Knowledge is everything.

Today's Tids Issue 4,121

For more intelligence in booths:

Every smart person today is building upon the genius of someone past. Think about those who saw something in nothing that had never been done. And made it useful. Think how so many since strove to learn atop that inkling. Now we’re brilliant, expanding upon what has been learned. But are we smarter than those who saw something for the first time.

The current status of the race to win the auto-drive derby reminds me of the time when I went to the first ever Robot exposition in Detroit. There were about 120 companies there with robots of all kinds, eager to not miss the early publicity barrage. About five were working! For most of the rest, I saw red faced, angry bosses hovering over fretting engineers. I think I’ll wait a while til I take my first auto-drive ride.

I think I have finally found the missing link. It is not a lizard or walking fish. Its…are you ready for this…it’s, The Sea Otter! Yup, that’s the way I see it. I’ll go for cute and playful as my heritage.

Is homemade chicken soup about as good as it gets? I’d say yes…for sure.

If I am smart, it is because I listened to someone who had given me the experience of being there before me.

The Question:

How many nanometers are there in one inch? Bonus: What is “reclassing”?

The Headlines:

--Apple Record Sends Dow To Triple Digit Opening; Oil Hits 70; Woes In Venezuela And Iran Could Push Price To 80.

--Earthquakes And Eruptions, Now Approaching 1,000, Continue To Rumble Through Hawaii; Evacuees May Be Gone For Months, Or Longer; More houses Burn, More Fissure Form; Scientists Say They Are Not Seeing Eruptions End Soon.

--Giuliani: Trump Might Refuse Subpoenas, Take Fifth.  

--Melania To Unveil Her First Lady Policies; Most Are Focused On Welfare Of Children.

--Putin Inaugurated For Fourth Term.

--WVa’s Blankenship Running On Trumpism; Trump Tells West Virginias Not To Vote for Blankenship.

--Volvo Around The World Race Sailboats Expected To Reach US Stopover In Newport RI This Evening.

Actually, the USA has its own kind of burning toxic lava oozing through streets and byways – negative, one-sided Marching groups. Personally, I’ll take nature’s lava. At least you can get away from it. And eventually, it subsides.

Out of bombast grow herds who think they are gaining knowledge.

We live in an era of self-fulfilling prophecies. Institutions are felled by the axe of those who have something to grind. Some of the young don’t like the idea of the old hanging on to a beloved past. Others, though, wish it was theirs. But, forecasts come true as the drum beats slowly. Like a dog gnawing on a bone -- that seems to go on day after day with no appreciable deterioration. One day you look, and it is gone.

Baseball is probably one of those potential victims of people who think theirs is better, writing continuously about the defects they perceive in the grand old game. It’s too slow they say. Not enough action, they exclaim. Maybe the world would be better if it were more like baseball, where people who love it take the time to learn the intricacies of it. They see what others don’t; they know strategies and elate in the grace of an infield scoop; in awe over an outfield leaping, flying catch. It is the battle fierce the between batter and pitcher. And always, we take steps aback to see where we are. It is not a game of over reactions, of flying minutes without chance of savoring the excellent. It is a game of true contentment. Is there anything better than a lazy afternoon in summer. Or that glow when your team walks off the field a winner.

It got really hot in the baseball stadium after the fans left. Oh no! Did I really type that?

Is this the week that Abby dies? Or are we being deceived by television commercials?

Some companies do it better than others. Nobody makes a better frozen microwavable sausage sandwich on a southern biscuit better than Smithfield. Tangy sausage; fluffy tasty biscuit.

I think I know what’s missing in art. It’s humor and jocularity. Have you noticed, artists are serious even when they think they are being funny.

Dogs in small apartments, Department:

The way things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised that someday in the not so distant future we will be seeing our first federally funded Puppy Day Care Center.

I have to tell you that I am having trouble writing with any degree of confidence anything about what the President says.

I’m thinking that high fives surpassing good solid handshakes is a bad thing.

A good little classical piece is Synphonische Fantasie aus – Die Frau ohne Schatten by Richard Strauss. (The Symphonic Fantasia from “Woman without a Shadow.”) Kind of soothing.

Wells-Fargo spent a lot of money on commercials over the weekend at their Golf tournament telling us that they have changed and now they really believe in their customers. Yeah, right. The problem to me, is that W-F and others like them always get rewarded by financiers in the end even after they have committed the cardinal human sin – breaking trust. My theory is this. What can they give you that any other bank large and small can’t? Other than agita. Why would anybody want to go back to an institution that has proven several times that they don’t care a whit about t he people whose money they gather. Yeah, I watched those commercials and I thought -- Nice try, but who needs you.

The thief who shoplifted the calendar on New Year’s Eve got twelve months.

The Answer:

Nano means small --- really, really, really small. There are 25.4 Million nanometers in one inch! You need really good microscopes to create stuff in nanotechnology. Bonus: In the wannabe NBA circles in which I don’t travel there is a little gimmick employed by parents of talented basketballers called reclassing. A kid, lets say in the 9^th grade, requests be reclassed into the 8^th grade. On the court that makes him a year ahead of his classmates, or at least I should say teammates. The idea is to stand out over younger players in the eyes of scouts. One of the problems occur when he or she sees players at the big “One done” school leaving for big NBA cash. Then all of a sudden, they want to be reclassed again into the next grade up, where they started. Yes, NCAA basketball is not what you think you see. Just one more scam among the scams of life.

So, who was the smartest person who ever lived. The first person who saw something in nothing or the persons who added to and built upon that something?  

Learn. Think.