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Of course we couldn't go to LA and not visit Hollywood. So we took the LA Metro (senior off-peak): Pershing Square to Hollywood (8-9 stops) $0.35.

But it is and always has been a bit trashy.

To see more photos of Hollywood, from the LA 2012 album,
click on the pictures above

 

We went for a ramble down Hollywood Boulevard, over the 'star's set in the pavement, and there was Alex Trebek, the recently deceased host of one of my favourite TV shows - Jeopardy!.

Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard, and Marilyn Monroe are, of course, immortalised in the Hollywood Museum.

Paulette features in 'Stardust' a novel by Joseph Kanon, set in that era, mostly in Hollywood, that I had just read. Seeing the picture seemed serendipitous! 

I can recommend Stardust. It's great mystery/detective/spy story, historically detailed, beautifully written.

***

Further down is the Chinese Theatre, where those who have 'made-it' in 'Tinseltown' can leave their hand and footprints in the cement. Several of the women and one or two men had tiny feet  If you can't read them here they are in the attached album at the end.

 

***

On the last day of our trip the plane didn't leave until late so it was back to the Broad for me and more shops for Wendy.  We still had several hours to spare. Wendy having some last-minute shopping to attend to, so I decided to take in a movie. What was showing this arvo? I could catch a bus. Might it be to Barbie or Oppenheimer?

When we were in Canada in July we saw enough US TV not to miss the hype when Oppenheimer got its release (Christopher Nolan's new ‘blockbuster’).

This was another instance of serendipity, as I had just ordered Joseph Kannon’s ‘Los Alamos’, for my Kindle, having recently read his brilliant ‘Stardust’ (see above).  And here we were in Hollywood on the last day of our trip. Stardust indeed!

To read my review of the movie click on the image below:

ABomb

Go and see Oppenheimer, you will think about it for days afterwards.

***

Now, after six weeks, it was time to go home:

 

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Travel

Malta

 

 

Almost everyone in Australia knows someone who hailed directly from Malta or is the child of Maltese parents. There are about a quarter as many Maltese Australians as there are Maltese Maltese so it is an interesting place to visit; where almost every cab driver or waiter announces that he or she has relatives in Sydney or Melbourne.

Read more: Malta

Fiction, Recollections & News

The Atomic Bomb according to ChatGPT

 

Introduction:

The other day, my regular interlocutors at our local shopping centre regaled me with a new question: "What is AI?" And that turned into a discussion about ChatGPT.

I had to confess that I'd never used it. So, I thought I would 'kill two birds with one stone' and ask ChatGPT, for material for an article for my website.

Since watching the movie Oppenheimer, reviewed elsewhere on this website, I've found myself, from time-to-time, musing about the development of the atomic bomb and it's profound impact on the modern world. 

Nuclear energy has provided a backdrop to my entire life. The first "atomic bombs" were dropped on Japan the month before I was born. Thus, the potential of nuclear energy was first revealed in an horrendous demonstration of mankind's greatest power since the harnessing of fire.

Very soon the atomic reactors, that had been necessary to accumulate sufficient plutonium for the first bombs, were adapted to peaceful use.  Yet, they forever carried the stigma of over a hundred thousand of innocent lives lost, many of them young children, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The fear of world devastation followed, as the US and USSR faced-off with ever more powerful weapons of mass destruction.

The stigma and fear has been unfortunate, because, had we more enthusiastically embraced our new scientific knowledge and capabilities to harness this alternative to fire, the threat to the atmosphere now posed by an orgy of burning might have been mitigated.

Method:

So, for this article on the 'atomic bomb', I asked ChatGPT six questions about:

  1. The Manhattan Project; 
  2. Leo Szilard (the father of the nuclear chain reaction);
  3. Tube Alloys (the British bomb project);
  4. the Hanford site (plutonium production);
  5. uranium enrichment (diffusion and centrifugal); and
  6. the Soviet bomb project.

As ChatGPT takes around 20 seconds to write 1000 words and gives a remarkably different result each time, I asked it each question several times and chose selectively from the results.

This is what ChatGPT told me about 'the bomb':

Read more: The Atomic Bomb according to ChatGPT

Opinions and Philosophy

Adolf Hitler and me

 

 

 

Today, with good cause, Adolf Hitler is the personification of evil. 

Yet without him my parents may never have married and I certainly would not have been conceived in a hospital where my father was recovering from war injuries. 

Read more: Adolf Hitler and me

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