What is Alphabet?

Have you wondered about Google the company?  I use its search engine every day. So I went to the Alphabet site - it's the company that 'owns' Google.  Its domain name is www.abc.xyz. (They couldn't get the domain name of alphabet.com as it was taken by a BMW fleet management division). These founders are known to be creative and crazy.  Alphabet came about after Google, through a complicated restructure so that Google could be a subsidiary of Alphabet.  And Alphabet could get on with experimentation in all kinds of areas.  Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted Alphabet to be able to engage in a diverse range of activities.  Pictures of the pair show them as relaxed people with open smiles that have a little mischief showing, and often doing silly things for the photographer. We know about the Google car, so here are a few more: "What do we mean by far afield? Good examples are our health efforts: Life Sciences (that works on the glucose-sensing contact lens), and Calico (focused on longevity). Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related." Such an interesting pair to profile - CNET's article on them is HERE Do you know that both Page and Brin are "burners" - avid attendees of the "free-wheeling" art festival Burning Man?  I've covered this festival in the past. The theme for Burning Man 2018 is  "I, Robot".  Here is the introduction on the Burning Man website: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. — Isaac Asimov, I, Robot Along with developments in robots, there are a lot of events expected in 2018.  You can find theme HERE.  Many of these are outer-space related - for example the expectation of the first picture of a black hole and the launch of the transiting Exoplanet survey satellite. My pictures today apply the Flaming Pear India Ink filter first, and then Flexifly to get images that remind me of Escher's abstract drawings.

Ultimate Christmas Countdown Checklist

November is coming to a completion and before it ends the countdown to Christmas begins.  I was in the Dollarama this week buying odds and ends for the Fantasy of Trees display.  It opens tomorrow.  Dollarama is a frenzy of Christmas shopping.  All of these people have already considered their Christmas checklist.   Here's the realsimple.com list.  I fully enjoyed the first two steps.  First one makes a family plan and then one buys plane tickets.  It is as though that family plan was overwhelming and needed escape.   Make a family plan Are you heading to your in-laws’ house? Hosting everyone at yours? Sit down with family members and decide where you’ll be spending the holidays. Buy plane tickets If you’ll be flying somewhere, get your plane tickets as soon as possible. As we move further down the list at the beginning of November there is another checklist item in which people need to be directed to be 'earnest' about Christmas: Start Christmas shopping in earnest Yes, you may already be picking things up here and there, but the more you buy ahead, the better—especially if you’ll be mailing gifts. If you have big-ticket items (like electronics) that go on sale the day after Thanksgiving, you may want to brave the crowds on Black Friday—you could save substantially. We're not even near the middle of the list. As we get to one week before Christmas, we are instructed to carry out this next step.  I've followed the first two steps, so I would have already bought plane tickets to escape the Christmas mayhem, and now - one week before Christmas, my task is to deep clean my house. I am not sure what that means and it can't be pretty. Deep clean your house  You’ll enjoy those decorations even more if the floors are clean and the kitchen is organized. One important task: Clear out your refrigerator. Toss old leftovers to make room for big dishes and ingredients that’ll be piling up closer to the holiday. So there's a little insight from realsimple about the pressures of Christmas.  Enjoy Thanksgiving - the long, long holiday weekend!  Then hop over to the realsimple site and start checking off your Christmas list.  Today we have more images using the Flaming Pear india ink filter.   The concluding image is my reaction to the Christmas Countdown Checklist. All in good fun.