In Defence of The Grand Tour
Granted, I'm not entirely in love with the first season of Amazon's highly anticipated Clarkson, Hammond, and May vehicle (that's a pun), The Grand Tour, but it needs to breathe (that's a wine reference) somewhat before it starts to shine.
In the latest R&T op/ed from Jack Baruth, the Avoidable Contact scribe rants about the failings he perceives are being perpetrated by The Grand Tour team, and he is right on some accounts. It does feel overly scripted, for the most part, and the best thing about Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May is their repartee en flagrante. We don't quite get to see it just yet, but it's more complicated than just getting the trio back in front of the cameras again.
We need recall that the BBC fired Clarkson for bitch slapping a production assistant. Clarkson walked and so did his fellow presenters. When he was courted by Amazon, show runner Andy Wilman and much of the Top Gear production team followed. The problem isn't that these people don't know how to work together, it's that the book they took 23 series (we call them seasons) over 18 years to write had to be tossed into the fire. You don't think the BBC would just let Clarkson and Co. walk off with the Top Gear formula, did you? Top Gear has been one of the BBC's biggest international golden gooses ever.
Episode #2 from the first series back in 2002. Look at how empty the hanger was!
Production needed to be different or the BBC would sue the hell out of Amazon. So, not unlike trying to get a cruise ship to do a backflip (both impossible and an impressively epic visual metaphor), the well-oiled Top Gear machine, honed over two decades starting with the almost utterly unwatchable first season, was going to have to start mostly from scratch. This is what we're seeing now. They had to do it to learn what was and was not going to work, and they need the crucible of public opinion to craft all new material.
It's not easy because good television is hard. So, let's give The Grand Tour and Amazon some room to get it right. It's fun to watch already, and the hosts and Andy Wilman will start to dial things in after this season. Like a fine wine, they just need room to breathe.
The stupid way to delete all photos from your dumb iPhone
So, I gave up on Apple a few years ago and have no ragerts. Apple has simply lost the thread of late and Microsoft is the real innovator these days. For the record, Windows 10 is the bomb and is far more functional than Mac OS X. Regardless of my enthusiasm, however, my wife Rima still insists on using her dumb ass iPhone 5s and it's admittedly sweet 8MP camera. She takes a lot of images, and that takes up a lot of room. She needed to archive the images she had taken and make room for a few thousand more.
But, ahem... iOS only lets you delete images one at a time, or a bunch, but you have to select them manually. One. at. a. time. How annoying, and terrible UI/UX design. Jesus, Apple, I thought you guys were supposed to be awesome at this.
Enough with the griping. Found out a simple-ish way to backup and delete all of your images. YMMV, since I only did this on an iPhone 5s with recent-ish software on it. You will need:
- A PC with Windows (since I have no idea how a Mac will respond, and frankly don't care).
- Your iPhone.
- The USB cable.
It's likely you'll also need to have the iTunes software installed so you have the mobile device drivers for your iPhone, or this probably won't work.
- Fire up the PC.
- Fire up iTunes (maybe, maybe not).
- Plug in your iPhone.
- Open up Windows Explorer.
- Go to My Computer or, if you aren't living under a rock, Computer.
- Open up the iPhone drive that should be there.
- Open the DCIM folder in there.
Now, at this point, you should see a few folders that have stupid names. These are the different folders you have on your iPhone in the Photos app. You can't delete these.
- Now, open each dumb folder.
- Select all.
- Press Delete.
- Watch them all go away.
- Lather, rinse, repeat.
Now, I suggest you copy these to your hard drive before deleting them, or you can MOVE them, which is kind of the same. If you don't, you'll lose every last one of them. In case you don't know, when deleting files from a connected drive, there is no Recycle Bin. It just goes away.
Poof.
So, take your time, be careful. Use checklists if you have to. Mind your surroundings. Keep your guard up.
Coals on the inside
Emotionally, I’m about as drained as one can be, without simply keeling over dead. Spending day after day after day just being little more than alive, constantly searching for a solution that cost more than my heart can afford, is like a desiccant for my... me. I have these little fires in me somewhere, but I can never quite track them down. I know they’re burning and sometimes, on good days, I can even see a wisp or two of smoke, but then it’s gone. If I could just find one, I’d stoke the flames as high as I could.
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Yet, I know what that means.
If I cannot handle the flames, then I will be consumed by the conflagration. Some form of me might remain, but it won't be me. It will just be a husk of me, working through the motions of a genuine life. Eventually, I will wear down and scatter. I'll end up becoming the nothing I already believe I am.
If, on the other hand, I can withstand the fire, watching it lick across my presence, finding the edges, darkening them, making them sharper, I might move something, somewhere.
Like an ant moving a mountain.
Before I'm sure I'm not that ant, I might as well try to prove I am, when I reach the other side of whatever awaits me. Maybe then, I'll find some of those fires that I know are smoldering somewhere deep inside.
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Yet, I know what that means.
If I cannot handle the flames, then I will be consumed by the conflagration. Some form of me might remain, but it won't be me. It will just be a husk of me, working through the motions of a genuine life. Eventually, I will wear down and scatter. I'll end up becoming the nothing I already believe I am.
If, on the other hand, I can withstand the fire, watching it lick across my presence, finding the edges, darkening them, making them sharper, I might move something, somewhere.
Like an ant moving a mountain.
Before I'm sure I'm not that ant, I might as well try to prove I am, when I reach the other side of whatever awaits me. Maybe then, I'll find some of those fires that I know are smoldering somewhere deep inside.
In case you're wondering: Why Windows 10 Phone, HP?
This isn't going to be a long read. The simple answer, and this is a guess, is that HP sees three things.
- Windows 10 development is reportedly significantly easier than for 8/8.1. That should induce some developers to prep versions that run on all Windows 10 systems.
- Microsoft may have dumped Project Astoria, a dev kit to help Android app devs port to Windows 10, but Project Islandwood, a similar dev kit for iOS apps, is still on the workbench, and the iOS app ecosystem is significantly more cultured than Google's.
- HP has a very old relationship with corporate culture. HP can see the writing on the wall, and it's screaming CONVERGENCE = LOWER COSTS.
It should come as any surprise that companies would prefer to adopt an ecosystem that gives them the most control, the most integration, and the most efficient workforce for the lowest possible outlay. That's exactly what the HP Elite X3 is all about, and HP sees the potential quite clearly. They don't even care if they sell fewer traditional enterprise-grade desktops. Those are loss leaders. If they can get in on the ground floor, nay, BE the ground floor of this hot new segment, they can cement their dominance and exert control over the formation of the new segment.
Word from MWC last week was that an Elite X3 kit with optional laptop "dumb terminal" will cost much less than a smartphone and laptop, and the buyer gets both in one purchase. The dock comes with the handset, so just add a Monitor/Keyboard/Mouse combo kit for a few hundred more and you've completely outfitted one employee at a lower cost, reduced the time IT works on that employee significantly, cut down on the potential for shadow IT, and don't have to adopt any kind of lame BYOD policy. Sure, some people will complain, but I'm sure they'll pick their paycheck over their smartphone.
For the coup de grâce (if you think I'm misspelling it, look it up), HP has developed Workspace, something of an app store for virtualized desktop applications to run over a network to the device, though real details aren't yet available. I do know that HP Workspace requires a subscription fee, so it's unlikely that any consumers who are able to get a hold of one of these magnificent* devices will be able to afford to use it. All that will remain to be seen later this year when HP starts rolling them out.
* early reports from presser hands-on periods have suggested it's marvelous, but time always tells the truth when it comes to smartphones.
The Elegant Cape: A year in the life of America's preeminent perpetual loser optimist
NOTE: The original title to this piece was "If you feel like someone's out to get you, they probably are". I decided to change it because I had just written down what popped into my head and it's a little "out there", if you know what I mean. Nobody is out to get me. When I spent some time thinking about it, a visual metaphor came to mind. Hence, the new title. The cape is a beautiful distraction. Inside, my soul is broken and the laughing, jovial, juvenile, and kind imbecile I project is just a shadow of who I am. Look inside the cape, and the elegance fades quickly away. And yet, I remain optimistic, hoping that one day I achieve something, even something small and insignificant. Or, something big, like saving my family.
Ah, good old paranoia. It's an American classic with two slices of cheese and a side of Freedom Fries. The funny thing is, sometimes you are completely right to feel paranoid. I know I do, and with good cause. My little family has been having the shit hit the fan for well over a year now.
It started back in 2014 when we were told we'd have to move out of the condo we'd been living in for five years because they were selling it. It happens, and I had been wrapping up my book, so we'd just move. And so, we did. Now, you're already at a disadvantage, because you don't have the benefit of understanding that we're not rich. Hell, we're barely even solvent. I earn almost nothing since I can't get work. I get little gigs here and there, but most people just ignore me. It doesn't matter how often I apply for work or what kind. I almost never hear back, and when I do, they find out I'm 47 with 20 years of experience and they ditch me then. So, it wasn't a big surprise to find out from our former neighbors that our condo wasn't sold, they were renting it out to someone else for more money.
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They lied to us so we would leave easier. Capitalism at work.
So we moved into a new place near the mall. $400 more a month, pretty much most of our monthly income, but it was all we could find, and I did just finish the book. The advance helped get us in, but we'd need more to stay. Then we find out the complex had been sold to another management outfit (I am not kidding, it used to be The Promenade). When we were late with the rent, there was no leniency. There was no talking. We had X number of days to pay and X number of dollars fine to pay, and we didn't make it. My publisher simply would not move any faster, and my check was a few months late to save us. The evicted us just like that.
Step two as part of a downward spiral is to move into a hotel, but not just any hotel. It has to be a hotel with kitchens in the rooms, so the rate is just that much higher. The kitchen is critical because the daughter cannot eat outside food. She has severe allergies, and I mean severe. She also has special dietary needs due to her Epilepsy. And then there's the Autism. Yes, she was dealt a very poor hand in the poker game of life, but we manage. Now, however, we move to the montage portion of the story to get through about a year of crap quickly.
Here we are, about a week or so away from having to leave the last place we can stay. There are no shelters. We have our car, but how did you feel the last time you slept in your car for one night? The only thing we have is the small revenue coming in every month and Rima's writing. She's prolific, too. I should know, I get to edit her stories. She gets read quite a bit, too, and so she promotes our GoFundMe campaign on her site. What happens? The hosting company we've been with for nearly a decade suddenly develops a ridiculous series of issues.The parents are involved. This is hideously humiliating when you're in the ballpark of 50 years old. It's even more humiliating when your father treats you like you're still 18 and your step monster treats you like a convicted felon. For the record, I'm not. I end up not getting what I need to save my family, so I am doomed to going back and back and back until they finally move and don't tell me where. They moved because they are old and need a smaller place, not because of me, but that didn't stop them from using it to get me off their backs. The other father lives in another country and is a raging asshole.
We hit upon a plan to buy a used RV. I thoroughly research to find it's hard, but doable, and by doable, I mean requires regular maintenance, but makes our total costs per month about $1,800. We try to coordinate family and friends and others, and they come through for about $5,000, then the unbelievable happens. I find a sweet deal on Craig's List and it turns out too good to be true. It's a classic bait-and-switch scam. We're shown a really nice RV that works, and sold one that looks like it but is crap. Oh, you should have seen them as soon as I realized what they had done. They were like cats licking their chops after the kill.
We managed to put together one more chance to get an RV, and we were careful, but it just wasn't in the cards. This time around, the RV that we could afford was sold out from under us because of an error in communications. Every day we're in the hotel is money out, so the window for making a deal shrinks by the moment, and there just aren't enough RVs that are cheap and in good condition. To keep our options open, I keep scouring the regular rentals, but all of them have gone up, people aren't interested in renting to us, and Craig's List is full of scams it takes hours to sort through to find the real ones.
If you're thinking public support at this point, you'll likely not be surprised that it wasn't and isn't an option. We make too much. Yes, not enough to live anywhere, but too much to get help. Orange County is also out of housing vouchers. Every time I call to ask. We've been on the Section 8 waiting list for four years now, and we're at position #21,405. That's a change of roughly 4,000 positions since we got on back in 2012. I've long since used up all 99 weeks of unemployment. Now, just about two months ago, while out doing something nice (and free) for the first time in a long while, we get back to the hotel to find a notice that we're expected to move out in 60 days because we pay late.
You do the math. Parents are out. Friends have all been tapped and can't give any more. Internet relations have been exhausted. Jobs are not presenting themselves. Even when they do, they don't. I've gotten a few friends popping in to see if I can do X, Y, or Z. When I can, it sounds all good, but then nothing happens. Usually after I send my CV. Following up doesn't seem to help, either. So, we start up a GoFundMe campaign to try, as a desperate, last ditch effort, raise the funds we need to get an RV, our least expensive option to have a place to live. We get some help, and it's deeply appreciated, but it's not enough.
End montage.
Our sites go down 8 times in 10 days.
As a result, traffic trends down, less people see the campaign, and fewer people go, meaning fewer people chip in. It's like everything we do ends up heading in the wrong direction. It can make a family gun shy, but we still keep pulling the trigger hoping that THIS time something will actually happen in our favor, and then it doesn't. If I were paranoid, I'd think that someone was out to get us. Wouldn't you?
Well, that's where we're at. It's not pretty. It's not fun. It's not a party. It's mostly a daily struggle to stay sane and try to come up with something, anything to keep ourselves busy. Soon, though, it won't matter because we'll be homeless for realzies, like the On The Street kind. The kind of homelessness that treats people with medical issues and developmental disorders very poorly (as if being homeless wasn't bad enough). The kind of homelessness that prematurely ends both the promising career of a strong progressive voice for analysis and truth and the nascent talent of an artistic Autistic young woman who wants to be a Disney animator and who still managed to get herself into college nearly four years early.
I don't really care what happens to me, as long as they can thrive.
But it doesn't look like that's going to happen.
Nice knowing you, internet. Who knows, though. Maybe THIS time it WILL work out...
PS: In case you thought that my book's sales should be really kicking in, you'd be wrong. It didn't sell. It was a flop.
Message to HP: I really hate you, so stop trying to make me love you again
In all honesty, I used to love HP, but not for the reasons you might think. Their enterprise and server gear has long been solid, including their desktop and laptop products. I have much experience with many years of such equipment. That changed for me a few years ago when I purchased a brand new HP ProBook 4540s. Aside from the display being of lower resolution than I wanted, the machine was a 15.6" mid-range powerhouse. It has a 2.5GHz 3rd-gen Core i5, 8GBs of RAM, 750GB drive, all of the expected widgets for connectivity, and hybrid graphics featuring Intel HD 4000 for mundane stuff and an AMD Radeon HD 7650M with 1GB of RAM. That last item would be perfect for my gaming needs, which aren't cutting edge, but can tax integrated systems. I thought I'd found my soulmate, and at $600, a thrifty value, too.
Boy, was I wrong. Just try to imagine Tom Hanks having his maniacal laughing fit in The Money Pit after discovering hidden issue after issue with what he'd hoped was his dream home. To make an already long story short, all sorts of bits went wonky, I fought with HP over repairs covered by the warranty, had to take the battle to the BBB, and won without winning. Today, I still use it. The trackpad doesn't work. There is no keyboard anymore. It works, but it's a frustrating thing to be forced to work on a $600 lemon and that it was HP that screwed me. HP fought tooth and nail to avoid doing anything to make me happy, and if that was their goal, mission accomplished. So, like any jilted suitor, I decided to shun them.
For the longest time, they only released a few things that I found tempting, but I was able to. I won't even bother to list them because I can't. Hideous recall, you see. One was a tiny little blob of a compy. Overpriced. Another was a gorgeous laptop of some kind. WAY overpriced. Then today, they came out with this...
Right? That little guy on the left isn't so little. It's the HP Elite X3 and it's just shy of 6 inches. There's a better picture of the front at the end of this piece, and if you already desire it (who can blame you) prepare to be disappointed. Price and release date are not yet known as HP isn't talking, but there are hints of a Summer release. Timing could very well be up to when Windows 10 Mobile is released to Gold Master. If you need additional technical deets, here are the specs from Ars Technica:
Hardware-wise, the Elite x3 ticks all the boxes and then some: Quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 running at 2.15GHz, 4GB RAM, 64GB storage, 5.96 inch 2560×1440 AMOLED screen with Gorilla Glass 4, 2×2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, LTE-Advanced, 16MP rear and 8MP front cameras, both iris recognition and a rear-mounted fingerprint reader, microSD, USB 3 Type-C, dual SIM, a 4150mAh battery with wireless charging using both the Qi and PMA standards, and IP 67 water resistance (safe against immersion in 1 [meter] of water for 30 minutes).
And, if you can't tell by looking, it's running Windows 10 Mobile. Now, that "laptop" next to it isn't really a laptop. It's the modern equivalent of a dumb terminal. See, Windows 10 Mobile has a neat trick called Continuum where, with a special dock, you can run a Windows-like desktop environment while still getting to use the phone. If you already have a nice monitor, keyboard, and mouse, HP does have their own dock, too. The lappy bit would come in handy for mobile workers, though.
That's exactly who HP is going after, too. Enterprise. HP already sells really well into corporate markets. Windows 10 will start to take off in those markets soon, and integration is highly prized because it can reduce costs and complexity. HP wants to be the winner for Windows shops by offering a complete, all-in-one, fully integrated Windows experience for users and administrators, a hat trick, if you will. Most data-intensive apps these days are SaaS, anyway. You don't need huge local storage, and mobile CPU capabilities are improving like gangbusters. My Dell Venue 8 Pro runs Windows 10 better on a dual-core Atom with 2GBs of RAM than my laptop does with a quad-core Core i5 and 8GBs. It's not bad with games, either (just not Team Fortress 2, my one and only love).
So, I'm faced with a quandary. Do I unreasonably sustain my harmful grudge of HP for dissing me and being unapologetic for said diss, or do I just let that anger and resentment go free to sulk in its own dark, gloomy corner so that I might readily accept the entire Elite X3 product lineup into my heart? I'm inclined to think that yes, I should let it go and just move on.
It's just that HP hurt me really bad, and right where I live; my writing.
I find it difficult to allow the superficial promise of something glossy and new override my ethical, if emotional, position. Then again, it is really nice looking and it's just a gadget. So, HP, if you're reading this, you can apologize by sending me one, with all of the accessories, of course.
How To Behave In Public - Water Fountains
Water is the single most important component for life on Earth. 70% of the human body is made of water. If you place your ear against a person who is jumping up and down, you might even be able to hear some of that water sloshing about. Isn't science fascinating? In order to live, a human must drink at least two gallons of what every day. Fortunately, American scientists armed with this knowledge were able to invent one of the most important devices we have in today's society.
The water fountain.
Imagine, if you will, being able to walk up to a box, push a button, and receive a refreshing, life giving stream of clean, clear water directly into your mouth! I know it seems insane, but I can assure you that the water fountain is indeed real. Studies have determined that the average human will encounter at least a dozen water fountains during their lifetime. This is testimony to the fact that American science has made a truly great achievement through the installation of water fountains all over the United States of America. If you see one, do not pass on your chance to experience a water fountain.
Now, if it wasn't enough to simply press a button to get water directed into your mouth, a true scientific milestone in its own right, try to embrace the concept of the electric water fountain. Don't worry. You won't shock yourself to death. The electricity, through the magic of science, keeps the water chilled, making already fresh water even more delicious!
Here are some tips and tricks you should keep in mind when visiting a water fountain:
- Water fountains come in all shapes and sizes. When in a public area you are unfamiliar with, try pushing, pulling, and tugging on anything that might look like a handle or button, and you're sure to find one of the many cleverly hidden water fountains those playful American scientists had installed
- Water is a precious commodity, so be sure to place your face as close to the Tubular Water Emitter as possible so as to avoid waste.*
- It's important to note the difference between a spigot and a water fountain. Spigots have knobs to turn on the water flow, water fountains have buttons, and sometimes unicorns.
- If you see someone acting suspiciously around a water fountain, be sure to contact the police, as they will want to make sure there are no villains around licking the splash guards of water fountains.
- Don't lick the splash guards on water fountains, at least not without permission from your local police or city mayor.
- Try to keep the time you spend using a water fountain to under 10 minutes so as to allow others the joy of using a public water fountain.
- If you are rich, consider installing water fountains in your home and around your property, so you can share fresh water with the proletariat. Trust us when we say that you will be heartily thanked for your consideration.
- We'd prefer not to say this, but recent actions have forced our hand. DO NOT pee in the smaller water fountains. Yes, they do resemble urinals, but they are not urinals.
* A principle rule of thumb is that the pressure of the output at the emitter is defined by the average height of the people who use it. In other words, if the stream arcs water over your head, it is meant for tall people. This doesn't mean you are forbidden to use it, just do so with caution.
There is little like the pure and simple joy one derives from the experiences that can be had when engaging with a public water fountain. Be respectful, wait your turn in line, don't leave anything behind, and if you have a fire pit, don't forget to stir the coals.
How To Behave In Public - Elevators
Congratulations! You've discovered vertical transportation through the miracle of the Elevator!! Elevators carry 3.82 billion people over 82.3 quadrillion vertical miles every single day. Elevators are one of the single most popular modes of transportation on the planet. Now that it's the first time you've been in a elevator, you should take a moment to savor that landmark you have achieved.
After some self-congratulatory back patting, however, it's time to understand your role in the Elevator. The following are some tips that will help you become acclimated to life in Elevators. Pay close attention to prevent anyone from becoming injured, or even killed. Who knows... The life you save may be your own.
Please memorize these important tips:
- Be aware that you will be given very little time to make adjustments or decisions. It's best to act as impulsively as possible when engaging an Elevator.
- After the doors have opened, quickly move inside and stake your claim. If this is your first Elevator, look to the left and right of the doors from the inside. On one or both sides, you will find the Elevator control panel. Do NOT panic.*
- Once the Elevator begins to move, you are free to move about the Elevator, just don't go to far. You might miss your floor!
- Elevators make a noise to indicate when it has arrived at a floor. Please keep your screaming and/or loud horseplay to a minimum so the other passengers can hear the indicator sound.
- Some Elevators use flimsy glass for the outside walls instead of bullet-proof steel plating. Make sure to keep your profile towards the glass or carry a shield for extra protection from snipers.
- Some Elevators that use flimsy glass are located in upscale regions where sniper fire is not common. In these cases, make sure to keep your hands on the glass to steady yourself as the Elevator moves.
- In case of an emergency which does not result in your Elevator falling hundreds of feet to reduce all passengers to a sticky, wet mess, you will find an escape hatch in the ceiling. Before opening the hatch all the way, be sure to check for trip wires or feral rodents.
- On the rare occasions you find yourself feeling confined or are prone to fits of claustrophobia, position yourself near the door and face the back of the Elevator. This signals your fellow passengers to respectfully back away to give you some room to clear your head. Be sure to smile broadly and give a thumbs up to show your appreciation.
* While you may think the Elevator a space craft or amazing machine from the future, the Elevator is well grounded in complex scientific theory. At no time should you ever try to reprogram an Elevator.
Once you start taking trips via Elevator, be sure to follow all the rules of etiquette and decorum and you'll do just fine. Also, remember to feel comfortable. Feel free to talk on a mobile phone or chat with your fellow passengers about their potential destination. People often feel tense while traveling, and a friendly face can help ease their anxiety.
Before you know it, you'll be an Elevator expert!
John Oliver skewers voter ID laws
The idea that a few million people can't vote in America because of deliberately misguided voter ID laws is reprehensible at best. I can't explain it any better than John Oliver, so take a look.
The best things in life aren't yellow
It's amazing the number of things that are yellow in color that are unappealing. Lemonade is pretty great, but I wouldn't say it's a best thing in life. It's not even that yellow and it's liquid, so there's no chance of it looking like a banana. There might be a banana-shaped drink pitcher or beer mug, though. Closely related to lemonade, but produced in a completely different manner and lacking lemonade's appeal, is urine. Sure, you can pee into your radiator or write your name (poor penmanship included) in snow or even drink it if you are lost in a desert, but it's not considered a good drink. I doubt chilling it or adding sugar would improve the taste. Then again, some people go gaga over coffee beans that a cat shit out.
When I was still a kid and living in Knoxville, I went to summer camp in Virginia. We had a huge lake with a diving tower and about a dozen sailboats of all sizes. I loved sailing. I was a skilled enough sailor to be able to solo a 13 footer that was yellow and shaped like a banana. That was a best thing in life, but not because the boat was yellow. All of my best moments on that boat, tiller in hand, ducking to avoid the boom while tacking, trimming the main for speed, were all spent where I couldn't see the yellow hull. Also, people say red makes things go faster, not yellow.
There are plenty of unpleasant or unfortunate things that are yellow, though.
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Bananas are tasty, but they are off white. Only the peel is yellow, and it tastes awful. Vomit everywhere proudly features corn for some reason. It's odd to think that there might be some mythical, unknowable beast of terror, lurking just outside of our reality, whose dastardly job it is to place corn in every pile of vomit. It's even more disturbing to find corn in your vomit when you haven't eaten any. I don't think I've seen a yellow sex toy, but then I haven't seen a lot of sex toys. Is it wrong to feel sad?
Asian people are considered yellow, though I'm not sure why, but Asian people are awesome. The Japanese make anime and manga (you MUST see Erased on Crunchyroll. Search for it.), there's Thai and Chinese food, there's awesome cars and technological advances, and then the people themselves are just super cool and nice. Asian cultures are diverse, interesting, and an amazing part of this Human Race we share. Then there's sulfur, which smells really bad and can do hideous things to you, at least I think. I'm not a chemist.
So, aside from wickedly cool Asian people and lemonade, yellow isn't good. Glad we could clear that up.
RE: I already support progressive causes. Stop spamming me.
Dear Progressive Friends,
Look, I like you. I'm glad you're working to get the insane Citizen's United overturned and the entire raft of other things we'd all like to see. It makes me feel good to know that I'm not alone, and I appreciate that there are more than enough people to create all manner of organizations that champion our causes.
What I don't appreciate, however, is all of the spam. I already spend enough of my time every day working on the same things you people are. I don't need to be endlessly distracted by cleverly worded emails or calls to help avert potential disaster. I, of all people, know exactly the precipice on which we are delicately teetering.
I suggest that you try a little harder to figure out ways to treat those who work as hard as you do on the same issues with a little more respect. That way, I don't have a mark your crap as spam or unsubscribe. Maybe I might even get to see something useful on occasion, after spending 2 hours combing the newsosphere and blogosphere for anything on Bernie.
LOL. As if.
Thanks a bunch!
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Hey, MSM! Something to say? Just say it!
The flowery language. The academia polished until the shine is almost unbearable. The suggestion of an opinion. The metaphor, obscure references, and sardonic wit. These are all hallmarks common to most pundits, and it annoys me to no end.
Can we please just get to the point?!
In a piece published on the MSNBC site today, Irin Carmon discusses the hand gestures Bernie Sanders' makes while talking. This is how she sums up that piece:
Male politicians can face potential minefields of their own, at least when campaigning against a woman. In 2000, when Clinton ran for Senate in New York, the image of her male opponent crossing the stage during a debate and wagging his finger in her face, demanding she sign a campaign finance pledge, came to define the race. The gesture, which many saw as sexist, or as one of Clinton’s aides put it at the time, “menacing,” was credited with helping her win by 12 points.
There have been no such moments so far in the Democratic primary debates, as Clinton runs for president for a second time. Sanders has been careful to express his respect for the former secretary of state and to keep it professional and largely amiable. He’s also kept on his side of the stage.
Unless you're a political junkie and/or live in the State of New York, you might not recall this event. Back in 2000, when HRC was running for the open Senate seat in New York, her opponent, Rick Lazio, left his podium, walked across the stage, handed her a piece of paper, and wagged his hand. Hillary went on to beat Rick by 12 points because the HRC campaign machine pushed out the clip repeatedly, suggesting that Lazio was being menacing and that the act was sexist in nature. I don't disagree. It was a terrible mistake to make on Lazio's part, and he paid the price for it.
Now, read Carmon's conclusion again. She states a known fact, that Sanders has been respectful of Clinton, and then references the Lazio event. From 2000. From a state Senate debate. Aired on C-Span. So, why not state clearly that Sanders hasn't been threatening, tried to get her to sign some dumb pledge, or wagged his finger in her face?
Ego.
You've been educated. You did 4-7 years in college for just a degree or stuck around to get your Masters. You've penned a dissertation or two. You've been working as a journalist, analyst, and/or pundit for years. You are recognized as an expert in your field. Now you get called to go on MSNBC or Fox News or CNN once, twice, a dozen times. You have arrived. You are a nationally recognized leader in your field.
So, rather than face the difficulty of determining the awareness level of your audience, you just crank up the academia, pound in the complex terms, leverage your most obscure references, and lay down some deftly complicated metaphors and hope that your readers are up to the challenge. What you won't do, however, is just say what you mean.
This might surprise you, but being clear and excising complexity from your prose is not condescending. You won't talk down to your readers. They won't feel like you've abandoned your educational and professional background. To the contrary, they might just thank you. Life is difficult enough to deal with. We don't need Dianetics-grade journalism that requires a dictionary to read.*
Now, it's clear that Carmon's piece isn't anywhere near the L. Ron meter, much less high on it, but she remains unclear about what she's saying, all the way to the end. It's an opinion piece! You CAN make clear the points you want to get across. There aren't any rules, but that's the POINT of an opinion piece; share your opinion! Don't make people work hard for it.
The last thing we need in America now, at a time when class division is at an all-time high, the filters have been yanked off and tossed away, and both major political parties are embroiled in their own version of a civil war, is for our news outlets and primary voices to be unclear. We need to speak clearly, make our points crystal clear, and cut it out with the silly bits that fly over most people's heads.
* my own obscure reference to L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics book which was famously difficult to read without an Oxford dictionary that I explain here because it's the nice thing to do. Not everyone recalls this.
NBC's Grimm is freaking amazing
Peg me as a media nerd, and I'll nod and thank you for the compliment. I love media. The various types of media I consume are just different methods of telling stories. I love books and music and anime and comics and movies and television, but more specifically what I really love is a good story.
NBC's Grimm is a good story.
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In a nutshell, Grimm is a supernatural crime drama that is based on the simple premise that all of the monsters of worldwide myth are real and living among us. In the first seasons, Nick Burkhardt discovers from his aunt that he is an heir to the generations old mantle of monster hunters called Grimm. Yes, those Grimm, as in the Brothers Grimm, the real brothers who collected, wrote about, and popularized much of the folklore we know today. Cinderella is one such tale, but Grimm is not a Cinderella story. Grimm is dark, gritty, heartbreaking, funny at times, and exciting. Grimm is a really good story.
Now, a Grimm is a human who can see Wesen (pronounced 'vesin'). Traditionally, Grimm have accepted their fate and travel wherever needed to root out and kill Wesen. Wesen are creatures who appear to be human most of the time unless they Volga, a kind of shape-shift. There are two kinds of Volga, one which only Grimm can see and one that everyone can see, which is the implied source for various folklore. Wesen , for the most part, live like pretty much everyone else. In the course of his police duties, Nick starts to see people as Wesen, but instead of killing them, he does his best to spare those who aren't harming anyone. I'll just say this isn't an easy task.
Now, I'm not going to detail out summaries of each season. You'll just need to watch. As the seasons pass, Nick is joined by more and more people and many secrets are discovered, and later revealed. Grimm isn't just a Monster-of-the-Week series, it is a deeply complex tale with a number of interconnected story arcs and a bewildering array of Wesen, all portrayed by an excellent cast of characters. This isn't your average Good vs. Evil show and, while some of the drama can be quite soap opera-like, it does draw you in and make it easy to understand the motivations and emotions of the diverse and chaotic world of Portland, Oregon.
Grimm is a really GREAT story.
I just wrapped up Season 4, and it's an amazing twist machine. There were a large number of surprises in that season, and I am looking forward to getting into Season 5, which has a lot to work from. A lot of questions were answered in Season 4, but new questions were raised, and some goals weren't met.
Instantiation, a short story
The area around me is dark, but there is enough ambient light to see that there is nothing around me. When I breath out, I can see the vapor. It's cold, but I can't feel it. I touch my left forefinger to my right arm and I can feel the hairs rise to meet the fingertip. I think that means there's a slight static charge in the atmosphere. I can't wrap my mind around the idea that it can be cold enough to see my breath, but not cold enough to discomfort me.
"Hello," I call out in a normal, conversational tone.
There is no echo, but my voice isn't tight and small. I'm in a large, open space. How large is anyone's guess. Well, my guess, at least. Nobody answers. I opt not to try louder for fear... of. I'm not sure. I dwell on that for a moment and realize that I can't think of a single thing that might threaten me. Ever. I start thinking about that point and try to establish some context, but nothing comes to mind. Eventually, it seems pointless to continue dwelling and move on. I haven't moved from the spot I found myself, so I try a tentative step.
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I can see the dark shape of my left leg move into my vision ahead of me, and... I find ground where I expect it. It occurs to me that I might run into something, so I raise my arms. I take another step, reaching for the ground with my toes, then put my foot down. The ground is flat and feels smooth, but I don't slip. It is neither warm nor cold. It just... is.
I notice, as I take each step, that there is a little more light. I can see myself more and more, but there remains nothing around me. Nothing. Just darkness above, ground below, and emptiness stretching out, well, everywhere. So far, I've been walking in a straight line from where I...
Where I what?
I didn't wake up. I wasn't laying down.
Began?
I think for a moment, and decide on a plan. I hold my left arm directly out to my side. Keeping my arm as straight as possible, I turn to face my hand. I do this again one more time. As far as I can tell, I am now facing the opposite direction, looking back at where I began. It is light enough to see the ground, so I walk back a dozen steps. The light again increases instead of decreasing.
I deduce that motion of any kind increases light. That's a kind of progress, I suppose. Since I had started walking in the direction I "began", I turn around again using my arm trick, and start walking.
At some point, it seems like the light reaches what would be it's brightest. There is nothing around. There is nothing to see. I don't know how long I have been walking, but I'm not tired. Then something new occurs to me. I stop.
I look down at myself. For the first time I realize I'm not wearing anything. I examine myself carefully. I am mostly smooth all over, but have small patches of hair in variable quantities in various places. My chest is smooth and flat all the way to my penis. I have a tightly trim head of hair and a smooth face. I have five toes on each foot and five fingers on each hand. I run my hands over every inch of my body, more carefully over the places I cannot see, and find nothing.
I... am just me.
I sit.
"Hello," I ask nothing again.
There is again no response, and the same effect lacking echo. My voice travels as I do, nowhere. So, I sit there, cross my legs, close my eyes, and try to think of everything I can.
Nothing.
All I know is what is here and, now, myself.
Well, no. I think. There is one other thing.
The ground.
I look down at the ground and try seeing it for the first time. It looks like, well, ground. Maybe closer? I roll over on my stomach and get my face really close to the ground to get a better look. My nose is almost touching. The ambient light is so uniform that it's hard to see if there is any detail, so I rub the surface and it feels like there is a texture. I scratch at it with a fingernail and it catches an edge, then another and another. I scratch the other way and it's perfectly smooth.
There are grooves in the floor.
I use a fingernail to find a groove and follow it to discover it's straight, at least for a few feet. This is new, so I sit to think about it, again. There is only the ground and the light and me and since I'm naked and have nothing else I can only move or stand still so my only options are to choose which way and since there is no other way to choose based on the environment and what I know I can only base my decision on the present information which is to go with the grooves or against them.
I try to think of a way to select one or the other, and find that there is no information about either. It is merely one or the other. There are no qualifiers. Neither appears to be better than the other. They just are.
Or not.
If I scratch my nails against the grooves, they catch and stutter. It's not smooth or easy. If I scratch with the grooves, it's smooth and offers no resistance. If there is nothing else here to gauge this... place... then do I want things to be smooth or rough. Left without much choice, there is only one thing to do.
Both.
I stand up, squat down, and scratch to determine the rough way, and start walking. Almost immediately, the light starts to dim, and quickly. Now, that's a reaction to my behavior, if there ever was one. I squat again, find smooth, and start walking that way. The light increases again, so I keep going. I walk and walk. I keep walking and the light remains steady. Nothing changes, unless I walk against the grooves, then the light dims. I test this a few times to make sure it happens every time. It does.
It seems I've reached the crux of another problem to solve.
I have no idea how long I've been at this. If I walk with the grooves, the light remains steady. There are no objects to observe. There is no way to judge that anything has occurred at all...
...except me. My body.
I start walking again, but this time I start counting my steps out loud.
1... 2... 3... 4... and so on. Nothing changes until I reach 256 steps.
One dark spot appears in front of me, but I can't tell how far. I can't touch it if I reach out, so it's not close or it may be a few steps away. With my arm extended to reach the spot, I start walking and counting again.
257... 258... 259... 260... and so on, again. The spot does not change, so I lower my arm and keep walking and counting. Nothing changes until I reach 512 steps, and the dark spot turns into a small square. It becomes clear that the further I walk, the larger the spot gets.
I start to run and counting in my head.
At 640 steps, the square gets larger, and again at 768, and yet again at 1,024. I can see now that I am getting closer to it. The square has a black border, a white interior, and shapes inside, but I am still too far away to make out any more details. I run faster.
2,048, 4,096, bigger and closer.
8,192.
I run into the square and the impact knocks me to the ground. I collect myself and look up at the square. It floats above the ground, and has words inside of it. It reads:
To Continue, Tap OK.
Below those words is a smaller square with the letters "OK" inside.
I step back to get a better look. It looks no different, but I realize I now have a landmark that is associated with the grooves in the ground. I walk to the left of the square, against the grooves, and the light remains steady. It seems that I have gotten around that limitation. I walk to the side of the square and it almost disappears, but I can see the back. The Square, then, is perfectly flat. I move around the back and see that it is plain white. I continue around the other side and come around to the front again. The square is unchanged. I turn and start walking away. The light almost goes out completely, so I take a step back and turn around. The light returns.
Well, that didn't work, I think to myself.
Facing the square, I started backing away from the square. After 16 steps, the light starts to dim slowly. 32 steps away and it's darker still, but I can still see the square. I decide that the square is my next point of focus and return to standing in front of it. Again, I read the words, this time out loud.
"To continue, tap ok."
I look around. Nothing happens.
So, what does it want, I say in my head. The word "TO" is a preposition and, in conjunction with the word "CONTINUE", it states that I need to do something to move past this point. The word "OK" also appears in a small box below, but I am unsure of what the word "TAP" means. "TAP" is clearly a direction, but what it is I do not know, so I sit to think out the problem.
I am here and there is nothing but myself, the ground, and this square and it want's me to move on but I don't know what tap means and since it implies the concept of a tool to "TAP" the "OK" the problem lies in the fact that I have no tools so I must be the tool and something that I do to the "OK" will result in completing the task.
I stand up and reach out with the one tool I do have, my hand, and press it against the "OK" square.
The square disappears.
---
"Wow," Derek exclaimed loudly. "Seventeen minutes, forty four seconds for ALPHA616, Jerry."
What was presumably Jerry's head popped out from behind a large computer display.
"Whoa," he said in surprise," is that even possible?"
"I'm looking at the IO data right now. It's already done it, and it figured out everything," enthused Derek, a huge grin on his face.
Jerry walked over and leaned over Derek's shoulder to look at the monitor. In the corner was a small view of the running program showing ALPHA616 looking around now that the dialog box had disappeared. Other windows show lots of indecipherable data and program code, but there is one that shows the results of this most recent iteration of the program. It appeared to be a list and each one had a green check mark next to them.
"We need to get Dr. Farber in here now," said Jerry, his tone suddenly serious.
"Oh, hell yeah," Derek barked, clapping his hands.
"It's clear from this initial data that this particular instantiation of the AI core has passed the first test."
The best Science Fiction is on TV right now
Science fiction has been on a downturn over the last decade. Sure, we get event movies a few times a year, but a lot of that audience has been taken over by tales of comic book heroes. Marvel is a hugely dominating force in film these days, but the real core audience for science fiction used to be found on the small screen. Science fiction fans demand longer, more complex stories, deeper character development, and to have their thoughts poked. Star Trek is most commonly trotted out as prime exemplar.
Aside from the original series which was ended prematurely, there have been five other series, the animated one most people don't recall, three huge series with seven year runs, and one aborted attempt at going back in time that ran for only four seasons. If you look beyond Trek, however, you see that TV used to be riddled with all manner of scifi shows. Space 1999, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Wild, Wild West (one of my personal faves that started in Black & White), and more recently Futurama, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Andromeda, the much loved Quantum Leap, the even more loved Firefly, Sliders, the amazing run of Dr. Who, Babylon 5, and that magnum opus, the new Battlestar Gallactica.
Then something happened, and science fiction seemed to become less important to TV producers. Sure, there were the periodic stabs at it, but TV became a police drama/reality show wasteland. Even SyFy, that staunch stalwart of science fiction, wasn't producing as many series as it was running more horror-based content and live action shows that just weren't interesting.
But then things started to pick up.
A few years ago we got the phenomenally quirky and dark Orphan Black, the very dark re-imagining of the classic The Twilight Zone called Black Mirror, the look at the what it means to be good that is Dark Matter, and the perfectly cast Killjoys. These are all really good science fiction shows, but each of them lack something; that one thing that would make them great. Like The Expanse.
I'll let the Wikipedia entry explain the plot, or at least as much as you're going to get:
Two hundred years in the future, in a fully colonized Solar System, police detective Josephus Miller (Thomas Jane), born in the asteroid belt, is given the assignment to find a missing young woman, Julie Mao (Florence Faivre). Meanwhile, James Holden (Steven Strait), the Executive Officer of the ice trawler Canterbury, is involved in a tragic incident that threatens to destabilize Earth, Mars and the Belt. Far away from their struggles in space, Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo), a United Nations executive, works to prevent war between Earth and Mars by any means necessary. Soon, the three find out that the missing woman and the ice trawler's fate are part of a vast conspiracy that threatens all humanity.
Watch in the opening moments of the first episode when you see Julie Mao's hair floating as if in real zero gravity (you'll find out who she is later). If you think they blew their budget on some sweet effects simply to make the first episode more compelling, you will be pleasantly surprised. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, the set work and effects are mostly top notch. Much of what you see in the series would find itself more at home in movie theaters, not TV screens.
The series is tight, unpleasant, unforgiving, brutal, and shatters your calm as you watch. It is as distressing and engaging to watch as mobster dramas. The violence, the language, the abidingly deep lack of care for human life rips at your soul. You want them all to go back home, knowing in the end that they can never step foot on Earth again, more likely to die in the vacuum of space or at the hands of killers. The glaring eye of the camera gazes unflinchingly at the characters on screen as their animal urge to survive at any cost is tested again and again. Death is around every corner.
The Expanse is not Star Trek. It's not Star Wars or Dune or even the more recent iteration of Battlestar Galactica. There are no heroes or angels. There are no good guys and everyone has the spark of badness in their darkened souls. This is a dirty, hurt, and torn Solar System, touched and corrupted by the corrosive hands of mankind.
Welcome to The Expanse.