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3I/ATLAS was detected on July 1, 2025, by the NASA-funded ATLAS survey telescope in Chile. Its discovery was a result of ATLAS's routine, systematic scanning of the night sky for near-Earth objects. The object was identified as an interstellar object due to its unusual speed and hyperbolic...

My morning news feed took me straight to 39 years ago, a KGB defector chillingly predicted modern America An hour later I picked up Sean McFate's Goliath: Why the West doesn't win wars. And what we need to do about it. (I don't go to bookstores anymore, but slowed down when I passed the table...

With all sorts of wild news affecting the U.S.A., I wonder if Americans are even aware of combat along the Thailand-Cambodia border. I suppose Aussies are aware, also being in the Asia-Pacific region. From Reuters-->World-->Asia-Pacific I see only "Cambodia and Thailand conflict: how do their...

(I prepared these two lists for my own amusement but, having spent the time, feel I may as well share them.) How to compare wealth domination over time? In the following I multiply net worth by U.S. population and divide by U.S. GDP. For example, in 1848 U.S. GDP was $2.5 billion and population...

At another message board, participants like to play games with lists. For example right now they are voting for the "Greatest Living American". They've spent one month already winnowing a list of 31 down to 16, and after another month will get their consensus "Greatest Living American." Here...

I am delighted that Zohran Mamdani won the New York mayoral primary. (Unfortunately, it may just cause the fascists to declare war on New York City the way they've declared war on California.) I am delighted that Democratic Socialists have been winning elections to the U.S. House of Reps...

1. A standoff(?) at the Border. There are now several wars occupying the attention of US citizens: Russia vs Ukraine; Israel vs Gaza; MAGA vs California; and Israel vs Iran. But the war that occupies our attention in the Land of Smiles is none of these: It is Thailand vs Cambodia...

On another message-board I noticed a discussion about Tesla. One guy hated it more than any other car he'd ever driven; another guy loved it more than any other car! (Neither was a Musk fan.) One controversy was the user interface. On most cars you look straight ahead and see an analog...

From time to time IIDB sees confusion about money creation, so I think it best to post a summary of money types. But let's be clear from the outset: The distinctions between these money types are ambiguous and fuzzy. Some monetary instruments can be classified in 2 or 3 of these types. base...

Judges are issuing injunctions against illegal behavior by the Trump Administration, and Trump has been ignoring the Injunctions. I've been wondering when Judges will find Trump's officials in contempt and dispatch marshals with hand-cuffs to arrest some of the criminal henchmen of Trump and...

I have questions and comments about Google Map's driving directions. Some of this may seem to take the form of complaints or nit-picking, but that is not my intent. Just the opposite: Maps is the Google product I admire the most. In fact I regard the combination of GPS, Google Maps & Driving...

I know almost nothing about singing, so ask for comments on two things I've noticed while listening. (1) Singers often minimize the final S sound in a verse. Why? Bob Dylan often doesn't just minimize the S -- he omits it completely. Compare the "official audio" of this song as sung, with...

I'm afraid I've trained my Google News bot poorly. Today I was taken aback when I read the Daily Mail headline: "Scientists reveal exact date universe will end: 'Sooner than we feared'." If the scientists are fearful, perhaps we should be also. OTOH I've noticed that occasionally news...

I've always wondered how anyone could dare to build a skyscraper. One wouldn't want to waste many millions of dollars on unnecessary steel, but on the other hand people would be upset if the entire skyscraper toppled in a storm. How many of you have heard of the Citicorp Center engineering...

The usual interpretations of quantum physics are wrong; the universe is deterministic. Or so says Gerard ’t Hooft, winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics and winner of the even more lucrative 2025 special Breakthrough Prize. I doubt that I'm the only layman glad to hear this good news. For...

This story from BBC surprised me. A UK citizen was denied entry to Canada for fear she would seek employment. This made U.S. Immigration suspicious when she turned around to re-enter U.S. So U.S. locked her up. Although she wasn't paid money for the household help, she lacked a work permit...

I am watching a recent interview of Steve Bannon at N.Y. Times. -- "Steve Bannon on ‘Broligarchs’ vs. Populism". I do NOT have a NY Times subscription (Never mind how I can watch it) but wish I could remember which webpage or Firefox App, if any, would allow me to download this mp4. I feel...

First I thank for my appointment as Emergency Dictator of the G7M1. I am announcing a few Orders today. (1) Browsers and Search engines wiĺl not be allowed to operate in the G7M1 unless they react to any 404 at a .gov domain by retrieving a recent page from archive.org. We will backup that...

I like Lists. What are the Five Greatest Movies? Who are the Six Sexiest Actresses? The Eight Greatest Athletes? The Twelve Greatest Mathematicians? What People had the greatest effect on the course of history? is Rolling Stone magazine correct when it ranks Aretha Franklin, Whitney...

Sabine Hossenfelder is one of my favorites. She's knowledgeable and is turning out interesting YouTubes by the bushel. She's happy to review new ideas and offer her own opinions. She and I both agree that Nicolas Gisin's idea is a far-fetched way to explain quantum theory. But he is a...