Possible or fantasy? —

A day I do not normally celebrate — As I write this on Saturday (corrected!), 11 November 2023, America is ‘celebrating’ Veterans Day, a day that honoring military veterans of the United States Armed Forces. It began on this day in 1938, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the observance into law. …

Return from Vietnam — I returned from combat duty in Vietnam and visited my parents on their small farm in Massachusetts. I was not injured in any visible way, but I definitely had sustained serious inner changes; I was well aware of the challenges I faced visiting others, straight out of a combat environment…

And a young sailor with a camera — **Please scroll all the way down to the bottom after the end of this story. Thank you!** Long ago, a young sailor was assigned his first sea duty after returning from Vietnam and being transferred out of what is now called the United States Naval Special Warfare Command (which is…

Like many others, I have noted that this post-Jobs version of Apple has lost one thing, that being the ability (perhaps willingness?) to create original, industry-busting devices. When was the last iPod-like device created here? Zip. When did the last Apple II-like device, the one that started the personal computer journey, get invented? Long, long ago. So what has changed? One reason is that, unlike Steve Jobs' days, this Apple is a trillion-dollar mega-corporation and has different corporate requirements.

Which is better for you? — This started as a response to an explanation of the differences between Substack and Medium. It turned into a long one, so I made it my own story. I am a not-paying member of Substack and a Not-A-Friend paying member of Medium. I write here on Medium and have earned…

Mine was not like yours. — December 1968 is the only holiday season I remember in my years of active duty with the U.S. Navy. That is probably because I spent it as a very uncomfortable trainee in what the Navy calls BUD/S, Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training in Coronado, a small, heavily military-populated city in Southern…

A problem to have — Recently, I wrote a story about my feelings toward joining the new Friend of Medium program. I do not want to pay triple my membership for a new, untested unknown; I made my feelings clearly known. For the first time ever, my story has received almost three thousand claps…so far. …

The problem is most of us are not scientists and the threat is not seen as "ours." We have no personal understanding of what 2 degrees C means; we think of the house temperature, which goes up and down far more than that based on our own comfort level. In…