After a string of about 17 straight years, this was the second year in a row I did not spend Thanksgiving in Las Vegas. In fact, it's been two years since I have been out West at all. That needs to change. Still I got to Florida for the long weekend and spent Thanksgiving at a tiki bar on the waterfront -- so that's almost as good as Vegas.
Sorry to be so late this month -- certainly the latest I've ever been. I was swamped beyond reason for the last half of November and the start of December was no better. I've had an adventure lining up a new insurance carrier, been overwhelmed at my day job, and generally trying to follow up on nine-million other things including travel shenanigans. More on that next month (maybe).
[Books, Baseball] Book Look: Cubs Way
[Movies] Flick Check: The Irishman
[Good Links] Bits and Pieces
Sunday, December 15, 2019
[Books, Baseball] Book Look: Cubs Way, by Tom Verducci
Subtitled "The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse", this is the story of how Theo Epstien, the man who found a way to break the Red Sox curse, turned around and did the same thing for arguably an even more deeply cursed franchise, the Cubs.
Most books like this tend to be more like puff pieces; sentimental memorabilia for folks who want to relive some previous glory and while there is some of that, Verducci does a much better job of providing some tactical and strategic angles to building a winner than most authors. You get some valuable glimpses into how much information is available in the contemporary stat-driven game. To wit:
Among the other interesting aspects on display is how Epstien (and presumably his peers) approached building the team in the same way you would build a business. You start with a plan -- a set of strategies and goals and an explanation of how that gets you to win the World Series. Here the book loses the thread a bit. We are given a brief outline of the plan as presented to the organization. We are then introduced to the players acquired to make it happen, often with very affecting biographical info, but we are not really given deep info on how it was decided these players were the ones to fulfill the plan. This leaves fairly sizeable hole in our picture.
And still you need luck. As Billy Beane pointed out in Moneyball, over a 162 games playing the probabilities works out. Over the dozen or so games in the postseason it becomes more of a crapshoot. And so, despite all the sharp and clever scheming and planning to build the team, the Cubs needed in the postseason too. They needed a clutch hit from a veteran on his way out. They needed their top reliever to keep his fragile emotional state in check and pitch more innings than he ever expected.
Should you read Cubs Way? If you are interested in re-living the Cubs World Series championship, then absolutely. I am still amazed at a single statistic: The celebration was attended by 5 Million people. One of the largest gatherings of the human species in all history. If you are looking for insight into the business side of baseball or you are a full on stats-head, it's not quite as satisfying, but still worthwhile.
Aside: If you've been reading along, you know I adopted the Astros as my back up baseball team, as I have been spending some time in Houston, have been to a couple of games, and the Tigers (always my first team) are dead in the water. The Astros lost the World Series to the Nationals -- I think the only Series where all seven games were won by the visiting team. Big disappointment, but the real story came later when they were accused of using electronic means to steal signs from opposing teams. As the narrative is currently formulated, during their World Series championship year, 2017, the Astros used a video camera to relay the opposing catchers signs then someone in one of the stadium tunnels would bang a trashcan to indicate the pitch such that it could be heard by the Astros batter. It is an important scandal, especially since the Astros won the series. As they say: Big, if true.
Most books like this tend to be more like puff pieces; sentimental memorabilia for folks who want to relive some previous glory and while there is some of that, Verducci does a much better job of providing some tactical and strategic angles to building a winner than most authors. You get some valuable glimpses into how much information is available in the contemporary stat-driven game. To wit:
- Video is so detailed that pitchers can be evaluated on the rpms they put on their breaking balls.
- The measurement of Exit Speed, or the speed of the ball off the hitters bat, has taken on a great importance.
- There is so much situational data -- how a player performs in specific circumstances (# of outs, # times through the rotation, how the hitter performs vs. pitcher's strengths, and all these in combination) -- that it needs to be reduced to a few simple numbers so in-game decisions can be made quickly.
- Incredible contortions are made for the psychological well-being of the players -- beyond just making should that all conceivable distractions are eliminated. Whatever elaborate mental preparations a player desires are supported completely -- everything from food choices to high end fitness equipment to personal psychologists.
Among the other interesting aspects on display is how Epstien (and presumably his peers) approached building the team in the same way you would build a business. You start with a plan -- a set of strategies and goals and an explanation of how that gets you to win the World Series. Here the book loses the thread a bit. We are given a brief outline of the plan as presented to the organization. We are then introduced to the players acquired to make it happen, often with very affecting biographical info, but we are not really given deep info on how it was decided these players were the ones to fulfill the plan. This leaves fairly sizeable hole in our picture.
And still you need luck. As Billy Beane pointed out in Moneyball, over a 162 games playing the probabilities works out. Over the dozen or so games in the postseason it becomes more of a crapshoot. And so, despite all the sharp and clever scheming and planning to build the team, the Cubs needed in the postseason too. They needed a clutch hit from a veteran on his way out. They needed their top reliever to keep his fragile emotional state in check and pitch more innings than he ever expected.
Should you read Cubs Way? If you are interested in re-living the Cubs World Series championship, then absolutely. I am still amazed at a single statistic: The celebration was attended by 5 Million people. One of the largest gatherings of the human species in all history. If you are looking for insight into the business side of baseball or you are a full on stats-head, it's not quite as satisfying, but still worthwhile.
Aside: If you've been reading along, you know I adopted the Astros as my back up baseball team, as I have been spending some time in Houston, have been to a couple of games, and the Tigers (always my first team) are dead in the water. The Astros lost the World Series to the Nationals -- I think the only Series where all seven games were won by the visiting team. Big disappointment, but the real story came later when they were accused of using electronic means to steal signs from opposing teams. As the narrative is currently formulated, during their World Series championship year, 2017, the Astros used a video camera to relay the opposing catchers signs then someone in one of the stadium tunnels would bang a trashcan to indicate the pitch such that it could be heard by the Astros batter. It is an important scandal, especially since the Astros won the series. As they say: Big, if true.
[Movies] Flick Check: The Irishman
This one is a bit different for Scorsese. Yes, it's about organized crime. Yes, it has De Niro and Pesci. But this time we throw in Pacino for good measure. And, more interestingly, the arc here is not just a storied event, although there is a main event, but an entire life. It is long -- three and a half hours - and it probably should have been shorter, or longer and a trilogy, or perhaps a mini-series.
To summarize, in the first third of the movie we follow the rise of Frank Sheeran -- an ambitious, corrupt, delivery truck driving tough guy (De Niro) as he climbs in rank in the mob to enforcer and hitman. The second part sees him essentially go on loan to Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino) with whom he develops a bond. In third part Hoffa goes so far off the rails that the De Niro character is ordered by the mob boss (Pesci) to kill Hoffa.
Along the way we are treated to dramatized drive-bys to many mob mythologies: Kennedy being made president by the mob who are then responsible for his assassination, the Bay of Pigs being an attempt to save all the mob investments in Havana, and of course Hoffa's murder. We are also given a glimpse into the effect mob life on the families, especially through the eyes of Sheeran's daughters.
I'll take this opportunity to point out the women play a very small role in this movie. As do any minorities. It's a story almost exclusive of white men, mostly old ones at that. If that bothers you, you should not watch it. If you watch it even though it bothers you, you can't say you weren't warned so at least admit you chose to be bothered. The nice thing about Netflix is your right to press "exit" on your remote and pick something else to watch.
In the canon of Scorsese mob films, this is more contemplative. It breaks no truly new ground -- in fact, I hold a minor suspicion that Scorsese had the idea to remake The Godfather in his image -- the choice of the mob life, the costs beyond the violence, and regrets at the end, all without the Coppola romanticism.
This leads to another interesting aspect of the film: bringing Pacino into the mix with De Niro and Pesci. De Niro is De Niro. He plays a solid, multi-layered character, but it's not a stretch for him. Pacino is well known to have had pretty much one character since Scent of a Woman -- a mildly unhinged, flamboyant loudmouth. That how he plays Hoffa, and it fits since that's what Hoffa was. The real standout is Pesci. Here he plays the opposite of the profane psycho role he normally takes. Instead he's a wizened, hyper-competent mob boss, a figure of respect, in fact, almost like Marlon Brando's Vito Corleone in reputation.
The Irishman is a terrific movie. Scorsese still makes terrific movies. It's human heart is on display, the lack of which is the thing he decried about superhero movies so he's practicing what he preaches. If he's not shaking up the world with Taxi Driver or Mean Streets anymore, he's still one of the great ones. The Irishman is proof.
To summarize, in the first third of the movie we follow the rise of Frank Sheeran -- an ambitious, corrupt, delivery truck driving tough guy (De Niro) as he climbs in rank in the mob to enforcer and hitman. The second part sees him essentially go on loan to Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino) with whom he develops a bond. In third part Hoffa goes so far off the rails that the De Niro character is ordered by the mob boss (Pesci) to kill Hoffa.
Along the way we are treated to dramatized drive-bys to many mob mythologies: Kennedy being made president by the mob who are then responsible for his assassination, the Bay of Pigs being an attempt to save all the mob investments in Havana, and of course Hoffa's murder. We are also given a glimpse into the effect mob life on the families, especially through the eyes of Sheeran's daughters.
I'll take this opportunity to point out the women play a very small role in this movie. As do any minorities. It's a story almost exclusive of white men, mostly old ones at that. If that bothers you, you should not watch it. If you watch it even though it bothers you, you can't say you weren't warned so at least admit you chose to be bothered. The nice thing about Netflix is your right to press "exit" on your remote and pick something else to watch.
In the canon of Scorsese mob films, this is more contemplative. It breaks no truly new ground -- in fact, I hold a minor suspicion that Scorsese had the idea to remake The Godfather in his image -- the choice of the mob life, the costs beyond the violence, and regrets at the end, all without the Coppola romanticism.
This leads to another interesting aspect of the film: bringing Pacino into the mix with De Niro and Pesci. De Niro is De Niro. He plays a solid, multi-layered character, but it's not a stretch for him. Pacino is well known to have had pretty much one character since Scent of a Woman -- a mildly unhinged, flamboyant loudmouth. That how he plays Hoffa, and it fits since that's what Hoffa was. The real standout is Pesci. Here he plays the opposite of the profane psycho role he normally takes. Instead he's a wizened, hyper-competent mob boss, a figure of respect, in fact, almost like Marlon Brando's Vito Corleone in reputation.
The Irishman is a terrific movie. Scorsese still makes terrific movies. It's human heart is on display, the lack of which is the thing he decried about superhero movies so he's practicing what he preaches. If he's not shaking up the world with Taxi Driver or Mean Streets anymore, he's still one of the great ones. The Irishman is proof.
[Good Links] Bits and Pieces
Notes and quotes and links of interest:
*Last month I wrote about the Coming California Crack Up. I'm beginning to think I should make it on ongoing series. To wit, from Slate Star Codex:
*The breaking of the 2-hour marathon sparked a lot of discussion about what counts as a genuine athletic achievement in the wake of technological and strategic manipulation. Are the shoes legal? Was the course realistic? Is drafting and pacing fair? The time was unofficial. And no, it probably shouldn't "count" per se, but the achievement was remarkable. I pulled this off Twitter:
*Very sad, but not surprised, to see Lodge 49 cancelled. Not surprised because it was the only truly character driven show on TV, apart from Better Call Saul which enters its last season shortly, and nobody seems to watch those. It may yet find a new home and survive, but if there were a vibrant market for such shows there would be more of them on the air.
*When I read for pure entertainment I often resort to crime fiction. I'll be delving into this list of great crime fiction from Ethan Iverson for while, I suspect.
*One of the ongoing themes here is how the world is moving beyond me as I age, how all the familiar cultural artifacts and activities slowly drift out of sight. How We'll Forget John Lennon breaks it all down scientifically.
*Last month I wrote about the Coming California Crack Up. I'm beginning to think I should make it on ongoing series. To wit, from Slate Star Codex:
California passes a law saying that freelance journalists may not write more than 35 stories per year, which many freelance journalists argue is not enough to survive on and would essentially destroy freelance journalism as a career option. The story seems to be that California wanted to ban Uber from classifying its drivers as freelancers, and the easiest way to do this was just to ban freelance work and carve out exceptions for any form of freelance work the state didn't want to ban, and whoever was in charge of exception-making randomly chose the number "35" for freelance journalism....Anyway, I think California journalists should feel lucky to be allowed 35 stories; most new housing in the state is limited to two.
*The breaking of the 2-hour marathon sparked a lot of discussion about what counts as a genuine athletic achievement in the wake of technological and strategic manipulation. Are the shoes legal? Was the course realistic? Is drafting and pacing fair? The time was unofficial. And no, it probably shouldn't "count" per se, but the achievement was remarkable. I pulled this off Twitter:
"Amuse yourself at the gym today by seeing how many times in a row you can run 100 meters in 17 seconds. It's pretty easy to begin with! If you can do it 422 times in a row-without breaks-then congratulations, you can run a marathon as fast as Eliud Kipchoge did this morning."
*Very sad, but not surprised, to see Lodge 49 cancelled. Not surprised because it was the only truly character driven show on TV, apart from Better Call Saul which enters its last season shortly, and nobody seems to watch those. It may yet find a new home and survive, but if there were a vibrant market for such shows there would be more of them on the air.
*When I read for pure entertainment I often resort to crime fiction. I'll be delving into this list of great crime fiction from Ethan Iverson for while, I suspect.
*One of the ongoing themes here is how the world is moving beyond me as I age, how all the familiar cultural artifacts and activities slowly drift out of sight. How We'll Forget John Lennon breaks it all down scientifically.
Wednesday, November 06, 2019
The Month That Was - October 2019
Winter is here. I made a visit to New Orleans, more below, but one of the purposes was to run a half-marathon. I have been running halfs for quite a number of years now. Usually it is my goal race for the year. I tend to slack off training in the winter then when Spring comes I slowly build up, through a few other races, eventually doing a half marathon in the Fall. It's how I know I haven't backslid. But I can't do it anymore. My poor knees suffered greatly during the extended training runs. I was never built for running and age hasn't helped that. This was not standard fatigue and over-use pain. This was wake up at night, borderline debilitating pain. So that was my last half marathon. I'm setting a hard limit at 10 miles and a preferred distance of 8. I'm shifting away from endurace and towards weight-training for my main exercise strategy anyway. Age is no longer something I can deny, I just have to adapt. Like I said, Winter is here.
Draft 2.0 of my next book is moving along nicely. We are soon approaching the point where I begin to feel it is inevitable. That will be a good feeling.
Is this decade really almost over?
[Rant] A Nice Place To Visit, But...
[Travel] Down Nawlins
[Movies] Flick Check: Spiderman: Far From Home
Draft 2.0 of my next book is moving along nicely. We are soon approaching the point where I begin to feel it is inevitable. That will be a good feeling.
Is this decade really almost over?
[Rant] A Nice Place To Visit, But...
[Travel] Down Nawlins
[Movies] Flick Check: Spiderman: Far From Home
[Rant] A Nice Place to Visit, But...
California has a lot of beauty. Virtually the entire coastal area is the stuff of legend as are the National Parks. It's the home of bikini-clad women, laid back surfer dudes, and Hollywood hoi polloi. The weather is gorgeous. It's a great place to visit. But I would never want to live there.
I have seen a lot of expensive beach communities in my travels and Southern California qualifies as one big beach community. One thing you quickly learn about such places is that once you move inland, you are confronted with the back-of-the-house; the support sector for the consumer and touristy enclaves. These are filled with folks fighting to get by, working a couple of service sector jobs for a buck over minimum wage, fighting ungodly traffic jams in both directions. You'll know you're there by the proliferation of pawn shops and junk yards. California does this one better by having a further back-of-the-house to support their agriculture industry. Visit places like Bakersfield and Barstow and Yuba City to see that. It's not pretty.
But that's not why I wouldn't live there.
The Bay area, Silicon Valley, is flush with tech money. Of course since nobody will let anybody build more homes, all your six-figure salary goes to rent for a 12x15 studio apartment where you'll have a 2-hour, stop-and-go to get to your cube in the morning. Don't have the scratch to stay within reach of town? There's always the Modesto-or-Stockton-and-carry-pepper-spray-at-all-times option.
But that's not why I wouldn't live there.
Did I mention the traffic is apocalyptically bad?
But that's not why I wouldn't live there.
California appears to be knocking on the door of something called Anarcho-tyranny. Anarcho-tyranny occurs when an authority has abandoned the difficult task of trying to maintain order and common welfare, instead demonstrating authority by punishing and penalizing easy targets to maintain the appearance of power.
We see the thorough degradation of San Francisco -- residents report there is feces everywhere. People are apparently just dropping trou and leaving souvenirs at will. Housing is unaffordable due to supply restrictions. If you're lucky, the homeless just pester you rather than something worse. And as they need to relearn, there is a reason we enforce hygiene standards in the rest of the country: Down south in LA they've seen an uptick in positively medieval diseases such as Typhus and Bubonic Plague.
The State's fixed payout pension fund is pretty much a lost cause. It's promised payments are so large that tax jurisdictions, from cities to school districts, are often paying fifty cents or more for every dollar they pay in salaries. Imagine trying to increase taxes enough to cover that or keep salaries low enough not to go bankrupt and you'll get an idea of the kind of financial havoc it will wreak pretty much forever. Businesses won't be able to afford to pay anything more than the soon to be $15 minimum wage and at that rate, no one can afford rent. A spiral will begin.
The latest horror is the imposed blackouts. Evidently the power grid is, for some reason, responsible for starting wildfires and needs decades of upgrades, which means residents of many areas will have periodic blackouts for years to come. Folks with critical needs for power (like hospitals) are scrambling to prepare. A World Lit Only By Fire, indeed! Evidently, wildfires are caused by electrical equipment that sets the dried out vegetation on fire. The company line on this is that global warming has made California hotter and drier than in the past and so it's really kind of an act of God, not the fault of the power companies or their government overseers. Of course, this raises the question of why it's not happening in Nevada or Arizona or Utah. Who knew those States had solved global warming? Decades to fix the power grid sounds about right. That is to say, it may never get fixed -- money could run out (see above re: pension), or it could get bogged down in regulation and graft.
You can't help but feel like California is taking the first baby steps towards a kind of dark age, where the feudal lords in Silicon Valley and Hollywood bray about while the poor folks can't afford a home and never get raises and live by candlelight, stumbling about in human waste while dying of the plague.
OK, I engage in hyperbole for effect. But the quality of life in California has degraded, and not just in the sense of a temporary economic recession like we all get from time to time. There is really a sense of degradation of Civilization, albeit small, which might just be unprecedented in the nation's history. If they can't arrest it, they'll achieve the "Anarcho" part of the equation.
What have the leaders of California done in the face of this? Well some have banned plastic straws and bags. Some are busy trying to find a gas price conspiracy. Some are working to kill the hated gig economy. Some are banning college admission tests. Some are releasing seven-time felons who go on to murder innocent women in the interest of supporting immigration.
You can see how these are baby steps towards the "Tyranny" part of the equation.
And that's why I don't want to live there. Anarcho-tyranny.
Speaking as someone who saw the city of his birth, Detroit, degrade into a third-world hellhole, the pattern is familiar. California has lifetimes to go before it approaches Detroit, but that is the vector it is on. I will certainly be dead before it resolves one way or another, but I predict California continues to lose native born residents and only maintain its population through foreign immigration (people coming from places where California looks reasonable by comparison) for the next 10 years. I also predict that before my time is up, California will experience its first population drop. Children born today may live to see California's financial default and its governance turned over to the Feds.
I further predict that I will visit California at least three more times in my life and each trip will be delightful.
Addendum: A great counterpoint to California is Texas, specifically the Houston-Austin-San Antonio region. Massive, productive growth. Yes, infrastructure there is struggling to keep up, but the priorities are correct and there is no degradation of civilization. Hell, at Buc-ee's they brag about the restrooms -- take that San Francisco. If I were young and inclined to make my mark, that's where I would go.
I have seen a lot of expensive beach communities in my travels and Southern California qualifies as one big beach community. One thing you quickly learn about such places is that once you move inland, you are confronted with the back-of-the-house; the support sector for the consumer and touristy enclaves. These are filled with folks fighting to get by, working a couple of service sector jobs for a buck over minimum wage, fighting ungodly traffic jams in both directions. You'll know you're there by the proliferation of pawn shops and junk yards. California does this one better by having a further back-of-the-house to support their agriculture industry. Visit places like Bakersfield and Barstow and Yuba City to see that. It's not pretty.
But that's not why I wouldn't live there.
The Bay area, Silicon Valley, is flush with tech money. Of course since nobody will let anybody build more homes, all your six-figure salary goes to rent for a 12x15 studio apartment where you'll have a 2-hour, stop-and-go to get to your cube in the morning. Don't have the scratch to stay within reach of town? There's always the Modesto-or-Stockton-and-carry-pepper-spray-at-all-times option.
But that's not why I wouldn't live there.
Did I mention the traffic is apocalyptically bad?
But that's not why I wouldn't live there.
California appears to be knocking on the door of something called Anarcho-tyranny. Anarcho-tyranny occurs when an authority has abandoned the difficult task of trying to maintain order and common welfare, instead demonstrating authority by punishing and penalizing easy targets to maintain the appearance of power.
We see the thorough degradation of San Francisco -- residents report there is feces everywhere. People are apparently just dropping trou and leaving souvenirs at will. Housing is unaffordable due to supply restrictions. If you're lucky, the homeless just pester you rather than something worse. And as they need to relearn, there is a reason we enforce hygiene standards in the rest of the country: Down south in LA they've seen an uptick in positively medieval diseases such as Typhus and Bubonic Plague.
The State's fixed payout pension fund is pretty much a lost cause. It's promised payments are so large that tax jurisdictions, from cities to school districts, are often paying fifty cents or more for every dollar they pay in salaries. Imagine trying to increase taxes enough to cover that or keep salaries low enough not to go bankrupt and you'll get an idea of the kind of financial havoc it will wreak pretty much forever. Businesses won't be able to afford to pay anything more than the soon to be $15 minimum wage and at that rate, no one can afford rent. A spiral will begin.
The latest horror is the imposed blackouts. Evidently the power grid is, for some reason, responsible for starting wildfires and needs decades of upgrades, which means residents of many areas will have periodic blackouts for years to come. Folks with critical needs for power (like hospitals) are scrambling to prepare. A World Lit Only By Fire, indeed! Evidently, wildfires are caused by electrical equipment that sets the dried out vegetation on fire. The company line on this is that global warming has made California hotter and drier than in the past and so it's really kind of an act of God, not the fault of the power companies or their government overseers. Of course, this raises the question of why it's not happening in Nevada or Arizona or Utah. Who knew those States had solved global warming? Decades to fix the power grid sounds about right. That is to say, it may never get fixed -- money could run out (see above re: pension), or it could get bogged down in regulation and graft.
You can't help but feel like California is taking the first baby steps towards a kind of dark age, where the feudal lords in Silicon Valley and Hollywood bray about while the poor folks can't afford a home and never get raises and live by candlelight, stumbling about in human waste while dying of the plague.
OK, I engage in hyperbole for effect. But the quality of life in California has degraded, and not just in the sense of a temporary economic recession like we all get from time to time. There is really a sense of degradation of Civilization, albeit small, which might just be unprecedented in the nation's history. If they can't arrest it, they'll achieve the "Anarcho" part of the equation.
What have the leaders of California done in the face of this? Well some have banned plastic straws and bags. Some are busy trying to find a gas price conspiracy. Some are working to kill the hated gig economy. Some are banning college admission tests. Some are releasing seven-time felons who go on to murder innocent women in the interest of supporting immigration.
You can see how these are baby steps towards the "Tyranny" part of the equation.
And that's why I don't want to live there. Anarcho-tyranny.
Speaking as someone who saw the city of his birth, Detroit, degrade into a third-world hellhole, the pattern is familiar. California has lifetimes to go before it approaches Detroit, but that is the vector it is on. I will certainly be dead before it resolves one way or another, but I predict California continues to lose native born residents and only maintain its population through foreign immigration (people coming from places where California looks reasonable by comparison) for the next 10 years. I also predict that before my time is up, California will experience its first population drop. Children born today may live to see California's financial default and its governance turned over to the Feds.
I further predict that I will visit California at least three more times in my life and each trip will be delightful.
Addendum: A great counterpoint to California is Texas, specifically the Houston-Austin-San Antonio region. Massive, productive growth. Yes, infrastructure there is struggling to keep up, but the priorities are correct and there is no degradation of civilization. Hell, at Buc-ee's they brag about the restrooms -- take that San Francisco. If I were young and inclined to make my mark, that's where I would go.
[Travel] Down Nawlins
Since I'm on a kick of passing judgment on various regions, let's do New Orleans. I'm going to say something that may raise hackles. Post-Katrina New Orleans is better than Pre-Katrina New Orleans. There I said it. I'm sure the devastation and struggle caused by Katrina were horrible, but it also washed away much of the creeping ugliness that was growing in New Orleans once you left the French Quarter. Bourbon Street was always a blast, but the smell was frightening. Between the Katrina power-washing and the new sewer upgrades, it's set for another century of debauchery.
Some may see the same gentrification that's going on throughout the country, but it has a very different feel to me. With garden-variety gentrification real estate gets a renovation and prices rise and the new money comes in and works hard to gate themselves off from the very diversity they praise (see previous post re: the Bay Area). In Nawlins, you aren't gated off from anything. You have chase the junkies out of the doorway of your seven figure condo. You may be part of the gentry, but you are bumpin' elbows with a bouillabaisse of humanity.
That said, the money part of the gentrification equation is still in tact -- in real estate, of course, but other things too. Get caught needing to Uber to the airport during surge pricing and you could be dropping $70-80. That's pushing Manhattan level. Trying to find even a nothing-special hotel room near the Quarter for sub-$300 a night is a problem -- and tack on an extra hundred per night for taxes and valet parking. Yeah, New Orleans is definitely not a budget destination.
Crime is broadly down in the city as you'd expect from the gentry -- excluding the worst areas where nothing changes and nobody goes -- but the city hasn't lost its soul. It's still one of the friendliest places you can visit; folks are quick to laugh and offer good thoughts. The Quarter is still a party. The Central Business District is getting to be very nice.
And then there is food. You could spend a lifetime exploring food in New Orleans. I will admit I don't have the greatest affiliation to Bayou cuisine. For example, many people have deep and fervent opinions about po' boys. I think a po boy is, essentially, a bad sub. A muffuletta is better, but so many places drown it in olives. A beignet is fine but nothing more than a donut to me. I like jambalaya and etouffee, but not to die for.
Still, the culture of cooking yields all sorts of gems. For brunch at the Court of Two Sisters I had an omelet that was flawless -- no strange ingredients, just loaded with veggies like I usually get, but perfectly cooked and served in a wonderful setting. At Mother's I had fabulous green beans and cheese grits for the side dishes. Unexpectedly wonderful baked ham at both places. Souffle potatoes at Antoine's were another great find. Cocktail culture is second to none.
So have a seat at the bar order something tasty and a sazerac to start. You'll find the folks on either side of you are your new BFFs. Cheer on the Saints, even if you're not a fan. Let the good times roll in the Big Easy. The sticker shock will be worth it.
Some may see the same gentrification that's going on throughout the country, but it has a very different feel to me. With garden-variety gentrification real estate gets a renovation and prices rise and the new money comes in and works hard to gate themselves off from the very diversity they praise (see previous post re: the Bay Area). In Nawlins, you aren't gated off from anything. You have chase the junkies out of the doorway of your seven figure condo. You may be part of the gentry, but you are bumpin' elbows with a bouillabaisse of humanity.
That said, the money part of the gentrification equation is still in tact -- in real estate, of course, but other things too. Get caught needing to Uber to the airport during surge pricing and you could be dropping $70-80. That's pushing Manhattan level. Trying to find even a nothing-special hotel room near the Quarter for sub-$300 a night is a problem -- and tack on an extra hundred per night for taxes and valet parking. Yeah, New Orleans is definitely not a budget destination.
Crime is broadly down in the city as you'd expect from the gentry -- excluding the worst areas where nothing changes and nobody goes -- but the city hasn't lost its soul. It's still one of the friendliest places you can visit; folks are quick to laugh and offer good thoughts. The Quarter is still a party. The Central Business District is getting to be very nice.
And then there is food. You could spend a lifetime exploring food in New Orleans. I will admit I don't have the greatest affiliation to Bayou cuisine. For example, many people have deep and fervent opinions about po' boys. I think a po boy is, essentially, a bad sub. A muffuletta is better, but so many places drown it in olives. A beignet is fine but nothing more than a donut to me. I like jambalaya and etouffee, but not to die for.
Still, the culture of cooking yields all sorts of gems. For brunch at the Court of Two Sisters I had an omelet that was flawless -- no strange ingredients, just loaded with veggies like I usually get, but perfectly cooked and served in a wonderful setting. At Mother's I had fabulous green beans and cheese grits for the side dishes. Unexpectedly wonderful baked ham at both places. Souffle potatoes at Antoine's were another great find. Cocktail culture is second to none.
So have a seat at the bar order something tasty and a sazerac to start. You'll find the folks on either side of you are your new BFFs. Cheer on the Saints, even if you're not a fan. Let the good times roll in the Big Easy. The sticker shock will be worth it.
[Movies] Flick Check: Spiderman: Far From Home
Spiderman: Far From Home is probably the last Marvel movie I will anxiously anticipate. It wasn't bad. It's essentially a pastiche of a lot of previous Marvel films, though. We re-hash the immature boy has to grow up theme of the first movie. We re-hash Ironman 3 in that the villain is somebody that Tony Stark dissed years ago. We still have Tom Holland and Jacob Batalon (Ned) and Tony Revolori (Flash) being dead on perfect for their roles. Zendaya does alright but the script struggles with synthesizing her supposedly fierce and rebellious personality with having actual feelings for Peter. The adults are a mixed bag. Marisa Tomei and Jon Favreau are wonderfully fun as always and actually have a great chemistry. The business with Nick Fury feels tacked on to remind us that there is still a broader Marvel narrative going on, but it's not too intrusive. All in all, mostly good fun.
It falls down on Jake Gyllenhall. He does his best with a difficult role that requires him to be sincere, but not too sincere. When you have a hero that turns out to be a heel, you want to be able to look back on a rewatch and say, I should have seen it coming. But in the end, as I said, it's just Ironman 3 all over again, and quite frankly, Jake Gyllenhal is no Michael Keaton.
Good movie. Glad I watched. Will probably stop flipping when I stumble on it in the future. So where does that leave us with Marvel?
One place it leaves us is with Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola railing against Marvel movies and superhero blockbusters in general. I am not entirely unsympathetic to their views. I admit that if I did not have such powerful childhood memories of the Marvel comics, I would likely be much less enthused about them. I have no delusion that these are among the great works of humanity the species has produced. But then, they are not supposed to be. Scorsese called them "theme parks." Well, that's kind of their goal, isn't it. Did you watch is expecting something like Taxi Driver? Coppola called them "despicable" which is preposterous. However much you may dislike them, they are in no way despicable.
Here's the thing. I would love it if more movies were made about humans. It would be great if there were more movies that match the best of Scorsese and Coppola, even from Scorsese and Coppola. For that matter, it would be great if every TV show was as good as Deadwood. The Marvel movies don't stop that from happening. So why such fervent objections to them? If Scorsese and Coppola want more great movies, they should make them. Or finance them. Doesn't Coppola have his own studio?
Action movies are almost never humanistic art. They are a craft. A skill. I have suggested they are the defining works of the 21st century so far, for better or worse. Appreciate them for what they are. Or would you prefer the level of action movie we back in Scorsese and Coppola's heyday -- say, Tron or Logan's Run?
Another place it leaves us, or at least me, is with no childhood comic book connection to anything that is going on now. There are apparently movies planned about "The Eternals", a thing of which I have no childhood memory or ever heard of before, but it is supposedly the next big enduring theme. Honestly the upcoming TV shows featuring the Avengers characters sound more appealing to me. TV is a writer's medium so we may actually get some character-based, serial story-telling, which would be nice.
It seems obvious to me that the heroic age of superhero movies is over. Perhaps that will make some people very happy. In the spirit of appreciation, I'm just glad I had the opportunity to relive a rare happy slice of my childhood. Going forward I'm sure I'll catch Marvel movies in the normal course of things, when they come to streaming channels I subscribe to.
Maybe the next Spiderman movie should be titled Spiderman: Let's All Move On.
It falls down on Jake Gyllenhall. He does his best with a difficult role that requires him to be sincere, but not too sincere. When you have a hero that turns out to be a heel, you want to be able to look back on a rewatch and say, I should have seen it coming. But in the end, as I said, it's just Ironman 3 all over again, and quite frankly, Jake Gyllenhal is no Michael Keaton.
Good movie. Glad I watched. Will probably stop flipping when I stumble on it in the future. So where does that leave us with Marvel?
One place it leaves us is with Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola railing against Marvel movies and superhero blockbusters in general. I am not entirely unsympathetic to their views. I admit that if I did not have such powerful childhood memories of the Marvel comics, I would likely be much less enthused about them. I have no delusion that these are among the great works of humanity the species has produced. But then, they are not supposed to be. Scorsese called them "theme parks." Well, that's kind of their goal, isn't it. Did you watch is expecting something like Taxi Driver? Coppola called them "despicable" which is preposterous. However much you may dislike them, they are in no way despicable.
Here's the thing. I would love it if more movies were made about humans. It would be great if there were more movies that match the best of Scorsese and Coppola, even from Scorsese and Coppola. For that matter, it would be great if every TV show was as good as Deadwood. The Marvel movies don't stop that from happening. So why such fervent objections to them? If Scorsese and Coppola want more great movies, they should make them. Or finance them. Doesn't Coppola have his own studio?
Action movies are almost never humanistic art. They are a craft. A skill. I have suggested they are the defining works of the 21st century so far, for better or worse. Appreciate them for what they are. Or would you prefer the level of action movie we back in Scorsese and Coppola's heyday -- say, Tron or Logan's Run?
Another place it leaves us, or at least me, is with no childhood comic book connection to anything that is going on now. There are apparently movies planned about "The Eternals", a thing of which I have no childhood memory or ever heard of before, but it is supposedly the next big enduring theme. Honestly the upcoming TV shows featuring the Avengers characters sound more appealing to me. TV is a writer's medium so we may actually get some character-based, serial story-telling, which would be nice.
It seems obvious to me that the heroic age of superhero movies is over. Perhaps that will make some people very happy. In the spirit of appreciation, I'm just glad I had the opportunity to relive a rare happy slice of my childhood. Going forward I'm sure I'll catch Marvel movies in the normal course of things, when they come to streaming channels I subscribe to.
Maybe the next Spiderman movie should be titled Spiderman: Let's All Move On.
Tuesday, October 08, 2019
The Month That Was - September 2019
So begins the farewell tour of my 50s. This is what I wrote 9 years ago. It makes me think being in my fifties really hasn't changed me that much, as the psychological tone of it is pretty much where I am today. More gray. More wrinkles. But still healthy and fit and alert. I'm sure I'll have more to say when 60 hits next year.
Trivial related note: I believe I have been blogging for over 20 years now, although the first two or three are lost in the ether.
I have all but finished the edits of the first draft of my next book. There is only one severe plot hole that I need to address. Then on to version 2.0.
[TV] A Little Bit Country
[TV] Hanging at the Lodge
[Books] Book Look: A Maigret Trio
[Tech] Hit Me With Technology
Trivial related note: I believe I have been blogging for over 20 years now, although the first two or three are lost in the ether.
I have all but finished the edits of the first draft of my next book. There is only one severe plot hole that I need to address. Then on to version 2.0.
[TV] A Little Bit Country
[TV] Hanging at the Lodge
[Books] Book Look: A Maigret Trio
[Tech] Hit Me With Technology
[TV] A Little Bit County
Ken Burns released a fine documentary on the history of Country Music. Normally when I hear Ken Burns is behind a documentary I assume I'm going to get a combination of weepy stories and racial browbeating. Fortunately, he held his worst instincts in check. There was minimal, righteousness on race and the stories, while often sad, were not turned into tragedy porn. I got more than a little engrossed in it.
Like many middle-class northerners I sneered at Country Music as a young adult. I had no childhood history of listening to it. Thinking of what music was in my life during my childhood I would have to say The Monkees, assorted 60s bubblegum pop singles, and renditions of the Great American Songbook that peppered the variety shows on TV during the middlebrow era: The Dean Martin Show and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, etc. Oddly, this was also the time of TV shows for Glen Campbell, Johnny Cash, and Hee Haw, which didn't seem to really affect my sensibilities. Of course, as I grew into young adulthood I sneered at a lot of music. In 1982 if it wasn't punk or ska you were guilty of a hanging offense.
It's still hard for me to say I like Country music because I never just have it on in the background. Although there is much music of that sort that I like, it is all specific songs as opposed to the familiarity with the type. There is no Country XM radio preset in my car, nor is there a Country artist I would just fire up a random playlist for and listen to, whereas there are several for rock, and even some for jazz. However, to be fair, I don't really follow any genre of music anymore, at least not in the sense of knowing the trends and releases and personalities. Perhaps I should make an effort to change that.
Sidebar: The exception there is Jimmy Buffet, who is country-ish, whom I do have a playlist for and a well-worn one at that. His style is called Gulf & Western, and he, along with the Eagles, are probably the two major outside influences that have shaped popular Country music in the last decade or so. Both are pretty much ignored in the documentary.
The Burns documentary does a great job of humanizing many of the names I have heard before and is very evocative of the difficult and often destitute existence from which many of these folks emerged. It's Country music so there is a healthy measure of sorrow, both in the songs and the singers. Honestly, once you hear the stories of hardships, often self-inflicted, you wonder whether you stumbled into some severely dysfunctional subculture. The thing about dysfunction in Country music is that it is grounded dysfunction. At its core, the Country music culture never loses sight of solid values, even when their stars abandon them. No one in Country music, however degenerate, would ever abandon the institutions of family or sneer at true love or engage in the level of misogyny or self-worship you find in R&B or Rap. While pop music has morphed into narcissism incarnate, Country -- even in the era of mega-stars such as Dolly Parton or Garth Brooks -- never gets too big for its britches. They may be dysfunctional, but they don't pretend it's a smart lifestyle choice.
We also see how diverse Country music has always been, despite its cornpone image. Bob Wills is as different from Hank Williams as Steely Dan is from Lynyrd Skynyrd. Outside influences have run from Louis Armstrong to Bob Dylan to Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, and similar influence flows back to Ray Charles, The Byrds, Jack White, and so on. In the past, oh, ten or twenty years or so the concept of Country music has morphed into a broader idea called Americana, which is a big tent including everything from Bluegrass to Zydeco to good ol' yodeling cowboy music to what is pretty close to straight up rock and roll. One could argue it's the most vibrant and diverse form of music we have.
So yes, give Ken Burns' Country Music a look. Even if you are dead set that you don't like Country music, I bet you'll recognize a lot of the songs, and maybe the human context will make you see things differently.
Like many middle-class northerners I sneered at Country Music as a young adult. I had no childhood history of listening to it. Thinking of what music was in my life during my childhood I would have to say The Monkees, assorted 60s bubblegum pop singles, and renditions of the Great American Songbook that peppered the variety shows on TV during the middlebrow era: The Dean Martin Show and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, etc. Oddly, this was also the time of TV shows for Glen Campbell, Johnny Cash, and Hee Haw, which didn't seem to really affect my sensibilities. Of course, as I grew into young adulthood I sneered at a lot of music. In 1982 if it wasn't punk or ska you were guilty of a hanging offense.
It's still hard for me to say I like Country music because I never just have it on in the background. Although there is much music of that sort that I like, it is all specific songs as opposed to the familiarity with the type. There is no Country XM radio preset in my car, nor is there a Country artist I would just fire up a random playlist for and listen to, whereas there are several for rock, and even some for jazz. However, to be fair, I don't really follow any genre of music anymore, at least not in the sense of knowing the trends and releases and personalities. Perhaps I should make an effort to change that.
Sidebar: The exception there is Jimmy Buffet, who is country-ish, whom I do have a playlist for and a well-worn one at that. His style is called Gulf & Western, and he, along with the Eagles, are probably the two major outside influences that have shaped popular Country music in the last decade or so. Both are pretty much ignored in the documentary.
The Burns documentary does a great job of humanizing many of the names I have heard before and is very evocative of the difficult and often destitute existence from which many of these folks emerged. It's Country music so there is a healthy measure of sorrow, both in the songs and the singers. Honestly, once you hear the stories of hardships, often self-inflicted, you wonder whether you stumbled into some severely dysfunctional subculture. The thing about dysfunction in Country music is that it is grounded dysfunction. At its core, the Country music culture never loses sight of solid values, even when their stars abandon them. No one in Country music, however degenerate, would ever abandon the institutions of family or sneer at true love or engage in the level of misogyny or self-worship you find in R&B or Rap. While pop music has morphed into narcissism incarnate, Country -- even in the era of mega-stars such as Dolly Parton or Garth Brooks -- never gets too big for its britches. They may be dysfunctional, but they don't pretend it's a smart lifestyle choice.
We also see how diverse Country music has always been, despite its cornpone image. Bob Wills is as different from Hank Williams as Steely Dan is from Lynyrd Skynyrd. Outside influences have run from Louis Armstrong to Bob Dylan to Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, and similar influence flows back to Ray Charles, The Byrds, Jack White, and so on. In the past, oh, ten or twenty years or so the concept of Country music has morphed into a broader idea called Americana, which is a big tent including everything from Bluegrass to Zydeco to good ol' yodeling cowboy music to what is pretty close to straight up rock and roll. One could argue it's the most vibrant and diverse form of music we have.
So yes, give Ken Burns' Country Music a look. Even if you are dead set that you don't like Country music, I bet you'll recognize a lot of the songs, and maybe the human context will make you see things differently.
[TV] Hanging at the Lodge
Lodge 49 Season 2 is still nice and human, which makes it refreshing in the TV world of snark, fictionalized crime, and general luridity. The core characters centered around the Order of the Lynx are workaday types but they increasingly find themselves interacting with surreal characters and oddballs. The link among them all is that they are unmoored and lost. The timeless angle is the often conflicting searches they are on for both meaning and security weave into their connections with each other. They inevitably let each other down, and just as inevitably pick up the pieces and start over.
In season 1, the focus was on the brother and sister pair (Dud and Liz) and the unrecoverable loss of both meaning and security that came with their father's death. The canvas has broadened in season 2 but so has the sprawl. We've been able to dig deeper into some of the other characters, but new ones (also interesting) have been tossed into the mix and given a short shrift. As a result we feel less of the depth of the characters and the frequent ventures into weirdness begin to feel a bit self-conscious. The stand-out is Ernie (Brent Jennings) who sought to face his future, by which we mean the onset of old age and irrelevance, by finding meaning in his past, and failed most painfully. Jennings did a tremendous job with this.
Still entertaining and interesting (you will see a lot of Coen Bros. influence, although much more lighthearted). Still has a great, pounding, human heart. But its full potential remains unrealized. Perhaps that's good. Something to look forward to.
In season 1, the focus was on the brother and sister pair (Dud and Liz) and the unrecoverable loss of both meaning and security that came with their father's death. The canvas has broadened in season 2 but so has the sprawl. We've been able to dig deeper into some of the other characters, but new ones (also interesting) have been tossed into the mix and given a short shrift. As a result we feel less of the depth of the characters and the frequent ventures into weirdness begin to feel a bit self-conscious. The stand-out is Ernie (Brent Jennings) who sought to face his future, by which we mean the onset of old age and irrelevance, by finding meaning in his past, and failed most painfully. Jennings did a tremendous job with this.
Still entertaining and interesting (you will see a lot of Coen Bros. influence, although much more lighthearted). Still has a great, pounding, human heart. But its full potential remains unrealized. Perhaps that's good. Something to look forward to.
[Books] Book Look: A Maigret Trio, by Georges Simenon
This is my first encounter with Maigret, and do not even think to tell me to go watch some TV series. I have no intention of doing so. The Maigret that Simenon has formed in my head is just fine, thank you.
Police detective novels, eh? What's so special about that? I can think of two things that stand out as special. First, the cases Maigret finds himself with seem to have a personal twist or effect. In the first of three Maigret questions with whether he is really doing his best to find the killer of a reprehensible cretin that he knew from childhood. The second brings Maigret face-to-face with mores of a different era, causing him to wonder how much was lost in the march to decadence. In the third Maigret faces the contrast between a very important case and a case that is only important to him. All this allows Simenon to build Maigret's character as the anchor. The plots are police procedurals, but the stories are about Maigret.
The other virtue is that I have read no one short of the divine P.G. Wodehouse who writes with better economy. Not just in style but in plot. What would be multiple floridly written scenes with all sorts of descriptive trivia in anyone else's hands is a simple and direct exchange of dialogue for Simenon. It's wonderful to read a writer who chooses not to and, more importantly, does not need to waste your time to make his point.
Simenon wrote 76 Maigret novels and 28 short stories and these are my first three. I intend to read more just for the education in omitting needless words.
Should you read the Maigret mysteries? Yes. They are likely a lot better than whatever mystery series you are reading now, full stop. I'm starting another one today.
Late addenda: I started another one as promised (Maigret and the Headless Corpse) and to my shock it is, at first blush, exactly the opposite of the taught, economic prose I just wrote of admiringly. Lots of scene setting and dallying around. We'll see if it's an oddball or not; I hope it sorts itself out. I'm leaving the above evaluation in place for now, as it certainly applies to the specific book I read (A Maigret Trio), but I may have to change my full-on recommendation. They may be hit or miss.
Police detective novels, eh? What's so special about that? I can think of two things that stand out as special. First, the cases Maigret finds himself with seem to have a personal twist or effect. In the first of three Maigret questions with whether he is really doing his best to find the killer of a reprehensible cretin that he knew from childhood. The second brings Maigret face-to-face with mores of a different era, causing him to wonder how much was lost in the march to decadence. In the third Maigret faces the contrast between a very important case and a case that is only important to him. All this allows Simenon to build Maigret's character as the anchor. The plots are police procedurals, but the stories are about Maigret.
The other virtue is that I have read no one short of the divine P.G. Wodehouse who writes with better economy. Not just in style but in plot. What would be multiple floridly written scenes with all sorts of descriptive trivia in anyone else's hands is a simple and direct exchange of dialogue for Simenon. It's wonderful to read a writer who chooses not to and, more importantly, does not need to waste your time to make his point.
Simenon wrote 76 Maigret novels and 28 short stories and these are my first three. I intend to read more just for the education in omitting needless words.
Should you read the Maigret mysteries? Yes. They are likely a lot better than whatever mystery series you are reading now, full stop. I'm starting another one today.
Late addenda: I started another one as promised (Maigret and the Headless Corpse) and to my shock it is, at first blush, exactly the opposite of the taught, economic prose I just wrote of admiringly. Lots of scene setting and dallying around. We'll see if it's an oddball or not; I hope it sorts itself out. I'm leaving the above evaluation in place for now, as it certainly applies to the specific book I read (A Maigret Trio), but I may have to change my full-on recommendation. They may be hit or miss.
[Tech] Hit Me With Technology
My techo-life has actually been rather settled. I have had a Motorola G6 Android phone for about a year now. It is a budget model -- not remotely close to any of the high-enders from Samsung, Google, or Apple, but it's done everything I need it to. I wish it had a better camera, but beyond that it's been fine and it was cheap and I see no need to move.
I use Verizon for my service because it is the most reliable in the area where I live. Even AT&T has inconvenient dead spots around here and back when I had Google Fi, which was supposed to use the strongest signal of with Sprint or T-Mobile, it was still a crapshoot. I could probably save a few bucks by switching to one of the cheaper services that use Verizon network like Total Wireless, but I can never get a straight answer about what I give up by doing that and frankly, the thought of slogging through service reviews and coverage maps and connectivity policies exhausts me.
I rarely use my laptop at home any more. I can do most everything on my iPad although I must note that you often run into really stupid behavior in Apps that you don't get on striaght up websites. Apps make a lot more assumptions about your behavior in the interest of simplifying things for small touch screens. For example: Google Maps app on iOS is a disaster. I can map out a route easily enough, but as far as I can tell it offers no information about the exact distance of the mapped route. It just assumes you are using it for driving or walking directions and that you don't really care about the details, you just want it to start telling you what turns to take. Frustrating as hell. (I often try to map out running or biking routes so knowing the total mileage is quite important to me.)
The only real need I have for a laptop with a legitimately speedy processor is for Photoshop, and since I don't do much photography anymore I could do without it. A full size keyboard and screen are also nice for writing, but I don't like writing at home, I prefer the local library where computers, keyboards, and monitors are freely available. Besides, I could probably hook up a keyboard and external monitor to my iPad. Barring a wholehearted return to travel and photography my next purchase in this area will probably be a Surface tablet of some sort to split the difference.
I still haven't cut the cable cord. I have concerns -- I question the ultimate cost savings since as soon as I cancel my cable, Spectrum will up the price on my internet service through the roof and I have very few alternatives, none are comparable speedwise. Then I will find myself subscribing to who knows how many services to get the shows I want.
While I understand that attraction of not paying for things you don't watch, I am very skeptical of unbundling as it is playing out. Things aren't really being unbundled so much as repackaged into fractured smaller bundles. The frugal dream of paying for only what you watch is lost and instead you'll be paying $10/month for that one series you like on any given network, never mind the luxury dream of paying one price and getting to see anything at any time. Like the Web, we may find "improving" it is its ruin.
Honestly, I would have thought these glaring annoyances -- unreliable, expensive, inconvenient phone and cable services -- would have been sorted out by now. I mean, that's what the entire point of tech is in the 21st century: relieving inconveniences for your market. It kind of makes you wish you could turn it all over the Amazon to run and be done with it. (Joking. Am I?)
I use Verizon for my service because it is the most reliable in the area where I live. Even AT&T has inconvenient dead spots around here and back when I had Google Fi, which was supposed to use the strongest signal of with Sprint or T-Mobile, it was still a crapshoot. I could probably save a few bucks by switching to one of the cheaper services that use Verizon network like Total Wireless, but I can never get a straight answer about what I give up by doing that and frankly, the thought of slogging through service reviews and coverage maps and connectivity policies exhausts me.
I rarely use my laptop at home any more. I can do most everything on my iPad although I must note that you often run into really stupid behavior in Apps that you don't get on striaght up websites. Apps make a lot more assumptions about your behavior in the interest of simplifying things for small touch screens. For example: Google Maps app on iOS is a disaster. I can map out a route easily enough, but as far as I can tell it offers no information about the exact distance of the mapped route. It just assumes you are using it for driving or walking directions and that you don't really care about the details, you just want it to start telling you what turns to take. Frustrating as hell. (I often try to map out running or biking routes so knowing the total mileage is quite important to me.)
The only real need I have for a laptop with a legitimately speedy processor is for Photoshop, and since I don't do much photography anymore I could do without it. A full size keyboard and screen are also nice for writing, but I don't like writing at home, I prefer the local library where computers, keyboards, and monitors are freely available. Besides, I could probably hook up a keyboard and external monitor to my iPad. Barring a wholehearted return to travel and photography my next purchase in this area will probably be a Surface tablet of some sort to split the difference.
I still haven't cut the cable cord. I have concerns -- I question the ultimate cost savings since as soon as I cancel my cable, Spectrum will up the price on my internet service through the roof and I have very few alternatives, none are comparable speedwise. Then I will find myself subscribing to who knows how many services to get the shows I want.
While I understand that attraction of not paying for things you don't watch, I am very skeptical of unbundling as it is playing out. Things aren't really being unbundled so much as repackaged into fractured smaller bundles. The frugal dream of paying for only what you watch is lost and instead you'll be paying $10/month for that one series you like on any given network, never mind the luxury dream of paying one price and getting to see anything at any time. Like the Web, we may find "improving" it is its ruin.
Honestly, I would have thought these glaring annoyances -- unreliable, expensive, inconvenient phone and cable services -- would have been sorted out by now. I mean, that's what the entire point of tech is in the 21st century: relieving inconveniences for your market. It kind of makes you wish you could turn it all over the Amazon to run and be done with it. (Joking. Am I?)
Thursday, September 05, 2019
The Month That Was - August 2019
As I write this, my travel plans have just been dashed by Hurricane Dorian. I will spend the next few days re-working everything and hoping not to lose too much money in re-scheduling fees and so forth. As hurricane complaints go that's pretty minor, considering the photos coming back from Abacos and Grand Bahama. They look to be almost totally destroyed, which is to be expected when a Cat 5 squats over your island for over a day and the sea surges 20 feet over an island that is no more than 10 feet above sea level.
As another summer drifts away I find myself once again pleased that I didn't waste it. I got in plenty of activity and even got a small project or two completed. I am going to make a valiant effort to keep up on outside activities even through the cold this year. I will likely fail.
I also started work on the first revision of my book. I spent the bulk of the summer away from it intentionally, to re-approach it from a distance. It's got lots of holes in it, but I think it's going to work. I have been using this simple Pomodoro Timer app to good affect.
[Detroit] The Eternal Crisis
[TV, Rant] Mindhunting
[Rant] Isn't That Just Fine
[Good Links] Link Set
As another summer drifts away I find myself once again pleased that I didn't waste it. I got in plenty of activity and even got a small project or two completed. I am going to make a valiant effort to keep up on outside activities even through the cold this year. I will likely fail.
I also started work on the first revision of my book. I spent the bulk of the summer away from it intentionally, to re-approach it from a distance. It's got lots of holes in it, but I think it's going to work. I have been using this simple Pomodoro Timer app to good affect.
[Detroit] The Eternal Crisis
[TV, Rant] Mindhunting
[Rant] Isn't That Just Fine
[Good Links] Link Set
[Detroit] The Eternal Crisis
There are probably legal-aged adults that have never known a world where I was not writing snarky blog posts about Detroit. But they're well-founded snarky blog posts. Detroit's peak of population was 1950. A healthy City of Detroit is quickly vanishing from living memory. A young adult who actually experienced a growing Detroit would be pushing 90. History is a heavy weight that grows with time. With each passing year it gets harder and harder to take the "Detroit Renaissance" narrative seriously. (For you it's harder. For me...I never bought it to begin with.)
David Perell's Thoughts on Detroit is a cut above most entries into this genre as it is more a list of observations than taking a position. Many of his observations line up with mine, although he concludes the glass is half full, whereas I think it's been smashed on the floor.
Although he is left with a positive impression, the only overwhelmingly optimistic sign he specifically mentions is that everyone has local pride. But confusingly, that seems to get conflated with Dan Gilbert. Dan Gilbert is the guy behind Quicken Loans, the largest employer in Detroit. That he will subsidize folks in five-figures if they relocate to Detroit (presumably to work for his entities) is named as a good source of civic pride. It doesn't seem like something to be proud of. Forty-five minutes away you have to subsidize Ann Arbor that much in property tax and you're grateful.
I don't doubt that everyone Perell met who lives there was enthusiastic about the city. And here's where my cynicism makes its grand entrance. I have observed before that the the big thing Detroit has to offer is authenticity. A statement that you are from Detroit will carry weight with a certain crowd -- progressive young-ish hipsters -- who want their place of residence to make a certain statement about them. The late hipster idol Anthony Bourdain once said he could think of nothing cooler than being able to say you were from Detroit. If you live in Detroit because it makes you sound cool, you'll sound cool praising Detroit.
Kudos to Perell also for noticing that all the recent vibrancy in Detroit is quite limited. "Except for Woodward Avenue, downtown Detroit is surprisingly empty. At times, it feels like a ghost town. Foot traffic stays on just a couple streets between Bricktown and Downtown Detroit." He also mentions all the abandoned buildings and boarded up windows.
More interesting to me is this statement: "City dwellers were overwhelmingly optimistic about Detroit. But people outside the city, especially those I met in Northern Michigan, were overwhelmingly pessimistic. The people I spoke to who live outside the city, most of whom were wealthier, rarely go into downtown Detroit. They spend most of their time in the Northern suburbs instead." This jibes with my experience.
As I mentioned, Perrel is optimistic about Detroit, although the reasons he gives besides how enthusiastic the residents are rather thin. He is impressed with the Arab ethnicity in Dearborn (immediately west of Detroit) and thinks there is opportunity for more Middle Eastern immigration -- but it's unclear to me how that benefits Detroit rather than Dearborn and what the specific benefit of that is. He sites the proximity of two large Universities (University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan State in East Lansing) and suggests there is opportunity to recruit skilled employment from these places, especially if there are tax benefits to doing so. His quote: "Many of the younger people I spoke with want to stay in-state. Chicago is too big for them and New York is too far." I can understand wanting to stay in-state. Michigan, especially in the north and the U.P. is remarkably lovely. But even if this is true for a broader mix of young people, "in-state" does not translate to Detroit. It doesn't even necessarily translate to the suburbs. There are plenty of mid-sized cities in central-lower Michigan that are tremendous places to live -- Grand Rapids, Lansing, Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo -- and are actually growing. For 20 years, part of my day job has been recruiting tech talent; software developers often right out of those schools. In all that time I have encountered exactly one person who would have counted a Detroit location as a plus.
Quick aside: Praise to Perell for differentiating between Detroit, the suburbs, and greater Michigan. Although, he seems to count Dearborn as Detroit.
There are two battles going on here. One is over whether the "badness" of Detroit is real or simply reputation. The exchange is between those who say it is awful and have the stats to back it up, and those who say "it's not that bad" and point out that they themselves are OK with life in the Big D. There is an obvious winner in that battle.
The other is whether Detroit is improving or not. I will grant the there has been a slight improvement in the third-world hellhole level statistics of the past. I will also grant that there is about one square mile that has returned to some semblance of economic viability. And I have no doubt young professionals and artist-types who don't yet place a high value on personal and financial security might carve out a decent life (or at least a decent "lifestyle"). But that is little more than window dressing. For a city to thrive it needs a strong and stable middle-class. It needs to not just collect fashionable and high-profile businesses via financial incentives, it needs to support plumbers and convenience stores and various services and -- this is key --the families of those running those services. As far as I can tell, Detroit has made exactly zero progress on that point.
Lately I have had the opportunity to make some visits to Houston and it really highlights the vast difference between a city that dying and one that is living. Houston is about 4 times the size of Detroit. I don't think there is a single aspect of life in Detroit that measures up to Houston, other than it being less crowded. You can claim Houston has revenue that Detroit doesn't have, but why? Is that cause or symptom? Also, it wasn't always so. It wasn't until 1980-ish that Houston overtook Detroit as the fifth largest city in the U.S. Now Houston is fourth (behind NY, LA, CHI) and, next year, Detroit will slip out of the top 20. My point is that these trends are not just about public relations and tax incentives. They are deeply ingrained in the essence, character, and culture of these places.
I was born in Detroit, but at age 4 moved to the suburb of Southfield, just over the northern city border of 8 Mile Rd. I now live outside Ann Arbor. I know a handful of people who like to go into Detroit for a night out, but such trips are few and far between. I have not been to Detroit in decades, I don't even go into the northern suburbs unless I have to. We are far less culturally dependent on cities than we used to be. (Thanks, Internet.)
Lastly, note that all the good vibes about Detroit just aren't having the desired effect. The population decline that started in 1950 has not abated for a single year. I am 58 years old and Detroit has been dying for my entire life. I suspect it will continue to die for the remainder.
David Perell's Thoughts on Detroit is a cut above most entries into this genre as it is more a list of observations than taking a position. Many of his observations line up with mine, although he concludes the glass is half full, whereas I think it's been smashed on the floor.
Although he is left with a positive impression, the only overwhelmingly optimistic sign he specifically mentions is that everyone has local pride. But confusingly, that seems to get conflated with Dan Gilbert. Dan Gilbert is the guy behind Quicken Loans, the largest employer in Detroit. That he will subsidize folks in five-figures if they relocate to Detroit (presumably to work for his entities) is named as a good source of civic pride. It doesn't seem like something to be proud of. Forty-five minutes away you have to subsidize Ann Arbor that much in property tax and you're grateful.
I don't doubt that everyone Perell met who lives there was enthusiastic about the city. And here's where my cynicism makes its grand entrance. I have observed before that the the big thing Detroit has to offer is authenticity. A statement that you are from Detroit will carry weight with a certain crowd -- progressive young-ish hipsters -- who want their place of residence to make a certain statement about them. The late hipster idol Anthony Bourdain once said he could think of nothing cooler than being able to say you were from Detroit. If you live in Detroit because it makes you sound cool, you'll sound cool praising Detroit.
Kudos to Perell also for noticing that all the recent vibrancy in Detroit is quite limited. "Except for Woodward Avenue, downtown Detroit is surprisingly empty. At times, it feels like a ghost town. Foot traffic stays on just a couple streets between Bricktown and Downtown Detroit." He also mentions all the abandoned buildings and boarded up windows.
More interesting to me is this statement: "City dwellers were overwhelmingly optimistic about Detroit. But people outside the city, especially those I met in Northern Michigan, were overwhelmingly pessimistic. The people I spoke to who live outside the city, most of whom were wealthier, rarely go into downtown Detroit. They spend most of their time in the Northern suburbs instead." This jibes with my experience.
As I mentioned, Perrel is optimistic about Detroit, although the reasons he gives besides how enthusiastic the residents are rather thin. He is impressed with the Arab ethnicity in Dearborn (immediately west of Detroit) and thinks there is opportunity for more Middle Eastern immigration -- but it's unclear to me how that benefits Detroit rather than Dearborn and what the specific benefit of that is. He sites the proximity of two large Universities (University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan State in East Lansing) and suggests there is opportunity to recruit skilled employment from these places, especially if there are tax benefits to doing so. His quote: "Many of the younger people I spoke with want to stay in-state. Chicago is too big for them and New York is too far." I can understand wanting to stay in-state. Michigan, especially in the north and the U.P. is remarkably lovely. But even if this is true for a broader mix of young people, "in-state" does not translate to Detroit. It doesn't even necessarily translate to the suburbs. There are plenty of mid-sized cities in central-lower Michigan that are tremendous places to live -- Grand Rapids, Lansing, Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo -- and are actually growing. For 20 years, part of my day job has been recruiting tech talent; software developers often right out of those schools. In all that time I have encountered exactly one person who would have counted a Detroit location as a plus.
Quick aside: Praise to Perell for differentiating between Detroit, the suburbs, and greater Michigan. Although, he seems to count Dearborn as Detroit.
There are two battles going on here. One is over whether the "badness" of Detroit is real or simply reputation. The exchange is between those who say it is awful and have the stats to back it up, and those who say "it's not that bad" and point out that they themselves are OK with life in the Big D. There is an obvious winner in that battle.
The other is whether Detroit is improving or not. I will grant the there has been a slight improvement in the third-world hellhole level statistics of the past. I will also grant that there is about one square mile that has returned to some semblance of economic viability. And I have no doubt young professionals and artist-types who don't yet place a high value on personal and financial security might carve out a decent life (or at least a decent "lifestyle"). But that is little more than window dressing. For a city to thrive it needs a strong and stable middle-class. It needs to not just collect fashionable and high-profile businesses via financial incentives, it needs to support plumbers and convenience stores and various services and -- this is key --the families of those running those services. As far as I can tell, Detroit has made exactly zero progress on that point.
Lately I have had the opportunity to make some visits to Houston and it really highlights the vast difference between a city that dying and one that is living. Houston is about 4 times the size of Detroit. I don't think there is a single aspect of life in Detroit that measures up to Houston, other than it being less crowded. You can claim Houston has revenue that Detroit doesn't have, but why? Is that cause or symptom? Also, it wasn't always so. It wasn't until 1980-ish that Houston overtook Detroit as the fifth largest city in the U.S. Now Houston is fourth (behind NY, LA, CHI) and, next year, Detroit will slip out of the top 20. My point is that these trends are not just about public relations and tax incentives. They are deeply ingrained in the essence, character, and culture of these places.
I was born in Detroit, but at age 4 moved to the suburb of Southfield, just over the northern city border of 8 Mile Rd. I now live outside Ann Arbor. I know a handful of people who like to go into Detroit for a night out, but such trips are few and far between. I have not been to Detroit in decades, I don't even go into the northern suburbs unless I have to. We are far less culturally dependent on cities than we used to be. (Thanks, Internet.)
Lastly, note that all the good vibes about Detroit just aren't having the desired effect. The population decline that started in 1950 has not abated for a single year. I am 58 years old and Detroit has been dying for my entire life. I suspect it will continue to die for the remainder.
[TV, Rant] Mindhunting
I binged the second season of Mindhunter on Netflix and it was a mixed bag. Mindhunter is an adaptation/fictionalization of the true crime book Mindhunter, Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit. The first season covered the initial efforts of the FBI to start doing psychological analysis, what would become known as profiling, of multiple murderers -- specifically serial killers. The second season covers its evolution into acceptance and its key role in the Atlanta Child Killer case. (Anyone born before 1970 will remember the case clearly.)
With regards to dramatic quality, Mindhunter is practically schizophrenic. The personal drama of the agents and their interactions are afforded little more that the basic dialogue of a network police procedural: overheated exposition and incoherent indignation substituting for actual character. They do a decent job of paralleling the personal drama with aspects of the psychos in the cases they investigate. They could delve deeper into that to benefit the series, but otherwise the workaday dialogue is the stuff of ear cringe. And the horrendous portrayal of righteous irrationality of black people in Atlanta at that time is worthy of a cable news network.
The shining lights are the portrayals of the killers themselves -- Edmund Kemper, Son of Sam, Manson, Wayne Williams, etc. Being asked to portray a serial killer, especially one for whom there is video documentation to research, has to be a gift beyond compare for a dedicated actor. And the actors they find just gobble the scenes, seemingly mesmerizing the regular cast as well as the audience. Here are side-by-sides of the the real killers with their portrayals: Kemper and Manson. You can just tell those actors are completely in the zone. It's a very cool payoff for the lukewarm bulk.
Quick aside: In real life Kemper has made a name for himself as a reader of audio books. We live in a truly bizarre timeline.
Unless you are squeamish, or just generally trying to insulate yourself from the Sick Sad World that's portrayed in the various media. Mindhunter is a decent watch. Now, me being me, I will digress.
Let's take a shot at recapping the phases of crime in America that have caught popular attention. I suppose early on, the 1920s-ish there were the bank robbers -- Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillenger, etc. Then, with prohibition and through the sixties with drugs, organized crime got all the attention -- Capone through Gotti. As crimes go these make a certain sense. They are about money. Directly taking it in the case of bank robbing, gaining it by fulfilling a forbidden need in the case of organized crime.
As the sixties faded into the seventies, things got weird and worse. Crimes that fascinated were no longer about money. Bombings and domestic terrorism were what the '70s was all about. According to Time: "In a single eighteen-month period during 1971 and 1972 the FBI counted an amazing 2,500 bombings on American soil, almost five a day." Follow cable news and you would think the U.S. is swamped in violence when in fact there is less than ever. That Time article is an instructive read. As it points out, we all just took it in stride back then; it barely registered on my young psyche. Can you imagine what would happen if we had a stretch of five bombings a day now? The National Guard would be on every corner, children would be confined to their houses, Twitter servers would meltdown, the New York Times would blame the legacy of slavery, Fox News would look on the bright side. The past is a foreign country, my friends. In any event, these sorts of crimes that are labelled domestic terrorism are vanishingly rare, perhaps as a result of 9/11.
Late '70s and into the '80s it was all about serial killers. Mindhunter portrays the fascination of the public, noting how everyone wants to hear lurid stories of the grisly killers from the detectives. As you might assume the number of serial killers rose with attention. According to Slate: "There were 19 in the 1960s, 119 in the '70s, and 200 in the '80s. In the '90s, the number of cases dropped to 141. And the 2000s saw only 61 serial murderers." That strikes me as a under-investigated phenomenon. What changed that caused bombings and serial killing to fall out of favor? Is it just fashion? Maybe momentum builds in the public mind so more and more people who are on the cusp of committing one of these crimes tips over and gives in to the urge. Then as fashion fades and the crime becomes less noteworthy they fall back to a normal level. That would be a fascinating research topic for a soft scientist.
These days the hot crime is mass shootings, although it is surprisingly hard to find consistent statistics on them. Some of it is a matter of definition. In this research article if you scan about halfway down, there is a table highlighting the different ways of counting mass shootings and stats for the year 2015. If you define a mass shooting as any single instance where 4 or more people were killed the numbers are astonishing -- in the mid 300s. To read that you'd think you should wear body armor at all times. The key here is the definition. If you take gang, drug, and organized crime out of the count -- which are things most folks aren't involved in -- the number drops to around 65. Still pretty sizable. But then, if you eliminate family and domestic shooting -- because most people aren't involved in murderously psychotic families -- you are down to 7. These are the ones who get all the attention. The guys who shoot bystanders indiscriminately over some perceived rejection or slight or conspiracy. Nut cases, in short. These are the crime of fascination in the current times. You would expect them to be on the increase. It certainly feels like they are from the news headlines, but what does the data say?
In that same article there is a graph at the bottom. The count of Mass Public Shootings (which is the kind we are interested in) seems to hover around 4 or 5 per year between 1999 and 2013. There may be a slight uptick toward the end, but it's negligible. This is not what we'd expect for the hot crime of the moment. What about the last few years?
According to this Mother Jones article:
One wonders where FBI profiling will go in the future since we are all in love with genetic causes for behavior these days. A future Mindhunter might be about the traditional profilers versus DNA readers as a Moneyball-style conflict.
And now I've digressed this topic to death. But yeah, Mindhunter is worth a look.
With regards to dramatic quality, Mindhunter is practically schizophrenic. The personal drama of the agents and their interactions are afforded little more that the basic dialogue of a network police procedural: overheated exposition and incoherent indignation substituting for actual character. They do a decent job of paralleling the personal drama with aspects of the psychos in the cases they investigate. They could delve deeper into that to benefit the series, but otherwise the workaday dialogue is the stuff of ear cringe. And the horrendous portrayal of righteous irrationality of black people in Atlanta at that time is worthy of a cable news network.
The shining lights are the portrayals of the killers themselves -- Edmund Kemper, Son of Sam, Manson, Wayne Williams, etc. Being asked to portray a serial killer, especially one for whom there is video documentation to research, has to be a gift beyond compare for a dedicated actor. And the actors they find just gobble the scenes, seemingly mesmerizing the regular cast as well as the audience. Here are side-by-sides of the the real killers with their portrayals: Kemper and Manson. You can just tell those actors are completely in the zone. It's a very cool payoff for the lukewarm bulk.
Quick aside: In real life Kemper has made a name for himself as a reader of audio books. We live in a truly bizarre timeline.
Unless you are squeamish, or just generally trying to insulate yourself from the Sick Sad World that's portrayed in the various media. Mindhunter is a decent watch. Now, me being me, I will digress.
Let's take a shot at recapping the phases of crime in America that have caught popular attention. I suppose early on, the 1920s-ish there were the bank robbers -- Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillenger, etc. Then, with prohibition and through the sixties with drugs, organized crime got all the attention -- Capone through Gotti. As crimes go these make a certain sense. They are about money. Directly taking it in the case of bank robbing, gaining it by fulfilling a forbidden need in the case of organized crime.
As the sixties faded into the seventies, things got weird and worse. Crimes that fascinated were no longer about money. Bombings and domestic terrorism were what the '70s was all about. According to Time: "In a single eighteen-month period during 1971 and 1972 the FBI counted an amazing 2,500 bombings on American soil, almost five a day." Follow cable news and you would think the U.S. is swamped in violence when in fact there is less than ever. That Time article is an instructive read. As it points out, we all just took it in stride back then; it barely registered on my young psyche. Can you imagine what would happen if we had a stretch of five bombings a day now? The National Guard would be on every corner, children would be confined to their houses, Twitter servers would meltdown, the New York Times would blame the legacy of slavery, Fox News would look on the bright side. The past is a foreign country, my friends. In any event, these sorts of crimes that are labelled domestic terrorism are vanishingly rare, perhaps as a result of 9/11.
Late '70s and into the '80s it was all about serial killers. Mindhunter portrays the fascination of the public, noting how everyone wants to hear lurid stories of the grisly killers from the detectives. As you might assume the number of serial killers rose with attention. According to Slate: "There were 19 in the 1960s, 119 in the '70s, and 200 in the '80s. In the '90s, the number of cases dropped to 141. And the 2000s saw only 61 serial murderers." That strikes me as a under-investigated phenomenon. What changed that caused bombings and serial killing to fall out of favor? Is it just fashion? Maybe momentum builds in the public mind so more and more people who are on the cusp of committing one of these crimes tips over and gives in to the urge. Then as fashion fades and the crime becomes less noteworthy they fall back to a normal level. That would be a fascinating research topic for a soft scientist.
These days the hot crime is mass shootings, although it is surprisingly hard to find consistent statistics on them. Some of it is a matter of definition. In this research article if you scan about halfway down, there is a table highlighting the different ways of counting mass shootings and stats for the year 2015. If you define a mass shooting as any single instance where 4 or more people were killed the numbers are astonishing -- in the mid 300s. To read that you'd think you should wear body armor at all times. The key here is the definition. If you take gang, drug, and organized crime out of the count -- which are things most folks aren't involved in -- the number drops to around 65. Still pretty sizable. But then, if you eliminate family and domestic shooting -- because most people aren't involved in murderously psychotic families -- you are down to 7. These are the ones who get all the attention. The guys who shoot bystanders indiscriminately over some perceived rejection or slight or conspiracy. Nut cases, in short. These are the crime of fascination in the current times. You would expect them to be on the increase. It certainly feels like they are from the news headlines, but what does the data say?
In that same article there is a graph at the bottom. The count of Mass Public Shootings (which is the kind we are interested in) seems to hover around 4 or 5 per year between 1999 and 2013. There may be a slight uptick toward the end, but it's negligible. This is not what we'd expect for the hot crime of the moment. What about the last few years?
According to this Mother Jones article:
- 2014 - 4
- 2015 - 7
- 2016 - 6
- 2017 - 11
- 2018 - 12
- 2019 - 7 (so far)
One wonders where FBI profiling will go in the future since we are all in love with genetic causes for behavior these days. A future Mindhunter might be about the traditional profilers versus DNA readers as a Moneyball-style conflict.
And now I've digressed this topic to death. But yeah, Mindhunter is worth a look.
[Rant] Isn't That Just Fine
I recently got pulled over in Pinckney, MI, a town just north of me. It was one of those situations where the speed limit dropped ten mph and I missed the sign and got caught doing about 12 over. The cop seemed decent and just gave me a warning for speeding in exchange for writing me up for having an out of date insurance -- which was an outright falsehood, since I had an up to date certificate. He explained that he could do that and I would get no points and have only a $25 dollar fine. Annoying, but I know how to pick my battles so I quietly acquiesced.
Later when I went online to pay, I come to find out it was not a $25 fine, but $125 (and no, I didn't just misunderstand). It was probably no cheaper than a low level speeding ticket. I suppose I still got out of points on my license, but why would the cop do that? Why falsify a charge and lie about the fine when he could have just hit me up for a minor speeding ticket? Putting 2 and 2 together I remembered the reason for traffic stops is not for the sake of law enforcement but for revenue. The lie gets me to feel grateful and not fuss on the scene. Discovering the lie is frustrating, but even that is probably not worth it to fight. But if you throw in points on my license, I may make a fuss. I may decide to be a prick and force a court date just on the hopes of getting out of it. So the strategy is to weasel in an effort to gain revenue while minimizing the possibility of administrative expenses. In other words, maximizing profit. And that, my friends, is a dangerous game.
Back when I used to read a lot of travel writing, I would often run into stories of folks driving through Mexico and getting pulled over, often on false pretenses. There would be dire warnings and threats from the Mexican cops but then it would be made known that a small cash outlay would get them out of trouble on the spot. The travellers in these stories seemed to find it all entertaining in a genuine-cultural-experience sort of way. But how condescending is that? Look at it this way, if there was some cop in Ann Arbor pulling people over and squeezing them for cash, Heads Would Roll. If it started in the morning, by Noon social media would be on fire. People would be out of jobs by the end of the day. It takes a special kind of smug superiority to sit back in your bubble and have a laugh over a similar situation because it's the silly Mexican primitives doing it far away.
The business of using traffic fines as a source of revenue is tip-toeing on a fraying line. There are places in Georgia and Louisiana where this has already gotten out of control. It's important to take very seriously how much corruption will feed upon its own image. If you think the authorities are cynical and dishonest, you assume you have to engage with them on their own terms and corruption grows. If you want to see where that ends up, read my above comments about Detroit. So much of the order needed to maintain progressive civilization is a matter of broad based trust. If you doubt that, google "low trust societies". Cheap ploys like I had played on me are a plain and obvious broken window.
I don't mean to imply there is third-world level corruption in Pinckney, MI. Like I said, it's a mere annoyance to me and not anywhere near a major problem in the area. I just want to point out the dangers. A healthy community will not resort to speed traps for revenue, if it wants to stay healthy. If you find your community is increasingly financed by fines and speed traps, it might be time to find a new community. The writing is on the wall.
Later when I went online to pay, I come to find out it was not a $25 fine, but $125 (and no, I didn't just misunderstand). It was probably no cheaper than a low level speeding ticket. I suppose I still got out of points on my license, but why would the cop do that? Why falsify a charge and lie about the fine when he could have just hit me up for a minor speeding ticket? Putting 2 and 2 together I remembered the reason for traffic stops is not for the sake of law enforcement but for revenue. The lie gets me to feel grateful and not fuss on the scene. Discovering the lie is frustrating, but even that is probably not worth it to fight. But if you throw in points on my license, I may make a fuss. I may decide to be a prick and force a court date just on the hopes of getting out of it. So the strategy is to weasel in an effort to gain revenue while minimizing the possibility of administrative expenses. In other words, maximizing profit. And that, my friends, is a dangerous game.
Back when I used to read a lot of travel writing, I would often run into stories of folks driving through Mexico and getting pulled over, often on false pretenses. There would be dire warnings and threats from the Mexican cops but then it would be made known that a small cash outlay would get them out of trouble on the spot. The travellers in these stories seemed to find it all entertaining in a genuine-cultural-experience sort of way. But how condescending is that? Look at it this way, if there was some cop in Ann Arbor pulling people over and squeezing them for cash, Heads Would Roll. If it started in the morning, by Noon social media would be on fire. People would be out of jobs by the end of the day. It takes a special kind of smug superiority to sit back in your bubble and have a laugh over a similar situation because it's the silly Mexican primitives doing it far away.
The business of using traffic fines as a source of revenue is tip-toeing on a fraying line. There are places in Georgia and Louisiana where this has already gotten out of control. It's important to take very seriously how much corruption will feed upon its own image. If you think the authorities are cynical and dishonest, you assume you have to engage with them on their own terms and corruption grows. If you want to see where that ends up, read my above comments about Detroit. So much of the order needed to maintain progressive civilization is a matter of broad based trust. If you doubt that, google "low trust societies". Cheap ploys like I had played on me are a plain and obvious broken window.
I don't mean to imply there is third-world level corruption in Pinckney, MI. Like I said, it's a mere annoyance to me and not anywhere near a major problem in the area. I just want to point out the dangers. A healthy community will not resort to speed traps for revenue, if it wants to stay healthy. If you find your community is increasingly financed by fines and speed traps, it might be time to find a new community. The writing is on the wall.
[Good Links] Link Set
A trio of things that have caught me eye in my Web meanderings.
This is a good final summary of what happened to Malaysia flight 360, if you happen to remember the flight that just vanished into thin air years ago and dominated the news cycle. The flight simulator evidence seems particularly conclusive.
The founding of Dungeons and Dragons is a story rife with controversies and varying interpretations. This article brought me back to those painful years before being a nerd had any cache. It also contains what is perhaps the single most deadpan sentence ever written: "One day, he was flipping through a copy of a neighbor's Playboy magazine when he saw something that captivated his 13-year-old imagination: an advertisement for board games."
An examination of the religious beliefs of Peter Theil by David Perell, who has never met or communicated with him. Thiel is a PayPal founder and Facebook big wig, among other things. He is a very influential intellectual, heavily responsible for the elevation of the philosophies of Rene Girard in current big brain circles. I've found him more of a communicator of ideas rather than a discoverer but, in the words of Jacobim Mugatu, he's so hot right now.
This is a good final summary of what happened to Malaysia flight 360, if you happen to remember the flight that just vanished into thin air years ago and dominated the news cycle. The flight simulator evidence seems particularly conclusive.
The founding of Dungeons and Dragons is a story rife with controversies and varying interpretations. This article brought me back to those painful years before being a nerd had any cache. It also contains what is perhaps the single most deadpan sentence ever written: "One day, he was flipping through a copy of a neighbor's Playboy magazine when he saw something that captivated his 13-year-old imagination: an advertisement for board games."
An examination of the religious beliefs of Peter Theil by David Perell, who has never met or communicated with him. Thiel is a PayPal founder and Facebook big wig, among other things. He is a very influential intellectual, heavily responsible for the elevation of the philosophies of Rene Girard in current big brain circles. I've found him more of a communicator of ideas rather than a discoverer but, in the words of Jacobim Mugatu, he's so hot right now.
Thursday, August 08, 2019
The Month That Was - July 2019
Peak summer. As I sit to write these monthlies, not a post goes by that I don't wonder where the month went to. I'm glad to say that I have been outside a fair amount this summer -- mostly biking. I've also made a concerted effort to spend more time resistance training (weightlifting) in and effort to forestall the inevitable degradation of age. I got a brief trip down to Houston in to help with a minor relocation. I spent too much time in front of the TV (see below). That's pretty much where the month went to.
Still, it's been a decent summer so far. Low stress for the most part. But soon -- back to the damn manuscript.
[Rant] The Mighty River
[Movies] The Mythology of (My) Life
[TV] Return to Mars
[Sports] A Better Tour
Still, it's been a decent summer so far. Low stress for the most part. But soon -- back to the damn manuscript.
[Rant] The Mighty River
[Movies] The Mythology of (My) Life
[TV] Return to Mars
[Sports] A Better Tour
[Rant] The Mighty River
I continue to be fascinated, and occasionally amazed, by Amazon and the effect it's having on our lives. Amazon is more interesting than Google in that Google just deals in the ephemeral -- bits and pixels, information. If you want something in real life, something tactile -- an object -- then Amazon is your jam. Compared to that, Google has it easy.
The latest observation is how quickly Amazon became huge in a new space -- shipping -- once they decided they needed to do it themselves. In three years (a very short time) they went from zero to handling half their shipments themselves. I bet that in another three years, they are not only self-sufficient but offering shipping service to external customers, putting UPS, FedEX, and the Post Office at existential risk.
They have spawned a new nomad class -- folks who troll the country for deep discounted goods at brick-and-mortars, and then resell on Amazon for a small profit. This is a fascinating arbitrage; one wonders why these obscure or insolvent b-and-ms don't just list the goods on Amazon to begin with and capture the profit themselves. Which I suppose is just another angle on why they are going out of business in the first place.
Aside: Nomads are a breed apart -- whether it is for harvest work, or construction, or resort holiday work, or Amazon arbitrage -- there is a certain romanticism to travelling around to where the work is, taking whatever comes, leaving entanglements behind you. Anybody remember Then Came Bronson? Those who live the life lose any romantic notions fairly quickly, but often they stay at it, seduced by the sense detached freedom. Do a search on Van Life.
More interestingly, Zack Kanter deep dives into Amazon's remarkable success, why it's different from Walmart, and the core strategy that keeps it going. Hint: it's "customer focus", but not in the bland, droning way you hear the phrase used in standard corporate-speak. He also identifies a potential misstep. Very thought provoking.
Amazon continues to eat the world. One wonders how long it will last. If I had to predict, I would say at some point it gets large enough that it becomes a sort of post-modern East India Company, given tacit approval of the government to continue dominating as long as it continues to work for the greater benefit of the world. I'm good with that.
The latest observation is how quickly Amazon became huge in a new space -- shipping -- once they decided they needed to do it themselves. In three years (a very short time) they went from zero to handling half their shipments themselves. I bet that in another three years, they are not only self-sufficient but offering shipping service to external customers, putting UPS, FedEX, and the Post Office at existential risk.
They have spawned a new nomad class -- folks who troll the country for deep discounted goods at brick-and-mortars, and then resell on Amazon for a small profit. This is a fascinating arbitrage; one wonders why these obscure or insolvent b-and-ms don't just list the goods on Amazon to begin with and capture the profit themselves. Which I suppose is just another angle on why they are going out of business in the first place.
Aside: Nomads are a breed apart -- whether it is for harvest work, or construction, or resort holiday work, or Amazon arbitrage -- there is a certain romanticism to travelling around to where the work is, taking whatever comes, leaving entanglements behind you. Anybody remember Then Came Bronson? Those who live the life lose any romantic notions fairly quickly, but often they stay at it, seduced by the sense detached freedom. Do a search on Van Life.
More interestingly, Zack Kanter deep dives into Amazon's remarkable success, why it's different from Walmart, and the core strategy that keeps it going. Hint: it's "customer focus", but not in the bland, droning way you hear the phrase used in standard corporate-speak. He also identifies a potential misstep. Very thought provoking.
Amazon continues to eat the world. One wonders how long it will last. If I had to predict, I would say at some point it gets large enough that it becomes a sort of post-modern East India Company, given tacit approval of the government to continue dominating as long as it continues to work for the greater benefit of the world. I'm good with that.
[Movies] Mythology of (My) Life
At some point in 2030 this headline will appear: "We are now as far from Avengers: Endgame as Endgame was from Ironman." In 2049: "We are now as far from Avengers: Endgame as Endgame was from the fall of the Berlin Wall." To which everyone in 2049 will respond, "The Berlin what?" None of this will make me feel old because I will have been old for a very long time by then. Here's another one. In 2075: "We are now as far from Avengers: Endgame as Endgame was from the first Avengers comic book." This too will not make me feel old because I will be dead, assuming I don't live to be the oldest man ever. (Although, why not?)
My point is that I think the Marvel movies are some sort of high water mark. That they are going to stick in our cultural consciousness for quite some time. Unlike many of their contemporaries, I think they are pretty close to timeless. When looking to imbue greater gravitas to their action films, others have moved to playing pulled-from-the-headlines games and generating various woke forms of controversy; Marvel has stuck to the mythological basics. Yes, there has been a spot of virtue signalling here or there, but always in good taste and always subsidiary to the essence -- Heroism, Sacrifice, Justice, Vengeance, Faith, Hubris, Failure, Redemption -- all the existential qualities that have driven drama, and all the humanities, since time immemorial. If, in a few millennia, people look back on this era and interpret these films as indicative of our core outlook on the world, as we do with the myths of the ancient Greeks, I will say we did OK by Civilization and expect most eras will have done worse.
So yes, I am likely the last person you know to have seen Endgame. It now has, deservedly, the highest box office gross in all of history, displacing the execrable Avatar. It is different from the other Marvel movies, primarily because of the atmosphere. The trademark humor and repartee is still there, but the undertone is one of universal desperation. That tone was first struck in Infinity War when Cap says, "We lost."
There are three distinct parts. First is the Avengers actually avenging -- finding Thanos and killing him in retaliation for the snap. The second is triggered by a rodent of convenience, opening the door to time travel and the recovery of everyone lost in the snap. The third, in the best Greek tradition, has unintended consequences bringing about a new and larger battle with Thanos. Victory only comes, and redemption achieved, through the ultimate personal sacrifices. You could argue that this should have been two movies, which would have allowed a bit less hand waving around some character transformations that seemed to have happened in the interim (Hulk, Hawkeye) and maybe more on the state of the post-snap world.
I first started reading Marvel comics in junior high school as an outcast nerd, staring my teens in the teeth, scared and uncertain about my future. I would rush to the drug store every day just in case a new issue of one of my favorites came out -- twelve cents off the spinning rack -- my allowance permitted the purchase of four per week at most. I would read them cover-to-cover and over-and-over. I would visit flea markets to hunt down back issues. Now here are those stories and those characters again, this time at the top of the cultural food chain, with me staring 60 in the teeth, scared and uncertain about my future.
I don't know where Marvel is going to go next. I love Tom Holland/Spiderman so I'm sure I'll catch Far From Home when it comes to streaming along with whatever new Dr. Strange stuff is made, but the rest of what I have heard about "Phase 4" sounds like they are moving into a Marvel era that I am unfamiliar with -- one that came after my early teens -- so I'll likely feel less a compulsion to keep up on the new releases. I have no doubt they will be good and may affect a later generation as strongly as the last ten years have affected me. More interesting to me are the TV show plans.
Whatever the case, it's been a wonderful, uplifting gift having this mythology bookend my life so far.
My point is that I think the Marvel movies are some sort of high water mark. That they are going to stick in our cultural consciousness for quite some time. Unlike many of their contemporaries, I think they are pretty close to timeless. When looking to imbue greater gravitas to their action films, others have moved to playing pulled-from-the-headlines games and generating various woke forms of controversy; Marvel has stuck to the mythological basics. Yes, there has been a spot of virtue signalling here or there, but always in good taste and always subsidiary to the essence -- Heroism, Sacrifice, Justice, Vengeance, Faith, Hubris, Failure, Redemption -- all the existential qualities that have driven drama, and all the humanities, since time immemorial. If, in a few millennia, people look back on this era and interpret these films as indicative of our core outlook on the world, as we do with the myths of the ancient Greeks, I will say we did OK by Civilization and expect most eras will have done worse.
So yes, I am likely the last person you know to have seen Endgame. It now has, deservedly, the highest box office gross in all of history, displacing the execrable Avatar. It is different from the other Marvel movies, primarily because of the atmosphere. The trademark humor and repartee is still there, but the undertone is one of universal desperation. That tone was first struck in Infinity War when Cap says, "We lost."
There are three distinct parts. First is the Avengers actually avenging -- finding Thanos and killing him in retaliation for the snap. The second is triggered by a rodent of convenience, opening the door to time travel and the recovery of everyone lost in the snap. The third, in the best Greek tradition, has unintended consequences bringing about a new and larger battle with Thanos. Victory only comes, and redemption achieved, through the ultimate personal sacrifices. You could argue that this should have been two movies, which would have allowed a bit less hand waving around some character transformations that seemed to have happened in the interim (Hulk, Hawkeye) and maybe more on the state of the post-snap world.
I first started reading Marvel comics in junior high school as an outcast nerd, staring my teens in the teeth, scared and uncertain about my future. I would rush to the drug store every day just in case a new issue of one of my favorites came out -- twelve cents off the spinning rack -- my allowance permitted the purchase of four per week at most. I would read them cover-to-cover and over-and-over. I would visit flea markets to hunt down back issues. Now here are those stories and those characters again, this time at the top of the cultural food chain, with me staring 60 in the teeth, scared and uncertain about my future.
I don't know where Marvel is going to go next. I love Tom Holland/Spiderman so I'm sure I'll catch Far From Home when it comes to streaming along with whatever new Dr. Strange stuff is made, but the rest of what I have heard about "Phase 4" sounds like they are moving into a Marvel era that I am unfamiliar with -- one that came after my early teens -- so I'll likely feel less a compulsion to keep up on the new releases. I have no doubt they will be good and may affect a later generation as strongly as the last ten years have affected me. More interesting to me are the TV show plans.
Whatever the case, it's been a wonderful, uplifting gift having this mythology bookend my life so far.
[TV] Return to Mars
After a long and eventful hiatus, the fourth season of Veronica Mars was terrific. I say that so you know this is a rave not a pan, because I am going to talk about the bad stuff first.
A running undercurrent of the entire Veronica Mars series has been juvenile snark about class warfare. Everything bad that happens has its origin in the rich and privileged doing awful, uncaring things at the expense of the poor and oppressed. The bad guys are easy to pick out that way for sure, especially because they behave like cartoon villains for the most part. The downtrodden do awful things too, but they are forgiven or understood or have even been forced to do them by the rich and powerful. And the wokeyness is so pervasive that if a non-white comes under suspicion you know it will be a red herring because the show wouldn't have non-whites as bad guys. The show is still wonderful, but it's like the one friend you have who's great in real life, but who keeps flooding your facebook feed with inane political memes.
The rest of the show is just flat out great. If you have read any reviews I have written before you know I am an aficionado of the dark art of pacing. I feel comfortable in saying no show has ever been better paced than Veronica Mars. With all my years of watching TV I am a fine tuned instrument for figuring out when I can allow my attention to wander, use the loo, grab my iPad, without missing anything of value. I don't believe there was a single moment in the eight episodes of this season where I felt comfortable doing that. That's a remarkable achievement. What little exposition occurs is short and couched in humour and/or wicked sharp dialogue. That is high craftsmanship. It also highlights the benefit of the short intense seasons that come along with Premium and streaming TV. Back in seasons 1-3, on broadcast, they had to go deep in the well to come up 20+ episodes a season. You can only have so many good ideas, better to condense them into a short, perfectly-honed season, rather than try to dribble them out evenly such that every episode ends up compromised.
The core characters, in contrast to most of the peripherals, are very well drawn, and they are, well, characters -- entertaining personalities, flawlessly cast; people you can invest in. So much of this was a joy to watch.
It is not Pantheon material. (Pantheon = Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Halt and Catch Fire) It doesn't shine a light on a facet of human experience, like eternal art does. It is not ruthlessly character driven. It is more the sort of thing you would put on a "favorite" list rather than a "greatest" list. Which is perfectly fine with me, I am happy with it as is, and would gleefully watch many more seasons.
It could go in the Pantheon direction, and there were hints that it might, especially during the last episode. How could it happen? 1) Dial back the political juvenalia. 2) Veronica (and maybe others) need a deep and relatable arc that is serious and personal. Something beyond being a tough feminist icon who never gives up -- that's the stuff of bad pop music and self-help books.
One possibility: Veronica is a narcissist. She ducked out on many opportunities so she could be a big fish in the small pond of Neptune. She views everyone as a supporting-character to her main narrative. She gets morally indignant at others but excuses all her own trespasses. She bugs the office of a friend and then excuses it as a necessity of the job. She encourages a young girl to use an awkward boy's affection for her to get him to do some hacking. She regularly misrepresents her plans and intentions to manipulate people, even to her friends . She even belittles her boyfriend's attempts to resolve his personal issues because it is not in line with her expectations of him. All this is classic narcissism. A Pantheon worthy story arc would be tracking her development into a genuinely empathetic person along with background on how she got so self-absorbed to begin with. (Could Keith have played a role? -- that would be some good conflict for him.) A more negative version would be her ending up suffering for her inability to make that change. That is personal and eternal.
Part of me, even most of me, doesn't want that. Just keep it entertaining and high quality and I'll be fine. I'll be happy to track Veronica's snappy patter with her father and see them matching wits with Neptune's finest indefinitely.
It may be tough, but if you are new to this, you should probably start at the beginning and plow through the broadcast episodes from long ago. (Looks to be Hulu only.) Season 1 and 2 are top notch. Season 3 a slight step down. Even with a few duds it was one of the highest quality broadcast TV shows in history -- it'll be worth it. You'll need to watch the movie, too.
A running undercurrent of the entire Veronica Mars series has been juvenile snark about class warfare. Everything bad that happens has its origin in the rich and privileged doing awful, uncaring things at the expense of the poor and oppressed. The bad guys are easy to pick out that way for sure, especially because they behave like cartoon villains for the most part. The downtrodden do awful things too, but they are forgiven or understood or have even been forced to do them by the rich and powerful. And the wokeyness is so pervasive that if a non-white comes under suspicion you know it will be a red herring because the show wouldn't have non-whites as bad guys. The show is still wonderful, but it's like the one friend you have who's great in real life, but who keeps flooding your facebook feed with inane political memes.
The rest of the show is just flat out great. If you have read any reviews I have written before you know I am an aficionado of the dark art of pacing. I feel comfortable in saying no show has ever been better paced than Veronica Mars. With all my years of watching TV I am a fine tuned instrument for figuring out when I can allow my attention to wander, use the loo, grab my iPad, without missing anything of value. I don't believe there was a single moment in the eight episodes of this season where I felt comfortable doing that. That's a remarkable achievement. What little exposition occurs is short and couched in humour and/or wicked sharp dialogue. That is high craftsmanship. It also highlights the benefit of the short intense seasons that come along with Premium and streaming TV. Back in seasons 1-3, on broadcast, they had to go deep in the well to come up 20+ episodes a season. You can only have so many good ideas, better to condense them into a short, perfectly-honed season, rather than try to dribble them out evenly such that every episode ends up compromised.
The core characters, in contrast to most of the peripherals, are very well drawn, and they are, well, characters -- entertaining personalities, flawlessly cast; people you can invest in. So much of this was a joy to watch.
It is not Pantheon material. (Pantheon = Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Halt and Catch Fire) It doesn't shine a light on a facet of human experience, like eternal art does. It is not ruthlessly character driven. It is more the sort of thing you would put on a "favorite" list rather than a "greatest" list. Which is perfectly fine with me, I am happy with it as is, and would gleefully watch many more seasons.
It could go in the Pantheon direction, and there were hints that it might, especially during the last episode. How could it happen? 1) Dial back the political juvenalia. 2) Veronica (and maybe others) need a deep and relatable arc that is serious and personal. Something beyond being a tough feminist icon who never gives up -- that's the stuff of bad pop music and self-help books.
One possibility: Veronica is a narcissist. She ducked out on many opportunities so she could be a big fish in the small pond of Neptune. She views everyone as a supporting-character to her main narrative. She gets morally indignant at others but excuses all her own trespasses. She bugs the office of a friend and then excuses it as a necessity of the job. She encourages a young girl to use an awkward boy's affection for her to get him to do some hacking. She regularly misrepresents her plans and intentions to manipulate people, even to her friends . She even belittles her boyfriend's attempts to resolve his personal issues because it is not in line with her expectations of him. All this is classic narcissism. A Pantheon worthy story arc would be tracking her development into a genuinely empathetic person along with background on how she got so self-absorbed to begin with. (Could Keith have played a role? -- that would be some good conflict for him.) A more negative version would be her ending up suffering for her inability to make that change. That is personal and eternal.
Part of me, even most of me, doesn't want that. Just keep it entertaining and high quality and I'll be fine. I'll be happy to track Veronica's snappy patter with her father and see them matching wits with Neptune's finest indefinitely.
It may be tough, but if you are new to this, you should probably start at the beginning and plow through the broadcast episodes from long ago. (Looks to be Hulu only.) Season 1 and 2 are top notch. Season 3 a slight step down. Even with a few duds it was one of the highest quality broadcast TV shows in history -- it'll be worth it. You'll need to watch the movie, too.
[Sports] A Better Tour
I remain one of eight Americans who follows the Tour de France. For nearly a decade, the Tour has been dominated by big teams right from the start, to the point where, barring incidents, the winner was nearly foreordained. The event was becoming sclerotic. Everyone knew everyone else's strengths and weaknesses. Everyone knew the optimal strategy at any point. This year, a number of things happened to shake it up.
First, the leader -- Chris Froome -- of the dominant team -- Ineos (formerly Sky) -- dropped out with an injury a few weeks before the race. Shouldn't have been a big deal, but his backup -- Geraint Thomas -- was only given co-leadership along with a new young rider -- Egan Bernal. That suggested that team did not have total faith in Thomas and/or was looking to the future as much as the current race. Though they still looked to have the strongest team, that opened the door to all sorts of other possibilities.
Second, intentionally or not, the course changed to further open the door to alternatives outcomes. They skewed some of the more difficult stages to earlier in the race and adjusted at least one of the stages in the Alps to have a descent on the finish. In other words, it did not as heavily reward great climbers as it normally does. It was not an upheaval, just a slight shift in emphasis.
As a result a lot of actual bike racing was going on and there was drama galore. An unexpected leader -- Julian Alaphilippe -- emerged and surprised everyone with both what he could do and how long he could hold on. It was the sort of surprise that the deck was stacked against in the recent past. With each stage he was gaining more and more adherents and more and more people were actually questioning whether his expected eventual collapse would happen.
Then came the real weirdness. One team -- Movistar -- actually got so twisted up over strategy that they probably lost an opportunity to win the Tour when a rider -- Nairo Quintana -- took off and carved a huge chunk out of the current leader and could've carved out even more if his team was set on supporting a different rider -- Mikel Landa -- and so let him proceed ahead on his own, without the help that would have turned him into a contender. A truly bizarre happening.
It got weirder when came the landslide. The leader was caught behind on a big climb early in one of the final stages and the question was whether he could recover on the descent, at which he is the best in the world when suddenly the stage was called to a halt. Torrential rains triggered a landslide over a huge swath of the course. As such the day ended with a new leader and a never to be answered question about what could have been.
Perhaps ironically, the winner did end up being a climber from the most powerful team, and his co-captain took second place. But at least it wasn't foreordained. That made this one of the best Tours in many years. Let's hope this Tour clued the race organizers in to the need to mix things up a bit more often. Admiring the French countryside and the fitness of cyclists in general isn't enough to hold interest.
Addendum: One of the more frustrating aspects of watch the Tour is the abysmal TV coverage; they lose track of riders and a couple of the announcers (I won't name them) make truly inane comments. They get no coverage of attacks or crashes until they are over and being sorted out. Honestly, can they not just put a chip on every bike. Better yet, a camera. Or why not use drone cameras. Hell, we don't even get a split screen. It's straight out of the '70s. It's really remarkable for such a huge event to have so little thought and resources put into TV coverage. I suppose given there are only 8 of us in the U.S. paying attention we should be happy with what we get. On the other hand, with some better and more dramatic footage, maybe there'd be more than 8 of us.
First, the leader -- Chris Froome -- of the dominant team -- Ineos (formerly Sky) -- dropped out with an injury a few weeks before the race. Shouldn't have been a big deal, but his backup -- Geraint Thomas -- was only given co-leadership along with a new young rider -- Egan Bernal. That suggested that team did not have total faith in Thomas and/or was looking to the future as much as the current race. Though they still looked to have the strongest team, that opened the door to all sorts of other possibilities.
Second, intentionally or not, the course changed to further open the door to alternatives outcomes. They skewed some of the more difficult stages to earlier in the race and adjusted at least one of the stages in the Alps to have a descent on the finish. In other words, it did not as heavily reward great climbers as it normally does. It was not an upheaval, just a slight shift in emphasis.
As a result a lot of actual bike racing was going on and there was drama galore. An unexpected leader -- Julian Alaphilippe -- emerged and surprised everyone with both what he could do and how long he could hold on. It was the sort of surprise that the deck was stacked against in the recent past. With each stage he was gaining more and more adherents and more and more people were actually questioning whether his expected eventual collapse would happen.
Then came the real weirdness. One team -- Movistar -- actually got so twisted up over strategy that they probably lost an opportunity to win the Tour when a rider -- Nairo Quintana -- took off and carved a huge chunk out of the current leader and could've carved out even more if his team was set on supporting a different rider -- Mikel Landa -- and so let him proceed ahead on his own, without the help that would have turned him into a contender. A truly bizarre happening.
It got weirder when came the landslide. The leader was caught behind on a big climb early in one of the final stages and the question was whether he could recover on the descent, at which he is the best in the world when suddenly the stage was called to a halt. Torrential rains triggered a landslide over a huge swath of the course. As such the day ended with a new leader and a never to be answered question about what could have been.
Perhaps ironically, the winner did end up being a climber from the most powerful team, and his co-captain took second place. But at least it wasn't foreordained. That made this one of the best Tours in many years. Let's hope this Tour clued the race organizers in to the need to mix things up a bit more often. Admiring the French countryside and the fitness of cyclists in general isn't enough to hold interest.
Addendum: One of the more frustrating aspects of watch the Tour is the abysmal TV coverage; they lose track of riders and a couple of the announcers (I won't name them) make truly inane comments. They get no coverage of attacks or crashes until they are over and being sorted out. Honestly, can they not just put a chip on every bike. Better yet, a camera. Or why not use drone cameras. Hell, we don't even get a split screen. It's straight out of the '70s. It's really remarkable for such a huge event to have so little thought and resources put into TV coverage. I suppose given there are only 8 of us in the U.S. paying attention we should be happy with what we get. On the other hand, with some better and more dramatic footage, maybe there'd be more than 8 of us.
Friday, July 12, 2019
The Month That Was - June 2019
Two short trips this month, neither of which I'm going to write up. One was Up North to the area of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park where it rained every day and high temps barely touched 60. The other was to Texas hill country between San Antonio and Austin where it rained every day and nightly lows temps rarely dipped below 80. Both trips were delightful in spite of the weather.
I've been spending a lot of time in fitness activities, which as you know I try not to write about, but I might for next month as they dovetail with some other topics of interest.
I am close to starting on the revision of my manuscript. It is mostly out of my head now, so I hope to see with fresh eyes for the horrible thing that it is.
[Rant] What am I Missing?
[Rant, Sports] Fakery for No Fun and No Profit
[Cars] Meet George Jetson
I've been spending a lot of time in fitness activities, which as you know I try not to write about, but I might for next month as they dovetail with some other topics of interest.
I am close to starting on the revision of my manuscript. It is mostly out of my head now, so I hope to see with fresh eyes for the horrible thing that it is.
[Rant] What am I Missing?
[Rant, Sports] Fakery for No Fun and No Profit
[Cars] Meet George Jetson
[Rant] What am I Missing?
I stumbled on this old article from Scott Alexander about how unexpectedly common it is to be completely oblivious to normal experiences and emotions without even realizing it. Though we all acknowledge we don't understand much of the world, we at least think we see the objective aspects of it clearly. That is certainly untrue. Although we have common views of the majority of experiences, obviously, for large swaths of population there are a significant number of aspects of the world that they unknowingly don't comprehend. The article discusses people who do not have a sense of smell. They often don't realize it until late in life. They have learned how to use the language of the scent of smell -- flowers smell nice, dog poo not so much -- but they are empty words to them. Suddenly someone asks them what something smells like for which they don;t have a frame of reference and they realize there is an entire sense they don't have. They simply knew the appropriate words to say about smell, they had no conception of the actual sensation.
It is not just in the physical realm like a lack of a sense. Psychotic individuals do not have the ability to empathize. Like the folks who can't smell, they learn the social cues and comforting words to fit in, but they really have no sense for what anyone else might be feeling.
This works in the other direction, too. Sometimes it's the minority of people who sense something most don't. In that case it's the folks with the superior capability who are the weird ones. This is a recording of Free Jazz by Ornette Coleman. It is considered a seminal work of art by a jazz master. It was produced by the amazing Tom Dowd. Indisputably great jazz artists such as John Coltrane followed suit to the sound. Critics admired it then and still do to this day.
To me, it barely sounds like music. And I am not alone in this. A sample of comments from that YouTube: "...a chicken got killed..." "...this is the music I suggest at a party in order to be kicked out immediately" "...they call it free jazz because nobody will pay you to play like that" "sounds like before a concert when everybody is warming up". These comments are not just saying it's not to their taste, they are questioning whether it is music or just random noise. My initial reaction is to agree with them. I don't hear music. I hear occasional sonorous combinations of notes, but not music.
But others do. Tom Dowd, John Coltrane, and other seriously musical people do. It's a temptation to say they are just posing and being elitist. I don't think so. They have no motivation to seem cool or superior. They do hear music -- beautiful, inspiring music -- and that makes me sad. There are sounds out there that deeply move people but, like a man without a sense of smell, I cannot experience it. My brain is simply not wired in a way to comprehend it.
I have two takeaways from this. 1) The shibboleth that we are all the same under the skin is wrong. Individuals have very fundamental differences and that does not bode well for the idea of a common human bond. And 2) It makes one's BS detector more problematic. How do you differentiate your sense of BS from a shortfall in your own mind?
I have no answers, I merely highlight this as another example of how little we truly understand about ourselves. The set of objective knowns is beginning to seem like it might end up being just a very trivial set facts and observations. As I have pointed out before, my tendencies skew to rationalism and objectivity as being of the greatest value. The longer I live, the further I think we (including me) are from realizing that value or whether it even exists.
It is not just in the physical realm like a lack of a sense. Psychotic individuals do not have the ability to empathize. Like the folks who can't smell, they learn the social cues and comforting words to fit in, but they really have no sense for what anyone else might be feeling.
This works in the other direction, too. Sometimes it's the minority of people who sense something most don't. In that case it's the folks with the superior capability who are the weird ones. This is a recording of Free Jazz by Ornette Coleman. It is considered a seminal work of art by a jazz master. It was produced by the amazing Tom Dowd. Indisputably great jazz artists such as John Coltrane followed suit to the sound. Critics admired it then and still do to this day.
To me, it barely sounds like music. And I am not alone in this. A sample of comments from that YouTube: "...a chicken got killed..." "...this is the music I suggest at a party in order to be kicked out immediately" "...they call it free jazz because nobody will pay you to play like that" "sounds like before a concert when everybody is warming up". These comments are not just saying it's not to their taste, they are questioning whether it is music or just random noise. My initial reaction is to agree with them. I don't hear music. I hear occasional sonorous combinations of notes, but not music.
But others do. Tom Dowd, John Coltrane, and other seriously musical people do. It's a temptation to say they are just posing and being elitist. I don't think so. They have no motivation to seem cool or superior. They do hear music -- beautiful, inspiring music -- and that makes me sad. There are sounds out there that deeply move people but, like a man without a sense of smell, I cannot experience it. My brain is simply not wired in a way to comprehend it.
I have two takeaways from this. 1) The shibboleth that we are all the same under the skin is wrong. Individuals have very fundamental differences and that does not bode well for the idea of a common human bond. And 2) It makes one's BS detector more problematic. How do you differentiate your sense of BS from a shortfall in your own mind?
I have no answers, I merely highlight this as another example of how little we truly understand about ourselves. The set of objective knowns is beginning to seem like it might end up being just a very trivial set facts and observations. As I have pointed out before, my tendencies skew to rationalism and objectivity as being of the greatest value. The longer I live, the further I think we (including me) are from realizing that value or whether it even exists.
[Rant, Sports] Fakery for No Fun and No Profit
You probably know I have done a lot of running races - 5ks, half-marathons, etc. Most of these are local in origin. I've done some big ones, but even those are not particularly noteworthy to anyone except people running in them, or perhaps the drivers who have their commutes interrupted by road closures. So it astonishes me that people work hard to cheat at them. Honestly, what does that get you?
We usually do dishonest things for the sake of either money or status, and believe me, short of being Olympic-level elite, there is no money in running. Or at least it seems there is no money without cheating. Evidently a while back there was a trainer with a history of doping his near-elite runners. Said runners would then enter mid-level races -- too small for elites, but locally popular enough to have $500-$1000 victory prizes. These doped high-end runners, often Kenyans, would dominate the locals and disappear with their prize money before anyone thought to check on their history. Do this for 5 or so races a month and you can make a passable income or, if you live cheaply, a healthy amount of money to send back to your relatives in Kenya. Be a trainer with a stable of runners doing this and your cut could amount to real money. Here's the original story.
A couple of years ago a popular local race called the Dexter-Ann Arbor run had a scare along these lines, when a Kenyan runner won the half-marathon and started immediately demanding his prize money right away. Everybody got suspicious and there was a multi-week delay as the race authorities looked into it. Eventually the runner was found to be legit and got his money.
But most cheating is not that nefarious. The latest scandal concerned Dr. Frank Meza who seemed to set the over-70 marathon record in LA, then got suspected of cheating; basically taking shortcuts to skip sections of the course. Though he denied everything, evidence mounted. It makes sense that he's old since you would have to be from a different era to expect you can do anything in public with there being photographic evidence. In the end he was disqualified. This wasn't the first time he had been accused of cheating. He was disqualified twice from the Sacramento marathon for the same reason. Then things took a tragic turn three days later when he was found dead, cause ruled to be suicide.
Again, why cheat? This is a fully-mature, 70-year-old man; a retired physician. What on earth is he getting out of this? What is the obsession that would make him do such a thing? Is it a blow against mortality? As long as he keeps running faster he's not dying. Irrational or not, conscious or not, there must be some motivating force. What is it? I guess we'll never know.
Other cheating is more prosaic, like bib stealing. What a crook can do is steal a bib (a paid participants number that gets attached to your shirt to validate your entry) and sell it online. Some very popular races cost into the hundreds, so selling a handful of stolen bibs can be a nice quick piece of cash. It is reprehensible, but at least I understand it. Like most thievery, it's done for the money.
It's also astoundingly stupid. Racers are photographer throughout the course by companies hoping to sell them commemorative photos. All the victim has to do is find a picture of you after the race, go on social media to locate you, then call the police. They can then charge you and whoever you bought it from online. Frankly, short of trying to rob a police station, I can't think of a stupider crime. But it happens. My rule for life: Never do anything in public you would not want to see on YouTube.
Here's an interesting scam. This woman hangs out on Instagram and looks for folks who post pictures of their race bibs before the race. She then makes copies of them, essentially racing for free. In these instances, money is not the motivation. What could it be? Health? No. Certainly there is a health benefit to being able to run a 5k or something, but it doesn't come from the medal or the t-shirt. You get the same benefit from running around your neighborhood. Most of the positive motivations like love or altruism don't come into play. So what's left?
Why, our old friend Status, of course. Not in a straightforward sense -- trust me, no cares that you ran the Princess 10k at Disney in any important way. It's the Facebook photo. The image of being one of those fit people, but without actually making the sacrifice. It's your public brand. Look at the photo on the top of this page. Five girls, one bib number. You can't tell me this wasn't all for the purposes of Facebook/Instagram personality positioning. They desperately want to portray themselves as fun and fit and vibrant and gain all the Likes. To that end, they probably all pitched in for one bib then photocopied it. Scroll down on this page and look at the social media exchange at the bottom. Astonishing. If you want to understand better the interaction of status and social media, read Eugene Wei on status as a service.
This is entertaining in the same way watching a bungling incompetent is. Let's face it, when the stakes are so low, it's hard to get righteously indignant. But people who set up and work the races work hard, usually for a higher cause. Look at it this way, you wouldn't ignore someone who was shoplifting a $50 watch, so why would you turn a blind eye to someone copying a bib for a $50 race? (Broken windows, maybe?)
That said, you also have to admit that the profound level of stupidity involved does make it outright comical.
And yet, as with all fun and games, at some point something bad happens. Frank Meza almost certainly cheated, for reasons we will never truly know. He almost certainly deserved the minor shame that was cast on him. He also almost certainly didn't deserve to die.
Perhaps the common thread in all of this is an absence of perspective.
We usually do dishonest things for the sake of either money or status, and believe me, short of being Olympic-level elite, there is no money in running. Or at least it seems there is no money without cheating. Evidently a while back there was a trainer with a history of doping his near-elite runners. Said runners would then enter mid-level races -- too small for elites, but locally popular enough to have $500-$1000 victory prizes. These doped high-end runners, often Kenyans, would dominate the locals and disappear with their prize money before anyone thought to check on their history. Do this for 5 or so races a month and you can make a passable income or, if you live cheaply, a healthy amount of money to send back to your relatives in Kenya. Be a trainer with a stable of runners doing this and your cut could amount to real money. Here's the original story.
A couple of years ago a popular local race called the Dexter-Ann Arbor run had a scare along these lines, when a Kenyan runner won the half-marathon and started immediately demanding his prize money right away. Everybody got suspicious and there was a multi-week delay as the race authorities looked into it. Eventually the runner was found to be legit and got his money.
But most cheating is not that nefarious. The latest scandal concerned Dr. Frank Meza who seemed to set the over-70 marathon record in LA, then got suspected of cheating; basically taking shortcuts to skip sections of the course. Though he denied everything, evidence mounted. It makes sense that he's old since you would have to be from a different era to expect you can do anything in public with there being photographic evidence. In the end he was disqualified. This wasn't the first time he had been accused of cheating. He was disqualified twice from the Sacramento marathon for the same reason. Then things took a tragic turn three days later when he was found dead, cause ruled to be suicide.
Again, why cheat? This is a fully-mature, 70-year-old man; a retired physician. What on earth is he getting out of this? What is the obsession that would make him do such a thing? Is it a blow against mortality? As long as he keeps running faster he's not dying. Irrational or not, conscious or not, there must be some motivating force. What is it? I guess we'll never know.
Other cheating is more prosaic, like bib stealing. What a crook can do is steal a bib (a paid participants number that gets attached to your shirt to validate your entry) and sell it online. Some very popular races cost into the hundreds, so selling a handful of stolen bibs can be a nice quick piece of cash. It is reprehensible, but at least I understand it. Like most thievery, it's done for the money.
It's also astoundingly stupid. Racers are photographer throughout the course by companies hoping to sell them commemorative photos. All the victim has to do is find a picture of you after the race, go on social media to locate you, then call the police. They can then charge you and whoever you bought it from online. Frankly, short of trying to rob a police station, I can't think of a stupider crime. But it happens. My rule for life: Never do anything in public you would not want to see on YouTube.
Here's an interesting scam. This woman hangs out on Instagram and looks for folks who post pictures of their race bibs before the race. She then makes copies of them, essentially racing for free. In these instances, money is not the motivation. What could it be? Health? No. Certainly there is a health benefit to being able to run a 5k or something, but it doesn't come from the medal or the t-shirt. You get the same benefit from running around your neighborhood. Most of the positive motivations like love or altruism don't come into play. So what's left?
Why, our old friend Status, of course. Not in a straightforward sense -- trust me, no cares that you ran the Princess 10k at Disney in any important way. It's the Facebook photo. The image of being one of those fit people, but without actually making the sacrifice. It's your public brand. Look at the photo on the top of this page. Five girls, one bib number. You can't tell me this wasn't all for the purposes of Facebook/Instagram personality positioning. They desperately want to portray themselves as fun and fit and vibrant and gain all the Likes. To that end, they probably all pitched in for one bib then photocopied it. Scroll down on this page and look at the social media exchange at the bottom. Astonishing. If you want to understand better the interaction of status and social media, read Eugene Wei on status as a service.
This is entertaining in the same way watching a bungling incompetent is. Let's face it, when the stakes are so low, it's hard to get righteously indignant. But people who set up and work the races work hard, usually for a higher cause. Look at it this way, you wouldn't ignore someone who was shoplifting a $50 watch, so why would you turn a blind eye to someone copying a bib for a $50 race? (Broken windows, maybe?)
That said, you also have to admit that the profound level of stupidity involved does make it outright comical.
And yet, as with all fun and games, at some point something bad happens. Frank Meza almost certainly cheated, for reasons we will never truly know. He almost certainly deserved the minor shame that was cast on him. He also almost certainly didn't deserve to die.
Perhaps the common thread in all of this is an absence of perspective.
[Cars] Meet George Jetson
I drove a Tesla. Just briefly. I was a fascinating experience. Like all electric vehicles, it launches off the line without hesitation. Honest neck snap, like it was a Corvette with a huge V8.
A Tesla would take some getting used to. First, as far as I could tell, it cannot coast. As soon as you lift off the accelerator it is braking. If you ever drove a manual transmission, you know that lurching slow down that happens when you downshift into a lower gear at speed (called engine braking)? That what's driving a Tesla is like all the time. It would take me some getting used to to say the least, but Tesla drivers seem to like it. It affords them the ability to do "one-foot driving," rarely touching the brake pedal at all.
The other strange thing is that the dashboard is empty of any controls. Instead there is a huge iPad like device in the center of the console and literally everything is controlled from there. It is you speedometer and stereo and gas gauge and map navigation and any other function you think you need. It tells you everything you need to know, including how much charge is left and where the nearest charging station is. It also has hidden Easter eggs, like the ability to make fart noises. (Oh Elon, you madman!)
A Tesla, or at least an electric car of some sort, would make sense for me to use as a commuter. I could go for two or three days worth of back and forth to work and around town, then recharge overnight in my garage. But the range on these things still precludes any extended journeys. Teslas range from approximately 250 to 350 miles. The only one I could possibly afford is 250. If I think about my long drives -- usually up to Mackinac, occasionally Chicago -- I'm looking at at least 250-300 miles. To be on the safe side I would have to charge on the way. To Chicago there are superchargers outside Battle Creek or near St. Joseph. To Mackinac I would have one chance to recharge in Bay City. It takes a little over an hour to charge to 100%, which I would want to do because I have to have enough juice to get back to the same supercharger on the way home. Usually superchargers are near shopping centers and such, so I could probably have no problem killing an hour while I wait. But it would be an annoying hour during which I would be staring with envy at the folks filling up in minutes at the gas station. But even more worrisome is that if for some reason the supercharger was not working, I would be dead in the water -- I would have to nurse my car on reserve power somewhere, or possibly get towed, where I could find a regular outlet to use. I would not begin to know how to do that.
No I'm sorry. Electric cars will be for commuting only until superchargers are at every gas station. And for commuting a Tesla is overkill. Any one of a number of little electric versions of regular cars would be a cheaper choice.
So let's say I dropped 30k on a little electric car. I would have two choices. Either a) buy a second car for road trips and other purposes, or b) just rent a car when I needed it for a non-commuting purpose.
Having a second car around would be nice. Probably an mid-size SUV or a four door pickup. Something that would be comfortable for long road trips, and could haul mulch and bicycles and such. It wouldn't have to be new, something like a Ford Explorer with 50k mile on it would suffice. It wouldn't put massive stop and go miles on it. I'd probably just buy whatever model has the fastest depreciation so as to get the best deal. That's a solid plan A.
Plan B would be to just rent whatever vehicle I needed when the e-car wouldn't do. That would certainly be cheaper. But it suffers from not having something at the ready for non-electric duty. Renting a pick up from u-Haul or a sedan from Enterprise is a chore and requires planning. That turns me off, although I'm probably overstating the spontaneity of my life. It would likely be thousands if not tens of thousands cheaper over the course of a few years. It may be a mental hurdle I should work to get over.
In any case, a new vehicle for me is still 2-5 years off. Since I finally got the Acura sorted, it is running spectacularly. Unfailingly reliable, still tight as a drum at almost 100k, and I must admit I've gotten use to that sweet Honda 6-cylinder that is perfectly refined yet responds like a Formula 1 engine when asked.
But my short drive in the Tesla was enough to convince me that electric cars are what's next. And it might be kinda nice.
A Tesla would take some getting used to. First, as far as I could tell, it cannot coast. As soon as you lift off the accelerator it is braking. If you ever drove a manual transmission, you know that lurching slow down that happens when you downshift into a lower gear at speed (called engine braking)? That what's driving a Tesla is like all the time. It would take me some getting used to to say the least, but Tesla drivers seem to like it. It affords them the ability to do "one-foot driving," rarely touching the brake pedal at all.
The other strange thing is that the dashboard is empty of any controls. Instead there is a huge iPad like device in the center of the console and literally everything is controlled from there. It is you speedometer and stereo and gas gauge and map navigation and any other function you think you need. It tells you everything you need to know, including how much charge is left and where the nearest charging station is. It also has hidden Easter eggs, like the ability to make fart noises. (Oh Elon, you madman!)
A Tesla, or at least an electric car of some sort, would make sense for me to use as a commuter. I could go for two or three days worth of back and forth to work and around town, then recharge overnight in my garage. But the range on these things still precludes any extended journeys. Teslas range from approximately 250 to 350 miles. The only one I could possibly afford is 250. If I think about my long drives -- usually up to Mackinac, occasionally Chicago -- I'm looking at at least 250-300 miles. To be on the safe side I would have to charge on the way. To Chicago there are superchargers outside Battle Creek or near St. Joseph. To Mackinac I would have one chance to recharge in Bay City. It takes a little over an hour to charge to 100%, which I would want to do because I have to have enough juice to get back to the same supercharger on the way home. Usually superchargers are near shopping centers and such, so I could probably have no problem killing an hour while I wait. But it would be an annoying hour during which I would be staring with envy at the folks filling up in minutes at the gas station. But even more worrisome is that if for some reason the supercharger was not working, I would be dead in the water -- I would have to nurse my car on reserve power somewhere, or possibly get towed, where I could find a regular outlet to use. I would not begin to know how to do that.
No I'm sorry. Electric cars will be for commuting only until superchargers are at every gas station. And for commuting a Tesla is overkill. Any one of a number of little electric versions of regular cars would be a cheaper choice.
So let's say I dropped 30k on a little electric car. I would have two choices. Either a) buy a second car for road trips and other purposes, or b) just rent a car when I needed it for a non-commuting purpose.
Having a second car around would be nice. Probably an mid-size SUV or a four door pickup. Something that would be comfortable for long road trips, and could haul mulch and bicycles and such. It wouldn't have to be new, something like a Ford Explorer with 50k mile on it would suffice. It wouldn't put massive stop and go miles on it. I'd probably just buy whatever model has the fastest depreciation so as to get the best deal. That's a solid plan A.
Plan B would be to just rent whatever vehicle I needed when the e-car wouldn't do. That would certainly be cheaper. But it suffers from not having something at the ready for non-electric duty. Renting a pick up from u-Haul or a sedan from Enterprise is a chore and requires planning. That turns me off, although I'm probably overstating the spontaneity of my life. It would likely be thousands if not tens of thousands cheaper over the course of a few years. It may be a mental hurdle I should work to get over.
In any case, a new vehicle for me is still 2-5 years off. Since I finally got the Acura sorted, it is running spectacularly. Unfailingly reliable, still tight as a drum at almost 100k, and I must admit I've gotten use to that sweet Honda 6-cylinder that is perfectly refined yet responds like a Formula 1 engine when asked.
But my short drive in the Tesla was enough to convince me that electric cars are what's next. And it might be kinda nice.
Friday, June 07, 2019
The Month That Was - May 2019
It's uneventful news to you, but a source of great relief to me, that I've completed the first draft of my next book. It is awful, as first drafts uniformly are, but from now on it's all a matter of revision. It's a big step on to a lower grade of climb. I am pleased.
All TV this month. Not that all I did was watch TV, but there were three significant finales this month. I did tons of chores, many frustrating, some rather icky. I'll spare you the discussion of those. You're welcome.
[TV] Endgame of Thrones
[TV] The Last Big Bang
[TV] Deadwood Epilogue
All TV this month. Not that all I did was watch TV, but there were three significant finales this month. I did tons of chores, many frustrating, some rather icky. I'll spare you the discussion of those. You're welcome.
[TV] Endgame of Thrones
[TV] The Last Big Bang
[TV] Deadwood Epilogue
[TV] Endgame of Thrones
Folks are generally critical on the final season, and the finale in particular, and so am I, but perhaps not as much as others. Although the narrative fearlessness slacked and fan service grew after they ran out of book material to work from, at least they never lost sight of the timeless thread. Dani overcomes adversity and wages war for good and justice, which turns out to be a not so clean and noble an activity. She does damage, causes harm, imposes her will -- it can't be helped. She gets used to power, grows enthralled with herself. Then when push comes to shove, the principles become an excuse for power as opposed to the reverse. She becomes what every well-intentioned crusader becomes given enough time -- a tyrant.
The lesson: the only ones who are worthy to lead are those who don't want to. It's an old story. It is central to the myth of America's founding, but not uniquely by any means. It is what's forgotten by every socialist dreamer an starry-eyed revolutionary. It is a curse on civilization. Kudos for keeping that theme front and center, when I'm sure there were enormous temptations to build simple and easy good guys and bad guys and construct a fair and just comeuppance for all. That, as opposed to anything else, is the thing, along with the top notch cinematography and effects, that makes the show a cut above.
But the complaints are many and valid. Some of the story arcs took rather abrupt turns in the final two episodes -- Jaime suddenly deciding he was hateful after all; the Hound deciding his only reason for living was to kill his hated brother -- all despite years of character development. Honestly it felt like the War with the Night King could have been a six episode season in itself, as could the war for the Iron Throne. Maybe absent George R.R. Martin the writer's room went from pursuing the characters and their individual cruelties to barrelling into a defined ending and simply closing off the main threads, plot holes be damned. I'm all in favor of efficient narratives, especially if you've run out of creative ideas, but wedging each war into a single episode seemed like a bit of a shortchanging. Then of course there were the famous beverage scandals: the Starbucks cup and the bottle of water. Maybe they had all just had enough and wanted it over with.
(This may be the only time I have ever suggested a work of fiction should have been longer than it was.)
In any case, it falls well short of the TV pantheon. I doubt I will rewatch it, but it is now seared into our culture and that is no small achievement.
The lesson: the only ones who are worthy to lead are those who don't want to. It's an old story. It is central to the myth of America's founding, but not uniquely by any means. It is what's forgotten by every socialist dreamer an starry-eyed revolutionary. It is a curse on civilization. Kudos for keeping that theme front and center, when I'm sure there were enormous temptations to build simple and easy good guys and bad guys and construct a fair and just comeuppance for all. That, as opposed to anything else, is the thing, along with the top notch cinematography and effects, that makes the show a cut above.
But the complaints are many and valid. Some of the story arcs took rather abrupt turns in the final two episodes -- Jaime suddenly deciding he was hateful after all; the Hound deciding his only reason for living was to kill his hated brother -- all despite years of character development. Honestly it felt like the War with the Night King could have been a six episode season in itself, as could the war for the Iron Throne. Maybe absent George R.R. Martin the writer's room went from pursuing the characters and their individual cruelties to barrelling into a defined ending and simply closing off the main threads, plot holes be damned. I'm all in favor of efficient narratives, especially if you've run out of creative ideas, but wedging each war into a single episode seemed like a bit of a shortchanging. Then of course there were the famous beverage scandals: the Starbucks cup and the bottle of water. Maybe they had all just had enough and wanted it over with.
(This may be the only time I have ever suggested a work of fiction should have been longer than it was.)
In any case, it falls well short of the TV pantheon. I doubt I will rewatch it, but it is now seared into our culture and that is no small achievement.
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