnership with them,” Brown told YouTuber Justin Murphy in an interview.

“Whereby they contribute land, perhaps for equity in the project and the terms will obviously be negotiated,” Brown explained. “We are not trying to be a total sovereign nation or something like that. We want to partner with a government and build something really cool that works with us and works for them and is mutually beneficial,” he said, adding that they want a government that will stop blocking people with “dumb regulations.”  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Stupidity Does Not Run In The Family

It would be extremely safe to say that my elevator does not stop at al the floor and/or that my toolbox is missing several critical tools.  In short, I am an idiot's idiot...

AND...  why do I think that?

Simply put:  it happens to be true.

Now...  while I can pour piss out of a boot with directions written on the heel, I possess little if any common sense...  which seems to be a little more critical than simply pouring piss around.

Ironically, I was taught how to build and repair computers back in the late 1990's early 2000's and did quite well at that technical assignment as I recall for at least 12 months...  but, here recently, I cannot seem to find the common sense handle.

One could say that it is twenty years later asshole, of course you have misplaced a little common sense...  but, I fear it is not that simple.

We were recently returning from an outing in Virginia and after we stopped for gas, I turned on the lights but the dashboard lights would not come on.

After screwing around trying to figure what the shit had happened since the damn things were working perfectly before we stopped, I concluded that there was an ELECTRICAL problem and since we had only 30 minutes remaining, that I would simply drive without dashboard lights.

The following day we made an appointment with Toyota in Knoxville instead of Toyota in Morristown just to make sure the technical work was done the correct way...  assuming that Knoxville's technicians were better trained than Morristown's.

I drove down to my appointment which is on the other side of Knoxville about 45 miles one way.  My Car Care Provider came to my car and I lowered the window and explained the problem.  He thought for a second or two, maybe less, and asked if he could get in.

I stood outside the car beside him with the door open and in less than 15 seconds found the dial that corrected the lights for the dashboard whether the driver wanted them bright or not so bright...  he turned the dial and the FRIGGING DASHBOARD LIGHTS CAME ON...

I REST MY CASE!!!

Burial Mounds

DNIPRO, Ukraine — Belching diesel exhaust, a bulldozer cut into a 4,000-year-old burial mound, peeling back the soil to reveal the mysteries hidden inside, including a skeleton.  

For archaeologists, this excavation in the flatlands of eastern Ukraine holds the promise of discovery. For a developer, it clears the way for new country homes.

In recent years, government archaeologists, developers and farmers, who sometimes also level burial mounds in their fields to ease plowing, have seemingly been the only parties interested in the fate of Ukraine’s vast constellation of ancient graves. And few have paid much heed to preserving the dirt piles.

Hoping to correct this history of neglect, a Ukrainian non-governmental group is agitating for the preservation of the burial mounds of Scythians and other ancient warrior cultures, partly on the grounds that they hold particular significance for a country at war today.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

My Brother From Another Mother

 

Depressed and Hopeless

While many young people have been spared from the harshest physical consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, an increasingly large volume of research suggests they are facing drastic mental health consequences.

In June 2020, the CDC released data that suggests one in four adults ages 18 to 24 have considered suicide. And according to the recently released Harvard Youth Poll of 2,513 Americans ages 18 to 29, 51% of young Americans said that at least several days in the previous two weeks they had felt down, depressed or hopeless.

“There’s been this narrative that young people are spared a lot of the impact of Covid because they’re less likely to develop real severe physical complications,” says Ellen Burstein, one of the poll’s lead researchers and a junior at Harvard. “But it’s taken a profound toll on their mental health.”

Young people reported a range of serious mental health symptoms in the Harvard survey. A startling 68% say they have little energy; 59% say they have trouble with sleep; 52% find little pleasure in doing things; 49% have a poor appetite or are over-eating; 48% have trouble concentrating; 32% are moving so slowly, or are fidgety to the point that others notice; and 28% have had thoughts of self-harm.

Approximately 35% of Black respondents and 31% of Hispanic respondents said they experience bouts of severe depression triggering thoughts that they would be better off dead or hurting themselves.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Justice For All

Is this the way it really is in the United States of America?

Hell no!!!

• Whites get different justice than blacks receive...
• Wealthy get different justice than the non-wealthy...
• Conservatives get different justice than liberals...
• Celebrities get different justice than non-celebrities...
• Educated get different justice than the non-educated...
• Females get different justice than males...

WHY?

Because we have a jury of our peers in the courtroom, deciding the verdict and those juries can be easily persuaded, especially if they do not want to be on the jury in the first place and want to go home as quick as possible.

BUT...  our Congressional Leaders and our Department of Justice Leaders and our Supreme Court Justices all think that we, as citizens of the United States are receiving EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER THE LAW...

To me, this only serves to demonstrate the HYPROCRISY of our system...  even a fool knows this ain't necessarily so.

Hyperdimensional Computing

The human brain has always been under study for inspiration of computing systems. Although there's a very long way to go until we can achieve a computing system that matches the efficiency of the human brain for cognitive tasks, several brain-inspired computing paradigms are being researched. 

Convolutional neural networks are a widely used machine learning approach for AI-related applications due to their significant performance relative to rules-based or symbolic approaches. Nonetheless, for many tasks machine learning requires vast amounts of data and training to converge to an acceptable level of performance.

A Ph.D. student from Khalifa University, Eman Hasan, is investigating another AI computation methodology called 'hyperdimensional computing," which can possibly take AI systems a step closer toward human-like cognition. The work is supervised by Dr. Baker Mohammad, Associate Professor and Director of the System on Chip Center (SOCC), and Dr. Yasmin Halawani, Postdoctoral Fellow.

Hasan's work, which was published recently in the journal IEEE Access, analyzes different models of hyperdimensional computing and highlights the advantages of this computing paradigm. Hyperdimensional computing, or HDC, is a relatively new paradigm for computing using large vectors (like 10000 bits each) and is inspired by patterns of neural activity in the human brain. The means by which can allow AI-based computing systems to retain memory can reduce their computing and power demands.  TO READ MORE, ClICK HERE...

Who's Pulling the President's Strings?

Most of the Democrats whether they are liberal or progressive or not are going to support the Democratic Party regardless of what happens to this country because they do not want to admit that they might be or actually are wrong.  

The mainstream media echoes that sentiment.

AND...  that represents 50% of the current population regardless of the fact that President Biden claims a majority of people support this or that...

Why do I think this?

Because, 50% of the current population voted for Trump in 2020 and I doubt if they would have changed their minds this quickly.

However, I believe that Biden is simple a Presidential PUPPET and that the VP Kamala Harris is pulling his strings...  BUT...  she is not really in charge either because someone is pulling her strings...

And...  that group is a combination of political leaders both current and past as well as some millionaires and billionaires like Bezos and Gates who would undoubtedly feel more comfortable is there was a ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT that they could control behind the scenes.

I also believe that the media unknowingly is supporting this movement.   AND THAT, black lives matter, the cancel culture, critical race theory, and the WOKE Mob is simply a way that these POWER BROKERS keep the citizens of the US divided and at each other throats rather than united working towards a common future.

It is also very interesting that now that a SPACE FORCE has been created that our government is admitting to the fact that UFO's have been around for decades.

STAGFLATION

 Stagflation means:::>  persistent high inflation combined with high unemployment and stagnant demand in a country's economy...

The President typically associated with stagflation was JIMMY CARTER...  now, we have an opportunity to have it associated with JOE BIDEN.

Stagflation occurs when the government or central banks expand the money supply at the same time they constrain supply. It can also occur when a central bank's monetary policies create credit. ... Both increase the money supply and create inflation.

WHO IS THIS GOING TO HURT?

Everyone who is not a millionaire or a billionaire...  while all the rest of us, who are not in these privilege categories...  will pay the price for this economic situation through increased prices and a dollar that continues to be devalued.

EXAMPLE:  Just a few weeks ago, we were paying right around #2/gallon for gasoline here in the TN Valley and sometimes it dropped below $2/gallon...  and now, it is $3/gallon....

THANK YOU JOE BIDEN AND KAMALA...