The Month That Was - November 2023

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

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

[Travel] Omaha

[Roaring 20s] The New Next Thing

[TV] Toob Notes

[Travel] Omaha

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Roaring 20s] The New Next Thing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

>>>Other notes:

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

[TV] Toob Notes

• End of Archer - the final season (14) ended on a business as usual note, but shortly after it was announced that the actual ending will be a movie length special feature coming on 12/17.  I was actually going to applaud them for not turning the finale into a festival of closure and hugs and learnings.  Now I have to wait. The first two or three seasons of Archer were among the funniest in TV comedy history.  It lost steam after the first few seasons, then completely lost its way in the middle, but came back with some serviceable comedy in the last couple of go rounds.  I await the ultimate finale with trepidation.

• Fargo - Fargo is never less than excellent and this latest season seems to be the same.  Oh it's got the heavy-handed Noah Hawley define-bad-guys-by-their-deplorable-politics trope, but otherwise, the man knows what he is doing dramatically and the acting performances are always a cut above.  A full accounting once the series is over.   

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

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

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

The Month That Was - October 2023

A relatively eventful month as you will read below.  October did what it was supposed to: opened with the last vestiges of Summer and ended with a glance at the winter to come.  I got to enjoy some of the colors this year, which I don't recall doing in the last couple of years, probably due to travel.

Otherwise I soldier on.  Pushing through each day.  Trying not to panic about everything I should be doing that I am not.  Subtly fearful of what changes aging has in store for me and will I be able to adapt.  It's just the underlying hum of my life.

[Health and Fitness] Time Waits for No One

[Savannah] Re-evaluating Savannah

[Music, Rant] Sound in Your Skull

[Health and Fitness] Time Waits for No One

This may be TMI, but this month marked my third colonoscopy, a thing that I will be doing regularly for the remainder of my life.  It is a hideous annoyance.  I am supposed to get one every 5 years, but I generally push it to 7.  The indignity of it all -- from the preparation to the procedure itself -- is humbling at best.  I'm going to put my next one off until I'm 70.

At the risk of turning into one of those old folks who does nothing but complain about maladies, I have also managed to get another old guy condition -- a detached bit of solidified vitreous in my eye -- basically a permanent eye floater.  I'm used to it now, it's my new, always reliable, best friend. 

I also have a very mild case of arthritis in my right foot.  Very mild, but it's still arthritis.

All of these things are about being old, and I hate them.  In the scope of life they are very minor.  Symbolically they are awful.  And I have no doubt there will be more to come.

An interesting aspect to modern life is that if anything goes wrong with your health, you expect it to be fixed.  This wasn't the case, say, 150 years ago.  Back then, if you got sick, there were weird potions and things that were little better than witch doctor spells.  For the most part any malady just ran its course, if you died you died and if you lived you lived with whatever the consequences were.  Modern medicine is such that for the majority of illnesses you experience, the expectation is there is a drug or surgery or something that will fix it.  

So when things happen that can't be fixed or are never going to get better, it's doubly frustrating. I was horribly nearsighted and Lasik fixed that.  Thirty years ago my gall bladder went south and it was a small matter to remove it (a century ago I would have died at 33).   I am inoculated and immunized against any number of diseases.  The list goes on. As such, my thought pattern is, "Just laser the floater out of my eye, give me in injection to relieve the arthritis, and how about a pill to prevent colon cancer, etc.,..." then things would be back to normal.  As I think more deeply, this is really a plea for immortality.  If they could fix everything that degrades or goes bad, I'd never die, right?

Sadly, they can't and so I get old and things fail.  One day that failure is not going to be just an annoyance. That's the troubling part, every one of these little things that goes bad and will never get better is a reminder that there is a big thing like that coming.

I wish they would hurry up with my replacement Android body.

[Savannah] Re-evaluating Savannah

I spent a couple of weeks down in Southern Headquarters and I now have fairly extensive experience with Savannah and I can say it's very nice for a visit but I can't really recommend it as a place to live.  There is a core historic district that is quite lovely with a very active waterfront along the river and lots of shops and restaurants mixed in with remarkably beautiful restored historic homes.  It has its own flavor with its system of squares and a lovely central park (Forsyth). It is a combination of history tourism mixed with college students from SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) that give it a college town edge also. 

The way Savannah has developed is that the newer wealth is situated out in the suburbs out of Pooler and Richmond Hill.  So you get the vibrant core historic district surrounded by old, dilapidated, near-ghettos that aren't really old enough to be historic and are just ugly, then the outer suburbs which are lovely in a more modern sense.  Perhaps related, Savannah also has rather significant problems with crime and the homeless.

The big problem with Savannah is that the infrastructure is woefully inadequate. The road system is confusing and, in places, downright dangerous.  There are many heavily trafficked arteries for which there is, quite literally, no alternative route, so an accident or construction can result in multi-hour delays.  Related, the drivers here are awful -- not aggressive, just incompetent.  Furthermore, official bureaucratic services are an enormous hassle. To turn on water to your house, you have to attach a copy of your house closing settlement, your ID, and $30, then they will start your water sometime within a week or so.  There is a "fire fee" that supports fire service that you can pay online, but they will charge you an extra convenience fee for not paying in person.  To get your driver's license you need your birth certificate and a certified copy of any name change (largely affects married women) and certain states do not provide certified copies anymore so you can imagine what sort of Kafka-esque power-play opportunities that provides for high-handed staff at the DMV.  Just annoyance after annoyance.

Lastly, from what I can tell, Savannah is not particularly amenable to outdoor activities.  I may be spoiled since my Northern Headquarters has endless options for hiking and biking and just generally being outdoors.  I would be very afraid to bike around Savannah given the state of traffic. I have found minimal options for hiking, the odd city park here or there.  There is the ocean within a half hour so beach days are possible.  But in general, the level of activity in Savannah is much lower than the Ann Arbor area, but like I said, Ann Arbor might be an outlier.

So I guess the bottom line is I don't see Savannah as a long term home. The step-daughter dejure will be graduating next year and I strongly suspect the current southern headquarters will go on the market shortly after.

Addendum: It's interesting to compare Savannah to two other cities that are deeply dedicated to their past.  St. Augustine and Charleston.  I have spent much less time in those two places, but from what I have seen they are both a good deal more livable.

St. A has a smaller historic district, from what I can tell, and although crime and homelessness are evident mostly just across the water on the mainland, it's still a Florida coastal community which means there is a wealthy beach side of things and therefore can be relatively safe.  And of course, Florida beaches are a cut above the rest of the coast.  

I would guess that Charleston is the wealthiest of all although I have only been there on day trips.  A trip there just this month revealed no evidence of homelessness or safety concerns and, as a corollary, very much wealth.

I know all this drawing contrast between the wealth of an area and its evident safety concerns are ghoulishly unfashionable, but they are reality -- especially so for senior citizens of which I am effectively one.  I can get senior prices at McDonald's now.  It's one thing to embrace or tolerate societal dissonance when you're a kid and attracted to life's various excitements.  It's another when you're trying to live out the remainder of your life as peacefully and drama-free as possible.

[Rant, Music] Sound in Your Skull

Earbuds, how hard should they be? Earbuds are one of those things that I have spent too much time dealing with and trying to get right.  I use earbuds for two things mainly; at the gym up north and walking the dog down south. At the gym I just need standard earbuds, as long as they fit well.  I don't need noise cancellation although it's nice.  Down south I need almost the opposite, essentially I want something open air so I can hear traffic coming and be aware of my surroundings.

Up north I had until recently been using Jabra Elites.  They were fine.  Good sounding workhorses.  I usually charged the case before each session, but even if I didn't I could usually get as much as four hours out of them.  Of late, though they had gotten flaky -- occasionally telling me the battery was low when I had just changed them or, more recently, only one of the two earbuds functioning.  My experience with relatively inexpensive hardware is that once it starts to flake, the end is near, no point in trying to save them.

So I began looking at reviews.  First off, Amazon reviews are notoriously inaccurate and often outright fraudulent.  I have purchased at least one product that included a coupon that promised a $50 amazon gift card to me if I posted a five star review and sent them documentation of doing so.  That 4.7 rating, even if there are thousands of reviews, is suspect.  Secondly, you have to be careful about professional looking review sites, as often as not they are bought and sold, giving good reviews to anyone who will send them free stuff to review, even if the thing sucks.

After a good bit of exploration I came to the conclusion that Anker Soundcore A are the consensus best value.  I took a shot, and they do sound very, very good. Time will tell if they hold up as well as the Jabras.  They have a nifty application that administers a hearing test and adjusts the sound level as needed. That's nice.  My first impression, beyond the beautiful sound is that they are unbalanced -- the left ear is ever so lightly lower volume than the right or perhaps my left ear is weaker, although the hearing test didn't find that. I was hoping for an old fashioned balance control in the app but I couldn't find one.  Maybe it's the seal and I just need to try a different set of silicone pads.  Either way, I have to give the 'buds good marks.  Anker Soundcore A40 lives up to its good rep.

Down South it's a different problem.  The best solution I found was bone conduction headphones.  These transmit music through vibrations to the bones in your ear rather than forcing sound through the ear canal.  Or something like that.  In any event you get to privately hear your music without anything blocking your ears at all.  It's kind of strange at first but then you don't notice it.  The only difference between them and regular earbuds is that you can hear every sound going on around you, which is what I need when walking the ridiculous dog.

My first set was from a company called Kaibo that I bought through their kickstarter. At first they sounded spectacular, I was stunned by how high quality the sound was for bone conduction.  The problem was the damn things would not work.  Half the time only one side would function.  And the touch controls were so sensitive that even just adjusting them on my head would trigger a power down or a song skip or something.  Even when I wanted to take an action, the clicks and swipes to adjust them were so complex and the instructions so inscrutable I couldn't figure it out.  Finally I went onto their support site about the one side cutting out and found it was quite a common complaint.  They offered a workaround that involved moving files on your laptop and performing some sort of ritual that many people reported did no good, and was not available to anyone who didn't have a Windows laptop.  When Mac users asked what they should do, the response was "Find a Windows laptop".

Eventually I got so frustrated with them that I threw them in the trash.  That was my second participation in a kickstarter and both the products I was involved with ended up being trash.

Still, I was sold on bone conduction and the big name in bone conduction is Shokz. I bought their cheapest model because although I was sold on bone conduction, I had a bit of shell shock from Kaibo.  Also because the cheapest model had actual buttons, not touch controls, which I hate.  Well the Shokz work well.  And I appreciate the buttons, but the sound is pathetic.  It almost sounds like mono.  There is very little definition.  It's listenable, but just barely.  Functionally I like the Shokz and I may upgrade eventually in the hopes of better sound quality, but for now I'll live with it as I have spent WAY too much money on earbuds just to get to this point.

I'll stop now having written almost 1000 words about earbuds and wasting a fair amount of your time if you've gotten this far.

Addendum: Speaking of sound, one thing I have noticed is that most of the young people I know seem perfectly happy to listen to music through the horrible tinny speakers on their phones.  I can't stand it.  It sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.  How can you appreciate music that way?

The Month That Was - September 2023

The passing of September makes me 63 years old.  It's a birthday of no consequence.  No boundary has been crossed.  No symbolic meaning.  No great revelations.  At least 62 had the significance of me being able to apply for Social Security, even though I'm not going to.  64 has the significance of being in a famous Beatles song.  But 63 -- I got nothin'. 

In fact I have little to report at all.  I've been doing nothing but rolling along with my life, lost in my habits. In the past I would have felt as though I'm missing out, but now I welcome a stretch of routine and normalcy.  With a warmer than normal winter predicted, I'm pretty content at the moment.

[Music] Changes in Gratitude

[TV] Streaming Stories

[Cars] Whatever Happened to Ten Years Ago

[Music] Changes in Gratitude

I guess you could call me a Jimmy Buffet fan.  I wasn't always.  As a sneering, snarky youth I scoffed at his silly songs which I passed off as some kind of limp country pop.  I probably came to like him in my late 20s as I lost my hard edge and I fell for the simple catchiness of the tunes that would earworm their way into my brain.  

The more I listened, the more I appreciated it.  The big thing about Jimmy was always his beach bum persona; the carefree, sun-drenched, margarita-sipper in the aloha shirt, representing everything you long for as you pound your head against your office cube wall and shovel the snow from your driveway.

Here's the thing, I have had more than one opportunity to live that sort of life.  The dirty secret is that, like many fantasies, it gets boring real fast once the novelty wears off.  You can spend only so many aimless days in a lounge chair sipping fruity drinks and devouring beach books.  And you would be stunned how fast you gain weight from margaritas.  The plain fact is that we all need something to do.  If I truly found myself on a beautiful tropical island with little to do except chill, I would probably be drinking bourbon nonstop and obsessively gambling on Draft Kings.  That said, it's fun for a week or two at a time, so in that sense, Jimmy nailed it.

I think what most people miss about Jimmy is that there was more to it than that persona.  The celebration of inebriated slacking would wear thin in short order, but ultimately, that wasn't the underlying theme he brought to the table. Considering his entire oeuvre, I would sum up his mission in one word: Gratitude.  Sorrow and joy, pleasure and pain; ultimately we appreciate it all.

• Some of it's magic, some of it's tragic, but I had a good life all the way

• Wrapped myself around a Ma Bell telephone pole…Life is just a tire swing  

• Everyone here is just more than contented to be livin' and dyin' in ¾ time

• Roll with the punches…made the best of whatever came his way

• Survivors of tidal waves, Children of former slaves…They'll be changing channels, always will

• There's a little bit of fruitcake left in every one of us

• We all know, just how lucky we are

All these lyrics and so many others convey gratitude for life and humanity, with all defects and difficulties that come with it.  That is the truly enduring message.

Beyond that, I also think Jimmy is very underrated as a songwriter, again by those who pass him off as nothing but a fantasy persona.  Bob Dylan called out his admiration for his songs, as has Paul McCartney, yet for some reason he doesn't seem to get looped into the greatest songwriter conversations.  His ability to construct clever rhymes is really second to none, he has a great variety in meter and, of course, he can compose a hook as well as anyone.  Let me just link some of my favorites (Links to YouTube):

That's What Living is to Me -- a call out to Mark Twain, this is wonderfully crafted and perfectly sung.  If I had to choose one song to describe Jimmy Buffet music it would be this one. Marvelous character images, a great hook, the contrast of happiness and sorrow -- "In the far off regions, the foreign legions keep the thieves and the predators at bay" vs. "stories from my favorite books still take on many different looks".

Changing Channels -- Another one with a strong sense of gratitude for the life we are given. The quiet poetry of the mundane.  The beauty of the everyday.  A truly lovely ballad. 

The Ballad of Skip Wiley -- Characters from a Carl Hiassen beach read.  Swanky horns like an old school caper.  A good example of his use of meter.  It also contains what might be my favorite rhyme in all the universe.  "With a pirate's persona / he snatched the gridiron madonna".  Too much fun.

And if I had to pick a favorite album I'd start with Fruitcakes wonderful infectious songs covering the gamut, call outs for the title song and Delaney Talks to Statues, a beautiful song for his daughter, or more correctly about his love for his daughter.

Another connection I feel for Jimmy is his love of, and call outs for, Florida, a state you can only appreciate if you can take the yin and the yang, the blue skies and ultra-violet rays, the riches and son-of-a-bitches.  Rarely does an album go by without a Florida reference I recognize and have experienced.

As I have aged my sense of gratitude has grown and Jimmy's music has certainly helped that along, and in turn fed my gratitude for having been able to enjoy it.  No question my Jimmy Buffet playlist will be in heavy rotation to the last.

Thank you, Jimmy.

[TV] Streaming Stories

I ran across this list of the top 15 streamed programs last year.  I have no reason to doubt it.

1. Stranger Things 

2. NCIS 

3. Cocomelon 

4. Ozark 

5. Encanto 

6. Grey’s Anatomy 

7. Criminal Minds 

8. Bluey Disney+ 

9. Gilmore Girls 

10. Seinfeld 

11. Supernatural 

12. Wednesday 

13. Heartland 

14. Cobra Kai 

15. The Simpsons

And I can't let it slide without commentary.  First, I'm glad to see Stranger Things on top. It is a high quality, well written show that young people can enjoy and dodges so many of the culture war pitfalls that causes so much TV to be really bad.  Seen it.

I would have suspected the only reason to watch NCIS or Criminal Minds was because you were stuck with old school cable.  Formulaic, expository, arch -- the continued existence and popularity of shows like this is baffling to me. Still, can't argue with success.

I gather Cocolemon, Bluey, and Encanto are the hot kids shows of late.  Unsurprisingly, I haven't seen any, but maybe when I see the (de jure) grandkids on Thanksgiving.

Ozark is intriguing, but it also sounds like a minefield for potential crime adjacent TV clichés.  Still I like Jason Bateman so I should probably check it out.

I wonder who will die first, Grey's Anatomy or me.

When I saw Gilmore Girls I thought it must be a reboot of the old series.  Nope.  Not as far as I can tell.  Pushing a quarter century and people are still watching it?  I never watched it; what am I missing?

Now, Seinfeld I can understand. Thirty-something and still in the top ten.  That is correct.  It's the GOAT sitcom and nothing before or after can touch it.  It is still fresh in the current TV landscape.  Seen it.

I confess I had never heard of Supernatural until now. A show about monster hunting. My first thought is to hope Darin Morgan is one of the writers (IYKYK).  It has had 15 seasons on Netflix, so maybe they are doing something right.  May try.

Wednesday was a big hit.  It was all over social media for a while and it looks like fun.  I might give it a shot.

Heartland is another one I never heard of.  A Canadian family drama, presumably more Waltons than Succession.  Unless Shoresy shows up and starts chirping, I'll pass (IYKYK).  Still, a "Canadian family drama" up that high is impressive.

I occasionally stream Cobra Kai -- I think I'm on season 3 -- and it's really good fun.  Tightly written, doesn't take itself too seriously, and Macchio and Zabka are great together.  Seen some.

The presence of The Simpsons makes me wonder how many people are just rewatching the early classics or is there a big audience actually trying to stay current on all 35 seasons.  Seen some.

One knee-jerk conclusion I could draw is that generational variance isn't that great anymore.  I mean, look at the #1, it's new, but set in the 80s with a classic Spielberg flavor to it. All this assumes that the popularity of the shows listed above runs across generations, but that wouldn't surprise me, it's kind of always been like that. I was a fan of Cheers in the '80s, but I also loved the Twilight Zone from the '60s.  In the '60s I loved The Monkees, but I also watched The Three Stooges from the '30s.  Now folks like Wednesday, but maybe they also like Seinfeld.  I see YouTube videos of teens and twenty somethings covering Classic rock.  I grew up in a time of the "Generation Gap".  Seems that gap has closed.