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52 things I learned in 2022

We’re all moving on, done with 2022 and hopeful for 2023. But we’ll take some things with us. Much of it good, and much of the rest are things we’ve learned along the way. (Inspired by https://medium.com/magnetic/52-things-i-learned-in-2021-8481c4e0d409″>Tom Whitwell.)

In no particular order …

1. Toyota is now America’s top-selling automaker

2. We can put pig hearts in humans

3. A billion years of the planet’s history is missing, maybe

4. The digital cloud is impacting the planet

5. 20 things to learn about where you live

6. Life advice from NYC chess hustlers

7. Calculate the pizza exchange rate

8. Lack of advancement, development is why people quit

9. Staffing shortages may take years to resolve

10. We miscalculated the cost of the federal student loan program

11. Many states that restrict or ban abortion don’t teach kids about sex and pregnancy

12. That huge four-day work week trial worked, called a win-win

13. Facebook and your hospital may be in cahoots

14. We built a better battery, and gave it away

15. Saving seagrass is vitally important

16. Somewhere, spiders are dreaming right now, perhaps

17. 1.55 million households avoided eviction because of that 2020-2021 moratorium

18. Samuel Whittemore fought in the American Revolution, killed three, left for dead, lived for 18 more years

19. We’re getting closer to understanding the human-neanderthal overlap

20. Following the black soldiers who biked across America

21. Uncovering the 1,400-Year-Old Native American canal in Alabama

22. Scientists are working on manipulating photosynthesis

23. When Twitter goes, we’re going to lose a lot

24. Early tools might have been intuited, rather than taught

25. Blowing on hot food is actually effective

26. New internet users don’t have the usual expectations and mindset

27. FEMA has a weather problem

28. LiDAR uncovers ancient monuments on the Belarus-Poland frontier

29. LiDAR is also helping flesh out a Mayan city in Mexico

30. We touched the sun

31. And, for the first time, purposely changing the motion of a celestial object

32. Parts of the Star Catalogue, the oldest known attempt to mark fixed stars, is revealed with new tech

33. On charting stars, we owe more to 19th century women than you may realize

34. Meanwhile, the Webb Telescope is just getting started and here are the first pics

35. We might be at a turning point in Alzheimer’s research

36. Children in poor socioeconomic conditions age more rapidly

37. Recipe: Super-soft cream cheese cookies

38. Scientists at MIT are studying why Oreos do what they do

39. But, then, one day, we might eat air

40. The simple genius of NYC’s water supply system

41. Turns out we might all be related

42. Artificial intelligence may make our biomes better

43. Yet another AI innovation, colorizing black and white photos

44. Deep learning can, for some reason, determine males from females based on their eyes

45. Data centers are becoming an energy concern

46. Dogs are learning about, and communicating with, buttons

47. VR seems to stimulate more dairy cattle milk production

48. There’s such a thing as mental health “warmlines” for those not in a crisis

49. Even masters can be stumped

50. Guns now kill more American kids than car accidents

51. Approximately 1 out of every 70 Americans 65+ died of Covid-19 in the past three years

52. There are now 8 billion people, and growing, on the planet

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26
Dec 22

We are now in Connecticut

To recap: We woke up on Tuesday of last week in Alabama. Wednesday we woke up in Indiana. Thursday, it was Pennsylvania. Saturday we woke up in New Jersey. On Christmas day, we finally woke up in Connecticut, which is where we are spending a few days.

But before all of that … we stopped at the beach. This is Point Pleasant, New Jersey.

And here are a few shots from the shore, before my ears started hurting. This is the beach The Yankee played on with her god-sisters as a child.

It was a beautiful Christmas Eve morning …

But, seriously, the wind made my ears hurt. How often does that happen?

It seems my light jacket wasn’t enough. Go figure.

Also, one wave sneaked up on me. You know how they do, that one ambitious wave works its way farther up the beach than the rest and you have three steps in the water — the cold, cold, water — before you can escape its reach.

It was no warmer in New York, of course. This was one of the views on I-287.

And here’s an almost accidental shot on the Cuomo Bridge. It turns out I really like the cool austerity of the composition.

And then we finally hit the Merritt, and Connecticut. This was Saturday afternoon.

Later that night we went to Christmas Eve services at my in-laws’ church. Before that, there was a mini-concert featuring Ukrainian flautist, Denis Savelyev. He’s won the New York Flute Club Competition, has been named the rising star at the Galway Flute Festival and the 2019 young artist at the National Flute Association here in the U.S. I am assured these are big deals. He is presently doing graduate work at John Hopkins University but, to me, he’s the guy who made the flute solo cool. He also played this.

Christmas morning — our fifth state, fifth bed, in six days — my lovely bride, her parents and I opened presents. It was a pleasant, low key day. Called my mother and called my grandfather. We had a delicious prime rib for dinner. We set up my father-in-law’s gift. He’s very pleased. We’ll finish setting up my mother-in-law’s tomorrow.

And that gets us through the weekend. But now I have to write the post about today.

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15
Dec 22

Counting hours

After today there’s just a half-day or so left in my work year. And, a few short minutes after that, we’ll be undertaking the great traveling adventure. This realization, this countdown, is oddly conflicting. On one hand, “The holiday break is almost here, and I don’t know that I deserve all of this time off.” On the other hand, “It’s here, already?”

Now, clearly, there’s something wrong, woefully wrong, with that first hand. Deserving it is a silly notion. This is a western and, frankly, dumb concept. Time off is part of my deal. I can take it or lose it, and no one is interested in giving it back. What’s more, I’ve earned it, having carefully accumulated days for just such a traveling adventure as this. I think it’s the mentality of accumulating and hoarding those days off for a year that builds that frame of mind.

Anyway, that’s what I was thinking about as I did a little Christmas shopping this evening. Because, ya know, it seemed like the appropriate time. I went to one store Monday and was uninspired. I tried another place yesterday and was interrupted — all for the best, I am sure. But, this evening I knew I would have some success: I started seeing things I wanted.

And so if you don’t want to chip in, or purchase outright, a new bicycle for me, I found stuff for me. And also for others. Things I didn’t buy. This, which looks cool.

We have a five-foot vinyl tunnel and one of the cats absolutely loves it. Sleeps in it. Ambushes you in it. Takes rides in it. That one is a bit more involved and a bit more expensive; it stayed in the store.

So did this. A few weeks ago I found Zoltar. This evening I saw the keyboard Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia played in Big.

I’m holding out for the full-sized piano, and the ability to do this.

There aren’t many movie scenes more charming than that. That’s really what I’m holding out for on my own dancing piano.

Anyway, some shopping done. Laundry done. Packing and holiday travel to follow.

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9
Dec 22

The local version of the Japanese show, ‘Tigers of Money’

We did a live production today, the annual Shark Tank game that I can only presume NBC or Mark Burnett haven’t heard of. This is a streaming program for the game design students, and it is is a key moment in their curriculum. Their showing their work to game design professionals. Getting challenged on their choices, and feedback on their efforts. The judges will ultimately vote — we don’t see that part, or the outcome — and some of these games will continue on. This is an even more part of the curriculum, as they eventually form LLCs, bring these games to market, and so on.

It seems like every year we change something about this show. And every year I have a different task. That part is fine. I spend a lot of time in our studios, and I’d much rather let everyone else call their shots — especially when we have students on the production crew. Last year I ran a manual camera for the interviews. This year, I was just the guy getting participants in the right order and doing whatever other little thing I could to help things run smoothly.

And, thankfully, the program ran smoothly. The game design students seemed to enjoy themselves, the little bumps that you encounter in a live production were merely little bumps, and, presumably, the faculty liked it a little.

Now watch these six presentations, and pick your winner.

(If it won’t play here for you, for whatever reason, you can join the dozens of other viewers on Facebook.)

The best part of it was, each time I went to the green room to call up the next set of presenters, everyone else was cheering them on. They’ve got a lot of camaraderie in that program. It is always nice to see that whole group pulling for each other.

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6
Dec 22

Travel day photos

This is a filler post, as we spent most of the day traveling today. We woke up in Savannah, picked up our last little shopping treats, had breakfast, sat in the park and then got an Uber to the airport. It was after 9 p.m. when we got back to the house in Indiana. So, you can imagine.

I don’t know if Tom Hanks or David Moscow is still looking, but I found the Zoltar machine.

No one was as excited about seeing this banner as I was. Most things that interest me don’t seem to appeal to anyone else, which is weird. I’m sure it’s them, and not at all me. Anyway, Repurpose Savannah “is a women+ led 501(c)3 nonprofit establishing a sustainable future through the deconstruction and reuse of historic buildings.”

This is a movie prop poster. It is currently displayed in the window of an appliance story that’s set up to look like a 1960s retail shop. I want the actual poster, and some of the bakelite that was inside.

On the same block, the SCAD theater is also going to be a part of that movie. The parking spaces are also currently filled with period cars. For a time, this part of Savannah is pretending to be Cocoa Beach, Florida.

This is the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist, home of the Diocese of Savannah, which covers 90 counties.

The bumpy, yet smooth, bricked road that is River Street, the primary tourist trap of Savannah.

Another version of this will become a banner on the blog.

If you go down there, though, you get great views of the vessels moving up and down the river.

I don’t care that there’s a tugboat in the foreground for scale, there’s not really a way to accurately convey the size of this thing, which started its voyage in Japan, made ports of call in Tacoma and Long Beach, then crossed the Panama Canal to visit Savannah. Four years ago, that ship rescued 11 Tunisian fishermen who were victims of a hit and run by another large vessel.

Here’s one more shot of our tree at Forsyth Park. Just on the other side, and trending a bit to the right of the trunk, 14 years ago, almost to the day.

Finally, here’s The Yankee, who planned this trip — which is why it was excellent — hanging out with Santa Claus. (She planned a really nice trip. She should have just made it longer.)

Another picture of her with a slight less authentic, but more lifelike, Santa is going on the Christmas cards this year.