The cruise continues with two days at-sea, getting into St. John's, Newfoundland on Thursday, August 20.  I'll be including activities on board, but this period allows me to provide further episodes for a couple of series I earlier began.  Today, Part 3g of My Life. The story of My Life began  as a post on 31May2026, after I realized that, from the age of 5, my life could be represented by three periods of 27 years:  education, work and retirement.  To summarize: The average person spends the first 20 to 25 years growing up and going to school, the next 40 years working, and the final phase in retirement, generally only around 10 years. My life: I was born in 1940, and my life expectancy was supposed to only be 45.    This comes from Google AI citing Our World Data. I was born in Hawaii, not then yet part of the USA, but if I asked Google AI, what would my life expectancy be if I were born in the U.S. in 1940, the answer was 61.4. Were I to ask, since...

Before my blog on earthquakes, two newsworthy items: The lull in the Iran War is over.  Iran lobbed missiles at American bases in the Middle East. Here is the backdrop: Way back in February, Netanyahu and Trump felt that, if they could surprise Iran with a serious series of bombardments, they could assassinate the Supreme Leader, plus many dozens of top government leaders, stimulating the people to rebel and overcome.  Israel and the USA could then swoop in, establish a new government, and totally demolish any nuclear ambitions. The USA/Israel did succeed in killing Ali Khamenei and 53 leaders.   Here is the complete list . However, Iran knew someday this would happen, and they organized a plan to take control of the Strait of Hormuz, and if necessary, also the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Here is the current situation. The people did not rebel, a new government formed and Iran has been able to maintain control over the two oil flow choke points. They also are not idiots....

Wednesday is my sci-tech day.  With the recent passage of   Richard Garwin,   I'll assess where we are today on the Hydrogen Bomb, for he was the individual who was in charge of building the first one in 1951, at the age of 23.  Yes, he lived to be 97. My only link to nuclear energy is that I twice worked under Edward Teller at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  But this was in the 1970's, and for half a century I haven't done much in this field.  In any case, at LLNL I was with the laser fusion program.  Teller was not only the father of the Hydrogen Bomb, he also was director of this lab, where  John Nuckols  had developed a process to use a laser to produce fusion for power. Teller came to Hawaii in the 70's, proposing a bank of wind turbines at the top of the Koolaus.  This was so long ago that Google can't find that photo, which was on the front page of one of the local newspapers.  While there, I joined him and Momok...