First Blog

  A few quotes from outstanding women are good for women and are great for everyone.  "You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for his own improvement..." --- Marie Curie "Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love." --- Jane Austin "Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness." --- Anne Frank  "I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity, is daring to dare." --- Maya Angelou quotes "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." --- Maya Angelou "I know of no single formula for success. ..." --- Queen Elizabeth "I beg you take courage; the brave soul can mend even disaster. ..." --- Catherine the Great "Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. .."  Amelia Earhart "Never

 Often, I'm asked by people major in physics, a horrific choice for many. So, I cooked up the main reasons, though some by seem a little absurd, though correct for some.   You really want to understand physical reality and understand how the models explain it. You have problems with the physical world compared with the spiritual world. That is, your beliefs are challenged. You absolutely love physics and feel there is no other subject for you. You ultimately want to study the origins of the universe and wish to understand all the theories extant. You get a scholarship in physics. Your parents give you three choices of what to major in, physics, physics, and physics. You do physics because you want others to think you’re smart. Finally, you doubt your intelligence and want to take on a difficult subject simply to master it, and thereby prove to yourself your intelligence. P.S. I was a physics major, but changed to math in grad school. I never felt I understood physics. 

 In the photo below, you see 62,000 punch cards which could contain 5mb (not giga) of data back in 1966. These are the old punch cards, the original storage medium of information back then. This amounts to one short tune (uncompressed), one picture on your iPhone, or a long novel.

  Int uition. It is sort of like a back stage brain, working on problems you’ve left pending. It shoots ideas up to you of the sort “What if this? Or What if that?   Most of the time it’s unimportant, but sometimes it scores big. That is why intuition is so important, for suggesting ideas that haven’t fallen naturally as you’ve worked on the problem.  Sometimes, after working long and hard, you hear it offering up an idea as if to say, “Try this, stupid.” Intuition - I Is that patient caretaker in your mind, Helping you with problems big and small, Guiding you with family and friends, Giving insights when needed most, and Warning you off the wrong path. As a trusted friend, Intuition is not always right, but It pays to listen, if not to obey, Intuition II Intuition is something like a powerful App. With access to all your data, Memories, acuity, biases, beliefs, knowledge, Some hidden from conscious access. Intuitions contain all of these, but Insights hopefully surprise,

 

  Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) a new religion? I wouldn't go so fare as envisioning AI as a religion, but I would support a massive advance toward intellectual dependency, much like an addictive drug. Knowledge workers will be replaced; Medical diagnoses will first be within the "circuits" of machine learning (cf. ELIZA*). Teaching will become an AI learning App. And many more. Here is a litmus test for AI addiction, and in particular for tools like ChatGPT. When the colleges begin offering courses on how to use these tools, the dependency becomes revealed as firmly entrenched. *   ELIZA  is an early  natural language processing  computer program  created from 1964 to 1966  at the  MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory by  Joseph Weizenbaum . It was amazingly successful. Patients were convinced they were talking to a real person. And that was 60 years ago.

  Recommendation : If you're planning to buy an EV in the next couple of years, be sure to plan to trade it within 4-5 years. Why? To cut costs of production, automakers may be giving in to easy methods of supplying inferior batteries ( current average price $15-20K) or electric motors. You'll never see it; you can't even test for it. There are no standards. It is Totally Hidden . Beware!!! Government incentives encourage auto makers to cheat, partly because the subsidy suggests a government approval.  You already know about battery quality when you shop for AAA, AA, C, and D cells, and you know when the price is too low, so also is the quality.  Recommendation: Never buy a used one. The term doesn't exist today, but soon we will be hearing about user "battery abuse." Note. This is why we have home inspectors, auto inspectors, building standards, UL (Underwriters Laboratories), insurance adjustors, materials standards, medical/drug standards (USP), and more.

  It’s natural to think a note on memory is about improving one’s memory, say tips or advice. All agree that having a poor memory is undesirable. But today we consider the opposite. This note is about those men and women gifted with excellent memory, or even beyond excellent. Courtrooms are transfixed by memory-gifted attorneys citing case after case in support of their clients. Students are mesmerized by faculty that communicate like walking encyclopedias of information with complete ease. World leaders invite memory-rich consultants to give historical aspects to current problems. Yet, the at-home housewife can demolish her husband in a dispute over the point of contention by recalling in minute detail what happened last time or recalling past sins and errors. The boss who remembers every mistake of every employee has an uncomfortable staff. As well, adults who vividly remember only childhood punishments may have problems with authority. So, is perfect memory a blessing? Consider.

What Makes a Problem Difficult? by G. Donald Allen Introduction . All of us solve problems daily. At home or office, from balancing the corporate books to teaching to researching theoretical physics, and even managing family affairs, successful days are those with problems well solved. Many problems are routine or even easy, but too many arrive with a measure of difficulty. So, what’s difficult? Let’s begin by indicating that “difficult,” when applied to problem-solving, is difficult to describe. We explore several possibilities, for those of you already good at problem-solving. That is, you know the general problem-solving steps (Appendix A) and have used them to succeed previously. Certainly, experience is extremely important. Lack of experience can make almost any problem difficult as we’ve learned from history – our own included. Also, and of great importance is the ability to recognize a solution if by chance you stumble upon it. Organizations of all kinds need a “fixer,”

It's that gifting time of the year. So, I thought to take a closer look at the gifts I have already. Not just the kids, car, house, and health, but the real gifts, as in those I was born with. They are many, so many it is troubling why I have them. Among them is the gift of problem-solving. Another is the gift of curiosity. This article  is about them all, with a closer look at faith.  December 20, 2022 Gifts to Humankind by G Donald Allen Upon us now is the season of giving. Just as important is to inventory those gifts we have been given. And they are many. At Thanksgiving, we count our blessings. Today we travel well beyond counting to those wondrous gifts given to us at birth. These gifts co-mingle, coalesce, contravene, and entangle to make us what we have become. Not material, nor theoretical, and without position or location, they are undeniable. They are within the domains of psychology, chemistry, and sociology, forming our very human foundations. Evolution or design