Thought this was a beautiful rendition of solar power.
You can have energy.
And you can have art.
Here you can have both.
It’s functional to harness the sun’s energy and it’s designed to look sleek and fit the landscape.
Nice job by Florida Power and Light (FPL)! 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So good today to visit the NIST Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE).
The cybersecurity solutions developed are aligned to the well-known Cybersecurity Framework (CSF).
Got to see some of the laboratories, including demonstrations for securing the Healthcare and Energy Sectors.
Interesting to hear about examples for securing hospitals records and even things like infusion pumps.
The medical devices are tricky to secure, because they are built to potentially last decades and are expensive to replace, but the underlying technology changes every couple of years.
Also, learned more about securing the energy sector and their industrial control systems.
One scary notable item mentioned was about the “big red button” for shutdown in many of these facilities, but apparently there is malware that can even interfere in this critical function.
It is imperative that as a nation we focus on critical infrastructure protection (CIP) and continuously enhancing our security.
Time is of the essence as our adversaries improve their game, we need to be urgently upping ours. 😉
(Source Photos: Andy Blumenthal)
Daylight saving time makes NO sense.
It does NOT save us a lot of energy as designed.
Call it the wrong assumptions or bad science.
The law requiring daylight saving–switching the clocks (“Fall Back” and “Spring Forward”) is archaic and needs to be repealed.
We’re messing with people’s sleep cycles and their health.
People waking up groggy all over the country, feeling crappy during the day, and losing much needed productivity.
How about we repeal this stupid law NOW and not waste any more time on the squabbling politics of the day?
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
There is something about stained glass which is so beautiful and amazing.
It’s not only artistic and colorful, but also it’s a magical combination of opaqueness and translucence.
It provides cover and privacy from the outside world, yet it plays with the light that comes in through it to give a wonderful effect to any room.
If I could, I would make every room in every building with stained glass.
I would bask in the light and the color.
It would feel warm and holy–the light of G-d on me.
It’s as if G-d and His holy host are streaming in from the Heavens, and surrounding me all about.
I feel lifted up in space and time stops, all is safe and wonderful in the world.
Beautiful and holy spiritual energy celebrating, dancing, and singing all around me. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
I thought this was an interesting phrase someone used the other day to describe their personality.
They called themselves an “Introverted Extrovert.”
I asked what they meant, and they explained as follows:
“I’m Introverted until I get to know someone then I am extroverted with them.”
This actually made a lot of sense to me.
We may be reticent at the beginning when meeting new people, but once we feel comfortable with others and start to trust them, then we naturally open up to them.
The truth is most people aren’t extroverted (social) or introverted (shy).
Instead, people are on a continuum, which is generally a bell-shaped curve.
In other words, most people are somewhere in the middle—either introverted extroverts or extroverted introverts.
Well, what’s an extroverted introvert?
It’s someone who tends to be more comfortable and trusting and social with people, but they also need time alone to recharge, and perhaps they even get shy sometimes.
Most people don’t exist on the extremes–that’s why they are called extremes!
So don’t be so quick to judge yourself as an introspective introvert or an outgoing extrovert or anything else for that matter.
We are “this” AND “that”–sometimes maybe a little more this or that, but that’s all part of us and it’s okay to be us! 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Daylight saving time is one of those ideas that should be relegated to the dustbin of history.
It serves no functional purpose and is actually a negative for society overall.
Originally devised to have longer daylight in the Summer months by moving the clock forward an hour, it was also thought to save electricity by having more daylight.
However, research on the energy savings have had at best mixed results and the extra hour of sunlight in the evening in Summer with sunset extending to after 9 pm is necessary why???
Let’s face it…it is stupid to move the clocks twice a year “springing forward” in the Spring and “falling back” in the Fall.
Aside from the nonsense of actually having to move the clocks, it is disruptive and unhealthy to our sleep and other bodily patterns–was anyone else up too early for work this morning and hanging around until it was actually time to go in?
And it’s not only people’s bodily cycle that gets messed up, but animals too. One of my colleagues complained this morning about their dog needing to go out for their walk early this morning–apparently, the dog didn’t get the message about daylight savings time.
Time is not something to mess with–it should be stable like the other natural cycles of good ‘ol Mother Nature–that we depend on as the “Laws of Nature!”
We don’t change the number of days in December from 31 to 32 (taking it from perhaps October, which we can easily cut back on to 30 or 29 days) to extend the joyous holiday and the shopping season which is good for economy.
We also don’t mess with the number of days of the week–perhaps, for example, we should shorten the week from 7 to 6 days, so that we can have a more frequent rest cycle and rejuvenate our bodies and minds more frequently. Who wouldn’t vote to get rid of Mondays and just start the week with Tuesday instead.
Change is a good thing when it actually has a net benefit to society and it is more than negligible, but continuing to move around the dials on the clock, just because someone woke up one day with another cockeyed idea is not something to keep repeating.
It’s time to recognize the bad idea for daylight savings time for what it is and restore stable time like a tick-tock that we can all set our watches consistently to. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
We went to visit my parent’s graves yesterday.
Now, between the Jewish high holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, it is customary to visit and remember our blessed loved ones.
We went to spend time with them, tell them how much we miss and love them, and how hard it is without them.
I was so moved by how beautiful my daughters spoke out loud to my parents in heaven–their words and tears were so full of sincerity for how they miss and love their dear Oma and Opa.
They could articulate what was so hard for me to say, but which weighs so heavy always on my heart.
We sat on the ground at the base of their headstone feeling their presence and hearing their words in memory and through my wife who has a special ability to somehow reach them.
My wife told me how she could see my mother literally dancing in heaven, and my dad always worrying about us and looking out for and telling us to be more religious…always, more religious.
I wiped the dust off that had settled on the stone over the last months, and wished that I could somehow magically, with whatever spiritual energy I could muster, raise them up and bring them back to us.
The thought of years or decades of going on and not being able to see and speak with them again, in person, is forever impossible for me to imagine.
The loss of my parents over the last few years has left an emptiness in my heart and keeps me asking myself, will I really be able to see them and be reunited with them again some day in heaven.
My daughter reassured me that energy, including our personal energy, never disappears, it only transforms, and my wife said that she could feel that they were okay and happy!
I recounted the joke my dad used to tell about not wanting to be buried at the edge of the cemetery, because that’s where the water runs down, and he didn’t want to get rheumatism.
I know how much they loved us and I could feel it sitting at their graves with the warmth of the sun over us and the cool breeze blowing against us.
I will live out my days, trying my best to emulate in my own way my father, who was a servant to the L-rd in all that he did, and who taught us strict right from wrong, and as my mother who took care of us no matter what challenges or suffering were faced.
Finally, we asked for their forgiveness for any wrongs we committed and for their blessing for what is to come.
I am grateful to them and G-d for every blessed moment with my family and to experience the beauty and learning of the world, until it is my turn to be gathered to my family and the L-rd in the after. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So I was in a meeting yesterday.
And someone had a bottle of what looked like very dirty water.
I said to the guy sad-jokingly, “Where’s that from–Flint, Michigan?”
He sadly smiles back and says, “No, I just filled the bottle with iced tea!”
But everyone around the table sighed at the tragic state of affairs with the filthy, contaminated water in Flint.
The high levels of lead in the water has allegedly resulted in “skin lessons, hair loss, high levels of lead in the blood, vision loss, memory loss, depression and anxiety.”
It’s unbelievable that in an American city with a population around 100,000 that they cannot safely shower or drink their water.
To make things even worse, now banks are hunkering down and don’t want to give mortgages to people in Flint until they can prove that their water is safe.
What’s amazing is that this miserable situation in our cities is not the exception, but the rule.
As of 2003 already, The American Society for Civil Engineering gives us a hideous grade of D on our infrastructure that is aged and in disrepair.
This includes our:
– Energy
– Transportation
– Ports
– Aviation
– Levees
– Dams
– Schools
– Roads
– Inland Waterways
– Wastewater
– Hazardous Waste
– Parks and Recreation
– Rail
– Bridges
– Solid Waste
– Drinking Water
They estimate we need at least $3.6 trillion of investment for infrastructure renewal just by 2020.
Interestingly enough, the useless decade-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan costs us over $4 trillion and the lives of almost 14,000 American military and contractor personnel.
What would you rather have a destabilized Middle East now swarming with ISIS, the Taliban, and a resurgent $100 billion richer and nuclear- and terror-determined Iran or a proper country here for us to live in with an actual strategy-driven national security and good schools and clean drinking water?
(Source Photo: here with attribution to B1ue5sky)
This is a funny sticker on the streets of Washington, D.C.
It says, “This is not New York.”
And it advertises a website called StuckInDC.com.
“Formed by a few friends who’ve probably lived in the capital long enough, but lack the wherewithal to move elsewhere.”
Having come from NYC, I can empathize in many ways.
The DC metro area is great if you are interested in working in some very cool jobs for the Federal government, and it has a fairly nice lifestyle for families here (clean and green).
While not as exciting as NYC (it doesn’t have the vibe), it’s also not as dirty, congested, or generally dangerous (in DC, there are lots of gun-totting federal agents everywhere).
If you yearn for someplace nicer to live, maybe Florida for the Caribbean climate, beautiful nature, slower lifestyle, and fun atmosphere or then again, there is always the awesome Holy Land!
For now stuck in DC, after retirement who knows. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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