Saturday, March 09, 2024

The Month That Was - February 2024

I'm afraid I have to bail on this month.  I really hate doing that.  I think I've only done it a handful of times in over 20 years, but I haven't had any time to do anything but my day job this month -- it's gotten particularly horrendous  -- and even when I have time to breathe I'm too brain dead to write anything.  Honestly, if it takes so much of my energy that I can't even update this site, something has to be done.  Can't last forever, right?  I promise to be back next month, somehow.  Deepest apologies.

Tuesday, February 06, 2024

The Month That Was - January 2024

My memory is uncertain but I think I started blogging in 1999, which means I've been at this for a quarter-century this year.  Nobody actually blogs anymore, at least not in the original sense.  Not even me.  I just do monthly postings to keep my writing muscles engaged.  At the start I didn't have my own url.  I just had some space allocated by my internet Provide.Net, so my page was something like www.provide.net/dmazz which was my personal allotted space on their servers.  There were no blogging tools so I coded HTML by hand and made adjustments to pagination manually with every post. I got quite efficient at it.  It was during that pre-Google era that my blog reached the height of its popularity when I managed to get listed in Yahoo's list of blogs.  In alphabetic order A Dam Site was at the top of the page so anyone who searched for blogs saw mine first in the list.  Had I been smarter and more foresightful I would have parlayed that into a tech empire. (Interestingly, provide.net still exists as some sort of specialty internet provider with a very reasonably priced fiber offering.  I'm guessing they are a reseller/installer, but idk.)

In any event, we once again increment the year and I have an opportunity to reconfirm my new year's resolutions, which are really just my life principles.


  1. Enhance the lives of the people I care about.

  2. Fight sloth (the Deadly Sin, not the adorable forest creature).


I see no reason to change those.


[TV] Alas, Toob Notes

[Rant] San Francisco State of Mind

[Michigan] Michigan State of Mind


[TV] Alas, Toob Notes

If you've been following my posts for the last few years, nothing in this article in the Guardian about the decline of quality television will be new to you.  It's getting some play because the comments are coming from David Chase, creator of the Sopranos, but really it's been blindingly obvious for many, many years.  (BTW, Chase's follow up to the Sopranos, Many Saints of Newark, was an epic disaster so…)

I try really hard to avoid falling into the trap of reminiscing about times past and griping about degradation.  It's a hole virtually everyone steps in, and it's usually wrong.  I still believe the world is improving as surely as I still acknowledge that it is a ten-step-forward, nine-step-back , jagged, and uphill path.  Often things are worse before they get better.  Often things aren't really worse, just different. Often things that you think are worse are actually better. As Tyler Cowen noted, these are times of change and you will hate living through times of change.


But with respect to television, I think I can safely say that things are objectively worse.  Everything (well not everything, but almost everything) being produced now seems to come from a bottle, a formula.  One show gets some eyeballs and everyone rushes to do some variation.  Modern writers can't seem to generate consistent quality.  It's like anything they do that works must be because they lucked into it.  Cases in point:

  • True Detective:  The first season was groundbreaking, with Matthew McConaughey spouting existential pessimism while riding around with a pissed off Woody Harrelson trying to solve the case of a serial killer.  Remember the Yellow King?  Season two floundered but at least it was original.  Season three succeeded by essentially remaking the first season with enough variation that it seemed fresh.  Season four we are now in the middle of and while they've ramped up the spookiness, I haven't seen a return to quality.  It attempts to remake the season one formula yet again, with mismatched cops who hate each other and spooky quasi-mystical imagery, but it is weak on character and long on cop show banality and cultural stereotypes. I should withhold final judgment until it's over but it's looking like a degradation.

  • Fargo:  I think this is the fourth season and it's bad enough that I abandoned it. It's another attempt to leverage the original movie plot of evil cadres on the Northern Plains fighting it out over a macguffin with a cloy and clever innocent stuck in the middle. The first season was sharp but the trajectory has been downhill ever since.  Not only does it break no new ground, the writing has degraded into online political debate level inanity.


Consider:  Both of these shows can't muster a decent fourth season.  The Sopranos, Mad Men, Better Call Saul, et. al. kept quality high and content fresh through five or six seasons.  The general degradation simply cannot be denied.  Allow me to pretentiously quote John Stuart Mill:


In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.


There is one active show that I would classify as eccentric: The Bear.  Prior to that the last show I can remember that I would classify that way was Lodge 49.  Nobody watched it and it only lasted two seasons. I miss it. You might suggest Ted Lasso, but despite its delightful first season, it descended into banal sweetness and woke tropery after that. I'd be more open to Barry as an example, but as clever as it was, anything about crime or crime adjacent can't really be eccentric.  Here's a question: What shows today don't feature character journeys that have them learn societally approved lessons? What shows are about individuals confronting personal conflicts that may or may not resolve in the way the zeitgeist would guide them, or even resolve at all?  


All of this ranting has all been prompted by the fact that, for the first time ever, Northern Exposure has started streaming in its entirety.  I have fallen for this show even harder than I did in its first run.


You see, my friends, quality TV such as The Sopranos didn't emerge from nothing.  There were hints and indications that things were improving through the decade of the 90's prior to its inaugural season in 1999.  Twin Peaks was truly out of this world and remains a cult favorite to this day.  I have written before about the X-files, specifically episodes written by Darin Morgan.  Buffy the Vampire Slayer foreshadowed all the hyper-irony that has since worn thin, but it was fresh and clever at the time and, like, the X-files, the best episodes were magnificent works of drama.  But the one that stands above them all is Northern Exposure.


As I rewatch it I am reminded of the quality of the writing which reached almost poetic heights. Characters are, on occasion, given outright soliloquies. The town DJ -- Chris in the Morning -- acted as a combination spiritual guide and Greek chorus.  There are constant references to great literature and the vocabulary alone would get the show shot down in our world of sixth-grade reading level normalization.


A second viewing of Rob Morrow's performance in the lead role makes me think it's an all time great. It's no wonder the show promptly died when he left.  But the whole ensemble is tight and well cast.


The thing that stands out most to me is the humanity of it.  Look, there is no doubt where the writers stood on social issues, but rarely was anything purely motivated by social issues, and when it was, it was usually a smoke screen for something personal. Let's take the treatment of race.  There is one character who is portrayed as an outright, unrepentant racist and homophobe.  But he is never treated as a person with anything less than sympathy and understanding.  He is treated both by the other characters and by the writers as a human being.  He is not detested, not portrayed as evil, not given poetic beatdowns;  He is given a character arc that allows him to be human and in fact have aspects to his personality that are quite positive. All the characters are like that.  They all have terrible flaws that, in the current year, would require them to go through symbolic or actual punishment and suffering and either be removed or appropriately re-educated.  The contrast with today is truly stunning.


But in the end, it's the writing that does it.  I have discovered three TV shows in my life that use the written word in something other than an utilitarian manner, for exposition or to move the plot along.  Writing that aspires to artistic merit.  Deadwood, Justified, and now Northern Exposure.  Even though I have seen them all before many years ago, I find myself looking forward to the end of the day when I can sit back and enjoy a couple of episodes.  I doubt this will be the last time I rewatch the series.  It belongs in the Pantheon.


How far we have fallen.


[Rant] San Francisco State of Mind

Triggered by both the Lions playoff game against the 49ers (the chosen team of my SO) and this posting of photos by Scott Alexander, which needs to be looked at, I have been  thinking of San Francisco a bit. Those photos remind me of Ann Arbor in the 70s.  Is that good? In any event, Keep Austin Weird can't hold a candle.

SF is so well documented as a disaster of filth, crime, and chaos, that it almost certainly has to be not as bad as it's portrayed.  Still, the exodus of businesses continues.  The toy store that was the inspiration for Toy Story is closing out of safety concerns.  


Paul Graham (of y-combinator) is of the belief that it's a matter of replacing just a small number of council members and things will turn around right quickly:  "There is hope for San Francisco. Most people don't realize the extent to which the city's problems stem from just a handful of incompetent supervisors." Perhaps, but as someone born in Detroit and having been close to its history my whole life, I can say cities "recovering" or "turning around" is the exception not the rule.  Detroit was the wealthiest metro area in the U.S. 1949, it took about 15-20 years to destroy it and despite all the effort and good faith and noble words, it's still a disaster and that's not going to change.  There are overwhelmingly more examples like that than there are of big cities turning around.  To paraphrase Ernest Hemingway, the end comes very slowly, then all at once.


I was in SF only once, a couple of decades ago when it was still a top tourist destination in the U.S. and I was at an early stage in my traveling phase.  I was thoroughly unimpressed.  It was cold and inconvenient and overpriced.  I saw none of the great beauty that other folks seemed to see. During that time, the big three cities for me were Vegas for the Strip, New York for Manhattan, and New Orleans for the French Quarter.  SF was a nothing-burger by comparison.  I saw no reason to ever go back and haven't.  (The closest I've come since was Carmel-by-the-Sea which is worth a visit.)


And in truth, I think the rest of us will be just fine without a functional SF.  Michigander: "So there is the Golden Gate Bridge, which is 1.7 miles long.  You call that a bridge?  Oh, and there is an island near it?  Alcatraz.  I'm sure that's lovely.  Have fun on your wee little bridge and dire, abandoned prison island."

[Michigan] Michigan State of Mind

Despite living my entire life in Michigan, I hit a deer with my car for the first time. It wasn't a hard hit.  The only thing on my car that was smashed was the grill (made of plastic) and the deer ran off into the woods, with probably little more than a bruise. This has been one of the warmest winters on record (thankfully) and the deer seem particularly active and I find myself driving to work before sunrise, so probability finally caught up with me.  Sixty-three plus years without a deer hit is a pretty good record for anyone in the Great Lakes region. I am blessed.

The other Michigan story is football.  My alma mater, the University of Michigan Wolverines took the National title.  The Wolverines are traditionally in the conversation of the top teams.  Usually what happens is that we beat Ohio State and win the Big Ten, but don't get invited to the championship bracket, instead going to one of the top level bowl games and generally losing. If we lose to Ohio State we don't win the Big Ten and so get invited to a second tier bowl game and generally lose. Not this time, this was a charmed year -- undefeated all the way to the National Championship.  Winning National Championships in college is doubly great because it positions you to get the best recruits in the upcoming years.  Of course, in Michigan's case, as soon as we won the championship, the coach defected to the NFL thereby significantly reducing our recruiting power. Sigh. I hate to say it, but my prediction is that Michigan drifts back into the position it was before, rather than kicking off a dynasty.  I hope I'm wrong.


Perhaps even more surprisingly, the Detroit Lions hosted a home playoff game for the first time in 30 years, won a playoff game for the first time in 32 years, and made it to the Conference Championship for the first time. It was a great run for the Lions who were a perpetual punching bag and optimism reigns because the team is young and their very popular coach is coming back.


So yes, it's been a memorable fall and winter in The Glove, but spring can't come soon enough for me.


Friday, January 05, 2024

The Month That Was - December 2023

Nostalgia: remember when the changing of the year meant you would mis-date the checks you wrote for a couple of weeks?  Now our electronic payments, and even our clocks, know what the day and time is with us telling them, like we're billionaires or something.  

I still wear a lovely mechanical watch that requires winding and resetting the date for months that are shorter than 30 days and it loses about 30 seconds a day so I have to adjust the time every couple of days.  I know it's off because of all those fancy-schmancy electronics.  A TAG Heuer Carrera if you must know. It was a very expensive gift from a very dear friend.  I have been tempted to get a Google watch for activity tracking and such but I would only wear it on my right wrist, the TAG will always retain its place of honor.


Years increment, time passes, memories recede.  Some things should endure.


[Rant] Holiday Ruminations 

[TV] Toob Notes: The Smart and The Stupid

[Good Links] Year-End List


[Rant] Holiday Ruminations

Like many, I struggle with the holidays.  Not with getting depressed, as many do.  It's that my feelings and approach to them just don't seem to mesh with most other people's. I suspect a great deal of this has to do with not having a family in any conventional sense of the word.  Oh, yes, I was in a family growing up and I still have a brother today, but my family was not a family in the sense of deeply shared familial bonds.  For the most part, my family members didn't really want much to do with each other.

Every holiday has a larger, more noble purpose, typically remembrance of some event or some virtue.  We are supposed to pause and pay respect to something we presumably neglect and leave unappreciated the rest of the year.  Now, for those of you who read regularly, I hope you've picked up on my dedication to gratitude.  That makes me think of the holidays as superfluous.  We should, and I try to, appreciate these things throughout the year.  


But that's me being smug, isn't it?  Or perhaps it's just me being a loner.  Maybe for most people the days off or work and/or school are just the thing they need to re-ignite their gratitude.  Or maybe the key thing is that time off is synchronized with their friends and family, although as we know extended time with family is not necessarily healthy.


Whatever the case, I remain a bit of a fish out of water during the holidays.  For a few decades I spent both Thanksgiving and Christmas alone. Many people react to that with pity, but I was completely fine with it, and even preferred it in a certain sense.  There were ten years or so where I happily spent every Thanksgiving in Las Vegas gambling on football games and hiking in the nearby National Parks.  (In this I was ahead of the fashion.  Vegas used to be empty on Thanksgiving, now it's packed.)  Christmas was a point of calmness -- I was not running around buying last minute gifts, or putting on the mask of familial bliss or answering intrusive questions about my life.  Honestly, I didn't feel like I was missing anything.


Things are different now, and I am working to adapt.  I have been adopted by the S.O.'s family which includes a pile of children and grandchildren and a number of Christmas traditions. The first change was in gift giving.  My broad plan when needed has been to give one gift of either known usefulness or a gift certificate.  The new family takes the opposite tack of many small gifts; enough to fill up the space under a tree and a stocking hung on the wall.  This along with a full-on, multi-course, homemade Thanksgiving dinner and a traditional go out for a movie on Christmas afternoon, takes me well outside the realm of familiarity for me.


But there are benefits of being with loved ones, essentially having more opportunities to do the most important thing there is, which is enhancing the lives of the people you care about.  And the grandkids are a blast -- they basically use me as a combination jungle jim and punching bag. So I will take it, and adapt, and improve at doing the Holidays in a new way.


I don't want to give the impression that I miss my old Holiday freedom or that I have suddenly come to Jesus on the meaning of the Holidays.  It's just different.  There will be plenty of times in the future when I am frustrated with obligations and long for my former freedom.  There will also be plenty of times where I will be delighted to be watching some inane Christmas movie for the fifteenth time because it is the first for one of the grandkids.


In the larger picture, perhaps the real blessing is that I am still changing and learning and appreciative of what I have.  And, so, still living a rich life.


Related: Tanner Greer makes the compelling case for the greatness of Christmas.

[TV] Toob Notes: The Smart and The Stupid

I've been keeping up with two shows that have some similarities, and similar problems. 

  • Fargo is a new season of the highly stylized series that grew out of the successful movie of some years ago.  As typical, it is set in the frozen north of Minnesota and North Dakota.  Conflicting groups of evil people, motivated by either greed or pride or some other deadly sin, mesh into a web of destructive behavior with a clever protagonist just trying to survive having been fated into the shenanigans.

  • Fall of the House of Usher is loosely (very, very loosely) based on Edgar Allen Poe writings.  The Usher's in this case are a family whose success came about from the discovery and sale of an opioid that has caused a horrible epidemic, a rather blatant ripped-from-the-headlines effort.  And now the family is apparently suffering for it in truly gruesome ways.


Both of these shows are very skillfully done. They maintain a tricky tonal balance which says a lot, tone being a key dark art in film and video.  The cinematography is compelling.  Pacing is solid.  The acting is excellent.  Plots are coherent.  Just overall great quality productions.  


The problem is both these shows indulge in episodes of infantile moralizing.  In …Usher there is constant scolding about how if instead of profiting from the opioid, they just spend money on charitable causes they could solve the world's problems, and the only survivor of the horrors ends up doing good by starting a charity.  These are the beliefs of a child.


In Fargo, we are presented with a hyperbolic strawman of a libertarian as one of the bad guys.  Then, in the middle of this sharp and entertaining show, he gets into an extended exchange with another antagonist and takes a righteous beatdown from arguments worthy of a Reddit comments section warrior.  Honestly, it's adolescent level snark.


It's jarring, in both these cases. You are cruising along in these series, enjoying the quality and appreciating the thoughtfulness and obvious talent behind them, then suddenly you are hit with a dose of inanity.  It really just makes you second guess your affinity for the show. I guess it just goes to verify the well-known notion that politics makes you stupid.


In contrast, the other show I've been binging accepts its own stupidity.  That's harsh.  I should say, it has no ambitions other than to entertain its target audience.   Season two of Reacher is what it is and that's all that it is. 


Reacher is pure formula. A stoic, loner hero connects with some companions from his past the exact revenge for the murder of their friends.  Two seconds thought will rip any plot developments to shreds.  So you don't give it any thought.  It's fantasy.  It's a superhero film without the cape.  You enjoy the action and camaraderie and knowing that the good guys will win in the end.  Same reason millions have read the Reacher books.


I couldn't take a steady diet of this, but it's nice to have a simple and purely unpretentious show like this now and then.


[Good Links] Year-End Lists

Nothing too important but if you're passing the time scrolling, you'll find some interesting stuff here.

Saturday, December 09, 2023

The Month That Was - November 2023

Well, I spent Thanksgiving weekend sick in Omaha, which sounds awful, but I was grateful.  I was with the SO's family, including three high-energy grandkids who were laboring under the impression that I was just a large toy to be physically abused.  I was happy to be able to instruct the oldest boy (age 6) in the finer points of "I know you are but what am I?" and "I'm rubber, you're glue…".

I also benefited from a traditional Thanksgiving dinner which I haven't had in long enough to not remember when. So despite my sickness and the general mortality fears that keep growing, I find myself quite grateful for my life.  


[Travel] Omaha

[Roaring 20s] The New Next Thing

[TV] Toob Notes


[Travel] Omaha

I'm not sure why they would name an entire city after a Peyton Manning audible call, but there you are.  (Such a dad joke…ugh.)

Omaha is a good place. In any practical sense, Omaha is a success. The living conditions in even the worst parts of the city seem acceptable, which is more than I can say for most cities I've been in.  The infrastructure seems solid.  There is no evidence of labor shortage keeping venues closed.  No significant issues with homelessness.  Folks seem generally friendly, but not overly familiar.  All in all, Omaha seems like a fine place.  


That said, everything everybody says about it being non-descript is true.  The landscape is truly boring: mostly flat, as expected, but lacking the depth of greenery that can make such a landscape attractive, ala Michigan.  


One big advantage it has is that its main industries are clean industries.  Omaha is big in telecommunications, with many call centers located there (although one wonders how this is standing up to off-shoring).  Insurance and financial services are even bigger, I think.  The  military has installations also.  


There are museums and theaters and restaurants and parks, including a world class zoo, but none of it is ostentatious in the slightest and there appears to be no impetus to attract broader attention.


You have a solid economic base of largely high-skill work.  You have an environment that doesn't attract any attention.  It will bring in the sort of people who value a steady, if a bit conservative, life and generally just want to get on with the business of living and growing.  And that's what Omaha appears to be.  


I admire that.  I am very pro-Omaha.  It's nice to find a place that pretty much eschews all the fashionable nonsense that dominates the world. If I was past my youth and settling into a career and being a grown-up, Omaha would be a great place to do it.


[Roaring 20s] The New Next Thing

>>>For several years now the new thing I have been uncertain about has been cryptocurrency.  I could understand all the arguments for it, but I didn't see its value beyond intangible transactions and as a hedge against some sort of bizarre worldwide currency meltdowns.  It's gotten worse since lately everyone who has wanted to do something clever with it has been a scammer.  The core of it -- Bitcoin proper and the Coinbase exchange seem to be legit but it's completely unclear to me where it is all going to land.  Part of the reason is that the only current advantage it has over regular currency is secrecy and therefore it's perfect for illicit activities.  The only other reason to hold it is as a speculative investment which like all fads and fashion can seem brilliant…for a while. For now, I see no purpose relevant to me, so I've kind of let it drift out of my mind.  And yet, in spite of all the nonsense with other crypto (or, perhaps, because of) Bitcoin has more than doubled in price this year.


>>>It's been replaced by AI.  I'm not sure of the ultimate highest purpose for AI.  It is scary, not just in the existential sense, but in the "step into my office, here's your severance" kind of way.  ChatGPT and its ilk are fascinating and obviously useful either in the present or future tense.  People have used it to create a lot of interesting images, to write books in the style of others, just an enormous number of clever things.  My problem is I'm just not sure how I should use it.


Using these AI tools appears to be all about figuring out how to ask the correct things to get the answers you need.  It seems like the key skill to develop here is knowing how to ask the right questions in the right way.  This is called "prompting".  So I prompted Bing Chat (a ChatGPT like bot) to tell me what are good guidelines to follow from prompting AI.  This was the response:


Effective prompts play a crucial role in obtaining high-quality responses from AI systems. Crafting well-structured prompts can significantly impact the output. Here are some essential guidelines for creating effective prompts:

Provide Context: Start your prompt with relevant context. Context helps the AI understand the task and generate more accurate responses. For instance, instead of asking, “What’s the weather like?” provide context like, "What’s the weather forecast for Chicago this weekend?"

Be Specific: Avoid vague prompts. Specify what you want from the AI. If you’re seeking information about a specific topic, mention it explicitly. For example, instead of asking, “Tell me about bananas,” ask, "What are the health benefits of eating bananas?"

Build on the Conversation: If you’re interacting with an AI model that allows continuation, build on the previous prompt. This helps maintain context and coherence. For instance, after asking about banana benefits, you can follow up with, "Are there any downsides to consuming bananas?"

Remember, the way you frame your prompts shapes the AI’s output. By following these guidelines, you can maximize the benefits of AI interactions.

Well that makes sense, I suppose.  It's definitely something I need to work on.  I hate to think of this as the point where I lose the ability to keep up with technical advancements.  I don't want to end up like one of those people who prints out their emails, or writes checks at the grocery store, or stops and asks for directions.  I'm glad I know how to do those things if I have to, but I don't want to.  I don't want to be the last one doing a google search when I could just ask the right question of a bot.  I need to make a concerted effort to practice prompting.


It's amazing how I have turned so many aspects of life into metaphors for getting old.


>>>Other notes:

  • It looks like we have potentially bio-engineered cavities away.  Sadly, this is one advancement I may be too late to take full advantage of.
  • Legacy media is a lost cause. We all know social and alternative media totally dominate the landscape, but it seems legacy has no interest in even trying to adapt.




[TV] Toob Notes

  • End of Archer - the final season (14) ended on a business as usual note, but shortly after it was announced that the actual ending will be a movie length special feature coming on 12/17.  I was actually going to applaud them for not turning the finale into a festival of closure and hugs and learnings.  Now I have to wait. The first two or three seasons of Archer were among the funniest in TV comedy history.  It lost steam after the first few seasons, then completely lost its way in the middle, but came back with some serviceable comedy in the last couple of go rounds.  I await the ultimate finale with trepidation.
  • Fargo - Fargo is never less than excellent and this latest season seems to be the same.  Oh it's got the heavy-handed Noah Hawley define-bad-guys-by-their-deplorable-politics trope, but otherwise, the man knows what he is doing dramatically and the acting performances are always a cut above.  A full accounting once the series is over.   

  • Life on Our Planet - a nature documentary series focusing on the evolution of life. Caught my attention by claims of award winning something or other and having Speilberg's name attached.  But it's nothing interesting.  The special effects might be a cut above similar fare, but it can't decide whether it wants to be serious science or a show about mega creatures for kids.  As a result it doesn't hit either mark.  Then of course, like an iron law, they have to tack on a section at the end about how humans are ruining everything.  Lame.  Skip it.

  • Loki, Season 2 - not sure how to react to this one. Hiddleston and Wilson bring the only character interest and manage a couple of moments of broad comedy, like the pros they are.  The plot meanders confusingly with a lot of time travel-y stuff.  I suppose the ultimate theme is fate and regret, but it's served as weak sauce.  In the end, it serves to essentially reset the Marvel timeline so that Jonathan Majors, who was to be the big bad for the upcoming movies, could be abandoned over his assault charges.  Alas, like all Marvel of late, it just doesn't seem to matter. 

  • Shoresy, Season 2 - I love this show. Low-end hockey bros and hot women.  Foul-mouthed and politically incorrect as hell.  Utterly and totally Canadian to the point where you're gonna want closed captions on.  All with a heart of gold.  Just a delight.