• FEW SMARTPHONE BATTERIES LAST LONGER THAN A FULL WORKDAY WHEN ACTIVELY UTILIZED. Some tips on extending battery capacity: (1) Decrease ‘display’ time – the single biggest drain – down to one or two minutes; (2) Delete apps you don’t need; on average users download dozens but utilize only 12; (3) Disable ‘notifications’ (weather, news, sports, etc) and ‘location’ services – especially Facebook or Instagram which continuously geotag your exact position; (4) Dim the screen and/or turn off ‘vibrations’ which continuously drain the battery; (5) Turn off Bluetooth when you don’t need short-range wireless connection; (6) Kill selected apps thru ‘Advanced Task Killer’ or other automatic shut down programs. 
  • CONCERN OVER THE RAPID RISE OF SUPERINTELLIGENT MACHINES IS GROWING. Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist advises that the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race… potentially the last event in human history unless we learn how to avoid the risk”; Nick Bostrom, Director of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, warns that A.I. “could turn dark quickly and dispose of humans, the subsequent world then harboring economic miracles and technological awesomeness, but with nobody there to benefit”; Elon Musk calls A.I. “our biggest existential threat that may be tantamount to summoning the demon.” David Gelernter, Yale professor and among the early architects, argues that “the entire field of A.I. is dangerously off track… that while human ‘minds’ will indeed soon be downloadable to computers, nothing so far speaks to emotions and the physical body – the feelings and experience of sensations, images & ideas reworked over a lifetime as memories… a lot of which go into the formation of a human mind.”   [TIME – Mar 7, 16]
  • BUT WHILE THAT DEBATE GOES ON, THE U.S. ADMINISTRATION HAS WOKEN UP to the reality that Russian technology capabilities have greatly expanded into “automated battle networks, advanced sensors, drones, anti-personnel weapons and jamming devices.” Pentagon officials are now openly acknowledging risk of “existential threat,” requested over $11 billion in the 2017 Budget “to prime the high-tech pump… with robot weapons, ‘human-machine teams, and enhanced super-powered soldiers… as the best way to combat rapid improvements by Russian & Chinese militaries… and help restore deterrence that has been eroded.” Referred to as ‘offset strategy,’ this new initiative follows tactic nuclear weapons and/or precision –guided conventional weapons in serving their deterrent purpose. [WASHINGTON POST – Feb 23, 16]
  • A “HARSH REALITIES OF LIFE” WORD TO YOUNGER MILLENIALS: “College kids today have proven to be little more than entitled, spoiled, anti-intellectual brats who place far too much emphasis on feelings and nowhere near enough emphasis on critical thinking. To the millennial, words are cause for the creation of safe spaces, alternative ideas must be stifled, and anything they perceive to be a micro-aggression is enough to send them spiraling into a state of mental distress… Realities: (1) Nobody who has already graduated college cares about your feelings, which are entirely subjective in nature. It’s completely unreasonable to demand everyone tip-toe around you to prevent yours from being hurt… Learning to accept criticism, alternative viewpoints, and even outright insults will make you happier in the long run than routinely playing the victim card. (2) You do have the right to live as you please (within the law) and say what you wish – but not to demand other people accept it… You do not have the right to demand people keep their opinions to themselves. Your feelings are not a protected right by my speech is.”(3) Just because you’re here and breathing doesn’t mean society owes you anything – including healthcare, guaranteed income, or somewhere to live. Like the billions of people who lived before you, working hard is a better guarantor of wealth and the ability to comfortably take care of yourself than begging society or the government to do it for you. [THE LIBERTARIAN REPUBLIC – Mar 10, 16]
  • THE ‘IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL’ SO BRILLIANTLY NEGOTIATED BASED ON ‘GOOD FAITH’ took less than five months from adoption for Iran to break with “multiple tests of ballistic missiles aimed explicitly against Israel… designed with a range of 1,200 miles to be able to hit the Zionist regime from a safe distance (said Iran’s Brigadier General).” Adding insult to Obama/Kerry   assurances, “the missiles were stamped in Hebrew ‘Israel should be wiped from the pages of history’.”  [THE WEEK – Mar 18, 16]

                        “People who wonder whether a glass is half-empty or half-full miss the point. The glass is refillable.