By the time you read this, my birthday will have passed. 9 September. And, as I reported before, I’m now part of the older populations. And, yes, my bones do creak- but only loud enough to be heard if you are contiguous to me.
Continue reading Another one bites the dust…
I began my blog about 2 years ago (1 June 2010). I did so for a few reasons. The first reason was to meet as many people as I could, to explain things as I see them, and share my knowledge. It’s the curse of being an ex-academic; one who teaches, researches, publishes, and engages in discussions with knowledge-seeking folks.
I just celebrated the beginning of Pesach- the 7 or 8 day holiday you may know as Passover. The first night or two (depends on where you live and your customs) is a communal meal of study and discussion, called the Seder. The words of the title form the primary statement said at the very beginning of the Seder. The fourth (of 15) part of this event is called ‘Yachatz’, where the leader breaks the middle matza of three on the Seder table into two, unequal pieces. (Matza is the unleavened bread that carries conflicting interpretations – it’s both the bread of affliction and the bread of freedom.)
Continue reading Let all who are hungry come and eat
I’m sure by now you know that I’m a reasonably religious fellow. (No, I did not say I was reasonable; I said that my religion is a basic foundation of my life 🙂 ). And, given that, I believe that the Supreme Being (SB) created this world in 6 days. Now, let’s not worry about the literal sense, since the Tora defines a day as evening and morning. Given the fact that there were no luminaries at first and the world may or may not have been spinning, that first day could have been a millennium or a 1000 millennia using our chronometers.
Continue reading Helicopter. Ego. Growth.
I’ve broken into my queue for this message. This Sunday (25 March 2012) is a special day. Good Deeds Day. You have probably never heard of it- yet. It began in Israel in 2007. As the brainchild of Shari Arison. Who, you say? The scion of Ted Arison and Mina Sapir; the two founders of the Carnival Cruise Line. A British-American cruise line now, but not when it was founded in 1972. It has now become the world’s largest cruise line with 21+% of all cruise passengers travelling on one of their lines. (Carnival not only includes Carnival, but Holland America, Seabourn, Princess, Costa, Aida, and Ibero- plus an airline.) Continue reading We interrupt this message…
I’ve written before how much computers are critical in our lives and work. And, how much they’ve changed since I started my career. From my shoeboxes carrying Hollerith Cards fed to a computer almost as large as my living room (designing a pyrolysis unit) to my PDP computer (enzymatic production of a new form of penicillin) to my Osborne (water reuse systems, QC for medical products) to my AT&T (clinical trials) to my current systems (WebOS tablet, Intel7 laptop, and 8 processor Itanium server).
Continue reading Who makes this world better?
This is an auspicious month. The First of August, The First of Av, Ramadan. The confluence of all three of these events is rare, indeed. This period has certainly brought into evidence the failure of the US Government branches to deal with issues that they were specifically elected to preclude- the preservation of the United States of America. Because of this failure, the credit rating of this country has fallen; it’s regard by the rest of the world has fallen; and the regard of its citizens has also withered. Continue reading The stars (oops, the moons) are aligned…
