There was a time in my life when I was into  Star Wars  films.  The first appeared in 1977 when I was still teaching engineering at the University of Hawaii.  That was 48 years ago.  I bring this subject up today because I will focus on entertainment, and saw a headline:   Giant "Darth Vader" sea bug discovered off the coast of Vietnam . First, this not an insect but a crustacean,  and a local delicacy. Second, does not much look like DV to me.  If this isopod ( Bathynomus vaderi)  was colored black, maybe There have been 12  Star Wars  films so far, and the next one,  The Mandalorian & Grogu , will be released in May, next year.  But I've grown up, and couldn't care less. This franchise has kept returning because later productions also scored well on Rotten Tomatoes. The highest rated was the first in 1977,  Episode IV--A New Hope , got the highest score, 94. However, #2 was the 1980  The Empire Strikes...

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...

The implosion of Titan opens up the age-old question of how much risk should anyone take.  The standard blowback is to stay in bed and certainly avoid leaving home if you want to avoid risk.  True, whether it's merely falling or getting into a traffic accident, security is compromised when you venture forth.  Did you know that  second only to motor vehicle accidents is falling , which itself accounts for 15% of all accidental deaths in the U.S.   But why even live if you do nothing, something only a very few rich souls can enjoy.  So we all proceed through life in school, work, family stuff, watching TV, traveling, and the like.  Then there are those who hang glide, savor bungee jumping, do night scuba diving, and, if you can afford it, take Titan to see the Titanic or, like  Jeff Bezos , three years ago boarded his New Shepard rocket on an 11-minute journey on July 20 to coincide with the 52nd anniversary of Armstrong stepping on the Moon....