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 why there is so much inte

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, where he frequented for a dozen years when he lived there.  Actually

  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 severe, if not asymptomatic, they still s

I was reading the latest TIME of the 100 most influential companies and saw a note that Tesla's market cap was around $700 billion , while General Motors was under $100 billio n.  Turns out that today this figure for Tesla is $567 billion, even though General Motors sold 6.8 million cars in 2020 while Tesla only sold half a million.  Part of this market cap value is the stock value of the company, and GE sold 8.5 million vehicles in 2018.  You got to wonder if Tesla is monstrously overvalued.  If you were wondering why Reese Witherspoon was on the cover, her company has been really influential. Later, I saw that one with even fewer assets, Facebook, had a market cap of $890 billion .  What is market cap?  Simply, multiply the total number of outstanding shares by the current market price.  Has nothing to do with what they are really worth. Then, I saw that Tencent, a Chinese company, is the most valuable company in Asia with a worth of $750 billion .  However, worth is different f