Boomer News

Happy 6th Birthday Emma

You are a very pretty girl. We love talking to you on the phone. Grandma tells me you like horses. Of course you know your mom had a horse and went to college to do veterinarian work. Your mom can tell you the story about her teeth and how your mom’s good teeth got her a horse when she was 12.

Do you remember you were 4 and again last year when grandpa asked what is your earliest memory? Well let’s do that again. (Hopefully your mom has kept your answers from last year and the year before). Please tell your mom what is your earliest memory now that you are age 6. Even though you would think that people would remember things before age 3 … most people can’t remember those first 3 years of life.

Some day you might be a neuro-scientist with a barn and horses, and you will find the information about your memory that your mom kept as very interesting.

Have a great six year old birthday Emma!

What happened before the big bang?

“What happened before the big bang?” is the question most asked by the general public. In our concept kids, we know what happened before the big bang. Our universe is in a black hole and we have a parent universe.  At the birth of our universe, there was an exchange of material between our universe and our parent universe … which will occur again with the death of our universe and the birth of another universe …all in the same black hole in which our universe resides.

Grandpa is not going to go through all the details of our concept again. You’ll have to go back to June 2009 archive to read Nested Universes Part 1 through 6. We’re going to see if we can advance our concept by getting information that is external to a super-massive black hole that would potentially be affecting what is going on within a black hole … if our universe was indeed inside a super-massive black hole.

We will be observing two places in our universe, based upon data published by astronomers/cosmologist. One being the Perseus Galaxy Cluster’s “hydro-logic cycle” described in the Scientific American March 2007 article, and the other being the movement and location of the accretion ring around the super-massive black hole from the active phase to dormant phase. In our concept, we think we are on a path that might lead to the source of dark energy.

Ok kids, grandpa has a problem and needs your help. I have been working with old technology since I started writing this blog 3.5 years ago. I need to do a video explaining our Nested Universes concept. My perfectly good analog tape camcorder will not do the job. I need to down load pictures, graphs, and a video. I need a digital camcorder to do the video properly. Our next installment on our Nested Universes concept will have to wait until I can make the video and be able to down load it to the blog … or maybe Facebook?

(Cosmology part 3)

The 9/11 Hole … it’s still there!

60 Minutes did an update on the rebuilding effort at the 9/11 Twin Tower Trade Center site recently. After over 8 years, no buildings have been constructed. The ceremony for the 20 ton granite cornerstone with the inscription; “The Enduring Spirit of Freedom” was held on July 4th 2004. It is still waiting for the the skyscraper to be started.

Here is what your grandpa wrote on 9/12/2001;

“The bombing of the World trade center yesterday should cause the world to really examine what the major religions are doing about preventing fundamentalist from distorting their good words and teachings. In this case killing innocent people in the name of Islam. It’s my position, that we need to put a new organization called “The United Religions of the World” in a building on the 9/11 site. Just the act of putting the selected leading spokesperson of each of the major religions together in one building with the charter to denounce terrorism and promote tolerance through education will lesson the tensions that exist between nations and religions and would honor those who lost their lives.

The USA is made up of all nations and religions of the world and arguably is the best example of a free society in the world today. The charter for The United World Religions must be specific. It must clearly state that the mission is education into things spiritual  to foster spiritual understanding between the faiths. The world’s secular problems and political agendas should remain the exclusive charter of The United nations.

The world’s religions need to have Three Cups of Tea together.

The hole is still there. It isn’t too late to put The United World Religions building on the 9/11 site. Good ideas don’t die … but without action good ideas just fade away.

Cosmology part 2

What does “An idea a day” and “The family librarian” blogs have to do with cosmology grandpa? Actually I wanted to find a way to remind you of your  youthful brains that soak up new ideas easily. The “family librarian” was a thought of mine after posting “the idea a day” concept. It would be nice if one of you teenagers came up with a data base of all the books within our family unit of 22 people. We would have our own “Book Exchange Club.”

When I had a teen age brain, I wondered if a universe like ours  might exist in the mass less photon? Far out? Sure! I just want to let you know there is a lot of expansive thinking possible for you … Chiara, Nick, Eric, Sam & Jack  … while the opportunity exists. Your parents are taking care of the heavy lifting … supplying your  nourishment and shelter requirements … so you have time to learn and expand your neuron connections. (Those neurons connections keep decreasing with age).

Here are some of the cosmology books I acquired after retiring:

• The Life of the cosmos by Lee Smolin
• The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose
• The Fabric of the Universe by Brian Greene
• The Endless Universe by Steinhardt & Toruk
• Wayfarers of the Cosmos by George Coyne
• Ultimate Explanations of the Universe by Michael Heller

You are welcome to borrow any of them at any time. It’s a time when your high school teachers and college professors will be trying to open your minds to new ideas. Take advantage. After your schooling  is over your adult brain has less plasticity and your priorities will be on your adult responsibilities.

When you retire like grandpa, the time to learn things opens up again and neuroscientist now have found that old brains still has some plasticity left.

Topic #1: Cosmology part 1

Grandpa will try not to repeat previous blogs written in the cosmology category of this blog, of which there are 61 posted blogs. I want to pick up where we left off  about six months ago. I do not want to repeat the steps that got us to where we are on our Nested Universes concept. You can go back and read that.

But first, I do want to review my logic leading up to our Nested Universes concept and it’s present status before addressing the serious unprovable issues of our concept … and some interesting observable aspects that may add credence to the concept.

 My introduction to the universe started at your age Luke … at about age 12. My mother said to me; “The universe has no end and no beginning. You can’t put a box around the universe and say that’s it! There is always something outside that box you have mentally imagined  in you head.”

Luke, when I thought about an the endlessness of space and time, I felt that my brain was spinning around in my head. I thought to myself; “That has to be! There can be no other conclusion”. As years have gone  I have concluded that space and time are endless and that is the ultimate undeniable scientific fact … that falls into the category of being among the things that cannot be proved. That is quite a dichotomy kids, don’t you think? We will get into that dichotomy in Topic # 5.

I said that I would get into some interesting subset blogs under each of the 5 main topics. In the next blog, under cosmology,  I will go back to the “An idea a day” blog, and the “Family Librarian” blog.

The Boomer News Survey

Grandpa would like the parents and family adults to do a survey on the past 3.5 years of Boomer News blogs. It can be anonymous. Just write “yes” or “no” if you think that grandchildren would be “interested in” or “not interested” these topics. (Submit Y or N  for the 5 numbers in the comment section of this blog). I have narrowed the list to just 5 major topics. They do seem very serious for the grandchildren, but each has many interesting subsets … and potential career possibilities.  In subsequent blogs, I will cover each of these topics and the subsets, which I hope you will find interesting and useful to the grandchildren.

1. Cosmology
2. Human thought
3. Becoming human and critical thinking
4. Continuous measurement improvement of long term crucial issues
5. The interfaces that physically exist between what can be proved and what cannot be proved

Items 1 & 2 are two of the most complex and interesting topics that involve all the  science disciplines and all the great philosophical questions. I cover some in my blogs.

Item 3 we try to show that we can gain knowledge  from those who came before us and how better thinking will prepare us for the future.

Item 4  involves the practical aspects of the kids future. I feel our grandkids need to be “The Enlightened Generation”. An enlightened generation will not be fooled and will act before a crisis becomes catastrophic.

Item 5. Humans have reached physcal interfaces where they can no longer measure or understand what lies beyond the interface.  If  the people of our grandchidren’s generation grasp the importance of both the  things that are proveable and those things that not proveable, the potential esists for a wave of tolerance to occur across the world in grandchildren’s life time.

Can Grandpa compete with Facebook?

The focus of this blog has been on our eleven grandchildren and of  course the parents and adults of our immediate family. If I add in relatives and friends, The Boomer news has a potential circulation of 30 to 40 readers. According to recent polls, children and young adults from 10 to 29  are no longer interested in blogs.

We’ll I guess I need to be more creative to hold the attention of my grandchildren and immediate family. The kids, and some of our adults use Facebook and pretty much all our adults use email. I can send copies of my blogs to the families using emails. I can join Facebook and make all my grandchildren “my friends” and see if I can interest them in my blogs in that way.

The next blog will be a survey. When companies want to know what their customers are thinking, they ask them to answer their survey. Grandpa is going to list all the various subjects I have written about in the last 3.5 years and ask  you if  you might be interested in the subject matter … or no, you don’t have any interest at all in the subject matter.

I know you have told me in the past the blog is too serious … (you were kind enough not to say the blog was boring). I’ll work on being less serious, but the blog isn’t about chit chat and social conversation. I’m an old grandpa … so you get what old grandpa’s have to give … their experience … in hopes that in some small way, that might helpful to you.

Happy 5th Birthday Jen

I really enjoy all the pictures of you that your dad has been sending to grandma and me recently. Even though we are separated by many miles we get to see you grow as the pictures  come rolling in from  your parents on email.

Back when I was your age we didn’t have all the electronic gadgets you have today, but we did have “Flip Cards”. If you make a drawing of a person on the first card and then make small changes from the 1st card to the next card, and do that to each card after that, you can make the person appear to move by watching as you flip through the deck of cards. That would be fun if I could do that with all the pictures your parents have sent us this past year.

Because your birthday is one day after mine, you will be entering Kindergarten as one of the older children and graduating high school after you are 18. But, let’s not rush things. Enjoy your childhood Jen, You will be an adult a very long time and being a kid is so much more fun.

Have a great birthday and a great vacation in Hawaii Jen.

Love,

Grandpa

There’s a herd of pachyderms in the room

The biggest elephant in the room is population, but there is a whole herd of elephants that are not getting any daily attention.

You know kids, how you have a thing in your room that needs fixing, but you keep putting it off until one day you walk right by the problem without even noticing it.

Well kids, we are still looking for ways to get attention paid to the most important long term problems, (pachyderms), on a daily basis, so we can see the risks before they turn into gigantic catastrophes.

Kids, if you google “Systemic Risk Monitoring and Regulations” you can view a video on how the National Institute  of Finance and government officials are laying out plans to regulate the financial elephant they are trying to keep under control.

Our concept is to continuously measure & monitor all the long term elephants using very similar  methods recommended by the panelist on the C-Span program video. In the market place, the panelist are concerned with having timely data, which is understandable. Professor John Liechty concurred with the need for better data, modeling, and analytics, but felt that long term research was essential. He used weather forecasting as an analogy, just as your grandpa has done in previous blogs on this subject.

He pointed out that since the weather bureau was formed in 1870, right up and through the costly 1938 hurricane, the weather bureau provided almost no warning of forecasts disasterous hurricanes. It wasn’t until 1977 when long range forecasting began with the NOAH research effort that progress was made on hurricane forecasting.

Wouldn’t it be great kids, if you could google one of the long term problem elephants, to see how the research was progressing … to add your comments and sign out. Wouldn’t it be great to see the graphs and analysis that were generated by an independent unbiased group. Just think of how much less misinformation would by on the Internet and airwaves if there actually was a place to get accurate information.

Tune in to the next blog kids.

What we have here is a Bimodal Distribution

Since we are trying to push for a data base to generate long term forecasts of  the national and world most important issues, grandpa wants to point out a present day problem in America that needs attention. To do this you’ll get a small dose of statistics kids.

In most cases, any population of measured events will form a histogram graph which has most of the event points around the mean. If you measure the height of all the boys in your school, it would form a histogram. You can then see that the histogram forms a bell shaped curve. The bell shaped curve will closely approximate a Gaussian curve which is called The Normal Distribution. The shortest boy at one end, the tallest on the other end … and most of the boys will be at the middle of the curve.

However, on rare occasions it is possible to get two distinct peaks, which is called  a bimodal distribution. Our government has been polarized … which means our government has broken up into two distinct factions. (A bimodal distribution). The Republicans and the Democrats. Who is to blame? All of us, including and especially the general public, along with a huge boost of  incouragement from the media.

The media understands the public and it’s  insatiable thirst for the sensational. They have been feeding us the extreme ends of a normal distribution for years. Breaking News! Shocking News! Violent News! Scandalous News!  We love it! The Bimodal Curve is the result of the public getting a steady diet of the extreme ends of the curve. We need a wake up call to get back to a Normal Distribution!

You Can’t Have Your Cake & Eat it Too

It’s a confusing old English quote. It started out as; “Have one’s cake and eat it” to the more commonly used  negative quote; “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” Which means you can’t have it both ways kids. My interpretation to you is;  “If you earn the cake, you get to it eat … If you don’t earn your cake, you don’t get to eat too”.

Our country has the same problem. We want Washington to fix our problems.* (add more entitlements and don’t touch the existing ones).  At the same time, we want government to shrink. (spend less money and reduce our taxes). The American public wants to have their cake and eat it too. America can’t have it both ways.

You older kids remember the good old days prior the this current recession, when our job as Americans was to spend and consume to support the economy. It was a time when your parents were glad to fill your bedrooms with stuff. Let’s face it kids, they filled your space with a lot of stuff that you probably didn’t earn. … or need. Those days are gone. You will be a lot happier when you eat your cake … and know that you earned it too.

* Thoughts from Weisberg’s Newsweek article

America is Not Yet Lost

A little over a year ago, a Russian professor predicted that the disintegration of America would occur by 2010. The Russian National Security Agency, FAPSI, said it will begin with wealthier nations withholding funds from America.

Paul Krugman began his article “America is not lost yet” in the NY-Times by saying; “We’ve always known America’s reign as the world’s greatest nation will eventually end.”

My question to Paul is when? My grand-kids would like to know. Obviously the Russian’s have done some serious thinking on when America will disintegrate.

Not since the book “Limits of Growth” in 1970, and the follow up book in 2000, have I been able to find an agency in the United States that does unbiased long term projections on all America’s … and the world’s most important issues.

The politicians keep saying that we can’t pass all our problems on to our grandchildren, but Paul, where do go to get trustworthy long term projections on all the problems are grandchildren will be facing?

Maybe a company like Gallup, with it’s technical talent, could set up a long term forecasts department to do long term projections open to the public. We are alredy getting tons of polls on this falls coming election … how about a poll on when America will disintegrate?

Back to the drawing board

After looking into the difficulties and and the huge effort to set up a dedicated Forecast Channel built around charts & graphs to get accurate data on the world and national mid to long term problems, I’ve concluded that it would be a very risky venture.

I was encouraged when Ross Perot started a website in 2008 called perotcharts that provided charts on looming budget crisis issues. Apparently the website is no longer active. The public response to his website was poor based upon websites that tracked Perot’s website performance. The NY-Times column called “By the Numbers” on statistics and charts caught my eye, but it appears the interest and the number of articles on statistics has fallen off.

The Era of Distrust  was even around in Mark Twain’s time. One of  his famous quotes was: “There are three kinds of lies … lies, lies, and damned lies … and statistics.” Sorry kids, it seems the really truthful forecast data and facts on long term issues will remain in the labs and computers with the people who compile the data … for now.

But if you are like your grandpa … you don’t give up trying. Even if someone is singing to you to; “Turn out the lights, the party is over”. Be persistent if you are purposefully driven to achieve a particular goal.

Maybe Perot charts can be rejuvenated as a web site if it looks at all crucial long term problems, that have the objective of Continuous Measurable Improvement to avoid disaster … it will need the blessing of the influential pundits.

Another area to look at is the polling companies. The public pays attention to their statistics and charts. Grandpa will check into how they are funded and what type of information they look for to go out to the electronic media and the printed media. Tune into future grandpa’s blogs kids … the party is not over …yet.

The Geezers’ Crusade

Before we push forward on our dedicated graphics TV channel, I will fill you in on the comments I made on a David Brooks NYTimes articles … The Geezers’ Crusade. Here it is:

“I hope old geezers like myself can make a difference. I’m 79 and I started a blog in 2006 to communicate with our grandchildren, our children and their spouses. (11 grandchildren and 11 adults.) My initial motivation was to see if I could interest a few kids in math & science careers, using the cosmos and human thought as the main subject categories. My last blog I posted was to encourage other old geezers grandfathers like myself to communicate with their grandchildren and immediate family.

When I started writing I felt that the majority of bloggers were more interested in talking  … than listening. And it looks like that is the way it has turned out … at least for my blog. (Which is OK by me, communicating with the kids being the objective). I’ve written 260 blogs with 220 comments from the kids, family and friends … and only one comment from a stranger on the Internet.

Trying to just communcate with the kids was more important than dealing with the Tower of Misinformation on the Internet.

My coming blogs to the grand-kids are on the merits of our dedicated TV channel concept. It will use Perot graphs and charts to address the major world & national issues. It will be like the weather channel … you pop in … get the information you need … and pop out. The difference will be that we will be tracking mid and long term problems on a daily basis. It won’t be boring. The information will be factual. Journalist with technical training will be comparing the latest problem of the day against the  historic data and the forecasts for that particular probelrm.

Thanks David Brooks for your thoughts about us old geezers. Hope is on it’s way. I predict (forecast), the young people who are the age of our grandchildren will someday be known as the enlightened Generation. Kids that are now 10 years old are exposed to all the good and bad to which adults are exposed. They will not be fooled …and they will act before a major crisis occurs.” 

It’s better to trust … than not trust

 What do you do kids when you feel you can’t trust your government and you can’t trust many of our influential business leaders? Where do we turn for truthful information? In a recent article by David Brooks called; “Politics in the age of Distrust” he  offers the Obama administration 4 bad options in going forward.

• The Heedless and Arrogant Approach.
• Weak and Feckless Approach.
• The Dangerous and Demagogic Approach.
• The Incoherent and Internecine Approach.

(yes, I had to check the meaning on a couple of words too kids)

We have a fifth approach:

• Establish a place where the most trusted data on the TV and the Internet can be found.

The next series of blogs will explain our concept of a TV channel dedicated to accurate information.

Do older Boomers still read the newspapers?

I’m one generation older than the oldest Baby Boomer.  Do you older Boomers still like reading the daily newspaper over coffee in the morning and relax on Sunday with all the information in the thick Sunday paper? The “Tablet” is the latest electronic digital device designed to put an end to the newspaper business.

I’ve been advocating a dedicated TV channel to put words to the graphics that track the worlds most serious problems on a daily basis for 35 years now. That concept has not caught hold yet. Poor Ross Perot tried to get interest in the use of graphs in the 1992 election campaign and again in the 2008 campaign when he initiated www.perotcharts.com web site. Apparently he gave up … the web site doesn’t seem to be active any more.

I know people use the Internet for all the financial data, graphs & charts … but the older generation will still want the full page printed sheet the newspapers provide. The concept of putting words to graphics can be done at a local, state, national and global levels in the newspapers.

Journalist & politicians are for the most part verbal people. Graphs are foreign to them … “graphs are for people who are into math and science.” Journalist have learned photo journalism … putting words to pictures.  They don’t seem to appreciate the power graphics have to convey the present status and future projected status of all the important  issues of the day. A graph can be worth a thousand words. Graphs can help reduce “The Too Much Information Problem”

Hillary Clinton made fun of Ross Perot’s charts in the 2008 campaign. Duh! Charts on the debt have been crying out for action for decades and yet the politicians have not had the fortitude to address the problem. With the Internet, the American public now have access to the information that shows how soon the crisis is going to hit us. The Massachusetts election shows how the American public is awakening to the unsustainable curves the graphs are showing. The politicians & TV news media are feeling the heat of the public anger … and party affiliation has nothing to do with with the overall frustration in our governments ineptitude with problems they have avoided for years.

We need a dedicated TV channel that profides projections on every important issue, in the same style as the weather channel. The same graphs and statistics can be printed in the newspapers to breath new life into newspaper business.

Boomer News to Grandpa Boomers

I’m not from the Boomer Generation. So why did I call my blog the Boomer News? Because in 1941, when I was in the 5th grade in grammar school, I wrote a hand written newspaper for the 5th graders that I called the Boomer News. I don’t recall what made me come up with that name. The oldest of you real boomers are now about 64 years old. Many of you are grandparents. This blog is to you boomer grandpas.

My blog is written to my our eleven grandchildren who are between 3 and 18 years old. I’ve been writing this blog for three and half years and hope to keep writing to them until the youngest is at least in the 5th grade. I don’t expect any of the grandkids to tune into the blog until age 10. I’m not writing a blog to make money … it is just my way to have one-on-one communication with my grandchildren … from a distance.

My guess is that my readership is about 30 people, which is composed of the kids parents, family, relatives, friends, and the kids. My most recent blogs have been to the parents, friends and to the oldest grandchildren. If any of you real grandpa boomers wish to communicate with your grandkids in a similar one-on-one fashion, check out my blog at web site “Boomers.Alltop.com” (4th blog down on the left . Last blog; “In all Things … be Moderate”)

My experience is that 10 year olds are curious, imaginative and still listen to their parents and grandparents.

In All Things … Be Moderate

That is something I heard as a child that has stuck with me. From my engineering experience kids, you get to realize for every decision you make … there is a trade off.  Look for the downside to every action you make … there will be one … just keep the downside as small as possible.

When it comes to your health and welfare being moderate in all things is a good axiom to go by.

In politics, your grandpa is noted for being a middle-of-the road guy. A moderate. Like a guy that is standing in the middle of a see-saw shifting his weight left or right to maintain a balance between extreme factions.

Back in the late 80s I became very disenchanted with our two political parties. They were becoming more and more polarized and beholding more & more to special interests. I felt the country needed a third party. I voted for Ross Perot along with about 18.9% of the American public. But   the search for moderate candidates has grown tougher ever since.

(This is for our 18 year old grandchild and all the parents). Yesterday was a historic day in Massachusetts when a Republican beat a Democrat for a very important seat in the Senate. My guess is that moderate independents made the difference.

It opened my eyes that a third party might end up being just as bad as the two we have. We don’t need a 3rd party we need more independent voters  …who are not beholding to giant special interests groups …  to get the GOP & DEMs to do the will of the people.

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Kids, in our last blog we pointed out to you the amazing  achievements of a small culture. The value of education, covering many centuries, has lead to these achievements by the Jewish people. These achievements have been available and made possible for all cultures, since we all came from the very  first two Homo sapiens to have children. 

It’s not to late for all cultures to put education and critical thinking as the highest priorities in the 21st century. All the educational resources are right there on the Internet.

Is it possible that all wars will be eliminated in the 21st century? Not likely. In the movie Avatar,* after we humans have depleted the Earth, humans move to the habitable moon Pandora in the year 2154, and then become engage in more fighting . As we get into  the 21st century, fighting is still about the haves and have-nots and economics … but with a more more obvious theological influence. Belief against belief … culture against culture.

The United Sates has been the melting pot experiment for over 250 years where people from all the world’s cultures live. Each immigrant has had to under go huge belief changes to become Americans. On the whole the experiment has worked. In America your achievements are more important than your origins. But, the United States, as the world’s super power, policemen and ultimate “have” nation, we are still hated.

But kids, I’m optimistic about the planet’s future. Grandpa has dubbed all the children of the world now under 20 years old as the “Enlightened Generation”.

Now fast forward to the year 2154 we find a columnist writing an article about our planet’s slowly being restored to it’s environmentally balanced health and beauty, he entitles the article, “Maybe we all can just get along!”

*(Kids I haven’t see Avatar  yet. Hopefully I haven’t made some erroneous comments about the movie.)

Is the World list of Cultures Complete?

So, here we are in the 21st century with no new cultures left to be discovered. It’s estimated there are 1,500 cultures in the world. Just what is a culture Kids? A simple definition  would be: “a particular society that came from a particular place”. Since we have not been able to discover any new groups of people on earth that have not already been discovered … we have to work with the cultures that now exist.

One would assume that each culture would be defined by it’s different behaviors and beliefs. In this century, where world cooperation will be needed to head off the consequences of the unsustainable issues, how will we get all the different behaviors and beliefs to work together? How do we get rid of the angst  & anger between cultures?

Is there any culture that stands out above the rest? I just started to think about this blog subject several days ago, when David Brooks  of the NY Times in Tel Aviv news pops up with a column about a culture that sets benchmarks for all the rest of us to achieve. Jews make up 0.2 % of world population; Yet 54% are world chess champs, 27% noble physics laureates & 31% medicine laureates. In the US 21% Ivy league student bodies, 26% Kennedy Center honors, 37%  Academy Award directors, 38% of leading philanthrolists, 51% of the Pulitzer Prize winners.

This is going to take more than one blog kids, so give some thought to how one small culture could have accomplished so many achievements that is not in proportion to their size. Grandpa’s initial thought is that since the genesis of the written word, they have been continually living through hard times and being forced to assimilate into other cultures. All these challenges stimulate the creative juices that require education as the fuel.    

 So here we are. So where do we go from here? Next blog.