It's time for cabin fever. This is the point where everyone who says they love the change of seasons starts wishing the next change would hurry up.
I fought a lot with tires this month. I developed a slow leak in one and a had a major blowout in another (in the middle of a blizzard). Annoyances. They were repaired relatively quickly, but I am grateful that I can change a tire (which I am told is no longer a assumed skill), and grateful that my car has at least a temporary spare as opposed to a patch kit that is now all too common.
It's also tax time. Ugh. The cold, the annoyance, the drudgery. Escape opportunities are minimal. It all adds up to making me restless. But the tax refund should help fund a nice trip.
[Tech, Rant] The World Observes What Follows On
[TV] True Detective, True Again
[House and Home] Under Vacuum
Wednesday, March 06, 2019
[Tech, Rant] The World Observes What Follows On
An old dog trying to learn new tricks. That's my life these days. This is especially true in technology. I see it all the time in my day job where I manage teams of software developers. I haven't written a line of code in decades but at least I understand what goes on conceptually in programming and other technology. It is orders of magnitude more complicated than it used to be for a number of reasons, including security, interoperability, and just outright scale. Because of the complexity there is much more specialization today -- no more sitting in your home office and creating a word processor from scratch. You can be back-end (database), you can be front-end (web, generally), you can be a security specialist, etc. It's dizzying the number of processes and concepts that must affect your work, but I maintain the not so unreasonable delusion that were I deep in the details of a given specialty everyday, I could keep up just fine. And if something is explained conceptually to me, I can grasp it.
But there are hints and allegations that I may have reached a limit. Lately I have been trying to understand blockchain and not doing very well. I have a decent understanding of bitcoin, the crypto-currency for which blockchain was invented (I think). I understand public and private keys, I understand what bitcoin mining is, I kind of understand how validation works, I even sort of understand how a blockchain is built out of a complete history of transactions that cannot be altered. What I don't understand is what value it offers in any sort of activity that isn't completely digital. I also don't understand the value it provides over current systems of enforcing contracts beyond decentralization which, it seems to me, is of questionable value in legit circles.
Now: anyone who happens to stumble across this who is well-versed in blockchain is probably either laughing or gritting their teeth, and I don't doubt that had I a good understanding of things the answers to these concerns might be clear. Despite all my investigation so far, I haven't found the knowledge I'm looking for.
Explainers tend to fall into two camps. One, they are superficial and get all hand-wavy about things like they are talking to grandma about the tubes of the internet. Or two, they delve into the topic but throw vocabulary and concepts at you without explanation. I remain convinced that if I just found a well written source I would have no trouble with this. I would be able to get it.
Ah, but there's the rub. Would I, or have I hit the limit? Is the problem with the literature or with my old dog brain finally rubbing up against something it cannot grasp? For those of you wondering what it is like as you reach the upper limits of middle age -- this is what it's like. At every point of confusion the question of whether the world has finally moved beyond you is like a low-level hum in the background.
I think the situation is that I have a vague mechanical understanding of blockchain and I haven't yet made the intuitive leap to how it can be broadly applied in such a way that it allows functionality that our current systems don't (or that is very expensive in our current systems). And I think if I keep looking into it, I'll stumble into something that crystallizes it for me. So, no, I do not think I have hit my limit.
But then, who does? A crotchety old dude who can't remember his address and goes around bitching about how Bill Clinton is ruining the country still believes he is sharp as a tack. The blue hair in the cataract glasses with the glacial reaction time is convinced she's a safe driver. I delude myself that I still have a 34-inch waist and I could run 5k under 25 minutes. I have an image of myself as alert, fit, and competent, but everyone around me could be thinking, "Poor guy, he's losing it."
Still, what else is there to do? Writing yourself off from possibilities and growth is just the self-fulfillment of failure. It's the final reconciliation with the inevitable, there-by encouraging it. I may not live forever, but I must behave as if I will. It's my only hope.
Addendum: On the other hand, in the last year there has been considerable progress in developing a vaccine for Alzheimer's and an outright cure for cancer. Maybe I will live forever after all. This has to be terrible news for Millennials who may end up with Boomers like me leaching Social Security from their paychecks and telling them how they ruined music for decades to come.
More addendum: Speaking of not keeping up... There is an app called TikTok using which you can record video of yourself lip synching to songs and share them with friends. It has been downloaded 1 billion times. I had never heard of it. Sigh.
But there are hints and allegations that I may have reached a limit. Lately I have been trying to understand blockchain and not doing very well. I have a decent understanding of bitcoin, the crypto-currency for which blockchain was invented (I think). I understand public and private keys, I understand what bitcoin mining is, I kind of understand how validation works, I even sort of understand how a blockchain is built out of a complete history of transactions that cannot be altered. What I don't understand is what value it offers in any sort of activity that isn't completely digital. I also don't understand the value it provides over current systems of enforcing contracts beyond decentralization which, it seems to me, is of questionable value in legit circles.
Now: anyone who happens to stumble across this who is well-versed in blockchain is probably either laughing or gritting their teeth, and I don't doubt that had I a good understanding of things the answers to these concerns might be clear. Despite all my investigation so far, I haven't found the knowledge I'm looking for.
Explainers tend to fall into two camps. One, they are superficial and get all hand-wavy about things like they are talking to grandma about the tubes of the internet. Or two, they delve into the topic but throw vocabulary and concepts at you without explanation. I remain convinced that if I just found a well written source I would have no trouble with this. I would be able to get it.
Ah, but there's the rub. Would I, or have I hit the limit? Is the problem with the literature or with my old dog brain finally rubbing up against something it cannot grasp? For those of you wondering what it is like as you reach the upper limits of middle age -- this is what it's like. At every point of confusion the question of whether the world has finally moved beyond you is like a low-level hum in the background.
I think the situation is that I have a vague mechanical understanding of blockchain and I haven't yet made the intuitive leap to how it can be broadly applied in such a way that it allows functionality that our current systems don't (or that is very expensive in our current systems). And I think if I keep looking into it, I'll stumble into something that crystallizes it for me. So, no, I do not think I have hit my limit.
But then, who does? A crotchety old dude who can't remember his address and goes around bitching about how Bill Clinton is ruining the country still believes he is sharp as a tack. The blue hair in the cataract glasses with the glacial reaction time is convinced she's a safe driver. I delude myself that I still have a 34-inch waist and I could run 5k under 25 minutes. I have an image of myself as alert, fit, and competent, but everyone around me could be thinking, "Poor guy, he's losing it."
Still, what else is there to do? Writing yourself off from possibilities and growth is just the self-fulfillment of failure. It's the final reconciliation with the inevitable, there-by encouraging it. I may not live forever, but I must behave as if I will. It's my only hope.
Addendum: On the other hand, in the last year there has been considerable progress in developing a vaccine for Alzheimer's and an outright cure for cancer. Maybe I will live forever after all. This has to be terrible news for Millennials who may end up with Boomers like me leaching Social Security from their paychecks and telling them how they ruined music for decades to come.
More addendum: Speaking of not keeping up... There is an app called TikTok using which you can record video of yourself lip synching to songs and share them with friends. It has been downloaded 1 billion times. I had never heard of it. Sigh.
[TV] True Detective, True Again
I guess the light is still winning. The third season of True Detective was a winner, putting the lingering disappointment of season two behind it. At the outset it looked like it may just be a rehash of season one: Two hard and jaded cops driving around trying to solve a case of crimes against children, told via copious flashbacks, with a metaphysical angle lurking around every corner.
If anything, this season was cleaner and better scripted than even the ground-breaking first. In the first season the case played into the Detective Rust Cohle's personal demons, this season the case disrupted Detective Wayne "Purple" Hays' relationships, especially with his family, which brought an added dimension. And instead of Rust Cohle pontificating about metaphysics to Woody Harrelson's chagrin, this time the metaphysical aspect is dramatized mostly through the device of centering on Wayne Hays towards the end of his life and in the early stages of dementia; beating forward into the past, but unsure of the reality of that past. Dramatization over exposition for the win.
The conflicts build not just among the characters but among the point of view of the characters at the three points in their lives we are tracking. The detectives worked hard, caused great pain and suffering in the course of their investigation, and truly believed it had to be done, but was it their own incompetence that caused their failure? They feel they caved to bureaucratic pressure or personal pressure, but was it their own weakness that stopped them?
Cleverly the case provides the direct connection between Detective Hays and his wife, since she is writing a true crime book about it. It is the thing that brought them together and the thing the separates them. It is so interwoven with their lives that when they need to let it go, they risk letting their marriage go. Their interplay slows things down at times, but it is essential.
As one often does, one has to overlook the shortcuts in character and minor implausibilities -- that's just a fact of TV drama. But there are really very few weaknesses.
The finale is a stunner. Even within the span of the final hour, as the aged detectives saddle up one last time in a bid for closure, the layers of the onion are still deep. At first it appears that the case resolved in tragedy, but at least, at the end, there was some form of justice for the final living perpetrator. But wait! A last second clue emerges and Detective Hays is on the case again. It seems there was a happy ending after all and the Detective comes so very close to seeing it and finding some peace, but so much lifetime has passed ("Time is the school in which we learn; Time is the fire in which we burn") that dementia intervenes before he sees it. So in the end we know the ending was happy, but must cry for the detectives, who will continue to suffer. Is that also justice for their committed sins?
And then, yet again, we are offered a tiny glimmer of hope the the happy ending may yet be discovered. As a fact of metaphysics, there is no close to the story -- the end is not the point. At the last, we are flashbacked once more to Detective Hays, attempting to reconcile with his eventual wife who offers him a do-over. A do-over is still what he needs. Maybe he'll get it. After all, time is flat circle.
If anything, this season was cleaner and better scripted than even the ground-breaking first. In the first season the case played into the Detective Rust Cohle's personal demons, this season the case disrupted Detective Wayne "Purple" Hays' relationships, especially with his family, which brought an added dimension. And instead of Rust Cohle pontificating about metaphysics to Woody Harrelson's chagrin, this time the metaphysical aspect is dramatized mostly through the device of centering on Wayne Hays towards the end of his life and in the early stages of dementia; beating forward into the past, but unsure of the reality of that past. Dramatization over exposition for the win.
The conflicts build not just among the characters but among the point of view of the characters at the three points in their lives we are tracking. The detectives worked hard, caused great pain and suffering in the course of their investigation, and truly believed it had to be done, but was it their own incompetence that caused their failure? They feel they caved to bureaucratic pressure or personal pressure, but was it their own weakness that stopped them?
Cleverly the case provides the direct connection between Detective Hays and his wife, since she is writing a true crime book about it. It is the thing that brought them together and the thing the separates them. It is so interwoven with their lives that when they need to let it go, they risk letting their marriage go. Their interplay slows things down at times, but it is essential.
As one often does, one has to overlook the shortcuts in character and minor implausibilities -- that's just a fact of TV drama. But there are really very few weaknesses.
The finale is a stunner. Even within the span of the final hour, as the aged detectives saddle up one last time in a bid for closure, the layers of the onion are still deep. At first it appears that the case resolved in tragedy, but at least, at the end, there was some form of justice for the final living perpetrator. But wait! A last second clue emerges and Detective Hays is on the case again. It seems there was a happy ending after all and the Detective comes so very close to seeing it and finding some peace, but so much lifetime has passed ("Time is the school in which we learn; Time is the fire in which we burn") that dementia intervenes before he sees it. So in the end we know the ending was happy, but must cry for the detectives, who will continue to suffer. Is that also justice for their committed sins?
And then, yet again, we are offered a tiny glimmer of hope the the happy ending may yet be discovered. As a fact of metaphysics, there is no close to the story -- the end is not the point. At the last, we are flashbacked once more to Detective Hays, attempting to reconcile with his eventual wife who offers him a do-over. A do-over is still what he needs. Maybe he'll get it. After all, time is flat circle.
[House and Home] Under Vacuum
I've taken to cooking Sous Vide. I sprung for a rather nifty device from Anova that attached to the side of a deep pot and circulates water at a a set temperature. What this allows is to place food, usually meats, in a plastic freezer bag, seal the bag watertight (a ziploc is fine), then immerse it into the circulating water. There water gently raises the temperature to the desired level and keeps it there, without the risk of overcooking. For example, if you want to cook a steak medium rare, set the temp to 135, bag your steak and drop it in. Leave it an hour. Leave it an hour and a half. Doesn't matter: it won't go past medium rare. When you're ready to eat, pull it out and drop it in a hot skillet for a minute-ish on each side to brown it. Boom! A perfect steak. You can use similar procedures for burgers, sausages, pork, and chicken. Vegetables work less well on the whole, although denser ones such as carrots or potatoes can work.
For a kitchen idiot like me it's been a revelation. I can cook all kinds of stuff -- healthy stuff. My fave is a skinless, boneless chicken breast -- leave it for an hour in a mixture of honey and saltwater brine, sous vide for an hour, and you'll have the juiciest, tastiest chicken you've ever eaten -- no need for even a sear. Add in some frozen veggies from the microwave and it beats a Subway or Taco Bell any day.
I know serious chefs are laughing right now because I gather they think sous vide doesn't count as proper cooking, but I'm actually regularly buying food and cooking which used to be a once-in-a-blue-moon activity for me. I may make an adult of me yet.
For a kitchen idiot like me it's been a revelation. I can cook all kinds of stuff -- healthy stuff. My fave is a skinless, boneless chicken breast -- leave it for an hour in a mixture of honey and saltwater brine, sous vide for an hour, and you'll have the juiciest, tastiest chicken you've ever eaten -- no need for even a sear. Add in some frozen veggies from the microwave and it beats a Subway or Taco Bell any day.
I know serious chefs are laughing right now because I gather they think sous vide doesn't count as proper cooking, but I'm actually regularly buying food and cooking which used to be a once-in-a-blue-moon activity for me. I may make an adult of me yet.
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