Engaging Life with Courage and Intelligence
The word truthiness crept into the English language in 2005. It was coined by the satirical comedian Stephen Colbert. Truthiness denotes something to be true without any supporting facts or evidence. It was accepted as “truth” because it felt true or desired to be true. Truthiness is based on a person’s quick-firing gut instinct. Unlike…
It is too bad Carl Sagan is not around today. He was an outstanding scientist and a great communicator. In 1980, Sagan developed and narrated a 13-part PBS television series, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. Sagan was not only a television personality and scientist but also an outstanding educator and author. One of his lasting contributions…
I cut my teeth on mainframe computers, the behemoths of the early days of automation. In 1972, central processing units required huge air conditioners that circulated under raised flooring. Disk drives that stored 200 megabytes were larger than commercial refrigerators and cost $37,000 or $185 per megabyte. Today’s computers and disk drives are infinitely smaller…
This day might not be the best day to ask how humans became so smart. Americans, in particular, seem to be going in the opposite direction, regressing into a bottomless pit of ignorance and idiocy. However, the human race, as a whole, has become the intellectual masters of Earth. Other animals and even plants have…
There are many reasons why Tesla’s market value has dropped like a rock in a lake. Many believe that Musk’s childlike techno-libertarianism and the predictable reaction of people around the world are the primary causes of Tesla’s sudden decline. However, I think that is just one factor. The Tesla truck has become the laughingstock of…
Arrogance really comes from insecurity, and in the end our feeling that we are bigger than others is really the flip side of our feeling that we are smaller than others. Desmond Tutu While some of James Bond’s movie scenarios involved undercover spying with foreign governments, several involved spying on rouge, power-seeking entrepreneurs. One of…
Elon Musk and his Tesla design team have become adamantly against using radar sensors or LIDAR to allow a Tesla to drive independently. To quote Elon, “LIDAR is fricking, expensive and unnecessary.” However, as Tesla’s competition now realizes, LIDAR is necessary for many reasons. Relying solely on visual information is dangerous at 30 mph, 60…
We may recall that during COVID, Musk borrowed money from the Biden administration to keep Tesla from going bankrupt. He was also so committed to his work that he slept in the factory. Today, he sleeps in the Lincoln Bedroom in Trump’s White House instead of the factory floor. How his life has changed in…