I’m Terry Retter, a retired technology consultant, futurist, and engineer. I also enjoy cooking, observing the world, and sometimes being a curmudgeon.
This blog covers topics that interest me—AI, robotics, astrophysics, economics, gardening, cooking, music, and the occasional odd idea (either mine or someone else’s).
Read the Latest Musings
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Why We Don’t Recognize Big Changes Until They Reach Us
We’ve seen the pattern before—just not always in time Large changes rarely feel important while they are happening. Not because we don’t see them, but because, at least at first, they tend to happen to someone else. A farmer loses his land. A small operator sells off equipment that no longer makes sense. A business across town closes. A new way of doing things appears, and it works—but not in a way that seems immediately relevant. All of these are real changes. They’re just not our changes. However, the question is are we not experiencing a big change in progress?…
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$10 Gas: It Won’t Hit Everyone the Same Way
When fuel costs rise, people adjust differently—and systems follow In a recent post, I explored what might happen if gas prices reached $10 per gallon—a scenario that feels extreme, but not entirely impossible under the right conditions. The most interesting part of that article wasn’t the analysis. It was the reaction. Or maybe more accurately, the shape of the reaction. There were responses. Quite a few, actually. Some thoughtful, some dismissive, some practical, some a bit off to the side. But after reading through them, one thing stood out: It was hard to tell what people actually think—and there certainly…
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We’re Closer Than We Realized
Revisiting Star Trek and the Future That Quietly Arrived I recently finished reading Treknology by Ethan Siegel. The book is about ten years old now, which makes it interesting for a different reason than originally intended. It’s no longer just about the progress that had been made a decade ago. It’s about what has happened since—and how much of it has quietly worked its way into everyday life. A Familiar Future I’ve been a Star Trek fan since it first came out—not a fanatic, never went to conventions or collected memorabilia, but the concept always resonated. When it first aired,…
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We Locked the Doors. We Never Checked Inside
On AI, Security, and the Problems We Didn’t Look For A recent article that showed up in my email feed caught my attention. It said the latest release of Claud Mythos has capabilities that are too dangerous to mke broadly available until our most important software is in a much stronger state. AI systems—specifically tools like Claude—are being used to analyze existing code and uncover security vulnerabilities at a scale that wasn’t practical before. That, by itself, is interesting. But there’s a second layer that may be more important. In simple terms, once the barn door is open, it tends…
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The Coming Tug-of-War Between Utilities and Rooftop Solar
Four years ago, I turned my roof into a power plant. At the time, it felt like a small step—practical, maybe even a little ahead of the curve. My electric bill dropped to almost nothing, replaced mostly by a fixed service fee. Not a quick return on investment but will pay off in time. For a while, it seemed like a simple equation. Generate your own power. Buy less from the utility. Everybody wins. But systems don’t usually work that way for long. The Shift Utilities are beginning to adjust. Not dramatically. Not loudly. But steadily. Rates are changing. Fee…
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What Happens If Gas Hits $10?
You Don’t Replace 300 Million Cars Overnight We have two cars—a 2019 SUV and a 2016 sedan—and we have no plans to replace either one anytime soon. Years ago, I made a simple vow: never buy a car that costs more than my first house. That house cost $38,000 in 1971. At the time, that seemed like a reasonable line to draw. It’s getting harder to keep. New cars are now pushing $50,000. Even used cars are commonly in the $25,000 to $40,000 range. And that doesn’t include electric vehicles, which often come with additional costs—like installing a charging system…
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Turning Seawater Into Drinking Water—With Graphene
A team of researchers has developed a graphene-based membrane that can filter salt out of seawater, potentially turning one of the world’s most abundant resources into drinkable water. That idea isn’t new. Desalination has been around for decades. The problem has always been cost, scale, and energy. Traditional desalination plants are large, expensive, and require significant infrastructure to operate. What makes this development interesting is not just that it works—but how it works. Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal pattern—essentially a material that is only one atom thick. That thinness allows for extremely precise…
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Where Robots Actually Work
(And Why That Matters) For years, we’ve been told that robots were coming for our homes. They would cook, clean, fold laundry, walk the dog, and maybe even offer the occasional piece of advice—something between a helpful assistant and a mechanical companion. That didn’t happen. At least not in the way we imagined. Instead, robots showed up somewhere else entirely. Not in our kitchens. Not in our living rooms. But in warehouses, factories, hospitals, and supply chains—the quiet infrastructure of modern life. And that turns out to be far more important than the original expectation. Walk into a modern warehouse…
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Gardening Tasks for April
Gardening Tips We have had Spring all through March and now it is looking like we may be the last remnants of Winter for the start of April. So many of the garden tasks normally targeted for April may have already been completed. Successful gardening amounts to paying attention and following through with what needs to be done at any one time. Regardless, here are some of the tasks for your garden which should be considered for April. Beware of insects and other pests in your garden. Keep an eye on your garden for aphids, spider mites, etc., and take…
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When Prevention Actually Works
Note: I usually cover men’s health topics but this seems interesting and important. We spend a lot of time talking about what might happen.This is a story about something that actually did. We spend a lot of time talking about what might happen. AI might change everything.Robots might take jobs.New technologies might reshape industries. This is a story about something that actually did. According to a study published in The Lancet Public Health, Australia is on track to become the first country to effectively eliminate cervical cancer as a public health problem—potentially as early as 2028. Not reduce it. Not…
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Robots Are Coming — But They Haven’t Met My Plumber Yet
Where Automation Meets the Real World A few weeks ago, I had a plumbing issue. Nothing dramatic. Just one of those problems that starts small and then slowly reveals itself to be something else entirely. At first glance, it looked straightforward. A leak. Maybe a fitting. Possibly a simple replacement. That lasted about five minutes. What the plumber actually found was a piping system that had been installed throughout our neighborhood when the homes were originally built. In our case, we had made only minor changes over the years—a split pipe at the water heater and a failed bathtub drain.…
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Easter Dinner:
What People Expect vs What Actually Works A Slight Upgrade Without Starting a Family Debate Easter dinner is one of those meals where expectations matter. Not in a loud, demanding way. No one sends out a formal menu in advance. There are no official requirements. But everyone shows up with a quiet assumption about what will be on the table. And if it’s not there, people notice. They may not say anything. But they notice. Easter is not the time to experiment with something completely new or surprising. This is not the moment to introduce a bold reinterpretation of the…
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Robots May Not Arrive the Way We Expect
Robots designed for very specific types of work I came across an interesting article in Forbes discussing a company called RoboForce and their approach to robotics. Instead of trying to build humanoid robots that can do everything, they are taking a different path. Their focus is on creating robots designed for very specific types of work—particularly jobs that are repetitive, physically demanding, or difficult to staff. These systems combine AI, robotics, and real-world data to perform tasks in environments like solar farms, data centers, and industrial operations. The goal is not to replicate human behavior, but to solve particular problems…
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The AI Divide May Not Be What We Think
The People Who Question — And Those Who Don’t You ask AI a question, and it gives you a fast, confident answer — clear, well written, and often persuasive. At that point, you have a choice. You can accept the answer and move on, or pause long enough to question it. Most of the time, that choice passes almost unnoticed. But it may be one of the more important decisions we make in how we use these tools. The First Divide There is a growing conversation about an “AI divide,” usually framed in terms of access — who has the…
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When the Game Becomes the Casino
March Madness, Smartphones, and the New Business of Sports I live in Nevada, so I am not opposed to gambling (even though I don’t gamble). It has been part of the state’s economy for decades. But I do worry about what it is doing to sports and some of the institutions and activities surrounding them. NIL has already changed college athletics, and not necessarily for the better. Sports betting companies are now major sponsors of professional leagues and broadcasts. Increasingly it feels as if the conversation around sports has shifted. It is less about who wins or loses and more…
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When the Bottom Rung Disappears
AI, Apprenticeship, and the Future of Learning On my first day as a structural engineer in the aerospace industry, my supervisor walked me into a room roughly the size of a football field. Every desk was filled with engineers. Most of them had master’s degrees or more. Then he gave me a piece of advice that stayed with me for the rest of my career. Despite my brand new master’s degree in structural engineering from Stanford, I was now the lowest-ranking person in the room. The expectation was simple: watch, listen, and learn by doing the work. The early assignments…
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This Is Something Interesting:
Why Deep Reading Still Matters Many of us grew up reading books, newspapers, and magazines where ideas unfolded slowly over several pages. That kind of reading quietly trained the brain to follow arguments, question claims, and notice inconsistencies. I started reading early. I worked my way through the Hardy Boys series and many of the classics such as Kidnapped, Treasure Island, and The Count of Monte Cristo while still in grade school. That continued through high school and college, where I often found myself reading all sorts of things when I probably should have been studying for my courses. The…
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How St. Patrick’s Day Became More American Than Irish
Every March the same ritual unfolds. And being about 1/8th Irish myself (may be questioned), I look forward to the day. Green clothing appears. Parades roll through city streets. Beer mysteriously turns green. And somewhere in the festivities a cheerful leprechaun usually shows up carrying a pot of gold. Most of us assume this is an ancient Irish tradition stretching back through the centuries. It isn’t. At least not in the way we think. Like many holidays, St. Patrick’s Day is really a layered mixture of history, legend, immigration, and a little creative reinvention along the way. The historical Patrick…
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How Long Does a Civilization Last?
Astrophysicists spend a surprising amount of time thinking about very big questions. One of those questions is whether intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe. In the 1960s astronomer Frank Drake proposed a way to estimate how many technological civilizations might exist in our galaxy. The formula, now known as the Drake Equation, includes several factors: how many stars there are, how many planets might support life, and how often life becomes intelligent. But one of the most important terms in the equation may be the last one: how long a civilization survives once it becomes technologically advanced. If civilizations…
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Humanoid Robots Are Impressive.
That’s Not the Real Issue. Last week I wrote about a drone light show that quietly piqued my curiosity — and raised a few questions. Not because it failed.Not because it was dangerous. But because it worked so smoothly. Thousands of coordinated machines hovering in perfect formation — moving silently, precisely, almost effortlessly — and hardly anyone thinking about what it takes to make something like that possible. The drones themselves weren’t really the point. Scale was. What struck me wasn’t the choreography. It was the realization that thousands of machines could coordinate so smoothly that the complexity disappeared. When…
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March: False Spring Edition
March is the month that lies to gardeners. It gives you one warm afternoon. The sky turns that hopeful shade of blue. The snow on Peavine retreats just enough to make you believe winter has packed up and moved to Idaho. You step outside without a jacket. You smell possibility. And then — three days later — it’s 28 degrees and sleeting sideways. Welcome to False Spring. I’ve seen blooming daffodils wearing two or three inches of snow like it was perfectly normal. They stand there — bright yellow, cheerful, mildly offended — as if this is all part of…
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When Fireworks Learned to Hover
I went to an outdoor event where fireworks were supposed to be the closing attraction. But we didn’t get traditional fireworks with the booms and bangs and the smell of gunpowder in the air. The show started normally enough. Families on blankets. Folding chairs. Someone’s portable speaker playing music slightly too loud. Instead of fireworks, what showed up was a display by a number of drones. It started small — hundreds of lights in the sky. Then the formation expanded to what looked like thousands… maybe more than that. They rose quietly, arranged themselves into a perfect American flag, dissolved…
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Alzheimer’s Detection Is Changing:
What Adults 50+ (and Their Families) Should Know Alzheimer’s used to be something doctors confirmed only after memory problems were already disrupting daily life. Today, that’s beginning to change. In the last few years, researchers have developed simple blood tests that can detect early biological signs of Alzheimer’s — sometimes years before noticeable symptoms begin. That shift is one reason the disease is being discussed more often. Another reason? We’re living longer, and age remains the single greatest risk factor. For those entering their 50s, 60s, and 70s — and for adult children concerned about parents or grandparents — here’s…
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One Pot Meals – Easy Winter Comfort
It seems winter has finally decided to show up. I have been shoveling snow for four days in a row. For those are in the Midwest or east, this may not sound like much. But here in Northern Nevada, it is not normal. We usually get snow one day and it is mostly melted the next day. This week we have received 4 to 12 inches each day. Thus, the need to shovel. Being not as young as I once was, shoveling is tiring activity (I would rather burn me calories at the gym) with a result that I am…
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The Solar Equation Is Changing —
And Utilities Are Rewriting the Math Four years ago, I made a decision to distance myself from the electricity utility as much as possible: I turned my roof into a power plant. The results were immediate. My electric bill collapsed to nearly nothing — reduced mostly to a service fee that was supposedly fixed. For a while, it felt like I had stepped slightly ahead of the curve, producing my own energy while many of my neighbors continued relying entirely on the grid. As rates crept upward and complaints about utility costs grew louder, I watched from a comfortable distance.…
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Carl Sagan Gave Us the Tools to Detect Baloney.
We Should Probably Use Them. Ever get a little weary listening to so-called experts confidently explain things they appear to know very little about? Turn on the television, scroll through social media, or wander into almost any online discussion and you’ll find no shortage of people presenting opinion as fact — often with great conviction and very little evidence. It makes you wonder if there ought to be a simple way to sort insight from nonsense. As it turns out, there is. I recently stumbled across an article built around an idea from Carl Sagan — astronomer, science communicator, and…
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February Gardening To-Do List
This is a bit late but there is still plenty of time to undertake these tasks. So, give your green thumb a workout this month to get in shape for the main event when spring arrives. There’s plenty to do to prep your garden, indoors and out. Protect Plants From Critters Between snows, check prized landscape plants. Use pieces of bird netting to cover vulnerable plants that have visible leaves, like roses. Deer and rabbits usually leave these plants alone, except when they’re the only live leaves in the winter garden. Clean up roses and other flowering shrubs while you’re…
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Will the Next 30 Years Make Today Look Like 1960?
By 1960, we had most of the basics covered. The world had pushed through the Depression. It had survived World War II. Food was mostly available again—no rationing. Cars were improving and gas was cheap. New appliances seemed to show up every year, each one promising to save time, reduce effort, or make life feel more modern. By 1960, you could look around and reasonably think: “We’re doing pretty well.” And looking back, people really were. But here’s the funny part: if you dropped a person from 1960 into today, they wouldn’t just be impressed. They’d be stunned. Not because…
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2026: The Other Half of the Forecast
Politics, Sports, Money, Entertainment, and All the Noise This was intended to be posted on January 2, 2026. But for some technical reasones it never was released. So I will try again. Let me know where you agree and disagree. And have a great 2026. If my first 2026 forecast was about useful things — the quiet technologies that might actually improve daily life — this one is about everything else. The noise. The drama. The stuff that fills up the news cycle whether we like it or not. Most of what shapes a year for regular people isn’t…
