JoseB Blog

 We've been dealing with this COVID thing now for almost two years. Now we've been hit with the OMICRON mutation which is spreading like wildfire and vaccines offer limited protection.  I've come to the realization that the 'new normal' going forward will be all about coping and living with pandemics.  More mutations will likely come and besides even if the pandemic goes away you will never catch me in a plane or any indoor crowded place without a mask, much like the Japan and Korea have always done.  Why catch colds and influenza when a simple mask will protect you? Once you get used to a mask its not that bad at all.  So here are my points about the new normal to help us cope with disease spreading. If we've learned anything, it's that shutting down the economy for a disease that has a kill ratio of less than 2% doesn't make sense because of the harm it causes to livelihoods, mental health, education, etc...  Shutting down the economy does way more har...

Stephen Hawking was a great scientist and thinker. I enjoyed watching his science shows on TV. I have been profoundly influenced by him from a philosophical point of view (although Stephen would call it science, not philosophy) and would like to share three things he helped me understand that I think are true and very fundamental. Every choice you make is predetermined, free will is an illusion. This is hard to believe at first but if you understand the concept of a state machine then it is easy to understand. A state machine is a system where given a certain set of inputs and a certain state, the next state and outputs are be predetermined by an algorithm.  A car's 4 speed transmission would be an example. Its has 4 states (gears). Given the current gear it's in, and taking the car's current RPM and acceleration as input, the algorithm chooses the next gear.  Life's choices are like the car's transmission. When you make a decision, you think you have free will, but...

When I studied weather to be a pilot dew point had to be understood. I recently googled 'dew point' to see what was out there on the topic and I did not see anything that explained it at a 'for dummies' level  so here goes... To understand dew point there are a couple of concepts that need to be understood first. The first thing is that hot air can hold more water vapor than cold air. So if its 90 degrees, that air will hold more water vapor than air that is at 50 degrees. So you can think of the current air temperature analogous to the size of a glass that can hold water.  This large glass here will represent a 90 degree day and it can hold more water than this smaller glass that represents a 50 degree day. 90 degree day can hold more water Now lets look at relative humidity. Relative humidity is a percentage of how much water is in the air (glass) relative to the size of the glass (air temperature). So lets fill the 90 degree day glass halfway. Its 50% humidity here. ...