A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy by Alex White

Gave the author a second chance because of the reviews of this one, still puke awful, 0/5 stars.

A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White

Terrible!  I could not get past the first 50 pages.  0/5 stars.

Tiamat's Wrath by James S.A. Corey

We waited a long time for this installment.  Fun adventure, tragic deaths of characters we loved, great twist to the story line.  5/5 stars.  Can't wait for the fourth season on TV and the next book.

By Schism Rent Asunder by David Weber

This one was long and boring.  It moves the story forward and builds the characters. But it was drawn out and much too long. 2/5 Stars.

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mfw@wyle.org | 1.425.249.3936

Slime mold parallel processing

Associative memory (Hopfield Amari recurrent neural network) in slime mold solves the exponentially complex traveling salesman problem in linear time.  

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.180396

Another biology inspired approach to math where nature and evolution have previously discovered an efficient algorithm.

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mfw@wyle.org | 1.425.249.3936

Guggenheim museum

After the show we walked through central park to see the Guggenheim museum.  It was a little disappointing, 2/5 stars.

Wicked by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman

Today (Saturday, 4/13/19) we saw a 2pm matinee of "Wicked" on Broadway.  The performance was great but the sound system had issues; luckily we were in the second row and could hear the actors singing.  Having listened to the sound track many times and also having read all of Gregory Maguire's books in the series, I knew what to expect.  Jessica Vosk as Elphaba is not quite as good as Idina Menzel but her performance was still fantastic. We all enjoyed it and I sang along quietly to "Defying Gravity," my favorite.  Highly recommended, 4/5 stars.

Mitch's 5-Star Rating System

How can I give Phantom only 4 stars?  What does my rating system mean?  When I give three or more stars, I recommend the book or play or movie.  I liked it a lot.  It was "good."  One means I did not like it.  Two is on the border.  I don't recommend it but I got all the way through and did not dislike it.  I do not want lots of ties for 5-stars where there is no discrimination.

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.