Teach The Sky

I think Hollywood should remake Flight of Dragons.

Bear with me here.  I know the film industry is not currently hurting for remakes.  Just about every film that comes out these days seems to be an adaptation of this, a remake of that or – worst of all – a reimagining or a reboot of an existing franchise.

Whether or not that’s a good thing, I’ll leave for a discussion for another time.  Likewise will I leave for discussion whether or not that’s a new thing.  I’ll just state that movies that are cornerstones of modern cinema – Ben-Hurr and Scarface – are both remakes.  So let’s at the very least not pretend this a new or cataclysmic phenomena. Continue reading “Flight of Dragons 2: Electric Boogaloo”

Why are some tasks easy and others hard?
Why is one task easier for one person than another?
I don’t mean something physical, like why is a hundred pounds heavy for this person and light for that person? I mean routine activities. Brushing teeth. Folding clothes. Cleaning. Lawn care. Why are these tasks so draining? Why are they draining for this person and not that person? Why are they draining today, but not tomorrow? Continue reading “Laundry Troubles”

Last month, the United States issued roughly $1200 to every American as part of a stimulus package to help stymie the devastation wrought by the COVID-19 coronovirus.  Before that, various sociopolitical commentators like Robert Reich and presidential candidate Andrew Yang espoused the idea of Universal Basic Income.  The idea being that all citizens or residents or even people within a country are given a basic amount of money every month, regardless of their productivity or output.  It’s a fascinating idea with some really intriguing implications, and complications.

I don’t want to explore UBI, however.  More qualified and informed people than I have dealt with the myriad of topics surrounding it in other areas.  No, I want to address one small aspect which I don’t think I’ve seen anybody else discuss: kids’ allowances. Continue reading “Universal Basic Allowance”

Figuring out what to write is sometimes really tricky.  I’m a fiction writer by disposition but a journalist by training and a science writer by occupation.  Sadly, nowhere in there is promotional writer.  So I often struggle with knowing what will generate ‘hits’ to this site (or garner the attention of one of the dozen other sites where these blog posts appear).  I often use these fun little blog entries to muse on different ideas, rant about different social issues, and to generally just chat.  Mostly, though, these blogs are just to show that I’m alive.

Long ago, when I wrote a daily serial, the serial entries themselves sufficed as daily content.  But these days, metrics and algorithms run the lives of content creators.  It was determined (I’m not sure by who, but I’ve seen the figures quote often enough so I guess it must be true) that daily content proved to actually be counterproductive.  Twice and thrice-a-week updates seemed to be the sweet spot for content.

Cool, I suppose.  Less work, right?  Well, what if you no longer produce daily content.  What do you do? Continue reading “Name of the Game”