I did say I would post part 2 of my Democracy series today, but I haven't quite perfected a better future for   Mayday Mayday , so this will come later in the week.  Instead, as this is nostalgia Tuesday, I will reach back and specifically look at the eighth ash drop for Pearl at the Taj Mahal.  However, first, a few of the latest developments imposed on the world by President Donald Trump. Trump had a press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House, the first world leader to do so.  Shockingly, Trump indicated that the USA will take over the Gaza Strip.   Watch this video .  Previously, he took credit for brokering this peace, but new American boots on the ground in the Middle East is almost beyond the pale. China is the only country currently struck with Trump's tariff, 10%, and announced a counter tariff. Remember my travels to China and how this blog site had problems because of the ongoing  fuss with Google , which began in 2...

The quantum computer is here.   Transition : The earliest intelligent life might have used fingers to compute. The Lebombo bone, dating back 35,000 BC, had 29 distinct notches. The Sumerian abacus appeared around 2500 BC.  China only used this device around the year zero. Several analog computers go back to around 150 BC in Greece with the astrolabe. In 1206 came the first programmable computer, a clock. Soon thereafter, the  equatorium .  Here is one by Johannes Schoner in the 16th century. The slide rule was invented around 1620 in England. Germany designed the first calculating machine in 1623. In 1645 Blaise Pascal invented a mechanical calculator. Gottfried von Leibniz dabbled with a binary numeral system around 1675, the means by which all modern computers now work. In 1822 Charles Babbage's machines used the decimal system, and so did ENIAC in 1945. When I taught computer programming half a century ago, I used punched cards, something invented in 1804 by ...

  I looked closer at the   Worldometer  and   Our World in Data   for COVID-19 this morning, and can make several observations: The World is approaching 300 million cases and 5.5 million deaths, a mortality rate just under 2% and 0.75 deaths/1000.  On the last number, picture a thousand people.  Less than one death. The USA has 56 million cases and will soon reach one million deaths, a mortality rate of 1.5% and 2.5 deaths/thousand.  For a thousand people, 2.5 deaths.  In a two-year period ( to be about equal to the time frame of these COVID-19 deaths ), there would be 3.6 cancer deaths in the U.S. Japan has 1.7 million cases, 18,393 deaths, mortality rate of 1% and 0.15 deaths/capita. Denmark has a tests/capita rate of 18.5, with #2 Austria at 13.7, and the UK at 5.9.  The U.S. has a tests/capita of 2.4. Fully vaccinated % ( not including booster ) UAE  91% Portugal 90% Singapore  87% Cuba  85% China  84% Japan ...