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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…
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Overlooked No More: Rose Mackenberg, Houdini’s Secret ‘Ghost-Buster’ – The New York Times
To expose fake psychics, Houdini employed a small army of undercover agents, calling them “my own secret service.” Rose Mackenberg, a private eye, was his foremost operative. Overlooked No More: Rose Mackenberg, Houdini’s Secret ‘Ghost-Buster’ – The New York Times You may need to register (free) to read this. A cool story about one of…
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Ghosting job applicants
An acquaintance of mine, who wants to stay anonymous for obvious reasons, provided me the data for the above chart. The data came from their last job hunting experience. While a successful job search — after all, they got offers — there is something very disturbing that I would like to point out.
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Scrolling to The Deep Sea
https://neal.fun/deep-sea/ The above picture is one of the many things to learn at Neal Agarwal’s “The Deep Sea’ website. Scroll down from the surface and you will see creatures down to the very deepest part of the ocean. More people have been to the Moon than the Hadal Zone (6000m). https://neal.fun/deap-sea/ Click on the ‘Neal.fun’…
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In Defense of the Bandwagon
This time of year, American football gets a lot of attention in the US media. And in offices, bars, and coffee shops. I am a sports fan for reasons that are outside the scope of this post. I am also a fan of the bandwagon (pun intended). If a team isn’t winning, why should I…
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Music Is Magic: Stairway To Heaven performed by Heart & Others @ Kennedy Center
I grew up listening to rock music. Specifically, classic rock back before it had earned the ‘classic’ moniker by refusing to die. Stairway to Heaven was a favorite of mine and many others. It didn’t get a lot of airplay on the main radio stations as it was over 8 minutes long — much longer…
John Bredesen: Remember, wherever you go, there you are.