What are the largest companies in the world?   Nine of the top ten are from the USA.  We have long been the greatest. Note that #5 shows Google in parentheses next to Alphabet, and #7 has Facebook as part of Meta.  What happened? Google, as you know reinvented the way the world accesses information.   Why restructure? Without much warning in 2015, Google renamed itself Alphabet. This allowed the parent, Alphabet, to expand into domains outside of internet search and advertising. Google now runs a lesser risk of antitrust violations. You might get confused by GOOG and GOOGL, stock ticker symbols of Alphabet.  I won't try to explain it, but  you can click here for details . 52-year old  Sundar Pichai ( originally, Pichai Sundararajan ) is the CEO of Alphabet,  while founders Larry Page ( 52 ) and Sergey Brin ( 53 ) no longer are involved in daily operations.  Sundar's compensation last year was $10.72 million. Note that Alphabet is the 5th...

In August  Time  magazine had an issue on the Metaverse.  As they will not allow you to read the article, I'll try to crystalize the essence as simply as possible, supplementing as necessary. What is the multiverse? A hypothetical iteration of the internet as a single, universal and immersive virtual world facilitated by the use of virtual and augmented reality. Or a network of 3D virtual worlds focused on social connections. Every few decades, there is a platform shift :   I started teaching computer courses when there were mainframes.  That was in 1972, half a century ago. Then came PCs and the internet. Now mobile and cloud computing. The internet today is worldwide with 40,000 networks, millions of applications, over 100 million servers, almost a billion websites and tens of billions devices. While everything is theoretically interconnected, just think, whoever controls the system, runs the world. That is one way of describing the metaverse, explaining ...

Doppelganger comes from Germany, where  doppel  means  double  and  ganger  is a  walker,  that is, a person who looks like you.  If you encounter your doppelganger, recent  scientific evidence  indicates that you probably have similar genetics. We all have hair in the same area of the body and the same number of limbs, eyes, nose, and so on.  With 8 billion of us living on the same planet, it's only to be expected that some will have physical counterparts.   Let's take someone at random.  Say, the writer Ernest Hemingway, who passed away around 60 years ago. In 1977 an International Imitation Hemingway Competition began in Harry's Bar and American Grill, Century City, California.  The winner got two round-trip tickets to Florence, Italy, and dinner for two at Harry's.  Not sure why, for the  Harry's Ba r where Hemingway drank was in Venice.  The contest is now held at Sloppy Joe's in Key West...

  First, from the   New York Times   this morning: With this kind of difference, you shake your head and wonder why  Republicans and mothers for their 5-11 year old children  are resisting vaccinations.  ( Click on that graphic to read it .)  In short,  regarding Republicans: ... the conservative movement for the last 50 years has been built largely around creating a “political identity emphasizing suspicion, hostility, and antipathy toward the government, particularly the social welfare state.” The right has tied its political fortunes to railing against, and eroding, collective government and civic responsibility. Forced to choose between saving lives and the paranoia that has helped their hold on their political power for decades, they have, once again, chosen paranoia. Regarding children, sure, they are far less likely to die if they get COVID-19, but almost as much as adults, they do contract this ailment, and while their symptoms are less se...