Leonardo, Meet John Tiktak
What's in an artful smile? What elevates the ordinary to extraordinary art? Gimmicks don't work. So what does?
9
05, 2023
26
04, 2023
Benefits of Calling Basic Research ‘Destination-free’ rather than ‘Curiosity-driven’
Not knowing the plot, which book would you be more likely to read: Love on the Way to Los Angeles or Innocence Lost? Love, well, it’s a dime a dozen, and on the way to Los Angeles is about a journey possibly for show business, hardly inspiring, novel, or informative. By contrast, innocence lost [...]
20
03, 2023
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?
5
02, 2023
My Moment of Eternity
Recent comments by noted columnist, George Will, about the Webb telescope and its amazing potential to record the beginning of time, got me thinking of eternity. Perhaps without being aware of it, we each mark time differently, and hold the key to our own "eternity"...
18
11, 2022
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...."
22
08, 2022
Sensitivity Readers
On the front page of the New York Times (December 24, 2017), Alexandra Alter advanced 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, discrimination or ignorance of cultural realities for the purpose of removing inadvertent bias [...]