There might be more to this week’s discussion of gun control measures by Congress than public safety.  It is emerging as a perfect storm for shaping the 2014 Congressional elections.  If the Republicans prevent the creation of an effective gun control law, the public might v… Read full post »

Pope Benedict, recently abdicated, was regarded as a conservative Pope. In the Catholic context that means that he favored Catholic tradition, promoting the beliefs of the religion in a strict sense.  He condoned traditional church services, spoken in Latin in some cases.  Despite decades o… Read full post »

The world has experienced many terrible things during the last 2,000 years. One war followed another throughout the centuries. Lately there has been an increase in the number of people who have been using assault-style rifles to kill innocent people. There has been a single constant during these tumu… Read full post »

How many people are going to buy the argument that we should allow nuts to buy assault-style rifles and then spend all kinds of money to protect everyone from them? Wouldn't it be much more sensible just to keep these guns out of the hands of the nuts and let everyone… Read full post »

The Great Lakes are huge bodies of water, cold and deep.  When a ship has gone miles out on the water, it becomes completely isolated, detached from everything except the water.  Sometimes a thin strip of land is scarcely visible on the horizon, other times there is simply nothing to see.&n… Read full post »

I’m an addict.  You’re an addict too.  I came to this conclusion after reading the popular best seller “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg.  What -- How is it that we’re all addicts?  Well, the fact is, we don’t realize it, but we’re al/… Read full post »

Conservatism doesn’t seem to be working as advertised by the ‘trickle down’ theory that Reagan expounded on so long ago.  We were supposed to have it all, get something for nothing – we won’t collect enough taxes to pay for the budget, especially from rich people an/… Read full post »

It started with that first computer programming class, when I was struck dumbfounded by the notion that I would be able to program a computer to talk.  I loved the idea of artificial intelligence.  To think that I could fashion a set of instructions in such a way that a machine/… Read full post »

I’ve decided to feel good, to make my default attitude one that is pleasantly normal.  There are a number of reasons why my outlook on things spiraled downward.  My wife got cancer and RA.  It’s hard for me to get jobs, and when I do I can’t keep them very long. … Read full post »

I spent most of this week continuing to develop a custom design for an artificial neural network (ANN) that performs visual object recognition (VOR).  All but one day at the library.  Pack the computer in the backpack, walk to the library, smuggle in a coffee, fire up the PC and go,/… Read full post »

Spin News is reporting that a group of heretics has disavowed the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM).  These “Apasteists” as they call themselves have broken ranks with the Pastafarian church.  Thomas Blogwash, the spokesman for the group, stated “I have never… Read full post »

My father died almost 12 years ago, and during all of the years since then I still can’t quite figure out what kind of relationship we had.  He kept personal things and emotions to himself.  My most vivid memories of him are of him sitting in his chair, a little disgruntled. … Read full post »

The movie “A Beautiful Mind” has some appealing aspects for those of us who secretly wish to be part of the intelligent and productive elite.  While watching the movie, one could walk along through Princeton University, look at the rooms with fine old polished wood walls, walk thro… Read full post »

I started managing the relationship between the executive brain and the emotional brain yesterday.  They are 2 major parts of the brain and they need to work together if you want to live happily and be productive.  The executive part makes decisions based on reasoning.  The emotional p/… Read full post »

There are some things about the Christian religion that, if you think about them objectively, are downright bizarre.  You slap yourself on the forehead and say “wha…?”  Let’s examine a couple, because as Yogi Berra said, “You can observe a lot just by wat/… Read full post »

It started near the end of the year.  Several members of the family got colds.  Kathy got it too.  But when everyone else got over it, she was still coughing.  After a few weeks I suggested that she go to the doctor, but she thought that the cold would go away/… Read full post »

The media had a field day with Ted Williams, the man with the golden voice.  He had a career as a broadcaster but he became addicted to alcohol and drugs.  That became such a problem that he lost his job and became homeless.  On the news shows he claimed to have stopped/… Read full post »

An idea has occurred to many people in the computer science field -- an idea that quickens your pulse and makes you sit up and look at computers in a new way.  It’s the idea that you can create artificial intelligence (AI) by writing a clever computer program.  The first time/… Read full post »

In yet another dispute between a cable company and a company whose channel it retransmits, News Corporation and Cablevision struggled to reach an agreement about how much Cablevision will pay for News Corporation’s Fox channel.  It had an immediate impact on 3 million subscribers who were/… Read full post »

Kids are like puppies.  They require stimulation and exercise.  They need to be able to interact with what they are doing.  They need to touch stuff, play with it, and talk about it.  And their young bodies need to move around, not just for a short time, but throughout the day.&nb… Read full post »

I’m walking down the street on the way to the library in Green Bay. It’s 80 degrees , the air is still and so humid that it feels like it is pressing in on me.  I got up late this morning.  It was so hot last night that my wife and/… Read full post »

At first I noticed the e-mails appearing in my inbox sporadically. They pushed conservative Republican points of view. Oh no, they were forwarded by my mother. Her new husband was a Republican and he had been in the military and then the police force, so I thought he was sending them… Read full post »

I spent my high school years at a small Catholic Seminary.  Why did I do it?  It had to do with the fact that  my parents were Catholics of course, and they had me go to a Catholic grade school in my town.  One day a priest who was recruiter gave/… Read full post »

Back in 1973 I was a long-haired college student at U/Wisconsin Stevens Point.  I liked science, so I was a chemistry student.  The chemistry never went anywhere but I did discover computers.  Of course computers were not very advanced at that time, but that was part of the appeal.&nbs… Read full post »