Merrily we roll along by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth

I really enjoyed this musical despite its shortcomings.  The Sondheim music is fantastic and the story is engrossing.  This New York Times review summarizes the problems the show has.  I disagree with much of the criticism.  As an older person who lived through most of the reverse-chronological events in the show, I felt very nostalgic and swept back into the 1950s, 60's, 70's, and 80's.  I recommend the show to anyone over 50, 3/5 stars.

Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber

Thursday 4/11/2019 we scored second row center seats at a matinee showing of the "Phantom of the Opera," The  show was fun.  I found it very operatic, especially the visual spectacles.  Ben Crawford is still playing the Phantom! 4/5 stars.

Be more chill by Joe Iconis and Joe Tracks

On Wednesday 10-April we saw an evening performance of "Be more chill."   It is awesome.  5/5 stars.  The $10 million production budget was well-spent.  The costumes, choreography, music, sound, lighting, and stage effects are amazing. The story line is ok (not great).  The science fiction is good.  Don't miss it!

On the Future, prospects for humanity by Martin Rees

Not bad; I appreciated his updated interpretation of the Drake equation and Dr Rees' perspectives.  Easy reading, short book, 4/5 stars.

Balto

We went to the Balto statue in central park that appeared in the 1995 movie "Balto."

2019-04-08 Metropolitan Museum of Art

Monday we were in Central Park and at the Metropolitan Museum of art.  An album of our favorite photos is here.

Advances in Applications of Personality Research: the Light Triad

An interesting and comprehensive research report this week appeared in "Frontiers in Psychology." The authors had been working for quite some time on a counter-balance to the popular and often-cited 2002 research on the Dark Triad of Personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy. After some excellent, comprehensive, longitudinal, and provably repeatable studies, they have finally written up their results and findings.

One of their interesting results is that their new triad actually measures different characteristics. "The absence of darkness does not necessarily indicate the presence of light," the authors write,  "… there appears to be some degree of independence between the Light and Dark Triad, leaving room for people to have a mix of both light and dark traits."   The authors constructed what they call "portraits of the light vs.dark triad." Participants who scored high on light triad traits tended to be older, female and have experienced less unpredictability in their childhoods. They also tended to report higher levels of: religiosity, spirituality, life satisfaction, acceptance of others, belief that they and others were good, compassion, empathy, openness to experience and conscientiousness. People who scored higher on dark triad traits were more likely to be younger, male and more motivated by power, achievement, superficial sex and short-term relationships. They also tended to be less compassionate, agreeable, empathetic, satisfied with their lives and likely to believe they and others were good.

Darkfall by David Webber

Great prequel short story in the Honor Harrington universe, 4/5 stars.

The conclusion of the trilogy makes so many twists, and reveals so many secrets in such a fast-paced succession, that the book becomes a frustrating deus est machina story.  The high fantasy elements and clash of transcendental abstractions (preservation vs ruin) as well as Sanderson's great writing make the story engaging.  3/5 stars.

the coolest toys are on eBay

The reason I love this "Flitt" 720p video quadcopter ($20 on eBay) is that it folds up with rotors attached.

It's also easy to fly & stays aloft for 10 minutes per charge.

Here is a video of me learning to fly in the office.

The Flitt is $25 on Amazon.