Many of the newer electronic watches today have a built-in pedometer.  The Apple SE second generation includes this device, and is  on sale at Amazon.com for $169 .  The Ultra 2 costs $599.  Two years ago I bought a  pedometer from Amazon for $16 .  Use it regularly and haven't changed the battery yet.  I don't really need an Apple watch, for I have several cheap ones I've owned for decades, plus an Apple 16 Pro, which, of course, provides the time. Among the applications of my pedometer. Golf. The average golfer playing 18 holes walks a little over  six miles .  I was able to do this before the pandemic. Surprisingly enough, carrying your golf bag does not take a lot more energy than pushing/pulling a golf cart .  Much better to push than pull. Eighteen holes of golf on a riding cart still involve 3-4 miles of walking.  Now that I'm 84, I ride, but still regularly count from 6000 to 7000 steps/round, which convert to  3 to 3.5...

First of all, this is Friday, and if you are in the USA, it is a day off for our country's 249th birthday.  How much longer we'll have  a Democracy will be a challenge with Donald Trump as president. Greece is where Democracy was born. However,  Democracy in Athens 2500 years ago  was not quite what it is supposed to be.  First, only males who served in the militia could vote.  With all the ineligible men, women, children and foreigners, only around 15% could participate in the democracy of those days As best as I can determine,  modern Greece did not return to Democracy until 1974!   Joined the European Union in 1981, but elected a socialist government later that year.  The government continues through crises, sometimes with coalitions involving communists, other times just messed up and in scandal.  So is Greece a Democracy today.  I guess yes. San Marino claims to have been a Republic since the year 300, but its current constitut...

 Two years ago, the  BBC said Japan was the future,  but it's now stuck in the past.  I agree. Among the detractions is ownership of real estate.  You buy a home, and after paying off your mortgage in, say, 40 years, it is worth almost nothing. Japan recently had the third-largest economy, is a peaceful and prosperous country with the longest life expectancy in the world, the lowest murder rate, little political conflict, a powerful passport, and the sublime Shinkansen, the world's best high-speed rail network.  Actually, about GDP and the economy, Germany has slipped past Japan into #3, with India in the next few months easing by Japan. When the author of this article, Rupert Wingield-Hayes, first arrived in Tokyo in 1993, a third of a century ago, he was effusive about the country being exquisitely clean and orderly.  Actually still is. But he noted that Hong Kong was an assault on senses and Taipei had horrible air pollution. He could have said...