Finding Our Way

“A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.” – Jean de La Fontaine In wooded areas masked by snow, wolves often take long, complex, winding, unplanned paths when hunting − but they can still return directly to the distant location of their pups. Elephants have been recorded navigating distances…

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Be Generous

I am often asked where the topics for these Monday Musings come from. They are simply me writing about what I am thinking about. Of course, I don’t write about everything I think about as that would be weird and take up all my time, but I do find certain concepts and topics occupy me…

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You Can’t Receive What Isn’t Sent

At 9 pm on August 27, 1920, Sociedad Radio Argentina broadcast a live performance of Richard Wagner’s opera Parsifal from the Coliseo Theater in downtown Buenos Aires using electromagnetic waves. Only about twenty homes in the city had receivers to tune in this radio program. Today, every type of music, video, data and writing and,…

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Silly Putty Isn’t

I remember being fascinated by Silly Putty as a young person. If you formed it into a ball, it would bounce very much like the hard rubber balls we got from “gumball” machines. If you pulled it slowly, you could stretch it into a thread a mile long. However, if you pulled it hard and…

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The Invisible Man

I hope you had a wonderful Easter. While not my favorite holiday by holiday standards (that’s Thanksgiving for me), it is my favorite event by life change standards. It is simple. God loved me enough to send His son to die for me. He knew all about me. He knew all the terrible things I…

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Laser Focus

Lasers are cool. “LASER” stands for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.” Lasers are special because they emit light coherently both spatially and temporally. Spatial coherency means the light can be focus narrowly and that it will remain narrow for long distances. Temporal focus means a laser can emit a single color of light.…

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All You Need Is Love

John Lennon and Paul McCartney of the Beatles were most likely wrong about many things, but when they wrote these lyrics to “All You Need Is Love,” they got it right. There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung Nothing you can say, but you can…

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The Simple Genius of Enjoyment

In 1915, Albert Einstein was living in Berlin and working on his theory of general relativity while his estranged wife tended his two sons in Vienna. In a short note to his 11-year-old son Hans, we see Einstein in a less familiar light—that of a caring father who uses forceful simplicity to offer young Hans…

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Humility

I’m going to forgive you in advance because I know most of you are not aware that Bob Taylor died last week. I’m also going to forgive you for not knowing who Bob Taylor was. Teams led by Robert Taylor pioneered or perfected many of the innovations we associate with modern computing: the computer mouse,…

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To Protect and To Serve

I noticed a police car the other day. Not that I don’t notice police cars when I see them, but the way I look at them these days is different. I used to see them as potential problems, and my unconscious response was to check my speed. Since I no longer speed and am not…

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