“An epic account of the decades-long battle to control what has emerged as the world’s most critical resource–microchip technology–with the United States and China increasingly in conflict. You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil–the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything–from missiles to microwaves, smartphones to the stock market–runs on chips. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower. Now, America’s edge is slipping, undermined by competitors in Taiwan, Korea, Europe, and, above all, China. Today, as Chip War reveals, China, which spends more money each year importing chips than it spends importing oil, is pouring billions into a chip-building initiative to catch up to the US. At stake is America’s military superiority and economic prosperity. Economic historian Chris Miller explains how the semiconductor came to play a critical role in modern life and how the U.S. become dominant in chip design and manufacturing and applied this technology to military systems. America’s victory in the Cold War and its global military dominance stems from its ability to harness computing power more effectively than any other power. But here, too, China is catching up, with its chip-building ambitions and military modernization going hand in hand. America has let key components of the chip-building process slip out of its grasp, contributing not only to a worldwide chip shortage but also a new Cold War with a superpower adversary that is desperate to bridge the gap. Illuminating, timely, and fascinating, Chip War shows that, to make sense of the current state of politics, economics, and technology, we must first understand the vital role played by chips”–Amazon.
Category: Activities (Page 12 of 50)
Activities are gatherings that occur on a regular schedule, usually weekly, to enjoy a specific pastime.
URBAN HIKE
NORWALK RIVER VALLEY TRAIL
NORWALK, CT
FEBRUARY 22, 2024
10:00 AM
The Norwalk River Valley Trail will eventually run from Calf Pasture Beach in Norwalk to Danbury. We hiked one finished section in Wilton last November. The trail is either paved or packed stone, is well marked and has limited ups and downs. The section of the trail we will be hiking on 2/15 runs for 3 miles north from the Maritime Museum in South Norwalk. This is an out and back hike so, depending on the weather and how we feel, we can turn around at any point and return to the start. We will probably hike for 4-5 miles in total which should take us 2 hours or less.
From the start at the front door of the Maritime Museum the trail takes us along the Norwalk River behind the SONO Mall, along the Metro North tracks, past the Norwalk Transfer Station and into the Pine Island Cemetery which dates from 1708 where the oldest surviving headstone dates from 1723. On north past the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion, through Union Park and along the river again up past Riverside Cemetery to the end at Kellogg Pond. On the return we will pass through Oyster Shell Park which has a commanding view over the river out to the sound. We will have an optional lunch at Mamma Bella Cucina near the museum.
DIRECTIONS: Park in the Maritime Center Garage on N. Water Street which is directly across from the Center. The restaurant is in the garage building. Bring friends and family and dogs on a leash are allowed.
CONTACT: Dave McCollum
Recap:
A group of 22 DMA hikers and friends braved a chilly but pleasant day traversing a completed section of the future trail from Norwalk to Danbury that begins at the Maritime Aquarium and runs north for 3 miles to Broad Street. Our group only went up as far as Riverside Cemetery, a distance of 2.2 miles, before returning back along the same path to the Aquarium. We were joined by Tanner Thompson, a Norwalk resident who is planning a new trail from Norwalk to Greenwich. Tanner is also involved in Norwalk affairs and was able to provide interesting commentary on many aspects of the history and state of the NRVT.
This section of the NRVT runs along the Norwalk River and passes through Pine Island Cemetery, which dates from 1708, past the Lockwood-Matthews Mansion and on up past Union Park to Riverside Cemetery. 
Because it was an out and back hike, some hikers turned around at various points and headed back to the Aquarium, tailoring their hike to the distance that was comfortable for them. Fourteen of us made the entire trip and eight stopped for lunch on the way back at The Norwalk Art Space Café at 455 West Avenue for lunch. We were joined by one non-hiker who came to lunch. The Art Space is in a repurposed church and features local art in addition to delicious food. After lunch, we resumed our hike back to the Aquarium.
This trail is an amazing amenity for all of Fairfield County to enjoy.
Dave McCollum
Robert Plunkett
“HIKING” SHERWOOD ISLAND STATE PARK
SHERWOOD ISLAND CONNECTOR
WESTPORT, CT
JANUARY 18, 2024
We will be walking about 3 miles through Sherwood Island State Park on mostly hard and gravel paths. Very little up and down. We will meet in the Pavilion parking lot at 10:30 AM. The Park hugs the Sound shoreline and is often quite windy. Dogs are permitted on a leash and, as always, bring anyone with you who would enjoy a one hour plus walk in a beautiful setting. We will have an optional lunch after at the Little Barn in Westport.
HISTORY
Sherwood Island State Park is the oldest state park in Connecticut dating to 1914. The island itself was first settled by Daniel Sherwood in1787 where he built a grist mill. Over the next 70 years the land was farmed by many others but around 1860 the property became known as “Sherwood’s Island”
After the Connecticut State Park Commission was formed in 1911 the search for suitable shorefront property to buy was on. The first piece of the existing park was purchased in 1914 making this the oldest state park. The park officially opened in 1932 but not until 1950 did the Army Corps of Engineers build the jetties and extend the beaches. The Pavilion opened in 1959 and a 911 Memorial was added in 2002.
DIRECTIONS
This one is easy! Take Exit 18 off I-95 (Sherwood Island connector) and turn right towards the Sound. The road goes directly into the Park. Keep straight onto the wide roundabout and take the exit marked “Pavilion Parking”. We’ll meet at the front of that lot up towards the Pavilion.
Mike Wheeler and Bob Baker will moderate a discussion of Affordable Housing on March 7th at 2 pm at the DCA and on Zoom.
What is the status of Affordable Housing in Darien? What is the Darien Affordable Housing Plan of 2022? What is happening at the state level? What would a Fair Share requirement mean to Darien? Should Darien be funding its Affordable Housing Fund? Among the experts joining us are DMA and P&Z member George Reilly and Joe Warren of the Darien Housing Authority
Articles of Interest
“HIKING” GREENWICH POINT PARK
7 TOD’S DRIFTWAY, GREENWICH
THURSDAY DECEMBER 7, 2023
10:30
We will be walking around Greenwich Point starting at 10:30 am.
NOTE THAT THIS START TIME IS LATER THAN OTHER HIKES. We will be walking about 3 miles over flat, mostly paved or packed gravel paths, which should take us about an hour and a half.
Greenwich Point is a 147 acre property owned by the Town of Greenwich which bought the property in 1945. The peninsula, surrounded on three sides by water, was the private estate of J. Kennedy Tod who purchased the property in the 1880s. Greenwich Point offers spectacular views of Manhattan and the Greenwich shoreline. It is a beautiful place to walk and only available to non-Greenwich residents (without a substantial fee) during the months of December-April.
We will assemble in the first parking lot on the right after you pass the gatehouse. Greenwich Point can be windy and cold so layer up! Dogs on a leash are permitted and, as always, bring guests.
We will have an optional lunch at Lugano in Old Greenwich.
Contacts:
Dave McCollum dgmccollum63@gmail.com and 203-858-5688
Robert Plunkett rgplunkett1@gmail.com and 203-246-2898
HIKING GREENWICH POINT
DECEMBER 7, 2023
The scenery at Greenwich Point never disappoints. Even on a cold and cloudy day, there is so much to look at along the shore and inside the park itself. A hearty group of 23 DMAers and guests (plus two dogs) walked about 3 miles in an hour and a half. Some of the group were first timers to the site and were impressed with its size and beauty, not to mention the history of the Tod family’s ownership and the remains of the original mansion. Marilyn Parker’s superb photographs capture the day perfectly!
The ingenuity of DMA members was on display again at lunch after the hike. Out of the original 23, 16 opted to join the lunch at Lugano restaurant in Old Greenwich. An addition 3 skipped the hike and just came to lunch! Apparently the post hike lunches have become an attraction in themselves!
Dave McCollum
Robert Plunkett
A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history
Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack.
New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.
Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse–one studying the stallion’s bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.
Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.
In preparation for our discussion next Wednesday of the novel Horse, by Geraldine Brooks, below is a link to a 7-minute PBS interview with the author that has very relevant content and a high production value:
A riveting, immersive account of the agonizing decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan–a crucial turning point in World War II and geopolitical history–with you-are-there immediacy by the New York Times bestselling author of Ike’s Bluff and Sea of Thunder.
At 9:20 a.m. on the morning of May 30, General Groves receives a message to report to the office of the secretary of war “at once.” Stimson is waiting for him. He wants to know: has Groves selected the targets yet?
So begins this suspenseful, impeccably researched history that draws on new access to diaries to tell the story of three men who were intimately involved with America’s decision to drop the atomic bomb–and Japan’s decision to surrender. They are Henry Stimson, the American Secretary of War, who had overall responsibility for decisions about the atom bomb; Gen. Carl “Tooey” Spaatz, head of strategic bombing in the Pacific, who supervised the planes that dropped the bombs; and Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, the only one in Emperor Hirohito’s Supreme War Council who believed even before the bombs were dropped that Japan should surrender.
Henry Stimson had served in the administrations of five presidents, but as the U.S. nuclear program progressed, he found himself tasked with the unimaginable decision of determining whether to deploy the bomb. The new president, Harry S. Truman, thus far a peripheral figure in the momentous decision, accepted Stimson’s recommendation to drop the bomb. Army Air Force Commander Gen. Spaatz ordered the planes to take off. Like Stimson, Spaatz agonized over the command even as he recognized it would end the war. After the bombs were dropped, Foreign Minister Togo was finally able to convince the emperor to surrender.
To bring these critical events to vivid life, bestselling author Evan Thomas draws on the diaries of Stimson, Togo and Spaatz, contemplating the immense weight of their historic decision. In Road to Surrender, an immersive, surprising, moving account, Thomas lays out the behind-the-scenes thoughts, feelings, motivations, and decision-making of three people who changed history.
HIKING
NORWALK RIVER VALLEY TRAIL
WILTON, CT
NOVEMBER 2, 2023
9:30 AM
The Norwalk River Valley Trail, when completed, will be a multi-use 30 mile trail stretching from Calf Pasture Beach in Norwalk to Danbury. The NRVT is a 501(c(3) non-profit organization headquartered in Georgetown, CT funded by private contributions. Every $250 donated builds one more foot of trail!
A completed section that we will be hiking in Wilton runs from near the Orem Diner on US 7 for 2.4 miles through thick woods up to Skunk Road where the completed section ends. We will hike up the trail and then retrace our steps back to RT 7. The path is 10 feet wide and composed of compacted stone and there is little elevation change. We estimate the round trip will take about 2 hours after which we will adjourn to Orem diner for an optional lunch.
The parking lot for the trail is on the west side of RT 7 just past Orem but short of the corner where RT 106 ends at RT 7. It is marked as a lot for the trail as well as for carpooling.
Dogs, friends and family are welcome on this hike.
Dave McCollum
Robert Plunkett
On the coldest day of the fall, 26 hearty DMAers and guests hiked the 4.5 mile roundtrip of the new Wilton Loop of the NRVT. This was an out and back trek since the new trail is not finished past Skunk Road on the east side of Rt 7 in Wilton. As advertised, the trail is wide and made of crushed stone giving a smooth surface now covered by leaves.. There was some ice on the several bridges but all traversed safely. As is typical on our hikes, we saw little wildlife but many other hikers and a couple of bikes.
With such a large group, we got strung out quite a bit but all gathered at the Skunk Road terminus for a group photo by Marilyn Parker. The different speeds also meant we arrived back at the parking lot in small bunches. Many hikers stayed for lunch at Orem Diner nearby but we were prevented from having a group lunch because of a large college group which was already in the Diner. All does not go as planned all the time!
Dave McCollum
Robert Plunkett
The last Current Affairs unit of the year will explore the role that the Federal Reserve played coming out of the Pandemic. How did the Fed deal with its important mandate to preserve price stability? What could Jerome Powell have done differently? We will examine the three most significant policy tools available to a central bank in fighting inflation: interest rates; quantitative tightening; and coordination of monetary and fiscal strategies with Treasury. Since the viewpoints on these matters vary widely among the media and the public, discussions at this CA session are expected to be lively. Bert von Stuelpnagel will start with an introduction of the subject and moderate these discussions. He says that his two objectives for the session are (i) to better understand what happened, but also (ii) to allow participants to make an assessment of what interest rates might do going forward.
Bert wrote his master’s thesis at the State University in Munich on monetary policy in 1977. For the next 40 years he worked in the banking industry, always on the fixed income desk, ending his career as the head of dollar capital markets at BayernLB, New York. In the 1990s, he served on the board of the Financial Markets Association. In retirement, he has remained an avid Fed Watcher, always guessing what the Fed may be up to next, and appreciative of Chairman Greenspan’s one-liner that “if I made myself clear about future interest rates, you must have misunderstood”.
Recommended Readings:
Paul Krugman, Wonking Out – Are High Interest Rates the New Normal? New York Times, September 29, 2023
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/29/opinion/natural-interest-rate-higher.html
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, September 19-20 FOMC Meeting, Press Release
https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomcpresconf20230920.htm
MarketWatch, Ray Dalio thinks the U.S. is courting a debt crisis. Are regulators moving fast enough to avert it? October 12, 2023
Reuters: Fed’s QT mix may be capping, not spurring, long term yields, October 11, 2023
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/fed-qt-mix-may-be-capping-not-spurring-long-yields-2023-10-11/
Wall Street Journal: Where have all the Foreign Buyers Gone for US Treasury Debt, November 17, 2023
Forbes: Here is the Fed’s 2024 Meeting Schedule and Interest Rate Outlook, November 18, 2023
What are the effects of deregulation on commercial air travel? How are airlines trying to reinvent air travel as business travel declines? What will Artificial Intelligence mean to aviation? Are spare parts the airlines are using safe? What happens in the cockpit of a Navy jet when it is strafed by a Chinese jet? A pilot all of this career, Gunnar will tell us things we never knew about aviation.
Articles of interest
Your Pilot has a new job and a bigger plane to fly WSJ-Subscription required
Electric Planes, Once a Fantasy, Now Take to the Sky
Why Planes Were Grounded for the First Time Since 9/11
Spate of Runway Near Misses Casts Shadow Over Summer Travel
More Workers Are Getting Hurt on the Tarmac. ‘It Was Really Frightening.’
Airlines, Regulators Weigh More Cockpit Safety Alerts After Close Calls on Runways
Delta, Southwest Search for Jet Engines Parts Sold With Forges Safety Records
American Airlines’ Radical Plan to Reinvent Business Travel
Revenge Travel Fizzles for Budget Airlines
“When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side? In Going Infinite Lewis sets out to answer this question, taking readers into the mind of Bankman-Fried, whose rise and fall offers an education in high-frequency trading, cryptocurrencies, philanthropy, bankruptcy, and the justice system. Both psychological portrait and financial roller-coaster ride, Going Infinite is Michael Lewis at the top of his game, tracing the mind-bending trajectory of a character who never liked the rules and was allowed to live by his own–until it all came undone”–
HIKING AND HAPPY WANDERERS
WALKWAY ACROSS THE HUDSON
POUGHKEEPSIE, NY
OCTOBER 26, 2023
The Walkway Across the Hudson is billed as “The Longest Elevated
Pedestrian Bridge in the World” as it spans the Hudson River between
Poughkeepsie NY and Highland NY. It provides magnificent panoramic views
of the Hudson, and at 212 feet above the river, this 1.28 mile linear park
boasts scenic views north to The Catskills and south to the Hudson Highlands.
The Walkway structure dates from 1889 when it was built as a railroad bridge
eventually carrying as many as 3000 train cars a day. A fire on May 8, 1974
halted train traffic forever but after 35 years the bridge was reopened as the
Walkway on October 3, 2009 as a part of the Hudson Valley Rail Trail
Network. For more information on the Walkway see Walkway.org
TRIP PLAN
We will gather at the DCA for an 8:30 AM departure for Poughkeepsie by car
pool. The drive takes about 1.5 hours to the parking lot at 61 Parker Avenue
which is at the east end of the Walkway. We will cross the entire span to the
west bank of the Hudson, taking our time to enjoy the views and then retrace
our steps back to the Poughkeepsie starting point. On the Poughkeepsie side
of the bridge is an elevator down to the riverbank. If it’s open, we have the
option of a ride down and back. Once back up on the Walkway we will
proceed to lunch at Lola’s, a very good sandwich shop right under the
Walkway. There are restrooms at either end of the Walkway. We should be
back at the DCA by 3:00 PM.
As always, spouses and guests are invited. There will be a sign up sheet at the
DMA meetings on October 11, 18 and 25.
Dave McCollum
Bob Plunkett
David Mace
Joe Spain
Trip report:
On a late October day with weather more like early September about 35 DMAers, spouses and friends crossed the Hudson River on the spectacular repurposed railroad bridge from the 1890s. At its peak, the bridge carried more than 3000 train cars a day. A fire in 1974 closed the bridge but it was reborn in 2009 as the “Walkway”.
Usually we can get an accurate headcount but here walkers came from different points and at slightly different times due to the distance from Darien. All of us traversed the 1.25 mile length to the west side of the river and then wandered back across, stopping often to admire the fantastic views of the river below and for miles up and down. The only boats visible today were an oil barge pushed by a tug and a sailboat moving slowly in the light wind.
Most enjoyed a sandwich lunch at Lola’s situated under the bridge on the Poughkeepsie side. Lola’s has really good food but seating is limited and it is popular so it took some patience for most to be fed. A smaller number opted for lunch at Tavern 23, a short walk from the bridge.
We think all would agree it was a day well spent despite the long trip. Thanks to all who participated!
Dave McCollum Robert Plunkett Joe Spain David Mace
