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

  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  78% UK  70% European Union  69% U.S. 62% Asia  57% India  44% Egypt  20%

Has it occurred to you that the computer runs our lives today, but we still seem wedded to voting in person or through the obsolete postal system?  Why don't we completely convert to E-voting online?  Such a process also works better for pandemics, bad weather and other challenges faced by citizens.  Should also be cheaper. The first stage of the U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Network was created half a century ago during the Cold War to develop a system for disseminating information after a nuclear attack.  Their work allowed academic and research organizations to share information with the Defense Department. All this effort led to what officially became the internet  on 1 January 1983.  Thus, theoretically, the technology has been available for nearly 40 years to vote online. Turns out one country has already taken this step, Estonia , while Switzerland, German and Norway are experimenting.  Estonia is a small Baltic country of 1.5 million, about th