Happy New Year 2023

Whatever the urge is that makes people gather in large crowds at midnight in winter, to watch a lighted ball drop communally or to get a good spot to watch a parade pass the next morning—that urge does not apply to me. Kathryn and I stay home with the animals, and go to bed at the usual time. Still, a new calendar year cries out for comment. Some writers, like the wonderful Dave Barry, summarize the previous year. If you haven’t already, please read this. He makes me laugh out loud.

Another way to approach New Year’s columns is with predictions. I eagerly followed Robert X. Cringley for many years, but he seems to be done predicting. I did a cursory Internet search for “2023 predictions”, which, of course, you can do for yourself. There are many to choose among. Here is the Financial Times, which seems fairly cogent. I don’t predict, and especially don’t predict good news. I watch what happens with interest.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. Why wait for a date on the calendar to work on improving myself? I do plan to keep reading eclectically and critically. I am currently reading Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking, by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander. I hope to write more about it when I have finished reading it. I am thinking of taking an online course on Quantum Computing. I am pretty skeptical about it going in, so it will perhaps inform me and broaden my thinking. We have a couple of trips planned for this year, that we are looking forward to.

Best wishes to all reading this. May you make 2023 a wonderful year for you and the world.