Notes From A Bear's Journey

   The other night found us with some friends and perhaps because of all that has happened --our dog becoming paralyzed, our moms showing a bit more dementia, the heat, who knows-- we got a bit more giddy than usual.  So by the time I went to bed my head was swirling, not like Robin Williams used to describe (you being so drunk or loaded that he said that the room was spinning like a massive roulette wheel with the dealer yelling "place your bets, place your bets" -- heavens no, although I had been there before in my younger days; with age came, one hopes, the knowledge that that wasn't a very good place to visit) but inhibitions down enough that my mind seemed to be going in several directions; all of which got me to thinking about how our brains operate at such a point, a point when functions and reactions are dulled but awareness apparently is not.  Then I happened to remember a piece on the different receptors in our brain and how different drugs, from sugar to o...

One of the vies from inside The Forum    Here's how Mary Beard opened her rather critical NY Review of Books review of an atlas of Rome: The ancient Roman Forum is one of the most frustrating tourist sites in the world.  This is the spot where some of the most famous events in Western history took place and some of the most consequential decisions were made.  It is where the Roman Senate debated how to respond to the threat of Hannibal, where Marcus Tullius Cicero denounced would-be tyrants and radical revolutionaries, where Julius Caesar’s body was cremated after his assassination in 44 BC, and where Mark Antony delivered the original version of “Friends, Romans, countrymen.”  Yet what you now see has almost nothing to do with any of that.  The imposing “senate house,” preserved to more or less its full height thanks to its conversion into a church in the seventh century AD, has no connection with the place in which Cicero held forth in the...

   It is always fascinating to discover new things, especially when they are about subjects that you sort of thought that you knew well.  Take apples for instance; you bite into one and in the middle are all those seeds and one would think that if you're eating say an Ambrosia variety of apple, you could plant one of those seeds and with just a little luck you would soon have an apple tree that would give you Ambrosia apples some years later.  Nay. nay, for apples are one of the most unpredictable fruits around and the odds are almost nil that a seed from that apple you're eating will produce the same type of apple (almost all commercial apples are grown from grafting onto another tree).  And speaking of apples, can you think of an apple that is sweet and ripens quickly and yet millions of tons of them are thrown away each year primarily because they're too fragile to ship?  If you're stumped it's with good reason for this apple produces its single seed on...

   When one hears the term 1% or 2% here in the U.S., one tends to think of milk since whole milk is 4% fat and you then have 2%, 1% and fat free (or what we would call "skim" milk).  But these days, hearing those terms in the U.S. now makes one also think of the wealthy, or in the case of the 1% the super-wealthy.  See if you can guess where this comment comes from: For guys who are well past middle age, keeping healthy needs to be respected.  We have two employees who take care of stretching us, massaging us.  We have a chef.  We stay in comfortable hotels.  There's private plane travel.  We don't tour in more than two-week increments, so we go home and see our families, recharge our batteries.  Touring like this is not financially efficacious, but if we didn't tour like this, we wouldn't tour.  Those words come from Lars Ulrich, drummer for the aging heavy metal band, Metallica.  But as many millions as they might have, they...

   So here we go, a day to catch up on some reading and some details and as usual, things have changed quickly.  For those watching the political scene, this is nothing new; but in so many other fields, the longer-term reports are starting to come in and once combined with big data they are showing some surprising results (the subject of big data will soon be covered in a post since my file on such is bulging, but here's one quick example...CEO Drew Houston reports that people save a billion files a day in his company, Dropbox).  So while this update of sorts won't really recap every item, here are some of the highlights recently making their way in the news (subjects highlighted link to the earlier post in which it was mentioned)...     Blockchain : What??  If you missed it, my earlier post briefly dived into the world of blockchain.  But since then the world has moved on as blockchain businesses continue to grow right along with digital ...

   Taking nothing away from any veteran, people who we all owe a debt of gratitude for having done what they've done, the term "vet" seems to now be giving way to a different definition as in being a destination.  Tell someone close to you that you took Chloe to the vet and likely the recognition is immediate; you have a cat or dog named Chloe and she needed to see the animal doc.  And from my observations, animals are about as excited at this as we are when we are heading to our doc...it means a shot or a poke or an X-ray, but generally something less than pleasant.  So in a bit of serendipity, I happened to be reading the book by veterinary surgeon, Dr. Nick Trout, when my dog slipped down the last three stairs and in an instant becoming 95% paralyzed in her back legs (her tail will wag now and then).  Tell Me Where It Hurts * touched home as I got to page 184 and read about his teenage years with his own dog Patch who began experiencing the same effects...

   You hear it quite a bit these days, that of financial advisors and hedge fund managers, trading happening in milliseconds and the possible moving of financial hubs such as London.  Currency and trading is big business, to say the least; and just as with today's banks, they want your money...it's how they operate and how they make their money.  Just give us your money, say the banks, and we'll give you a tiny bit of interest in return (currently the rate is .01% or an interest return of 1 cent on every 100 dollars you save); no need to worry they say for we'll have the money there when you need it (but in the meantime we'll use it to invest in something better ); the fund managers and investment companies tell you the same thing, only there's no real guarantee of getting your money back, just the possibility that you'll reap greater riches (or returns, as they call it) because as they are fond of telling you, we know where we can put your money to the be...