by Dr. Keith Nemec
Do you have a modern home with the latest gadgets — home security system with cameras, heating and cooling controls through your phone, remote garage opener and remote car starting, and of course internet and TV? Without moving more than a few fingers, you can control...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
One of the greatest storytellers of all time was Paul Harvey. He was known for teasing the audience with a short narrative, pausing, and then telling “the rest of the story” which veered into an unexpected conclusion. He did this constantly, so listeners would wait...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
“Good as new” — that’s what we say when something is repaired so well that we can’t even tell that a repair was needed. Yet, if you look closely enough, a repair rarely as good as new: a sewed piece of clothing has stitches, a rust patch on the body of a car has seems...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
When you use a mapping app on your phone, you may see multiple routes to get to a certain destination. One is the estimated fastest route, another may avoid tollways, and a third may show less turns. Your app may work a bit differently, but yours will likely give you...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
Football is America’s most popular spectator sport. We get irrationally passionate about this game. Football has plenty of competing sports vying for our attention, yet it wins. Why? Is it strategy? No doubt there is a lot of strategy in the game, but that is true of...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
Do your own reactions ever surprise you? Do you get angry at some offhand silly comment, obsess over finding some little item you lost that you really don’t even want, or get in a down mood when everything around you is going great? Do you ever wonder at your thoughts...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
In this modern world of instant messaging and rapid communication, actually getting a message across to another person is harder than ever. In more primitive times, a face-to-face contact was the prime way of communicating with another person. In that interaction,...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
In the early days of video games, when players didn’t have cell phones or powerful computers, to get the best play experience they often went to arcades, which were public places that housed pay-for-play machines. Arcades could only house a few machines, and the...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
In today’s hectic world, we may long for a simpler life. With the accelerating advance of technology, we may find life overwhelming and just too complicated. Henry David Thoreau’s famous quote, now nearly a couple of centuries old, of “simplify, simplify” still...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
“There is no such thing as a free lunch.” While no one knows who started this saying, it was apparently coined at a time when saloon owners were advertising free lunches, with the catch that the patrons had to buy drinks at a high cost. The saying caught on, and now...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
In past U.S. election cycles, allegations have been flying furiously about cheating and election integrity. Both sides have alternately claimed that the other side cheated while their side was guiltless. The result has been a lot of confusion over whether close...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
When you see vehicles on the road, you just think of normal transportation, but in a kid’s imagination, they are powerful robots in disguise — that’s because Transformers have been a major cultural phenomenon, capturing the minds of generations of kids ever since the...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
Homelessness has been a problem in America throughout its history, but modern homeless tent cities are becoming particularly common. These cities are increasingly accepted in certain cities which have decided that they have no other option. A tent city may actually be...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
If you have pets, you don’t appreciate the “presents” that they may leave. Cats have instincts to use soft ground or sand which you can simulate with litter, and that saves your house, but it’s also frustrating to have to clean the litterbox frequently. Still, that...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
Have you ever owned a fish tank / aquarium? If you did, or do, have one, you know how much work is involved to keep it looking the way it does when you first set it up. You start with the right mix of fish so they won’t eat each other or spawn out of control, you get...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
The concern over the environmental impact of fossil fuels has caused a rapid, though largely unsuccessful, shift towards wind and solar options. It is unsuccessful in that fossil fuels still are the majority energy production source, by far. We are discovering that it...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
In what now seems like ancient history, people would record TV Shows and family movies on a VCR (Video Cassette Recorder). In the first years of the VCR era, there were two competing cassette tape formats: Betamax and VHS. Although Betamax was available almost two...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
What type of music do you prefer? Although musical tastes vary widely, odds are that you gravitate towards music similar to what you grew up with. Often we get used to a particular style, and new styles are less attractive than those we heard in our young years. It’s...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
If you have a lawn, you probably have dandelions. The common dandelion is well suited to compete with grass, and can easily take over your lawn. Its seed-spreading technique is very efficient and far-reaching, its tap-roots make it a hardy perennial, and it is quite...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
When you are buying or selling a house, how do you know what the fair value of that house is? The way the real estate agents do it is to look at “comparables” in the neighborhood — what are similar houses in the area selling for? This assumes that your house will be...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
‘ J.K. Rowling is almost a household name these days. She has reached the ranks of the most well-known authors of our time, and writing the Harry Potter series launched her writing career. But she would not have been voted “most likely to succeed” when growing...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
If you live in an urban area, broadband service companies are tripping over each other to compete for your business, offering you “faster internet speeds” than the others and/or unlimited data. But if you are in a rural area, you may find it much harder to get high...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
Released around the turn of the century, The Matrix is still a hit movie with a mind-bending premise, which calls into question what we call “reality.” In what appears to be normal life in our modern world, a computer programmer finds a recurring program code which...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
We have advanced far in medical research — so far that we think we’ve got biology mostly figured out. Certainly we know a lot more than previous generations, and the medicine of a century ago is considered the dark ages. With all this knowledge, our average lifespan...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
Leonard is driving to work along a familiar route. He is in the right lane, and sees a traffic light at a modest distance ahead just turning yellow, then red, and cars ahead of him are braking. While he is still moments away from reaching the light, it is obvious that...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
Joe leaned back in his recliner chair, reminiscing on his retirement party. His co-workers told him how much they appreciated his hard work over the years, and wished they could also leave the daily grind and retire. Joe told them of his plans to travel and just enjoy...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
I had a patient in yesterday and he asked me is there anything he can do with the diet? He has been doing it for three years and he wants to change it up a bit. He said he is strict and says he does not cheat but is there a way he can change it somehow? My response to...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
I had a patient in recently and he was telling me how hard the food was. He was saying he so misses eating his cooked food, carbs and animal products and he keeps eating them just trying to eat less. He was significantly deviating from the diet recommended which is...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
If you are assembling a jigsaw puzzle, but you are not looking at the picture on the box top to see how the final puzzle will look, you will find a number of pieces that don’t seem to fit anywhere. They don’t appear to belong to the portions you’ve assembled so far,...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
Let’s start off with a simple truth: you are not getting any younger, which is a nice way of saying that you are aging. Not only that, but you are on a collision course where your body will eventually fail — no matter what you do, your declining body will eventually...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
Genetic testing is becoming a vital part of medical science. For medicine, it takes much of the guesswork out of medical care. Specific genetic combinations stored in your DNA cause you to react somewhat differently to the environment around you than any other person...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
When you talk with someone, how much of your communication comes from the actual words spoken? Social scientists agree that somewhere between 7% and 30% is communicated through the words themselves. A larger percentage is communicated by the tone of voice and the way...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
Traffic has changed forever, thanks to communication. In the past, you would start on a road trip, not knowing what traffic jams you might encounter along the way. You might get some idea from local radio as to the state of the major arteries — traffic reports on the...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
There could hardly be greater differences between two U.S. presidents than we’ve seen with President Trump and President Biden. Their policies are almost polar opposites. They don’t appear to agree on any issue. Yet, there is one thing they both agree on with a lot of...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
Children are a true gift from God. As with any gift it’s not always as things appear. This divine blessing is sent for one primary reason: to enable you to let go of self and lay your life down for another. Any gift from God needs to be seen as extremely precious to...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
During World War II, Europe was heavily bombed, and thousands of children were suddenly orphaned, abandoned, and starving. Some were found and taken to refugee camps to receive food and care. However, the trauma of having faced starvation without knowing if they would...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
Bands are everywhere. With light, you see seven colors in the spectrum. On your radio is the AM and FM bands, plus there are other special purpose bands. In music, you have the bass, midrange, and treble. To each band we assign a certain frequency range, where all...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
In the early days of computing, most of the processing inside your new IBM or Apple II was done in one place. The CPU (Central Processing Unit) was doing almost all the work. But as greater speed was demanded, engineers soon figured out that they could split up the...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” This famous statement came from U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Many at that time could not afford the basics of life and they feared what the future would bring. FDR wanted to calm...
by Dr. Keith Nemec
What music do you enjoy? What about that music do you particularly like — the beat, melody, vocal, instrumentation? You probably would say that you like them all, and the way they go together to make music. What music can you listen to over and over again and still...