Little Man With A Gun In His Hand

Ithaca Confidential:

I enjoy reading our local weekly The Ithaca Times, and increasingly rely on it as our daily newspaper The Ithaca Journal becomes less relevant in scope and size. If it wasn't for the obituaries, I would have little interest in "The Journal". Plus, Internet only Ithaca Voice is also jockeying for position in breaking news. The Ithaca Times publishes their annual "Best of Ithaca" survey, and this year included a category of 'Best Political Activist' which went to The Grady family. A great way to perpetuate the Ithaca stereotype when we are growing as a small city. This is a few weeks before Clare Grady, member of The Kings Bay Plowshares 7, was found guilty of conspiracy, depredation of government and navel property, and trespassing, according to many regional media outlets.

In English, Ms. Grady and her cohorts broke into a nuclear submarine facility and vandalized military property. They could do up to twenty years in prison. Orange is the new black. Full disclosure, I went to high school with members of the Grady Family, and they are nice people. My political leanings are also left of center, although not to the extreme where the majority of Ithacans seem to reside. Do you remember the protesters at Hillary Clinton's fundraiser before the 2016 presidential election? She wasn't a socialist or radical enough for the town proper. That's Ithaca for you. We could have had a woman president, but Ithaca wanted the Green Party or some crazed socialist from Vermont. Concentrating too much on identity politics is a great way to lose an election.

But back to Clare Grady. In my opinion, she's fighting a war that's been over for a long time. She reminds me of Hirodo Onoda, the last World War II Japanese soldier to surrender back in 1974. He crawled out of the Philippine jungle thirty years after the war ended. I just don't believe that The Pentagon is our enemy. Maybe it was in the Vietnam era. That was eons ago. The madman in the White House and the Ayn Rand devotees in Silicon Valley are what I'm worried about. We all know that nuclear waste cannot be disposed of. I understand her concern. I also don't believe it's in our best interests to have inferior military power. If she lived in Russia, she'd be in a Gulag by now. It's a shame that all the time and energy Clare expended protesting military installments wasn't channeled to the current war. The war against a fascist at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

"Get out of my life. Don't come back." from The Rolling Stones "Respectable".

Tompkins County has long been associated with a hippie vibe. Perhaps because it's fondly referred to as the Humboldt County of the East Coast. Something about the climate and soil conditions. However, I digress. Ithaca is experiencing rapid technological and social change like the rest of the country, and the positive aspect about this is we seem to be a benefactor. Upstate is rotting, but our little town cracked the code in economic development. Ithaca College and Cornell can be thanked for this. Boutique biotechnology and software firms are flourishing. If you go to Elmira or Binghamton, all you get is decay. This may be a temporary folly, but it will take more than a concerted effort to get the Southern Tier back on its feet. I am happy to be living in Ithaca, and I am also happy to have Svante Myrick leading us to new horizons.

This is not to say I agree with everything Mayor Myrick is proposing. I vehemently disagree with him about his plan for public injection sites if it ever comes to fruition. If implemented, you'd have every junkie from Syracuse to Sayre moving here. The heroin problem is bad enough as it is. Besides, what hophead in their right mind would give that kind of personal information to the police. The addict would leave a trail for the heat right back to the dealer, and the dope fiend's life would be shortened after a quick hotshot. I don't care what they're doing in Amsterdam. It's a bad idea. Mother Teresa had her place in this world. I just don't believe it's Ithaca's duty to save everybody. You play, you pay. It's a minor point, but one I feel strongly about. "The Needle And The Damage Done" was written in the 1970's. Let's get on the program here. If this plan goes through, would I vote for Mr. Myrick again? Absolutely.

Another area that I really enjoy about Ithaca is the terrestrial radio stations. There's really no such thing as terrestrial radio anymore since most stations stream their content, but I'm old fashioned and use an antenna. Especially when I'm driving. I want to give kudos to WVBR for the recent format change from Classic Rock to Alternative. I can finally listen to something besides WICB without going crazy. Just makes the town that much stronger in the national music scene. I know it must have been difficult for WVBR to give up the ghost, but they were hopelessly outdated until the transition. You can still get your fill of the oldies on 'Rockin' Remnants' on Saturday nights, but the old format had to go in order to remain relevant. I am curious to know if their ratings have increased. As an Ithaca College grad, I am sad to report that I listen to WVBR now as my station of choice. The WICB DJ's play too much modern synth pop. Then again, it depends on who your DJ is.

If you are a religious person, I'd suggest to light a candle for Clare Grady. She's going to need it. We could have used her enthusiasm rallying against the Commander and Chief in the Oval Office. Instead, she's going to be a martyr. As far as Mr. Myrick is concerned, let's hope he can get the roads paved. He's got my vote.

2,000 Light Years From Home

Except for the lack of flying cars, it seems as if I've been living in a science fiction novel from time immemorial. In reality, it's only been about twenty years since the dawn of the digital age. Right about the turn of the century when the Internet went mainstream. The new showstopper is brought to you by CLEAR, a biometric screening company. Simply stated, you go to a CLEAR kiosk at participating airports or sports stadiums, scan your iris or fingerprint, and you're good to go without the hassles of long check-in lines by the TSA or security guards. The fast track. No tickets. No boarding passes. There's a registration process beforehand, and you have to relinquish a lot of personal information, but after the vetting, it's convenient and a time saver. Great for frequent flyers.

It's the type of technology only a Martian could engineer. Good old American ingenuity. CLEAR recently introduced an age verification and biometric payments service. Although the New York based company considers itself a Secure Identity Platform, this could be a big deal if the technology holds up, they don't experience a data breach and consumers are comfortable enough with the service to enable mass deployment and adaptation. CLEAR calls itself the ATM of identity. They've been around since 2003, but went under six years later. In 2010 they were back in business with fresh funding. Perhaps their time is now. I'd prefer to give these corporations as little amount of information about myself as possible, but that ship has sailed. In order to function in the modern world, your private life is now your public persona. In the Vietnam War era we had mission creep, now it's mission creepy.

Roughly 130 years ago, we went through another era of rapid technological advancement with the introduction of electricity to the masses. Hardwired human behavior, such as waking at dawn and going to bed at sunset were the norms of the old school. Then the national deployment of the incandescent light bulb changed everything. Inner cities became illuminated in a five year span. The Current War: Director's Cut, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison, Nicholas Hoult as Nikola Tesla, and Michael Shannon as George Westinghouse, documents the race to electrify and illuminate the United States from 1880-1893. Solid performances by the principal players abound.

Inspired by true events, it's received lukewarm reviews from the critics, and just so so applause from audience feedback, especially millennials because of Tesla's minor role. He's reached cult status in some circles. Ask anyone that works for Elon Musk. Although the story has faults, I liked it. It's not a blockbuster and the screenwriter utilized his literary licence by downplaying Tesla, but I learned something and was entertained. My big knock on the film was that the editing was a bit too fast for me. The story moved quickly to a fault. The Current War runs 145 minutes, and if they would have spent an additional ten minutes beefing up some scenes, it would have been a better product. Originally slated to be released in 2017 to much fanfare, it was delayed because it was produced by Harvey Weinstein who needs no introduction.

"It's a dirty story of a dirty man, and his clinging wife doesn't understand."

I'm not going to go into Weinstein's background, he's all over the news, but despite his fall from grace, he knows how to make a movie. That said, the casting couch didn't work out too well for him, and he may do hard time for sexual assaults. To the best of my knowledge, Weinstein is no longer associated with the movie. It's not my job to be judge, jury and executioner, so I am going to let the courts make their decisions. However, the former founder of The Weinstein Company went bankrupt, morally and maybe otherwise. That I understand. What I can't fathom is why financier Ken Fisher is being crucified in the court of public opinion for a sexually charged statement he made. Granted, he uttered a crude and sexist joke about the sales process, but he didn't do anything morally reprehensible. Let me be more clear.

During a public presentation, Fisher made a stupid statement that a sales pitch is akin to "getting in a girls pants". Or something to that effect. I just don't know because I have examined a triad of credible media sources: CNBC, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. All three can't get their stories straight about what Mr. Fisher actually said when he made the guffaw. Perhaps it depends on where Fisher Investments spends their advertising dollars. I do my best to parse out 'Fake News'. It would deeply trouble me if the most trusted content sources turned into scandal sheets.

The Gray Lady came down hard on Mr. Fisher. I expect more from The New York Times, especially when they appear to have taken the entire episode out of context. Sure, at 67 years old Fisher should have known better, but a simple retraction and apology would suffice. Not losing billions of dollars in assets under management for Fisher Investments. That's not chump change. I can appreciate political correctness, and most of the time it's a good thing, but sometimes it goes too far. We've come a long way as a country, both socially and technologically. Computational rigor enables companies such as CLEAR to pave the way for economic dominance for years to come. Nevertheless, we're taking steps backwards when the politically correct extremists limit our constitutional right of free speech. This weekend, Mr. Fisher made a public apology in writing that's posted on the Internet. Let's see how the "Woke" crowd reacts next week.

Didn't Frank and Nancy Sinatra sing "Something Stupid"?

Turn Around, Look at Me

October may be the best month of the year if you're a sports fan. NFL and college football are in full swing. Baseball season winds down with the playoffs and World Series. Hockey and NBA leagues are just getting started. That's my reality TV. No politics, no real housewives, no Kardashians. What more can you ask for? This weekend was bittersweet because although my New York Football Giants were annihilated by the Patriots, The Eagles and Cowboys lost, too. We're still only one game out of first place in the division. Thought the Giants would cover, being sixteen and a half point underdogs, but the Patriots still beat the spread. Shows you how much I know and I've been following the NFL since the Jets demolished the Colts in Super Bowl III.

I read a book, Smart Sports Betting, by Matt Rudinitsky. It's actually more like a booklet at 110 pages. Out of print now, but sells for $27 on Amazon. Probably because it's endorsed by ESPN betting journalist David Purdum. He appears frequently on "Daily Wager", ESPN's sports betting information program. Should have hung onto my copy. One statistic the author highlighted is that even a professional sports bettor will win only 55% of all wagers. That means you're losing 45% of the time. A thin margin and that's if you're a pro. Amateurs don't stand a chance. Plus, it's generally known that 95-99% of sports bettors lose money long-term. What the evangelicals call degenerate gamblers. Yet, the sports wagering industry is as big as it's ever been and getting larger.

The book also emphasized that the sports betting market is very much like the stock market. Below are paraphrased statements by Purdum on the parallels of the two:

• They incorporate everything that is public knowledge.
• They incorporate the thoughts of all professional bettors (the "hot" money, i.e., private knowledge).
• They incorporate the thoughts of many ridiculously complicated algorithms.

I believe the operative phrase from that short list is 'ridiculously complicated algorithms'. However, some algos are good. If it wasn't for the acceleration in the development of gyroscopes, cameras, semiconductors, and algos, we wouldn't have vertical touchdowns for SpaceX rockets. That said, predictive text is one step away from finishing my thoughts. Deep-Data Integration. Digital Performance Marketing. Individualized Performance Advertising. These are the current corporate terms used to describe ad targeting firms such as Criteo. Their computer science is the creepy, but useful cyber stalking technology that enables advertisers to bombard you with personalized advertisements wherever you go on the Internet. Mobile and desktop. They do this by dynamically matching your recent Web browsing history via cookies with predictive software algorithms.

For example, shop for laptops on an e-commerce site like Amazon, and you'll spend the rest of your browsing session looking at banner ads highlighting Amazon's best available computer wherever you go in cyberspace.

There is someone walking behind you
Turn around, look at me
There is someone watching your footsteps
Turn around, look at me

That's from The Vogues back in the 1960's. I always thought it would be a great intro to a stalker movie. However, I digress. The sophisticated technology relies on programmatic buying for relevant consumer options that benefit the advertisers as well. Programmatic advertising is the real time automated bidding, buying and placement of banner ads. Google, Amazon, and Yahoo do this, too. They're all in bed with each other. Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part II is famous for saying: "Keep your friends close but your enemies closer.".

We're not quite in Fahrenheit 451, or The Handmaid's Tale era yet, but it's creeping up on us. The proliferation of Artificial Intelligence is everywhere including your stock portfolio. It's so pervasive now that saying you have A.I. in your investments is like saying you've got corn in your Cornflakes. Digirarti guru Mark Cuban believes technological advancement in the next ten years will be swifter than the last thirty years with A.I. being one of the main catalysts. An oligopoly has formed in the A.I. arena. The same Internet companies we've come to depend on for our everyday technology needs devour smaller startups. The Google and Amazon of 15 years ago are no longer mom and pop shops. They are the IBM and AT&T of the 1950's, if not the Standard Oil of New Jersey in 1900. The Gilded Age redux. This ain't no picnic.

Pistol Packin' Mama

Warren Buffett once said: "If you've been playing poker for half an hour and you still don't know who the patsy is, you're the patsy.". I walked right into this one, knowingly, but I still walked right into it. A little backdrop first. I've been using Google's Chrome as my browser ever since its introduction. When I fire up the software, I have elected to make AOL.com my splash page. This is because I've had AOL as my primary email provider for almost 25 years. Although I find the AOL portal useful, they tease you with a lot of click bait. Most notably photos of stars of yesteryear, what ever happened to them, what do they look like now. That sort of thing. This past week, I've been carpet-bombed with snapshots of Catherine Bell of JAG fame. Accompanying the pictures are captions insinuating after turning 50, she was either fat, a dog, or had a botched nip and tuck.

I should have used my bullshit detector. Instead, viewed the entire slideshow until I got to the 'Then' and 'Now' images of the actress. I used to watch JAG, so I had an interest in what happened to the cast as the years progressed. That said, just wanted to see what Bell looks like, not the show's minor characters. I have an infatuation for middle aged women, because let's face it, I'm 60. I can fantasize about every twentysomething in lululemon yoga tights, but that's all it is, a fantasy. In my mind, I'm 18. In my body, I'm old. A man must know his limitations. But Catherine Bell looked great. Unfortunately she's a Scientologist. Plus, she got divorced and now has a "partner" who is a party planner. You can figure that one out. Bummer. A total waste of 15 minutes of my life. The big nowhere.

Another fetching fiftysomething is Jennifer Lopez, aka, J.Lo. She's back in the news for two reasons. The first is being selected to headline the 2020 Super Bowl Halftime Show in Miami along with Shakira. That's a great move by the NFL brain trust. The ongoing themes here are: The browning of America, Miami morphing into The Latin American Capitol of the world, and the public's weariness of aging Rock & Roll bands. I'm a Baby Boomer, but our influence for dictating pop culture has expired (unless your talking about Viagra, Depends or Polident). Time to pass the baton. The two Latino superstars are the intermission entertainment for the biggest television event of the year, so you're appealing to a more broad based and younger demographic. I don't know if Jay-Z had any sway on this move with his new consulting position with the NFL, but it's a step in the right direction.

Secondly, J.Lo's name has been bandied about as a Best Actress candidate for her role in Hustlers. Like Saturday Night Fever, the production is an adaptation of a magazine article. A couple of critics described Hustlers as being like Goodfellas with G-strings, or Goodfellas with strippers. That's apropos, but the story is nowhere near the quality of Martin Scorsese's 1990 crime drama. Two films released this Fall are influenced by Scorsese - Hustlers and Joker. Scorsese has a three and a half hour opus opening in November, The Irishman. It's going to be in limited release, but it will also be available on Netflix. Don't want to be disappointed, but even John Ford got predictable. Let's hope it's a swan song. The Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer gives Hustlers 88% which is a high aggregate grade from the critics. The Audience Score is a mere 66%. I don't know about art but I know what I like. Stick with the audience on this one.

Despite great acting by J.Lo, the film left me flat. The only things that aren't flat in the story are the exotic dancers. To be fair, the first 30 minutes of the movie moved, but then it became dull and predictable. One thing that irked me throughout the production was the lack of Brooklyn, Queens and Bronx accents by the strippers. Granted, the movie takes place in Manhattan, but the girls were from the boroughs. The bridge and tunnel crowd if you will. Cardi B sounded authentic, but the role wasn't too far of a stretch for the Bronx rapper. She's a former stripper herself. The rest of the actresses sounded if they went to charm school.

Not to give too much away, but the entire plot revolves around strippers giving Mickey Finns to the sleazier side of Wall Street, then draining their corporate bank accounts. A payback for the all the worldwide financial damage they did during the Great Recession of 2008-2009. Over ten years later, it's still fresh in people's minds. I was expecting a more elaborate scheme from all the hype in the press. But back to J.Lo. She has the chops to pull off the role. The athletic prowess demonstrated during her dance routine, pole and all, couldn't be done by most women 30 years younger. She just looked great and oozed the same sex appeal from one of her earlier movies, Out Of Sight. It's too bad she didn't have a better script with Hustlers, but Out Of Sight is based on an Elmore Leonard novel. You don't get better writing than that. You don't get better acting than Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers.

Baby got back.

All Hat And No Cattle

Sexting is so popular that as far back as 2012, it was included in the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. For the uninitiated, sexting is the exchange of sexually explicit images of oneself between communication devices. This includes smartphones, tablets and computers. Sending, receiving, or both. Take your pick. Much faster than using a Polaroid camera like we did back in the old analog days. Then they came up with revenge porn. Revenge porn comes after the breakup. When a sexting partner decides to distribute photos of your naked body all over the Internet. Payback. Of course this is non-consensual. Don't let your mouth write a check that your ass can't cash.

Now with the advent of Artificial Intelligence, the new thing is called Deepfake. Deepfake superimposes somebody's face on the body of another person. This can be done in a still photograph, or with video. It looks real. Very popular on pornography sites; especially with the face of a popular actress on an adult movie star's body. Like they need it. Most movie stars are under 40. Nevertheless, when the pixel police get their hands on these images, whether it be via sexting, revenge porn or deepfake, they go viral PDQ. All sensitive data can get hacked in an unencrypted communication. Black hats (malicious hackers) smell blood in the water and can do whatever they want with your images, too.

A.I. is everywhere. You just don't notice it creeping up on you. My favorite current crazy algo is the predictive text feature on my iPhone. Android has it, too. Makes writing emails much easier. Another area that A.I. is rapidly enveloping is the stock market. The Economist cover story this past week was: "Masters of the Universe - How Machines Are Taking Over Wall Street". It's a good article. Anyone with skin in the game should read it. However, there is a caveat. The first thing that came to my mind after finishing the story is, "What took them so long to write this?". It just seemed like old hat if you've been following the inner machinations of trading floors.

To be fair, The Economist is a general interest magazine with a business leaning, and the majority of their readership may not be versed in computer science. But Ed Thorp wrote Beat The Market in 1967 which unleashed the Quant Fund revolution. Computerized trading has been around a long time. The A.I. angle in The Economist piece is that humans previously programmed the algos. Now it's the algos programming the algos because they can decipher data patterns we humans can't see. The only thing the traders are doing is feeding data to the machines. From what I could infer, only ten percent of trades are now done by humans. So what are you doing by investing in individual securities?

As the world takes a few more spins, the stock market becomes more efficient. The Economist article emphasizes this. It's the gist of the entire story. Nevertheless, there's still a plethora of information on the Internet, in newspapers, in magazines, and on business networks touting the benefits of seeking alpha. It sells a lot of advertising. Alpha is the out-performance of a portfolio versus the overall market, or, the S&P 500. Just doesn't happen anymore. There's a lot of pump and dump schemes out there. Buyer beware. I don't want to spend too much time on the financial industry, but it's important to me. It's probably important to you, too.

Don't want to fight the technological advances, but do want to question them. How did my Apple and American Online calendars become populated on a Google calendar? Keep getting notices on Gmail for events I was unaware they had access to. Google probably has my permission. I am unaware I gave it. This has got to change. With the evolution of A.I., and the roll-out of 5G communications networks, we're going to see a lot of changes in the next ten years. Although telecommunications carriers are already advertising the speed and lack of latency on 5G smartphones, it's the machines that will benefit the most. The Internet of things. Robots. Autonomous cars. You name it, it's going to improve exponentially. This can only be good for the economy. And good for my portfolio.

HAL 9000 anybody?

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

"Pass the bottle. Wash the pills down, what went wrong?" From "Friday" by Joe Jackson

Joker broke box office records for an October opening. $234 million worldwide. I just contributed my $10 for a senior citizen ticket. Because of the box office bonanza, there's been a hot bed of activity in the press with thorough reviews from just about every major media outlet. That's why you won't get one from me. Nevertheless, I will make a few comments about my perception of the movie. In a nutshell, it's like Taxi Driver with a joy buzzer. And as with so many of Martin Scorsese films, it flows from beginning to end with a dark and gritty backdrop. Instead of Travis Bickle ("Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets."), we have Arthur Fleck, aka, Joker, ("Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?").

Throughout the film, I kept wondering when the story takes place. That was a slight annoyance, but didn't take away from a great viewing experience. With a little detective work after the fact, I came up with the year. Primarily because a marquee of a movie theater in one of the scenes advertises, Zorro, The Gay Blade, which was released in 1981. Secondly, Gotham has a garbage strike throughout the entirety of Joker which coincides with a 1981 garbage strike in New York City. There are plenty of twists in the plot, and this is no spoiler alert, but if you're familiar with the Batman narrative, the ending won't surprise you. Even so, that doesn't detract from a great allegory of our times.

Joaquin Phoenix stars as the title character. When I think of Joker, the actor that's etched in my mind is Cesar Romero playing Batman's foil in the campy 1960's television series. Perhaps because I was so young and impressionable when that show aired. However, that all changed after watching Joaquin tackle the role. Not only did he give a great performance, but he carried the movie. Should at least get a swag bag for Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards. Too early to tell who will win, but he's got to be up for an Oscar. When you consider that Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger also played the Cape Crusader's criminal nemesis to much applause, that's a big compliment. Ledger won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Jared Leto was also cast as Joker in 2016's Suicide Squad, but I didn't see that movie. That was a flop.

Before Joker started, there were the usual previews of coming attractions, plus an advertisement for the 40th anniversary screening of Ridley Scott's Alien. Four decades is almost half a century, and I saw the original. Watched all the sequels, too, and some of them were good, but you can't get any better than the first from 1979. Many of the popular feature length serials such as the Terminator series or Star Wars franchise originated in the late 70's and early 80's. I was fortunate to be able to see them in the prime movie goer demographic of 18 to 25 years old. During the past ten years, I've tried to keep up with the prequels and sequels, especially for Star Wars, but they just seem dumb and trite.

I wouldn't necessarily call Judy, the Judy Garland biopic, a comeback role for Renée Zellweger. After all, she never went anywhere, just stopped making movies for awhile. But in today's world, you're either on top, or you're a nobody, so maybe it is her comeback role. Rotten Tomatoes gives Judy an 83% on the Tomatometer and 87% for the Audience Score, so it's a good story. What sets it apart from other productions is the Oscar worthy performance by Zellweger. You'd almost think it was a documentary, not a drama the way she portrayed the Wizard of Oz star. She just looked like her. Tinseltown buzz has Renée as a shoe-in for Best Actress nomination at the 2020 Academy Awards. I agree. I was fixated on Zellweger throughout the entire production. Not because she was beautiful, but because she wasn't.

There are many similarities with Judy and Joker. First, the acting is not only extraordinary, but the eponymous title characters hold the movies together. Secondly, they are both dark stories. I would argue that Judy is much more disturbing than Joker because it's not only about a real person, but a person we looked up to growing up. Judy Garland. She was Lady Gaga before Lady Gaga and Barbara Streisand before Barbara Streisand. Only this time she wasn't in character as Dorothy Gale with her little dog Toto. She was portrayed at the end of her short life - 47 years - as a suicidal, pill popping booze hound. Broke, too. Whenever Dorothy got in trouble, she kicked the heels of her ruby red slippers together and repeated, "There's no place like home". Judy Garland tried that and it was a one way ticket to the boneyard.

Judy and Joker are worth watching. They're both sad and sadistic stories, but that's what good drama is all about. This is a great time of the year to be going to the movies. I just hope I don't end up like Arthur Fleck - a crazed clown in a mental asylum.

For A Few Dollars More

"The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent." - from "Dragnet".

I have Amazon's Kindle app on my iPad and desktop computer. Barely ever use it. Prefer the feel of a book in my hands. Hardcovers, Trade Paperbacks, Mass Market Paperbacks; you can throw in newspapers and magazines, too. Although I've embraced the digital world, there are some aspects of the old analog ways which just seem better. However, when vacationing, you need an e-reader or tablet instead of hauling around a small library. Plus, some small publications are only available in digital format. I really tried to like e-books, primarily because they're less expensive, but no go. Maybe I'm just old fashioned. However, for those that travel frequently, the Kindle app, or the Apple Books app is a necessity. But hear me out.

iPhones comprise forty-five percent of all smartphones in the United States. That means domestically about 100 million people are in the Apple ecosystem, and once you're in the grips of Apple's tentacles, it's difficult to escape. You may have to pony up a little more for an Apple product, but they're extremely user-friendly and have a very sticky platform. Like The Hotel California, you can checkout anytime, but you can never leave. Although the iPhone is Apple's main source of revenue, it's slowly transitioning from a hardware company to a service based organization. In the third quarter of 2019, the services sector accounted for 21% of sales. Like a full fledged dreadnought, iPhone is still the main profit driver with 48% of the pie, but services are growing at an impressive 13% clip. Familiar products such as iCloud and Apple music contribute to this segment, but in my opinion, a newcomer at Apple is going to accelerate the services statistic. That upstart is Apple News+.

If you're young, you're probably already familiar with Apple News+. After all, keeping ahead of the technology curve is the cool thing these days. Plus, if you're under 40 years old, there's a slim chance you're reading these missives from an old man. If you're at an advanced age, computer science is a confusing and frightening aspect of today's modern world. Let's face it, we're in a mashup amalgamating the digital and analog worlds. Assimilate or become a has-been like so many shot fighters. I taught Internet surfing for seven years at the local library. The one underlying theme from all my pupils was the belief the computer would explode from clicking the wrong icon. In a way, they were right. Many SNAFU's can happen when just downloading and saving a file if you don't know what you're doing. That said, although it's still remains difficult, the use of computers has gotten easier over the years. Especially with Apple products. So if you're old, read on.

Apple News+ is the $9.99 per month subscription service which turbocharges the Apple News app. If you own an iMac, iPhone, or iPad, you're probably already familiar with Apple News. Along with social media, the news aggregation app makes it easy to be locked into your portable infotainment system all day long. Apple News app is free, plus you can manage your subscriptions with it. Now with Apple News+, you can read over 200 magazines, plus a few newspapers for a mere ten dollars a month. Apple previously commandeered the music and telephone industries. Now they're up to it again with magazine distributions.

Full disclosure, I'm not an Apple fanboy. But, like Amazon and Google, Apple has made life much easier and cost effective for me. Like Amazon and Google, Apple is also compiling a significant personal dossier about yours truly. Credit card number. Location specific information. What books and magazines I read. The music I prefer. Telephone records. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Think of those security questions you need to provide just to open an account. A digital mise en scène of my life. Is this a bad thing? Not really, it's the world we live in. It's tough to embrace at times, but we're here and have been for fifteen years. It's just tough to imagine after being weaned on rotary phones. You better hope nobody goes data mining for your personal information.

But back to Apple News+. I'm having a lovefest with it. The Atlantic, Consumer Reports, Billboard and Time are all on my 'Favorites' feed. That's just a small sampling. I browse hundreds of magazines during down time. All for a sawbuck. When I'm on the go, I read them on my iPhone. But at home, I use the iPad. A much better reading experience, which goes without saying. With 80 million iPad users stateside, Apple News+ should be a big hit. In the 2014 Sci-Fi mystery movie Ex Machina, Stanley Kubrick's film A.I.Artificial Intelligence, and the HBO television series "Westworld", humans are having sex with robots. I hope it doesn't come down to that, but with the speed that technology is advancing, you just never know. It's tricky.

Lost In The Supermarket

This conversation is being recorded for "Quality Assurance".

For most of us that reach our 60's, the elephant in the room isn't the old cliché about an unacknowledged social taboo. It's our excess weight. Although I hit the gym six days a week, and ride the exercise bike for at least thirty minutes each session, I still can't get rid of my gut. Counting calories. That's all I do. Only allowed about 2,000 a day. Sometimes I'll diet for a month and drop five pounds, but with a slight slip-up, I'm back to square one. Pizza. Burgers. Ice cream. It comes on quickly. Not to go existential on you, but it's like The Myth of Sisyphus. As soon as you push the boulder to the top of the hill, it rolls back down to the bottom, and you have to start all over again. It's a vicious circle.

There's many different diets to chose from: South Beach, Keto, Atkins, Weight Watchers, Nutisystem, Paleo, Vegan, and Jenny Craig. And those are just the most renown. Volumetrics, Flexitarian, Engine 2, and Ornish are relatively new and highly regarded. A multi-million dollar industry. I don't follow any of them. Too expensive, or, too complicated. Being Greek, I've somewhat been on the Mediterranean Diet since birth. Primarily sensible eating with the foods I prefer. Always believed it's calories consumed vs. calories burned. You see Hall of Fame athletes hawking nutritional supplements on television. Shannon Sharpe promoting Tru Niagen to increase energy and stamina. Frank "The Big Hurt" Thomas endorses Nugenix which supposedly does the same. Those guys are about ten years younger than me. They can claim whatever they want, but it's not going to do me any good. I got old.

Once you get past 40, metabolism slows, muscle mass decreases 10% per decade, and a sedentary lifestyle becomes common. There are three main body types:

• Mesomorph - Lean and muscular simultaneously.
• Endomorph - Stocky build, Wide body.
• Ectomorph - Long and lean.

The triumvirate of anatomical structure. If you weren't born an Ectomorph, it's very tough to be lean and mean in your later years. Most of us aren't that fortunate. Nevertheless, people of all shapes and sizes still exercise, and as a society, our life expectancy has significantly increased from 35 years ago. In the mid 1980's, you worked, you retired and in a year or two, you died. On average, people now live into their late 70's, early 80's. Granted, that number has dropped somewhat because of the opioid epidemic, but for most of us, lifespan has increased. Some of this actuarial development can be attributed to improved diet and exercise, but a lot of it has to do with advanced medical technology.

I'm a prime example. My primary care physician suspected cancer ten years ago through routine screenings. It was soon confirmed by a specialist after examining the biopsy results. That same cancer diagnosis twenty years prior would have been a death sentence. I elected a robotic operation with the Da Vinci Surgical System. No chemotherapy. They removed an aggressive and enlarged tumor, plus the surrounding lymph nodes. I'm still going strong today. But two of my close friends didn't make it. Esophageal and pancreatic cancers. I owe a lot to MD's. Most notably, my life.

Because of the HITECH Act of 2009, the medical profession has moved quickly into the digital age. This can be exemplified by the numerous Electronic Health Record (EHR) Companies. Epic. All Scripts. GE Healthcare. Cerner. Athenahealth. If you follow the stock market, you're probably familiar with these names. At times they've been good investments. But what about the next generation of EHR technology, the microchip implant? A subdermal RFID semiconductor. Veterinarians incorporate this technology to track lost dogs if a pet owner utilizes Tractive, an injectable GPS device. It would be beneficial for Alzheimer patients, but I am wary of its use on the general public. Frank Sinatra once sang "I've Got You Under My Skin". He had no idea. Get a knee replacement, pacemaker, microchip implant, and now you're a Cyborg.

Continuing with an ongoing theme in this blog are the negative consequences of technology unchained. What if we do reach the point of subdermal implants? If you look globally, some companies are employing it on a small scale to do manual tasks like opening car doors. It may make some things easier, but I am concerned about getting hacked or tracked. This is especially true where your medical information is concerned. Most notably, because medical records are tethered to your Social Security number. Once a rogue agent has your Social Security information, all bets are off. That's the conduit to your entire being. Womb to tomb. It could happen. Walk through a WiFi HotSpot, and a hacker could theoretically load you with a drive-by software infection. Some sort of extortionist malware. Once they receive the pertinent information, they can do some credential harvesting. With a little social engineering, there goes your bank and brokerage accounts.

I prefer to remain a paranoid android.