Author: admin
-
Movies Challenge Us
When I start watching a movie, I try to finish watching it. Sometimes, I stop watching a movie because it’s so bad that I can’t justify spending the time — even though we learn a lot about movie making by watching bad movies. Sometimes, I stop watching a movie because I don’t like it. When…
-
Conflicting Priorities
We want many different things throughout our lives. Sometimes, the things we say we want are not consistent with our actions. So here’s a question. Should we believe our actions or our words? And if we don’t do the things we say we want, what’s holding us back? While I think fear often holds us…
-
Firearms and Explosions
While eating dinner at Mi Mexico in Ouray, I overheard a conversation happening at a long table next to me. At least ten men were sharing their adventures blowing stuff to smithereens. No, they were not terrorists. They were movie makers. Or at least they were responsible for making war scenes in movies look good.…
-
Relative Velocity
Today, I experienced a nice demonstration of classical relative velocity. While driving in the mountains, I started to pass a car that was in the lane to my right. To my left, I noticed a railing that had a lot of evenly spaced struts. I was probably going about seventy miles per hour, with respect…
-
Buying Stocks
My approach to investing is to buy index funds. My reasons why are here. Some people would rather buy their favorite individual stocks. Every now and then, I also buy individual stocks. I think of this a bit like gambling. Whereas index funds tend to go up over time, many individual stocks do not. Some…
-
I am NOT a Dog Psychologist!
For context, you need to know a few things about Bean. He’s the funniest dog we’ve ever owned. I mean, just look at him. He loves tummy rubs, dog treats, and playing fetch. He’s fast. He’s much faster than I expected for such a small dog. He’s smart. He has learned to sit for a…
-
Rare Events
We can learn a lot by noticing rare events. This is especially true in physics and astronomy. Examples include the following. Eclipses and conjunctions eventually improved our understanding of gravity, from Kepler’s Laws to Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Supernovas provided insights into the life cycle of stars. Victor Hess won a Nobel Prize in…
-
Politics
Last night, I watched Kamala Harris give her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. I’m impressed. She knows how to face Trump, and she’s the kind of leader I want in the White House. While I would have voted for anyone over Trump, I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to vote for…
-
Biographies
Biographies and autobiographies can be inspiring. I finished listening to Govt Cheese by Steven Pressfield on Audible tonight. He went through many, many years of writing stuff nobody wanted before he finally wrote The Legend of Bagger Vance, while in his early fifties, which was adapted into an excellent movie directed by Robert Redford. (Full disclosure: I haven’t read…
-
Believe It Or Not
One of the TV shows I enjoyed watching as a kid is The Greatest American Hero. While it wasn’t a great TV show, I enjoyed watching it. And the Theme Song has always stayed with me. Here’s my attempt to sing and play it. What I love about the song and the show is that…