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Saving lives is in their blood: Three generations donate blood
Back in 2012, I was travelling with one of my daughters to Oregon to see my dad. As I have mentioned elsewhere, my dad has long been a blood donor. Kelsey was interested in starting, so this happened. Story from TV station KVAL in Eugene. John Bredesen, his son John Jr. and granddaughter Kelsey, all […]
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My Dad’s 85th Birthday
As I sit down to write this little note for my dad’s 85th birthday, it is hard to wrap my head around all the ways he has influenced me. The fabric of his personality is such a part of me; it is difficult to extract the specific threads. So I’ll pick two of them for […]
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Cadbury Creme Eggs: A glimpse of how they are made
I visited the Cadbury factory in Birmingham, England a number of years ago. The tour didn’t take us onto the actual factory floor so we didn’t get to see how they made the creme eggs like the video. But they did have a very nice demonstration setup where they show all the different processes. And, […]
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Fake Meat: White Castle Review
I am very interested in all the work going on in the “fake meat” area. Impossible and Beyond are both running full speed with the newest generation of vegetarian meats. To be clear, I am not a vegetarian. I love meat and do not intend to give it up. But I really hope that they […]
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People! Vibrate!
From the always brilliant xkcd: Folks, unless you have a compelling reason otherwise, set your phone to vibrate. Especially those of you with watches that vibrate when something happens.
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Katherine Johnson, NASA Mathematician Featured in ‘Hidden Figures,’ Dies at 101 – The New York Times
They asked Katherine Johnson for the moon, and she gave it to them. Wielding little more than a pencil, a slide rule and one of the finest mathematical minds in the country, Mrs. Johnson, who died at 101 on Monday at a retirement home in Newport News, Va., calculated the precise trajectories that would let […]
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Square Root Of Change
Back in the early 1990s, I was working in IT at a multi-billion dollar manufacturing company. Ours was a small part of IT, separate from the mother ship. Responsible for about 2000 employees in our area, we had implemented several large projects over a two-year span; all bringing changes to the employees. I was a […]
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How Much Football Is Even In A Football Broadcast? | FiveThirtyEight
The numbers are startling. An average NFL broadcast lasts well over three hours, yet it delivers a total of only 18 minutes of football action. How Much Football Is Even In A Football Broadcast? | FiveThirtyEight But somehow, viewers feel they are getting value from the broadcast. There are lessons in here in attention, the need […]
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Spring Training starts
The true harbinger of spring is not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of the bat on the ball. Bill Veeck
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The Fake Image/Video Arms Race Continues
It is not always easy to tell the difference between real and fake photographs. But the pressure to get it right has never been more urgent as the amount of false political content online continues to rise. On Tuesday, Jigsaw, a company that develops cutting-edge tech and is owned by Google’s parent, unveiled a free […]
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Neil Peart: Sadness and a profound Thank You
Some of you know that I am a long-time fan of the band Rush. Found them in college (thanks Jim!) and bought all their albums in several formats. They have been a large part of the soundtrack to my entire adult life; various times, various songs, various reasons. The drummer, Neil Peart, recently passed away […]
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Phoenix Residence: My sister is now on the Board of Directors!
My younger sister lives in a group home operated by Phoenix Residences. The staff do an awesome job in a challenging financial situation. My older sister** was recently elected to the Phoenix Board of Directors. I think her analytic and communication skills, along with her compassion, will be a great addition. Congrats Sis! ** Special […]
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The dark side of electronic waste recycling – The Verge
Electronics can be hazardous when disposed of improperly, and the Basel Action Network, or BAN, investigates the underground world of the e-waste trade. The nonprofit group secretly embeds trackers in discarded devices, then hands them to recyclers to see where they end up, exposing bad practices in the process. After dropping bugged LCD monitors in […]
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Word Of The Day: tsundoku
Tsundoku: acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one’s home without reading them
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The Christmas Model Train
The Christmas tree train went up today. Like every year. I remember having a model train when I was a kid. The old 3-rail O scale. It had a diesel engine and some really cool cars. Ok, John, stop with the description and search the internet for it…bingo — found it on my first search […]