Dubious Quality: July 2024

Eli 23.0!

Incredible to even contemplate.

Peacock and the Olympics

I can't believe I'm writing this, but NBC finally figured out the Olympics.

Not the primetime feed. It's unwatchable. In prime time, the simpering announcers want you to think every American athlete is your best friend. It's gross.

If you get a one-month subscription to Peacock, though, it's different, and it's only $13.99 for the ad-free version.

Every event. Every sport. If you watch replays, no commercials. 10X less jingoism, too.

The streams even work consistently. I've watched 10+ different sports and had no problems with stream quality. It's all been very pleasant.

It took a few decades, but well done, NBC.

Extremely Juvenile Tuesday

A Musical Tale

Zamrock was a musical genre that started in the early 1970s in Zambia. Heavily influenced by groups such as Deep Purple and Cream, it blended Western rock (wailing guitar with plenty of fuzz, in particular) with African influences. Classic albums like Amanaz's Africa (one of my favorites) defined the genre.

Fela Kuti, a Nigerian musician, was influenced by Zamrock, and his song Zombie (which I've linked to before), is one of my nominations for the greatest song ever recorded. Ginger Baker (Cream's drummer) went to Africa to collaborate with him. Fela Kuti's genre was technically afrobeat (which used African rhythms as well as western funk and jazz), but the Zamrock influence was significant.

Brian Eno heard Fela Kuti's album Afrodisiac and played it for David Byrne, which then changed the course of the Talking Heads, as their album Remain in Light was heavily influenced by afrobeats.

From America to Africa and back, all resulting in some of the best music ever recorded.

Friday Links!

Leading off, and it's not surprising: ‘It’s the best job! But it will kill you’: four restaurant critics on the battle to stay healthy.

From Wally, an interesting article on promoting your book: Anatomy of a free BookBub featured deal. Well, this is quite a lot to remember: The new etiquette: 56 ways to do the right thing, from how to leave a party to texting after sex.

From David Gloier, and someone should be in jail for this (and not the librarians): Inside the two-year fight to bring charges against school librarians in Granbury, Texas.

From C. Lee, and it's quite strange: Giant clam outperforms solar cell, converts 67 percent of sunlight. Ugly: U.S., Germany foil alleged Russian plot to assassinate CEO of German arms firm sending weapons to Ukraine. It's positively surreal at this point: Republicans’ Project 2025 Would End Free Weather Reports. An excellent read: How cleaning up shipping cut pollution — and warmed the planet. Fascinating: Murder, birth and test scores: What scientists are learning about extreme heat. A thought-provoking study: Study links sperm to shorter life spans, eggs to longer ones. This is an absolutely fantastic read: PROGRAMMING PATTERNS: THE STORY OF THE JACQUARD LOOM. One of the many ways gaming has changed over time: How the checklist conquered the open world, from Morrowind to Skyrim. This has been happening for years, seemingly: Gamers Are Becoming Less Interested in Games With Deep Strategy, Study Finds. This is extremely disappointing: Nintendo's systemic policy of miscrediting is harming external translators.

Montreal

We got back about 12:30 last night. Traveling to and from has been brutal. I'll have more thoughts on Monday, but my brain is fried.

Here are some more pictures. First a neighborhood. A long street was converted into pedestrian access only, and it's so peaceful to stroll through here.

Here's an ingenious bit of subway design:

Simple, but more people can hold on this way.

We stayed less than a hundred yards from the back of Notre-Dame Basilica, and went inside on Tuesday (after paying $16 for the privilege--good grief!). It's staggering:

It's one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen. The church is gross, for multiple reasons, but you can't argue with the brilliance of the architecture.

Sitting in the Montreal Airport

It's planes, trains, and automobiles on the way back. A metro train (Montreal's mass transit is superb), a cab, a flight to Toronto, a flight to Windsor, and a drive across the border and back home.

On the way to Montreal, it was automobiles and trains, because the flight out of Grand Rapids on Friday was a casualty of the CrowdStrike debacle. Getting there on Friday turned into waking up at 4:40 on Saturday, driving across the border at Detroit/Windsor (2.5 hour drive), then taking a 10-hour train ride to Montreal.

There was no way to get a flight on Saturday. Sunday, at best, and even that wasn't guaranteed.

It wasn't easy, and getting back doesn't look so easy, either. If absolutely everything goes right, we land in Windsor and retrieve the car around 8:30. We might be back home by 11:30, if--again--everything goes right.

We've walked almost 30 miles in the last three days, so it's been Japan-level physical activity, which is good, because I started out with the right shoes this time.

I'll have more pictures tomorrow. Right now, I'm so tired my brain is barely even functioning.

Pictures!

The first thing I noticed about Montreal is the beauty of its architecture:

There's a Metro station underneath this church, and a skyscraper behind it. You see juxtapositions like this all the time in the downtown area.

Nothing is built as a boring square. Every building has something a little special.

The colors are vibrant, too. Here are two examples:

Even in alleys, there's color.

Montreal

Theoretically, I've been in Montreal since late Friday.

I say 'theoretically' because I'm writing this Friday morning to auto-post on Tuesday, and IT systems are in chaos from the CrowdStrike debacle, and more than half of the flights are being delayed, and we might wind up driving, and I know nothing right now.

Hopefully, though, I'm in Montreal and will drop in to post some pictures. We may wind up living in Montreal, actually, so this is a both a trip to meet C's family and a scouting trip in general.

College Football 25

Considering it was the first graphically-based college football game in 11 years, it normally would have been a day one purchase for me.

This was EA, though, so I waited.

It launched Thursday at midnight (for the people who didn't pay $20 extra, which is a separate topic), and the forums are full of bug reports. Simple, simple problems that never should have made it into a released version.

This is EA, though. They never feel compelled to finishing a sports game before releasing it. They develop it until the scheduled release date, do triage on the outstanding bugs, and release it with a giant list of bugs still unfixed. In the case of Madden, some of these (substantial) bugs have been there for years.

It's discouraging.

It's tough when you finally admit that getting rid of bugs is not a developer's primary consideration. Games aren't products anymore. They're services, which has shifted the developer focus from fixing bugs to goosing the ongoing revenue stream.

What's really annoying is that almost every bug in this game is a solved problem. Having decent rushing stats in dynasty mode for simmed games isn't rocket science. It's not even difficult. It just times time to run the number of seasons and make the necessary adjustments to get it right. It just takes effort.

I'm sure I'll pick it up in a few weeks after the second or third substantial patch, because I still love college football, but let me remind you that the best college football simulation I've ever played is Football Coach: College Dynasty. It's still in Early Access, but the game has been almost completely bug-free for the last year or so, and new features are all that's being added now. It's superb, and you can even use real teams (check the Discord Channel for universe files).

Football Coach: College Dynasty is the game I would have designed, if I'd wanted to make a college football game. It's ultra-nerdy and full of data and has a ton of personality, too. Even better, when you submit a bug report, it's fixed!

What a revolutionary concept.

Friday Links!

Leading off this week, rare footage of both Jimi Hendrix and Prince playing acoustic guitar: Jimi Hendrix Goes Acoustic.

From C. Lee, and it's incredibly impressive: Scientists trick cancer cells into self-destructing through genetic editing. Yeah, it's bad, and the Supreme Court is both inept and evil: Can Biden Really Drone Strike Mar-a-Lago Now? Bizarre: The president ordered a board to probe a massive Russian cyberattack. It never did. An absolutely terrific read: The Forgotten Black Explorers Who Transformed Americans’ Understanding of the Wilderness. This is both sad and enraging: What do we do about Alice Munro now? Reckoning with the late author and Nobel Prize winner’s complicity in her daughter’s abuse. I'll keep saying it: billionaires are a policy mistake. That gives people like this exponentially too much influence. How Did Silicon Valley Turn into a Creepy Cult? Good advice: Don’t look at the interviewer during an online job interview. Quite the fantastic story: You Sexy Devil – The Story of the Genie du Maal. Classic, to no one's surprise (it's the Digital Antiquarian): Starcraft (A History in Two Acts).

From Wally, and interesting article on Amazon self-publishing: Categories on Amazon. This is a terrific read and hopefully not paywalled for you: After 12 Years of Reviewing Restaurants, I’m Leaving the Table.

An Intimate Evening With Kale

C was making a kale salad for dinner last night.

"Do you mind massaging the kale?" she asked.

"I don't even know the kale," I said. "Wait, are you trying to get me into a throuple? Do we have a safe word?"

"It makes the kale more tender," she said. "Just massage until it gives up."

"How do I know when that happens? What does kale despair feel like?"

"If it gets to be too much," just say 'coastline,'" she said.

'Coastline' was originally the safe word for conversations going into too much detail (based on the coastline paradox). Now, it's used as an all-purpose block.

Eli 22.11

Eli's hitting 23.0 soon.

For about a month this summer, it looked like he was going to Afghanistan for field research. A circus (located in multiple countries) has been operating in Afghanistan for decades as a peacebuilding initiative, and its director presented at the Art as Peacebuilding seminar Eli sponsored at Oxford. It was a unique opportunity to gather data.

It was also, to me, very scary, for security reasons.

As it turns out, no Afghanistan, at least for this year. Instead, he's going back to Colombia for a month. He designed his master's thesis so that it wasn't dependent on him going to Afghanistan, so he'll be able to use the data he gathers in Colombia without any major rework. Plus his advisor will be in Colombia at the same time.

No, Colombia isn't completely safe, either, but unless you go to Japan, every country is either dangerous in some way or the government is dangerous. In many countries, both.

By the end of this year, in the last fifteen months I'll have traveled to Japan, Mexico, Canada, and England. I feel like James Bond, compared to my usual travel schedule. And it's still nothing compared to him.

This Doesn't Feel Like the Future

I finished the second draft of This Doesn't Feel Like the Future today.

95,000 words. It took nine months, which is three months less than I expected. It's better than I expected, too, even though there's still plenty of work to do.

If the timeline goes the way the first book did, the next draft should only six months, and the ones after that, only three. I think it will be done in two years, maybe even less.

In other news, there's a book club in Palo Alto reading The Man You Trust for their monthly selection, which is a nice moment.

Too Unlikely

If this country was a movie, no one would believe the plot was credible.

Friday Links!

Leading off, an amazing article: ‘We’re Living in a Nightmare:’ Inside the Health Crisis of a Texas Bitcoin Town.

This is delightful: The best train travel guide is run by one man, all for free.

I feel like all of these people should have gone to prison: How tobacco companies used stress research to trick people into thinking cigarettes were healthy.

From Wally, and it's the future: Speed bump.

From C. Lee, and it's intriguing: Scientists find desert moss ‘that can survive on Mars’. A terrific interview, and what a great series: Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth’s artists on RGG Studio’s “think for yourself” policy and the series’ progressive technological advancements. This makes sense if maintenance isn't a nightmare: A bold plan takes shape to build the world's largest subsea energy interconnector. I think collaborating is more important than similarity: In more prosperous societies, are men and women more similar? This is fantastic: How the Square Root of 2 Became a Number. They were practically miracles, back in the day: The Birth, Boom and Bust of the Hard Disk Drive. Hot dog history: The truth about the US’ most iconic food. A fascinating read: Why Is This Shape So Terrible to Pack? This is a fantastic video (autism-related, but with much wider relevance): Mindblindness. These are utterly spectacular: Hyper Realistic Pencil Drawings of Metallic Objects by Kohei Ohmori.

About Town

I live next to downtown now, so today I took a stroll.

Check out this fellow, just chillin' like a villain:

Here was a woman fishing, but in a mysterious way:

If you're wondering why she's fishing with that looks like an orange extension cord, I was wondering the same thing, so I watched her for a while. When she finally pulled up the line, it had a large magnet on the end. She was fishing for keys and phones and rings and whatnot. I wanted to ask her what was the most interesting thing she'd ever caught, but I decided to let it go and walked on by.

Rashomon

I spent a week with my dad when I was twelve. He drove down with his other son and another family in a Winnebago, and he picked me up on the way. We drove out to South Padre Island and fished for a week on the beach.

It was a week filled with so much anxiety and disappointment for me that I've thought about it many times over the years. How I perceive that week, though, has changed over the years, particularly after I started therapy. Each version of the story becomes different, even though the basic facts have never changed.

What strikes me most now is how naive I was, even though I was smart for my age. And I feel bad for my small self trying to fix what was unfixable and blaming myself when I failed.

I don't know why I wanted to see my dad. He never wrote, he didn't call. All he sent was a Christmas present each year. On the rare occasions I did see him, I made him deeply uncomfortable because I asked questions he couldn't answer.

In my mind, him coming down to take me fishing for a week was a watershed moment. He clearly wanted to make a new commitment to being a father. In that week, I would convince him of my absolute appeal, and somehow that would convert our relationship into something special.

In reality, Dad coming to see me wasn't some big sacrifice on his part. My house was less than five minutes off the road that would lead to the beach, and he loved to fish more than he loved any person. He always had. I was part of the trip because it was convenient, not essential.

I should have been tipped off that my perception of the week was wildly different from his when another family came with him. In all, it was six people, plus me. I realize now they were with him to act as a buffer from me.

I was vaguely aware as the week progressed that I was spending hardly any time with him. He was always with other people, and I strongly remember his progressive annoyance with me. Nothing I did was quite right.

He thought, quite strongly, that I was soft. To him, that was the worst quality a person could have, even in sixth grade. Dad served in Korea and came back profoundly disturbed, and he was like that for the rest of his life. It was always an irony of my childhood that I wanted someone to like me who was so unlikable himself.

I definitely was soft, by his standards. His standards were so toxic, though, that they damaged anyone who tried to live up to them. My stepbrother was one of the casualties.

As the week progressed, my anxiety steadily increased. Nothing seemed to be changing, and I didn't know how to change it. I clearly didn't fit in, because I wanted to talk about topics even the adults didn't know anything about. I felt so incredibly vulnerable, and there was no one to protect me.

By the fifth day, I had canker sores on my gums, and I'm sure it was because of sheer stress. And I was sunburned beyond belief (Mom was so angry when he dropped me off and she saw how burned I was).

I blamed myself after he left, though for what, I was never sure. For not being magical, I guess. That week made me retreat into myself in a way that made me even more introverted, and I didn't start to unravel that until I got into therapy over four decades later.

For a long time, even though my interpretation of the week changed, I never thought about forgiving myself. I didn't think I needed to. This last time, though, I realized it mattered.

So to me as a little dude, I know you were doing your best. I couldn't ask for anything more.

FatalZone (plus two things I forgot in the original post)

I found a bit of an escape from the grim political reality of the last few weeks.

It's called FatalZone, and it's an auto shooter, but different, with much more strategy (to me) than something like Vampire Survivors (which I also liked). In FatalZone, your characters die permanently, and you don't have to complete runs. Instead, as you run around shooting zombies and finding supplies, a helicopter intermittently offers you an evacuation route.

Since you've invested time and funds into characters, you don't want to lose them. The helicopters aren't available all the time, though, so you have to make decisions on how long to stay and fight while still being able to get out alive. Missions are offered inside runs (without much variety, sadly) which can give you additional rewards for additional risk.

There's also a home base with multiple areas you can upgrade through the supplies you collect on runs.

The visuals are quite an upgrade from the usual pixel graphics of this genre. Very painterly and attractive, with excellent animation.

It's in Early Access, but there's a ton of content and it seems to be stable, although people are complaining constantly in the discussion forums because it's what people do nowadays.

During the Summer Sale, it's only $3.99, and well worth it at that price.

EDIT: I forgot to mention two of the best moments in the game.

The first is when you hear the helicopter, because the sound effect is perfect. Also, you hear it take off, in case you decided to stay through one more cycle.

The second is when bikers on motorcycles come roaring through a level at intervals. It reminds me so much of the UFO in the original Space Invaders and is such a great touch.

General Notes

Eli 22.11 saw Djokovic, Swiatek, and Andy Murray's last match at Wimbledon on Thursday. Plus, Roger Federer walked right past him, about five feet way. He said he's never seen anyone with that kind of presence.

He was in thirteen queues to get from the ticket line to center court. England loves queues, he said.

He also found out today he received a highest distinction on his exam. Dad is very happy and proud today, even more so than usual.

In book news, I'm almost done with the second draft. I have one chapter to go, which I'm expecting to complete by July 20. That puts me about three months ahead of schedule, not that the schedule was all that precise to begin with. There will still be three more drafts with 2-3 years to go, but it's good progress, and I've never stopped working. The last day I had off was when we were in Japan.

Friday Links!

I used to see these twice a year: Things that exist but probably shouldn't: Drive-thru daiquiri stands.

This is certainly an interesting read: The dangers of sneezing—from ejected bowels to torn windpipes.

We could use more happiness right now: This sausage dog slapping its tail to the beat of "Louisiana Saturday Night" is one of the best videos on the internet.

From Wally, and it's a fascinating read: The Daily Heller: When Competency Is Going, Going, Gone. Just wait for the horror parodies: Which Characters are Next to Enter the Public Domain?

From C. Lee, and it's an excellent read: How AI Revolutionized Protein Science, but Didn’t End It. This is one of the first of many similar stories: AI took their jobs. Now they get paid to make it sound human. Here's a repost of the story I wrote about earlier this week: Toys “R” Us riles critics with “first-ever” AI-generated commercial using Sora. Not surprising: Japan gov't says health impact of PFAS chemicals "undeniable". This is alarming: Forever chemicals are poisoning your insurance. The news is not encouraging this week: The Supreme Court rules that state officials can engage in a little corruption, as a treat. I've only watched season one so far and it was already obvious: The whole time? The Boys has been making fun of Trumpers the whole time?! This is an excellent read: Einstein and his peers were 'irrationally resistant' to black holes. This illustrated story explores why. This is terrific: ‘The Crime of the Century,’ a Century Later. Is having a pet good for you? The fuzzy science of pet ownership.

July Fourth

While I was bemoaning the state of this country (or, more accurately, its potential state in January), Eli 22.11 was here:

He camped out for tickets overnight at Wimbledon, was one of the first in line, and this is where they seated him. Centre court, third row. I'll post his impressions when I receive them.

The Perils of Translation

C speaks Spanish to her mom, so she often sets her phone keyboard to Spanish. This can have unpredictable results if you're dictating a text in English as you drive and forget to set the keyboard language to match. This is what I received today:
Fiesta the Ford Can't For Freestyle dinner

Vacuum

The slight melancholy after finishing an enormous task has descended on schedule.

It was the same after I ran marathons, and after I finished The Man You Trust. After being so finely pointed for so long, there's an inevitable period of adjusting to sudden space in your life.

It's much more pleasant this time, since I'm with C (who is delightful), but it's still there.

In the past, it's lasted a week or two, and I expect roughly the same this time. It makes me feel lucky to have an idea of how long something like this will last. It must be exhausting for people who have to deal with this as part of their life instead of an occasional frustration.

The Future? We Aren't Going To Need Shades

Toys "R" Us created a commercial with AI, using human editing to fix what wasn't quite right. Have a look: Toys “R” Us riles critics with “first-ever” AI-generated commercial using Sora.

It's near the top of the article. Go ahead, watch it. I'll wait.

Was it perfect? No. Was it absolutely fine? Yes. Plenty of humans were involved in the production and editing of this video, but no actors, no locations, no film crew. Massive savings.

There's been so much discussion in the last six months about "ethically" using AI. It's quaint, really, but it also completely misses the point. In the history of business, when has automation technology EVER been used ethically?

Never.

Free enterprise is, by it's nature, predatory. Publicly-held companies are even more so. The primary goal of a public company is to increase its stock price. Lowering costs increases profits, and increased profits raise the stock price.

Disruption is never ethical. AI video generation (and music, image, and text) is extremely disruptive.

There aren't going to be any ethics.

Companies are hesitating, for now, but it's purely because of public perception. DQ Film Advisor Ben Ormand had this to say in a weekend text exchange:

Everybody wants someone else to take the bullet for what they're all going to do. The first guys on the beach get shot. The rest get the parade.

Once the floodgates are open, it will be a defining moment in history. A painful one.

Bleak, I know, but based on history, it's what's going to happen.

Dubious Quality

Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Eli 23.0!

Peacock and the Olympics

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Extremely Juvenile Tuesday

Monday, July 29, 2024

A Musical Tale

Thursday, July 25, 2024

Friday Links!

Montreal

Wednesday, July 24, 2024

Sitting in the Montreal Airport

Tuesday, July 23, 2024

Pictures!

Montreal

Monday, July 22, 2024

College Football 25

Thursday, July 18, 2024

Friday Links!

An Intimate Evening With Kale

Wednesday, July 17, 2024

Eli 22.11

Tuesday, July 16, 2024

This Doesn't Feel Like the Future

Monday, July 15, 2024

Too Unlikely

Thursday, July 11, 2024

Friday Links!

About Town

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Rashomon

Tuesday, July 09, 2024

FatalZone (plus two things I forgot in the original post)

Monday, July 08, 2024

General Notes

Thursday, July 04, 2024

Friday Links!

July Fourth

Wednesday, July 03, 2024

The Perils of Translation

Tuesday, July 02, 2024

Vacuum

Monday, July 01, 2024

The Future? We Aren't Going To Need Shades

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