Essays
What’s Empty?
A recent conversation with Dr. John Mather — 2006 Nobel Laureate in physics for measuring the heat radiation from the Big Bang, and senior project scientist of the powerful Webb telescope launched by NASA — was thought-provoking and inspiring. … After thirty years in the making, the challenges didn’t end with its launch. Where would this infrared telescope be programmed to look first? The answer surprised me. … Where would you have looked first?
My Moment of Eternity
The noted columnist, George Will, commented in the recent Washington Post about the Webb telescope and its amazing potential to record the beginning of time. Traveling in space, the telescope is receiving “stretched” wavelengths of light from the origins of the...
Aging.com
A friend recently asked if I would ever buy a fully electric car like the Tesla. Ah, I do love new technology; if only it loved me…. The fantasy of owning a beautiful new electric car starts out so well…
“Wow, I love my new electric car. It’s a beauty. Is Elon a genius, or what? The dash isn’t cluttered with any messy gauges and graphs and stuff. Clean as a whistle. And, what a computer screen! Looks like Broadway in New York. And the pickup! Holy shit. It scares me. Mom goes nuts and hangs on for dear life….”
Sensitivity Readers
New York Times publishing reporter Alexandra Alter wrote once of the merits of so-called sensitivity readers, who look for underlying prejudices or misunderstandings in books and articles that might have unintended consequences. Sensitivity readers screen for slurs,...
Frozen Time
We think of time as a forward movement, the past as gone forever, and the present moving ahead towards the future. If it were only that simple, time moving forward at a steady pace. But I consider time motionless, always present, silent, the medium in which events occur.
Did you see that?
“ I see,” said the blind man. “Good,” responded his blind companion. “I too saw the light of day the moment I heard the explanation.” Never mind what the blind man “saw,” or what his blind companion heard. I know precisely what the two blind men meant: they “saw” –...
Olympic Irony, From a Distance
Oh, irony, what complexity! I love irony for its veneer covering insights beneath the surface. I know, with one stroke I’ve opened pandora’s box filled with more than anyone could cover in a lifetime. Never mind; I don’t need to be comprehensive or even consistent to...
Nasal Gazing
Strange, isn’t it, that the highly evolved sense of smell has been disparaged by the metaphor of “being nosey.” Why drag the nose and smell down to the level of gossip instead of being appreciated as a marvel of evolution? Why suck curiosity to learn into dangerous, muddy quicksand? Elevate your thoughts on smell.
Robots and the Age of Ambiguity
While not conceptually new, robots are rising from science fiction to an ambiguous reality. The latest frontier: Creativity! If an artist uses a robot to create art who is the creator? The artist? Programmer? Robot? All three?