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KEEP WELL, LIVE LONG, AND PROSPER!
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Along the way, 2001: A Space Odyssey made some bold predictions about what life would be like 33 years later. Many of them turned out to be true, especially when it comes to technology, while other predictions weren’t as accurate. Some hit the mark but missed the date, while others still have a long way to go before they move past the practical and/or theoretical stages.
One very obvious prediction of 2001 that hasn’t panned out, at least yet, is routine, luxurious space travel. But like many other things in the movie, it doesn’t feel like what was predicted was off track; it’s just that— many decades later—we still haven’t got there yet.
Of all the future predictions depicted in 2001, artificial intelligence is the one it managed to predict so well, yet get so wrong at the same time. The homicidal computer known as HAL 9000 suffers a nervous breakdown due to an impasse of logic in one of Stanley Kubrick’s most pivotal and memorable scenes.
The Territorial Army in Malta: an interview with Dr. John Consiglio Former 3/11th Regiment, Royal Malta Artillery (Territorials) member.
Dr. John Consiglio, sits down to explain the benefits to Maltese society that the part-time soldiers brought to the Island nation’s society.
Dr. John Consiglio enlisted in the 3rd Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment of the Royal Malta Artillery (Territorials) when he was 16 years old, and served there with great enthusiasm up to 1972, when the Maltese Territorial Regiments were disbanded. His unwaning enthusiasm later on saw him serve as Vice President of the 3/11 Regiment RMA(T) Association.
This production acknowledges with great gratitude and appreciation the information and photos utilized, as furnished by:
Dr. John Consiglio
Emmanuel Francalanza
Victor Filletti
Joanna Debono Sant Cassia
Capt Saviour P. Portelli
Capt Patrick Caruana Dingli
Lt Col Herbert C Abela, MBE
Music: “Duchess of Kent” by the “Royal Electrical &
Mechanical Engineers Band”
“Strength Men” by Lux-Inspira “Asswero”, Major Mro. Anthony Aquilina, 3LAA Regiment RMA(T)
Camera: Edward Consiglio Ivan Consiglio
Producers: Capt Alex Abela RMA (Rtd.), Maj Ivan M. Consiglio AFM (Rtd.)
Privacy? Not if your car has a say. Modern cars are computers on wheels, giving manufacturers plenty of opportunities to track you.
First it was the phone, then your appliances, then the lady in the plastic box who knows everything & everyone – now your not-so-personal vehicle. Does anyone has a smart snow shovel?
Turns out our cars collect (and share) a ton of personal info. Great … Here’s how to get a free report about how much your car is tracking everything you do and who is getting your personal data. This is crazy!
Whatever issues US residents currently have with their elected representatives, they alone are to blame.
A whole generation of American youngsters have been raised without a clear appreciation of their own Constitution or their extremely rich history. They should have spent more time researching there elected officials’ comprehension of the American Constitution and commitment to its preservation and protection instead of electing too many people based only on their emotional appeal and catchy soundbites.
The truth is that “We the People” will always be greater critical thinkers than those who are clinging to power. They have acted as if “We the People” can’t be critical thinkers and as if their Federal government departments are full of experts who must be blindly trusted and followed. They have become more interested in the games on their mobile devices.
Instead of paying attention to the significant policy decisions that are made every day, they have focused more on the games on their digital gadgets. They have likely surprised Plato by surviving this long without collapsing.
Malta-themed night-time lit-up drone formations over Grand Harbour in Valletta. Uncertain if this was a first for our Islands or not, but the rave reviews of images as shared on social media by many, have nothing but praise for the initiative…
One hundred kilos of explosives, dating back to the Second World War, a quantity of dynamite capable of blowing up the Mascarello bridge, between Latina and Cisterna, in case of need.
It’s been 79 years but the dynamite was still there, in all its danger. This was discovered by the company in charge of securing and consolidating the bridge that divides the territory of the municipalities of Latina and Cisterna, which find obliged the workers to suspend the reconstruction effort and ask for the intervention of the bomb squad.
The explosives were near the pylon of the bridge and would have been blown up in the event that the Americans had passed through those parts immediately after the landing of Anzio on January 22, 1944.
The Allies instead took a different path, or perhaps passed over that bridge in an unexpected way, evidenced by the fact that since those tragic months between January and May of 1944 when the planted explosives were set, ready to sow destruction and death, and which remained in place until the past few days. And it’s a miracle that nothing has happened in all these years.
What does history say?
History recalls that on January 30, 1944 two battalions of US Army Rangers made their way to Cisterna, and were counting on being able to find little resistance and take the town to operate with the other units advancing from Aprilia and Campoleone in a pincer maneuver against the Germans deployed on the Vastelli Romani.
But the Germans had foreseen the intent and had strongly fortified themselves at night in Cisterna. The Rangers’ attack was a carnage: of the 767 soldiers deployed, only 6 returned back to the Allies’ lines. The others were all killed or captured.
And it can be hypothesized that precisely this overwhelming and, in some ways unexpected victory of the Germans, led to the saving of the bridge, the destruction of which at that point was no longer necessary. The dynamite, well hidden, was not used and remained hidden there to the present day
Friends make people happy, but happy people find it easier to make friends. And it is that complex set of human ties that creates the environment of support, good feeling, resilience, trust that make up the matrix of a happy life.
This finding is backed up by one of the longest of all longitudinal research exercises, the Grant Study, begun in 1938, which has tracked the lives of 268 Harvard students — at that time, Harvard was a male-only college — for more than eighty years, seeking to understand what characteristics — from personality type to intelligence to health, habits and relationships contribute to human flourishing.
For over thirty years, the project was directed by George Vaillant, whose books Aging Well and Triumphs of Experience have explored this fascinating territory.”
In an interview published in the March 2008 newsletter to the Grant Study subjects, Vaillant was asked, “What have you learned from the Grant Study men?”
Vaillant’s response was, “That the only thing that really matters in life is your relationships to other people.”
A 2017 summary of the study concluded: “Close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives … Those ties protect people from life’s ‘ discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes.”
The ‘Nun study’
Given the discontent that we have seen to be inherent in a market-led, sensation-driven, pleasure-seeking approach to happiness, what is there to be said for a recovery of the older Philosophical and religious tradition that sees happiness in terms of a life well led?
A powerful piece of evidence is to be found in one of the most famous medical research exercises of recent times, known as the Nun Study.
Directed by David Snowdon of the University of Kentucky Medical Centre, it studied the health Pattern of some seven hundred nuns of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, with particular reference to Alzheimer’s disease. The nuns were aged between 75 and 107, and what gave the study its fascination and depth was the access the researchers had to their autobiographies, written when they were in their early twenties, more than half a century earlier,
This particular Order required Novitiates to write a brief account of their lives on entering the order, and the researchers used linguistic analysis to draw a Picture of their Personalities at that early age.
One of their findings was that the more the early autobiographies expressed positive emotions like gratitude, happiness, hope and love, the more likely the nuns were still to be alive sixty years later. The correlations they discovered were so specific that they were able to predict with 85 per cent accuracy which of the nuns would develop Alzheimer’s and which would not.
The difference in life expectancy between the thankful and (relatively) thankless was, on average, seven years. Being grateful adds years to your life.
From chapter 4, ‘Consuming happiness’ from the book: –
Privacy? Not if your car has a say. Modern cars are computers on wheels, giving manufacturers plenty of opportunities to track you. 
The Cons's Nook: www.ivanmconsiglio.com 