Things I’ve Learned

1. Loving people is brave. Loving people who aren’t like you is brave.

2. Forgive others.

3. Forgive yourself.

4. Always allow new evidence, even to the ideas you hold dear. Especially to those ideas. Be prepared to create a new hypothesis when you discover new evidence.

5. Meet others where they are; know that some people work for change and try to be better, and some don’t. Believe your instincts on who falls into which category.

6. Never stop learning.

7. Challenge yourself and your thoughts, especially if it makes you uncomfortable. That means you’re onto something and you should explore it.

8. The world changes, and that is often good. Sometimes it is bad. What you remember is not an accurate encapsulation of “how things used to be”, and it doesn’t mean it’s how it should be now. Nostalgia can be lovely, but it can also be dangerous.

9. Question agendas, especially in the ideas you WANT to believe. Particularly if the ideas are ones that put you in a positive position.

10. Speak to yourself with the same love you show your friends. Surround yourself with those who grow and learn and love. Be pro-human.

Roadside Picnic: Reflections on one of the most impactful books I've ever read

Now, I usually don’t claim to be an astrophysicist. Wait….no, I NEVER claim to be an astrophysicist. I mildly keep up with breakthroughs, read some books about it, and have been watching breathlessly, along with many others, to see the new discoveries of the James Webb telescope. I also admittedly have gotten a bit of schadenfreude to see so many scientific facts be upturned (or at the least, very heavily modified) in so brief a time.

Scientific thought is predicated upon coming up with an idea, figuring out stable ways to test an idea, and then we cling to the results until another experiment has an outcome that changes it. In practice, however, sometimes we become wedded to scientific facts that hang around a while, and have a bit of cognitive dissonance when those ideas are disrupted. That’s the human bit of us having it out with reality, and it’s to be expected.

Many truisms over time have been tossed out, and we adopt new truisms to take their place. But nothing is static, and all things change. Particularly in the scientific fields, as we get better technology and imaging, these disruptions still occur. For example, many people say that time travel is impossible; I assume that we just haven’t figured it out yet, and that at some point we will. It’s supposed to be impossible to travel past light speed, yet via quantum entanglement photons have been teleported 300 miles away in space. Nuclear materials can glow via the Chernikov effect, which is electrons traveling faster than light. We haven’t even figured out a unified theory of physics, the Big Theory of Everything (or Big TOE as I think of it), that explains both quantum and astrophysics. So sometimes, when people speak in absolutisms, it frustrates me.

Over the last few years, there has been an uptick in official UFO sightings. Many of them are drones or balloons, or even our old favorite, Venus. But, there is a sizable portion of them that…aren’t. They don’t have a rational explanation yet, and are being further explored. These phenomena have reignited our classic debate, “Are we alone in the Universe?”. And I’ve heard a very short-sighted theory that that answer is: YES. I just can’t buy that. With BILLIONS of stars out there, we truly believe we are unique enough to make that assumption? I understand that we can only see snippets of time; our telescopic portals into the past can only see the far distant things that reach us millions or billions of years later, traveling at the speed of light from that distant star or galaxy. But as good as the James Webb telescope is, I still feel like we are making vast assumptions with our little human minds, while staring at a small section of the universe through an empty paper towel roll, and assuming that we have it all figured out. For real this time. And that’s the best we can do, but sometimes we have a hard time admitting that it’s not omniscience.

The idea that there is no other life in the entire universe feels myopic. We make assumptions that life requires what most earth life requires to live, though the deep sea thermal vent ecospheres have proven even life on earth doesn’t require those assumed needs. I am inclined to believe that we don’t even know what we don’t know, and the discordance between the tiny and the large having laws that don’t match in the universe, is just the tiniest edge of things that don’t fit into our earthbound rules.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Douglas Adams had a particularly beautiful idea of a certain form of alien life in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. One of the alien species he came up with was a Hooloovoo, a “super-intelligent shade of the color blue”. That idea of life is just so, well, ALIEN from us, that I think it just might fit. That’s the closest we have come, in my opinion, to being in the ballpark of what life could be like. And we have a lot further to go.

This all brings me to, finally, the point. In fiction, we see all sorts of encounters with intelligent alien life. Abductions, galactic senates, bugs, grey men, reptiles, blue indigenous people being saved once again by poorly masked White Saviors in boring, overdrawn motion capture Ferngully knockoffs by James Cameron…the sky is, literally, the limit. But I found the most convincing illustration of it in the book I just finished: Roadside Picnic by the Russian brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, written in 1971. Clearly that was when Russia was still the USSR, which adds an extra frisson of interest to the themes of the novel. Heavy spoilers to follow, but the book HAS been out since its release in 1972, so I don’t feel to badly about it.

The concept here is that earth has been visited by aliens; they touched down in 6 areas, called The Zones, in an event known as The Visit. If this were a modern hollywood version of the story, those 6 zones would be communication portals setup to tell us universal truths: That we are unique because as a species we are capable of great goodness and great evil, that we serve a larger purpose, that the universe is waiting to welcome us.

This aint’ that story. Instead, in a far more interesting turn of events, the aliens dropped into the Zones, and left. We assume. I mean, we never even saw them. Instead, in a similar vein to HP Lovecraft’s masterpiece the Color Out Of Space, these regions are permanently altered regions of the earth that have odd artifacts left in them, and the aliens themselves passed through without even saying hello. Inside the Zones, strange artifacts are found that challenge space and time around them; they have incomprehensible uses, but as we do, humans in the regions around them have found these curious objects have extended life on the black market. In the towns bordering the Zones, a healthy smuggling market has flourished, fueled by the discoveries of the looters (called “stalkers”) who are brave, or foolish, enough to foray into the Zones to retrieve them.

The book is written in a very Russian style. It’s written with the opposite of the “info-dumping” that is so common in current fiction. We only uncover the truth of what has happened by tangential exposition from the main characters, who are Stalkers that live near one of the Zones. They are just blue collar humans, regular people trying to live in unreal circumstances, who stumble upon philosophical truths along the way. Again, it felt very Russian in this way.

The story takes place 20-30 years after The Visit, and we see how the world has changed. Some of the things left behind have been found to be useful to us; for example, there has been an energy revolution, and cars are now driven with adaptations of this alien technology. But as one of the characters says, any purpose that these items have, that we have found, feels like monkeys cracking nuts with sledgehammers. It’s not the items’ true purpose, but the aliens are so far beyond us mentally that we aren’t even close to truly ascertaining what their technology harnessed. We find that there are different theories about what The Visit was for; some believe it was to leave us puzzle pieces to assemble, so that when they return we can prove that we have passed the mental test required to join their number. Others believe that they are silently and invisibly infiltrating humanity. But the theory that seems to be most true, and the one the book is named after, is that we were just a way stop on their way to somewhere more important, so far beneath their notice that they didn’t bother to say hello. They essentially had a “roadside picnic”, where they adjusted their path on Earth, and left the refuse of what they didn’t need when they continued. From the book:

“A picnic. Picture a forest, a country road, a meadow. Cars drive off the country road into the meadow, a group of young people get out carrying bottles, baskets of food, transistor radios, and cameras. They light fires, pitch tents, turn on the music. In the morning they leave. The animals, birds, and insects that watched in horror through the long night creep out from their hiding places. And what do they see? Old spark plugs and old filters strewn around... Rags, burnt-out bulbs, and a monkey wrench left behind... And of course, the usual mess—apple cores, candy wrappers, charred remains of the campfire, cans, bottles, somebody’s handkerchief, somebody’s penknife, torn newspapers, coins, faded flowers picked in another meadow.”

Their trash was so much more advanced than us that decades later we still couldn’t understand it (the mental image I had was from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, of the monkeys in front of the monolith); and perhaps they were right to do so.

This concept of alien interaction absolutely fascinates me. I take no solace in the idea that we are the cold, lonely intelligent life in the universe; on earth we are special, but in terms of the universe that’s a pretty inflated view of ourselves to take. It just doesn’t ring true. But this idea, that aliens are so far beyond us that we only knew of their existence because they tossed their soda cans and banana peels out the window as they passed, and they happened to hit us….this feels right. And fascinating. And unlike anything else I’d ever read.

The sparse ways in which we are exposed to the truths of The Visit and The Zones, against the backdrop of family life, the grind of making ends meet, the struggles with substances and other baser desires and encounters between police, felt so real. Inside the zone, the breadcrumbs we are given describe a place in which mysterious phenomena is haphazardly sprinkled among the abandoned Pripyat-like relics of abandoned human civilization. When the The Visit happened, plagues broke out in nearby areas. Even decades later, there are “bug traps”, concentrations of gravity that are invisible, but suck people in without a trace. There are “happy ghosts”, areas of heat shimmer-like movement that burn people to a crisp. “Hell slime”, a blue slime with blue flames that devours people and transforms anything near it into more slime. Then there are “empties”, copper disks that hover 6 inches apart, that can’t be pushed together or taken apart, that on rare occasions have a blue substance between them. The “golden sphere”, a large golden ball rumored to grant wishes. Additionally, the Zones distort reality and perception for anyone in them, and permanently affect the offspring born of those who spend time in it…even raise the dead. And for those nearby, they aren’t allowed to immigrate due to “bad luck” that seems to follow them.

The fantastic nature of the discoveries, with the simple human portrayals of how they are handled, feels so true and accurate. No matter what incredible advances we witness, our human nature absorbs it and continues on. That holds true for disasters and the sublime. One of the ideas a couple characters discuss is the nature and point of intelligence. As one posit has it, “Intelligence is the ability to harness the powers of the surrounding world without destroying the said world.” In this modern time in which we both feel on the brink of breakthroughs and the precipice of doom, this feels even more poignant. This is a book that I will keep in my reread pile, and continue to mull over for years to come.

A Review and Reflection on the documentary Final Account

Last night, while making stuff and looking for something to listen to as I did, I found a documentary on Netflix, called Final Account. I hadn’t heard of it before, but from the synopsis I could see that it was interviews with Germans who lived in Germany at the time of the Third Reich. I thought that sounded interesting. Little did I know I would be absorbed by one of the most fascinating documentaries I’ve ever seen. I’m so haunted by it that I watched it again today.

I’ve made a study of World War II since I was in elementary school. I’ve read countless books about many aspects of the conflict: the underground resistance movements in Nazi occupied countries, fleet actions in the Pacific and Atlantic, Rommel and his tanks in Africa, the Blitzkrieg and miraculously timely leadership of Churchill, many accounts of the survivors of the Holocaust and their experiences. Some of it I’ve read from a strategic interest as someone who has always studied wars and how they have been one or lost; some of it I’ve read from a point of terrified fascination regarding how regular people can allow their country to do something so terrible in “modern” times. This documentary afforded me a new perspective, that I truly didn’t expect to get under my skin as much as it did.

Beginning in 2008, the filmmaker of Final Accounts decided he was going to go and interview German people who had lived within Germany during the rise of Hitler, and through World War II. He interviews individuals, usually one at a time, in their homes, and asks them questions in a largely chronological way. Many of them were children when Hitler came into power, and they recount their recollections of being part of the mandatory Hitler Youth organizations, beginning at age 10, for males and females. We see the warmth of the recollections of camaraderie and youthful excitement, and hear some of the trepidation in a few accounts regarding the discomfort as relatives perhaps questioned what was happening in Germany.

In those sections, I saw what I largely expected. There was discussion of how Jews were starting to be treated poorly in the earlier 1930s, and shame at some of that. Honestly, without examining my own perspective too much, I thought we would see some warm fuzzies at the lost activities of youth, but widespread condemnation of what the Nazis did after their full rise to power. And we do see that in part. But as the documentary progressed, and the recollections became those of no longer children but now active German adults in Nazi Germany, a lot more human nature showed itself on display.

Where the self accountability really began to diverge is when the subjects began discussing their recollections around Kristallnacht, November 9-10 1938. For those who may not be aware, that is the night that Hitler gave a fiery speech against Jews, and all across Germany a systematic attack against the Jewish people began. Many were murdered, more than 1400 synagogues were burned, thousands of Jewish homes and businesses were burned and looted (the term Kristallnacht, or “crystal night”, itself comes from the smatterings of broken glass across the streets of the Jewish neighborhoods), and more than 30,000 Jewish people were arrested. And what was fascinating, is while the documentary subjects had been forthcoming about seeing Nazi material and what they did in the Hitler Youth organizations, suddenly some of them were…mysteriously unaware. They claimed they saw smoke, but had no idea what it was from. They were taken to the neighborhoods to view the aftermath, but oddly didn’t know why they were taken there. Most shocking, was a man who when asked if he considered the burning of the synagogues a crime, candidly said, “No. No I don’t consider it a crime. I didn’t feel bad for the Jews.” Then we see him reflect further, and say, “Well I suppose technically it must be a crime. It was someone’s property, so I suppose technically according to the law it was. But I didn’t consider it to be.”

This cognitive dissonance is fascinating and unnerving, and it was just the beginning. What I realized as I watched, is that we were seeing the aftermath of decades of guilt, whether realized or not, and the coping mechanisms these people had created over the course of the ensuing 70 years. They could recall the exact marching songs for hiking in the woods as Nazi children, but couldn’t remember Kristallnacht. And this is the sort of refrain that would become increasingly common as we moved through the timeline of World War II.

When asked about concentration camps that were in the towns some of the subjects lived in, we see many claim to have had “no idea” what was happening. Meanwhile, their contemporary subjects are saying they saw plumes of smoke from 2 kilometers away from the ovens, they could see starving prisoners over the gates, they saw trains of people coming in and never trains of people leaving. They saw people being beaten and hanged. And to see these two very different types of recollection, was chilling and fascinating. Clearly there were many who chose to stick with the “company line” of ignorance, EVEN IN THE CASE OF SOME WHO WERE WORKING AT THE CAMPS.

Most the men interviewed were SS, and yet some of them claimed that the SS had nothing at all to do with the camps; that they were soldiers of honor who only fought for Germany on the frontlines. Meanwhile, as one of their contemporaries pointed out, sure there were SS on the frontlines. They were the ones burning entire villages in pogroms, and then sending the survivors in on trains. For those who aren’t aware, the SS were essentially the ringleaders of much of the exterminations, in many ways. The claim that they weren’t involved, would be laughable, if it weren’t such a dire subject.

One of the most impactful scenes to me, among many that I am sure will stay with me forever, is one of the former Nazi soldiers standing in the gated yard of a farm and talking about how the nearby camp had many prisoners. He offhandedly mentions that many of the prisoners would be found within the walls of the farm, trying to escape. He then mentions that it was his family farm. The interviewer asks him, what happened to those people? Oh, they would be rounded up, he says. And then what, asks the interviewer? Oh I have no idea. No one knows. No idea. The interviewer asks, how did they know that there were people hiding here? And we then see the answer, that the interviewer called and turned them in, get painfully and evasively answered. On display across his face, is guilt, defensiveness, evasion, discomfort, and the hints of self loathing, chasing one another like clouds.

There was one former Nazi soldier who seemed to me, have been trying to come a reckoning about his part. Unlike many of the other interviewees, he admitted that he was complacent, and that his complacency and the complacency of others like him is what allowed this to happen. We are shown a room with this man speaking to a group of young people with blurred faces. He tells them that he is proud that he served his country, but ashamed of what his country did. And in a shocking rebuttal, a young man in the crowd vehemently argues that he had nothing to be ashamed of. That this man should not be ashamed of fellow Germans, but instead of “Albanians who would stab you on the train”. This uncomfortable discussion happens, in which both men are arguing back and forth, with the former Nazi saying, You sound just like them! And to hear the arguments that Hitler used to justify his terror, come from the mouth of a young person in the current day, was absolutely bone chilling. I felt that the former Nazi in this scene had done the closest one could come to self atonement. He did not seek to skirt responsibility; he did not use the excuses that so many others did in their interviews, of “I didn’t know. It wasn’t me. It was others who did it. I had no idea.” He takes credit for both his actions and his inactions, and has decided the only way to make up for it is to educate others to try to keep it from happening again.

As I previously alluded to, I went into this, without thinking very hard about it, having expectations of how people would behave. And my expectations were woefully off in most cases. As I reassess the reality of how the former Nazis dealt with the guilt of the Holocaust, as an American of course I looked at it through that lens. In America’s history, there are many awful acts. The slave trade, the treatment of the Native Americans, manifest destiny, Jim Crow laws…there are many acts that are shameful in our past. Frequently, in thinking of how we as a nation parse that history without tearing ourselves apart, I have compared the shame of our sins to the shame of Germany’s. But it was only after watching this documentary, and being shocked by not only the denial and excuses, but also by the modern Nazi ideals raising their head again, that I realized an important difference I hadn’t pondered before.

In recent years, it’s been clear that in America we are still reckoning with much of our past. And we have our share of deniers, as well as those who stunningly think the past doesn’t deserve to be examined or taught, unless it makes us feel good. What I believe is an important distinction in America’s reckoning, that seems to have heavily affected the way some Germans process their sins, is that the issues in America’s past have been changed from within. We didn’t stop the slave trade because the rest of the world forced us; Americans decided it needed to change and it did. The Jim Crow laws and racial segregation didn’t start to change because the UN said so; Americans thought we could do better. But in the case of Germany, the Final Solution didn’t fizzle out at 6 million Jews, instead of all of them, because the German people decided they had had enough. It stopped because the Allies finally defeated Germany, and Hitler ate a bullet rather than face accountability.

I believe the most important thing to do when history is uncomfortable and shameful, is to shine a light on it and figure out why it happened, until we can be sure that we aren’t accidentally waltzing the same steps to a different song, and thinking we have come up with something new. When I was a child in school, the school system I was part of seemed to believe that too. I was lucky in that I was taught about the Trail of Tears, the Holocaust, and how awful slavery was. But that is increasingly becoming a rarity in many parts of our country.

We need to be proud, not of the mistakes that we’ve made, but that we took the steps needed to start on the hard road to change. Because as this documentary helps to highlight, that is rare in human history. Most of the ugliest parts of history were born from the seeds of complacency and looking the other way. And from what I can glean, if someone comes in and forces you to change, it’s much harder to admit that you’ve made mistakes. One of the subjects, a literal SS officer, said he didn’t even blame Hitler for the Holocaust. He said, “Nuremberg said Hitler was guilty, but the German courts didn't. So I don’t believe I am guilty either, according to Germany.” That lack of accountability, wrapped in shame and evasiveness, is a poison that it would seem still needs to be drained.

I know that Germany has a nation has done many things to atone for what it did, and has made great strides to be equal and face down its past (in many ways, they seem to be doing better than we are at it these days). But the fears born of populism, the Other, and feeling unheard are able to combine into very heady cultural monsters, and they are never as far away as we think; particularly in the age of misinformation and a seeming lessening of critical thought. This documentary truly did a wonderful job of reminding us that human nature hates guilt, and it will take the grains of sand from a shameful past and use whatever excuse it can to coat them with pearls of complacency and evasion. And it’s a lesson we should all listen to. Please watch this very important film. It’s only on Netflix until March 1st, which is a shame. Because it’s truly one that should make us all examine what we think we know, and remind us of where true evil really lies: just around the corner.

If we could get past our past, what could we achieve? Semi review of The Rook

The title sounds a little larger in scope than I was going for, but I may explore that too.

I was recently reading a book, called The Rook, by Daniel O’Malley. I enjoyed it well enough, and may go on to read the other two in the series. If you haven’t read it, and you don’t want spoilers, you may want to stop reading (though to be fair, the book is largely used as a jumping off point for other musings).

The main character, as you will find out within the first few pages, is named Myfanwy Thomas, and she works for a supernatural intelligence agency in London. And she wakes up, not knowing who she is or anything about herself, surrounded in a park by dead bodies, all of which are wearing latex gloves. She finds a letter in her pocket from herself, saying that she knew this would happen in advance, and gives her instructions to find more missives, and we are off to the races.

I found this to be an interesting take on how to get the reader introduced to a complex world, though by the end it could get excessive (particularly since every time we read a missive to herself, at least in the Kindle version, it leads to pages of letters in italics, which was tough on my eyes). But what I found truly compelling, was the way that the main character’s personality is rewritten.

Having awoken in her “new” self, she has none of the shyness or timidity from her past. She has no memory of the life that made her who she was; she just has the skills and abilities from before, and the ability to progress on the path she was on.

I found this idea so intriguing. So much of who we are, and how we respond to things, is in response to the maps of our lives, and what we experience. That can be trauma responses, or positive responses…but either way, these lenses color how we react. Who could we be, if we could shed the skins of our past, and see things new? Wake up with the skills we’ve learned and the ability to use them, but essentially….get out of our own way?

The book, whether intentionally or not, makes the argument that we could be superhuman badasses. I like that idea. When I was a child, I was extremely shy. I’ve fought it my whole life, and also had a hard time trusting people. There are various pet reasons I’ve come up with for the reasons that I am that way, but the fact is, it’s never totally gone away. I’ve learned to adapt and overcome, but inside I’m still largely that child, and sort of have to convince myself to behave in other ways. If I had no memory of a lifetime of hesitancies around people, or having had my heart hurt by those that I allowed to keep it in trust, would I still feel shy inside? Or would that go away?

Over the years I’ve seen various papers that have shown me that much of the behavior I would assume is learned, is actually genetic. What a fascinating concept, to have bits of personality just be born into us via our genetic lotteries. But how much of that ends up being cemented into place later on by experiences and trauma responses?

Over the last few years, I’ve had the unpleasant experience that I feel many experience around this time, and that’s the death of friendships from our younger lives. Social media has given us the illusion that we can just find the people from our past online, pick up where we left off, and just continue to be friends, happily ever after. But as I’ve moved out of my thirties, unsurprisingly I’m finding that life is more complex than that. But as the branches of our trees of life diverge, and we become further settled into who we are as people, something odd happens. Sometimes it’s just that you realize you haven’t had communication in a while, and when you reach back out it feels…odd. Sometimes it’s that someone unceremoniously cuts you off. And sometimes as we see our paths take extremely different turns, we find ourselves not able to allow the same time to someone that doesn’t seem to have similar aspirations.

These transitions hurt. We can see sometimes where our trust and affection were unaligned with the person we directed them to, where we were taken for granted. And then we pick up and move on. But looking back through that experience, we can also allow ourselves to see in what ways we have changed, and I like to think in many ways it’s for the better. For myself, I think that I have gotten much better at realizing that not every person is worthy of taking my time. I no longer have that feeling of endless time stretching in front of me; I am cognizant of my own mortality, and fairly comfortable with it. And with that feeling, comes the recognition that I should not just waste the time I do have. I have also had enough experience with people I blindly trusted, to learn the hard way that I shouldn’t have, that I realize that even though I’d like to extend open arms to all who would seem to extend open arms to me…I cannot. That flame hurts, little one.

So in the case of refining my experience into distilled wisdom for myself down the road, the trauma that has resuscitated my hesitancy in some regards with people, has also served to strengthen the bonds with those I am closest with. I no longer give time and attention freely, but I am more generous with those that are worth it. That annealing of love for a more select few is a process of heat and pressure, but ultimately has resulted in relationships that are both stronger and more beautiful.

These situations have also made me truly appreciate how life is not black and white. For me, it is just full of seasons. Some relationships are good for a certain season of life, and it is good to embrace them before it turns, and then appreciate the time we were given. It’s equally important to realize that not all relationships are permanent, and that we can’t force them.

So if I could wake up tomorrow, and have no memory of my past, what would change? Well I assume I would be even more assertive. Perhaps I would not feel shy. But would I lose the wisdom that things like the trauma of changing friendships have left on me? Or would that wisdom be deep enough that it would sink in on genetic level? I don't know. Obviously it’s all just an abstract exercise of thought, but it’s been interesting to toy with it. Would I take the chance to shed the bruises of my history, to only take up the mantle of the knowledge and skills that I’ve earned? Would I still be me? I think no.

Although I might like to try for a day or two and see what I could accomplish.

AI And The Future of Humanity

Many years ago, I wrote a post about the future of work and the eventual need for a Universal Basic Income, due to the advancements of technology (robotic and AI) that would make human workers obsolete, or near obsolete, in various fields. Since that time, we’ve had illustrations of real life scenarios that UBI does work, and in fact makes the humans that are on it more inspired and creative. And, in a less positive light, we have very recently seen that AI is accelerating its takeover of humanity. Is that hyperbolic? Maybe. But I’d prefer to say it’s accurate.

In the last few months, there have been several cases of AI disrupting human spheres. We saw it in the form of “art” AI, which created artwork from text prompts input by humans. This immediately brought out an outcry, due to the artists that the AI had been trained upon, rightly pointing out that the AI was stealing their styles and giving nothing back. Now, has inspiration always been a nebulous and controversial aspect of the art world? Yes, indeed. Where does inspiration cross the line into plagiarism, or appropriation? These have been questions that artists have debated for years. But I believe it clearly crosses over into plagiarism when an AI bot wholeheartedly shoplifts an artists entire artistic DNA, with no attribution or payment. As though artists don’t struggle enough to make money after spending so much time and effort pouring their love into their craft…now they have HAL 3000 shoplifting the pooty too? When it takes literally the amount of time it would take to wish for a Djinn to make art of the subject of a wisher’s choosing, and in the exact style that a wisher’s favorite artist projects, we have a serious problem. This is already rocking the artistic industry, in that game studios are laying of pre-visualization artists (always one of my favorite kinds of modern artists, known for sweeping vistas and meticulously rendering fantastical worlds, among other things, and required to be intensely talented) in favor of using AI to generate pre-viz art. And will the money that is saved by axing those talented artists, serve to do anything but make the fat cats at the top further increase their financial BMI? Forgive me for being skeptical, but I doubt it.

In the same vein of AI disruption, we also have similar bots that are taking over the roles of writers (I promise this post has been poorly written by a human, and should handily pass your Turing test. Here’s a typoo to prove it) by using small prompts to write articles and stories. And ChatGPT is also coming for the techies themselves, in that it’s making large swathes of code writing obsolete, and can be driven by AI instead to write code in a tiny fraction of the time (admittedly it takes some handholding, but is FAR less demanding than the traditional code writing procedures).

So in the space of a few months, we have had huge disruptions to labor sets. And what’s unique about this particular tech assault, is that it’s upon traditionally highly skilled and learned roles. This isn’t just a robot replacing a hamburger flipper; these are AI not only replacing many people who have advanced degrees, but stealing their own work as the very means to do so. And in a particularly insulting twist, the AI is orders of magnitude faster at all of these things than a human could ever be.

So what are the implications? Well, looks like we are heading full long towards the part of late-stage capitalism where the 200 rich people with all the money leave Earth, and leave the rest of us underlings behind after we’ve been sapped dry of all our AI-stealable skills, to squabble over our Soylent Green crumbs. I kid, I kid. Sort of. To be sure, AI can be a tool to help us achieve great things. But it can also carelessly be used to irreparably damage us. And that sure feels like where we are right now.

To me, if the powers that be aren’t hearing alarm bells about the future of humanity and what we do, they just aren’t paying attention. Which, given the political antics of the last several years, wouldn’t be all that surprising. But let’s choose to be optimistic, and believe that there ARE people in power who want to help the human race still (and that they aren’t just the sorts who appear to be interested in that, until they can buy Twitter and show that they’ve chosen to throw it all in with the loonies instead. Ahem.) I believe now is the time to begin to throw together a plan to do something BEFORE everything gets awful for once. And what could they do? Well, I have three ideas that could mitigate some things.

1. Clearly we need to make it where if an AI dataset is used to train a plagiarism bot, the original artists/writers/etc need to be paid royalties from the organization that has created that plagiarism bot. Both upon initial usage, and repeated royalties upon reuse. The good thing about AI, is you have metrics that will tell you that information down to the Nth degree.

2. For every job that uses AI or robots to displace a human, there should be a heavy tax on that position, used to fund UBI for the people that have been displaced. That will make it so that digital slaves aren’t immediately so appealing, for doing the work of humans for the mere cost of developing them in the first place, and then making them Legion. It will also help to fund UBI for those people, so that they can retrain or otherwise lead fulfilling lives and contribute to society, instead of becoming destitute. I know that there’s the whole argument about “every time there’s a new technology, the people tied to the old one cry doom”, and that’s true. But when cars replaced horses, the people that shoed the horses could learn to work on cars. AI takes jobs, and leaves a vacuum that only AI moves into, at least for a huge ratio. And that just hasn’t been equitable at any other point in history.

3. For my most popular idea, tie the income of the people at the top of companies to the income of the people at the lowest tier. The C-suite characters would no longer be able to reap all the rewards from taking the profits from the humans that made the products, as we so so much now. Let’s say, no one can make more than 20 times what the lowest paid workers makes. I don’t buy that anyone can work 20 times harder in a position than someone else, and so many of our deep-seated problems come from the hugely disparate income inequalities that have occurred over the past several decades. If the people at the bottom of the pyramid are taken care of, we all prosper.

4. And as a freebie, let’s make it so that some projects are inalienably achieved by humans. We didn’t come this far just to let Pong’s great grandchild take it all away.

Are these ideas perfect? No. But at least they are something to talk about, which I am not seeing Congress do yet. And they need to start, yesterday, before this problem gets out of hand. Because it will, and very quickly. We are on the precipice of being able to make this world so good for so many, if we just continue to proactively take steps to solve problems before they are too late.

Manassas Viking Festival

This past Saturday, I did the first live selling event that I have done in several years. It was the Manassas Viking Festival; originally I was planning to do the 2020 show, but you know. The great time deletion happened. And it was great, I had the best time, and got to meet so many new people.

Meeting Customers In Real Life!

😍

Meeting Customers In Real Life! 😍

Thank you to every one who came and supported my business. Every single person I talked to was pleasant and nice, and it was just all around wonderful. To those of you who have come here after the show, thank you for stopping by! I am so glad you’re back :) Can’t wait to attend next year, and I am truly looking forward to my next event.

Me at my booth, having a wonderful time meeting you!

The Northman: A movie review

I knew I wanted to write something here today, but wasn’t sure what it would be. Further reflections on Ukraine? The immense consolidation of wealth and power into the hands of a very privileged and very flawed few, occurring at lightning speed over the last few years? And then it occurred to me: I saw The Northman a couple days ago, and clearly THAT is what you want to hear about tonight. So here we are!

Viking Authenticity 101

As soon as I heard that Robert Eggers was going to be releasing a Viking movie, I knew they had me. Let’s be honest: I can get enjoyment out of something with as much authenticity as Thor: Ragnarok, or the movie version of a text book come to life. I enjoy the myth and legends and intrigue around Norse culture as much as I do the authentic history. Horned helmets? I’ll take it! Formed leather armor with pelts? Fine with me (in fact, I HAVE MY OWN, have you seen it?? Because here it is)

Now just because I enjoy all those things, doesn’t mean that I’m not aware that the couple examples of horned helmets we have weren’t viking, and were ceremonial….I know that true authentic historical armor was likely to be chainmail or lamellar…and that the Vikings tv show isn’t exactly a documentary. But, I enjoy all of it just the same. And from the people I know who are from the Scandinavian countries themselves, they seem to hold a similar view.

BOOM. Historical accuracy in spades! ;) Don’t at me.

All that being said, I typically try to not find out much about a movie before I see it, beyond what is in the preview. I like to be surprised. Especially if I am actually going to a movie theater to see it, which I hardly do these days. So imagine my joy when I discovered how much authenticity The Northman sought to pack into its dirty and dark story. I won’t go into the plot here, more than to say it’s based upon Saxo’s saga…which was ultimately used by William Shakespeare as the inspiration for Hamlet. Take from that what you will.

So just to get this out of the way, the movie was fantastic. Richly woven, deeply researched, intelligently written, and superbly acted. I could watch it ten times in a row. And for those of us who carry a mental “Viking Authenticity” bingo card in our heads at all times, this is a blackout. It was truly incredible to see. To see authentic viking swords, along with seax blades and period accurate axes, was a Christmas morning. Spectacle helmets galore, and lamellar armor, if indeed armor was to be had (which frequently, in real life, it wasn’t!). The environment, shot in Northern Ireland and Iceland, was dark and dreary and metal, just like my soul. There was even diamond woven cloth on a priestess, oh my goodness.

But to me, I think the part that most blew me away, was how the true North philosophy of life was captured. As I have stated, I am fascinated by the Viking age (ha, clearly.) But I don’t take it as a way of life we should truly try to emulate. There are certain facets that can be taken, sure, but overall, the way Vikings thought is extremely alien to anything a modern Westerner would recognize now. To the Norse, the gods were alive and active; the veil between worlds was thin, and manipulatable by shaman and seers. Luck was a tangible commodity that attached itself to some people, and a sizable part of the human soul was carried in each of us by a female ancestral spirit. And all of this was referenced in the movie.

Do you want to know what the Norns have to say to you? Do you REALLY?? Be careful what you wish for, Bjork may just show up!

There were barrow dwellers and hallucinogens. Valkyries as the terrifying and powerful creatures they were, not as the sexpots with metal pasties that we so often see these days (though I enjoy those sometimes too!) And they captured one of the most alien ideas I have picked up from the sagas: the notions of motherhood and what they meant to certain female Norse nobility. One of the more horrific facts that one uncovers when learning about Viking histories, is that the bonds of parenthood could be very…fragile. Many children were largely raised by the community, and with the mortality rate being extremely high due to sickness, plague, famine, and everything else that could kill children during what was a very tough time to survive, and in austere conditions…well, parenthood could look very different from what we recognize now. There are tales of Kings sacrificing their sons to the gods, of children being abandoned during noble ransoms, of weak children being killed by their parents in a cruel attempt to strengthen their line. If you want some examples of viking mothers acting in these ways, just look up Gunnhild. Even these horrific views of parenthood were addressed in the movie.

Valkyrie as the terrifying creatures they were! Fierce and nonhuman

The Northman doesn’t shy away from what the Norse truly were, and it doesn’t sugarcoat them. We see the cruelty they could be capable of (yes, they would burn settlements. Yes, they were avid slavers, as was much of the world at this time). It unflinchingly looks into the past, and shows us what was interesting, what was horrifying, and why the world they lived in pushed them to these views and actions. It glaringly demonstrates how they could be both victim and perpetrator, capable of mercy and love and dark magic and hatred. In short, it’s a tale of humanity, of our love and cruelty, and how the seeds of both are entwined within our own souls. It was a fascinating movie, and the more I reflect upon it the more I love it.

FIERCE

Grab your towel and DON'T PANIC

Oh no. Guys, they're doing it again. The media is trying to get us to freak out about something, when we don't need to.

If you've turned on the news today, it's more than a little likely that you've seen reporting about "China meets with Russia as Russia asks for help". The clear message they are trying to communicate is, you need to worry because China is about to supply Russia with weapons and stomp Ukraine and it will be WWIII.

Here's the thing: No. First of all, China tried to have a low-key phone call....and we intercepted it. Oof, that's embarrassing for them. I love the irony, considering when the US was about to release all the intelligence about Russia's plans a few weeks ago (which I think was a beautiful and adept response, one of the best uses of intelligence I've seen in my lifetime. Talk about taking the wind out of Putin's sails and stealing his narrative! But I digress...), China warned Russia. And now, look at that, we pulled the old Kansas City shuffle. Not only did this throw their communications off and steal the narrative AGAIN, but it makes it less likely that China will open itself up to (clearly intercepted) comms with the Kremlin again. It's just so messy and distasteful for them, you see.

The imbalance of the SIGINT intercepts for Russia and China aside, and the fact that this means we can broadcast further communications between the two...China wasn't going to supply Russia with weaponry anyway. A flailing and failing Russia means a vacuum...which China would love to fill. And (thus far) China is into the long game of war with markets, not supplying weaponry. Let alone the fact that they would then be iced out of two markets that are much bigger for them than Russia...Europe and the US. The media would you have think that China would say, "Dude we've just been waiting for you to ask!" And no, not at all.

And Putin is aware of this. Which is why he asked....for MREs. "Can you at least hook me up with some crackers?" That's how poorly this is going for Putin. We all know it, the strategy is abysmal, the costs are far outweighing any possible gain Putin is going to get out of this, the logistics are a nightmare; this is why he's been sacking and arresting all his advisors and generals. Trying to shift the blame, because after all, Russians love to depose/sacrifice failed leaders. And if this isn't a failure of leadership on an Olympian scale, what is? He's trying to shove the internet genie back in the bottle and suppress a worldly Russian populace, while fighting a literal war with the worst possible optics; did you know that Russian use of VPNs has jumped by several thousand percent since he tried to shut them off? This isn't the age of your parent's totalitarianism. This is going to be a hard thing to enforce.

So now the news would have you worried about this alliance, but there's no THERE there. Don't let it get to you. There's plenty to worry about, but Chinese leadership being as ignorant as Russian leadership isn't high up there on the "likely scenarios" list.

New Russia, just like the old Russia

One of the stories in history I've always found fascinating, is that of the Russo-Japanese war, and in particular, the Battle of Tsushima, which occurred in 1905.

The Tsar sent the Russian fleet to attack Japan (and you'll forgive me, for skipping over A LOT here), after several large land battles. It was an aging coal powered fleet, but the Tsar felt they could beat the Japanese handily. He felt this way though he didn't know much about the Japanese fleet and their technology, though the Russian ships were coal powered and expensive to move, and they still used lanyard to fire their guns by hand (rather than fire them electrically); they also used conscripted and fairly unskilled sailors.

They ended up taking their fleet all the way around the horn of Africa to Japan. It took the the better part of a year to get there, and the already aged Russian ships were definitely not better off than when they left. They arrived, prepared to dominate the Japanese and show off the might of the Russian Navy to the world, and by extension the military prowess and might of the Tsar, Nicholas II. Russia's fleet had more ships, and they continued to steam ahead towards battle.

As they arrived at Japan, the Japanese with their smaller (but more modern) 30 ship fleet, within 24 hours sank the entire 40 ship Russian fleet, including their four battleships. They were completely routed. The Russians were forced to end the war in disgrace, and the Tsar never fully recovered his standing. The costs of losing the war resulted in famine and hardship for the people. Their leader had led them into a war they were poorly prepared for, in which their military showed itself to be weak and outdated, and as a result, in 1917 the Tsar and his family were overthrown and killed in the Russian revolution.

Doesn't some of this seem eerily familiar right now?

Russian trolls and bots, post-Russia's internet clampdown

I am absolutely fascinated by a phenomenon.

For years now, I've made it a hobby to notice Russian trolls and bots online (hey we all need our hobbies). It's a verifiable fact that they often peddle American right wing opinions and memes (sometimes with hilarious inaccuracies), and pro-Trump "stolen election" and pro-Putin content in particular.

Since Russia had most of its internet access blocked off, I immediately noticed a huge drop in inflammatory right wing posts online, in pro-Trump/Putin comments in comment sections, in nasty right wing memes being posted. It was honestly an instantaneous difference in the temperature of the internet. I even notice when looking at "reacts" on facebook, that those that mention positives with Biden no longer have the angry face first; they often have the love react first. This trend has been predominant in the last several days, and I am shocked at the instant changes. Obviously there are still angry trump supporters out there, but there is a marked difference in numbers online. I am sure it's not a coincidence. And it's just another fascinating facet of this time.

Also please check back, I’ll be writing my own analysis of this surreal situation with Russia, and the absolutely criminal invasion of Ukraine, later on.

The Last Duel (SPOILER RICH!)

I remember hearing several months ago (or years ago?? Time is so strange during plagues) about a new Ridley Scott movie coming out. I love his movies, and I heard that this one would have sword fighting in it, so I immediately was invested. Then, I believe, the next thing I heard was that Matt Damon would be starring in it, and that he would have a mullet. I don’t remember hearing anything after that.

The rumors were true.

Lo and behold, last week I learned that The Last Duel was available to watch on streaming. I immediately watched it (twice, if you want to get technical). And I loved it. First, my second complaint about the movie besides the mullet, was Matt Damon’s duel helmet.

What in the traumatic brain injury is that.

Now that those are out of the way, I’ll get on to everything else about the movie that I didn’t know. Adam Driver (of Kylo Ran fame), Ben Affleck, and Jodie Comer round out the rest of the main cast. The film immediately started with a duel scene between Adam Driver and Matt Damon’s characters, and then goes into three separate “flashback” sequences. This was a very unique approach, because (and, if you haven’t scene it yourself, PLEASE don’t read further, it has so much more impact if you don’t realize what is coming!) each of these sequences are of the same section of story, from the perspective of the three characters who experienced it. This was an absolutely fascinating way to tell the story.

I’m not going to rely heavily on recapping the plot, because I truly hope you watched it yourself (and, if you didn’t, please DO IT NOW). But essentially it’s the story of Matt Damon and Adam Driver and their battle camaraderie, their struggles with one another and power and pride, and the story of Matt Damon as Sir Jean marrying Jodie Comer’s character Marguerite. The lynchpin of it all is when Adam Driver’s character Le Gris shows up when Jean is away, and rapes Marguerite. She bravely tells Jean when he returns, and he decides to challenge Le Gris to a duel and allow “God to settle it”.

You will become so familiar with this shot.

Going into this movie, I assumed it was a rather typical medieval war movie, and I had high expectations since I think Ridley Scott is incredible at this. Master and Commander is my favorite movie of all time, so I assumed this would be an excellent historic war movie (clearly one of my favorite genres), and in that I was not disappointed. The battle scenes are visceral, intimate, and brutal. They truly didn’t disappoint. Of note is the scene where a volley of arrows launches in a forest in Scotland; I had to rewatch that scene several times just to truly appreciate how terrifying that experience would have been. As in Kingdom of Heaven and Gladiator, the grace and glory of hand to hand combat with simple tools is stripped down to its essential and bloody truth: while I am fascinated by it, this is truly an awful and terrifying way to die. The Last Duel achieved this pared-down storytelling with aplomb, as before. He has not lost any of his brutal clarity in telling the stories of battles. In the final duel scene, you truly are left with a sense of what an eternity the microseconds of hand to hand combat truly encompass. It’s an earth shattering feeling that is well communicated.

THEY ARE NOT HAVING A GOOD TIME HERE

All of the above is exactly what I expected, and love, from Ridley Scott Films. I assume that there were many in the audience who were there for those exact reasons, as was I. Here’s what I didn’t expect: A complex and empathetic story of pride, power, and the powerlessness of women in Catholic France. I did not expect an entreaty that would show the perspectives of two empathetic male characters who have their own views and complexities, and the erosions and micro aggressions of their relationships over time. And I definitely did not expect to see the story of a woman doubted, loved but ignored and downtrodden, and her complex emotions in what to sacrifice and what to save, due to her position. I didn’t expect to see the complexity of Le Gris, who was intelligent and empathetic, even going to bat for his friend when his friend had wronged him. We see him viewing a woman that he “loves” through the lens of “woman as property”; a system that he was born into. He doesn’t realize the full horror of what he has done, because he is too blinded by his own position, power, and wants, to see the true impact of what he his actions.

The story of Jean as a less intellectual, but still intelligent and in many ways honorable man, again the product of his times and the systems in place, was equally fascinating. We see as he over time refuses to adapt or learn, but continues to see “wrongs” against him (without his own self at fault, of course). But we are still empathetic; he is built for a simpler world, and doesn’t understand that. We see his perspective as a man who loves his wife, but ultimately still lives in a world that values her as a breeder and property, and on some level, he sees her that way too.

And finally in the third iteration of the story, we see Marguerite’s own view. That of a woman who must bear the shames of the men around her (first her father’s treason, then her husband’s impetuous actions that result in his losses of station), who was raised literate and as an intellectual but lives in a home with an illiterate husband and a hostile mother in law. She is still happy and takes on the duties of the house as much as possible, but over the five years of her marriage that we see, she very much feels the weight of not having born an heir yet. When she has her child but feels the weight of possibly being burned at the stake depending on if her husband loses the duel (and therefore proves that she lied about the rape), she clearly sees how other women chose not to speak out.

I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie with characters so deeply and well written. In an era in which analysis of current events and others continues to grow flatter by the day, with little room for nuance or empathy, this movie upsets the status quo. It explains a horrific event, without justifying it. It reminds us that humans are ugly, beautiful, good and evil, often within the same skin. I couldn’t recommend it more highly.

Destroying Angel

Destroying Angel, one of the most deadly mushrooms in the world. It has an eerie almost glow to it; you can see it in the distance, with a cool white color that is almost irresistible. It's such a pure and attractive white, the name for it is perfect. Since it's part of the amanita family, the toxin is "amatoxin", which in this case it has in lethal amounts. If you were to ingest it, you would feel intense stomach distress in the next several hours; vomiting, diarrhea, severe stomach cramps. If you weren't to realize what you had eaten, that might be where you think it ends. But after that point, in about 8-12 hours, you would then experience liver and/or kidney failure. Over 68% of those who eat this mushroom, die from it. Most who do survive, need liver or kidney transplants. By the time the second set of symptoms show up, the damage has been done.

Eastern American Destroying Angel, benignly plotting your demise.

It looks so deceptively perfect; the telltale signs are the bulbous "vulva" at the bottom, the frail and delicate gills, and the "cape" at the top of the stalk. In the early stages it can look similar to a puffball, but if you cut them open, the inside of a puffball should look smooth, almost with the texture of a marshmallow. If it has any structure, it's not safe. The kids got a good lesson today in Mommy's Mycologia School. ;)

Note the pure, cool white color, and the bulbous “vulva” at the bottom, from which the mushroom emerged. The vulva is often buried so it requires some digging to uncover.

Bioluminescence? Yes please.

I love mushrooms. I think they are fascinating; they aren’t animal, they aren’t plant, they aren’t like anything else. So one of my hobbies is to just sort of find them and learn about them, when I have the chance.

Last night, while driving down the road, I saw these bright orange clusters of mushrooms by a golf course. We pulled over and I took pictures, sure that I had found Jack O’ Lantern mushrooms, and in October, no less. They were gorgeous and vibrant, and I took some photos and we left.

Today I learned that they are bioluminescent. I find bioluminescence to be one of the most beautiful and mysterious things you can find in nature, so tonight we went back to the golf course, and I grabbed a clump of them (I am sure they will be mowed tomorrow). I took them home, not sure if we would see the elusive glow or not. And to the amazement of my kids and I….we did. So I went and got out my camera, and took a few low light photos of the first time I’ve witnessed bioluminescence “in the wild”, if you will (as opposed to in a museum or aquarium). I loved it so much that I wanted to share the experience with you.

Afghanistan

For the last few days, I've been parsing and categorizing my response to seeing the rapid collapse of Afghanistan after our withdrawal. And to me, it's been a bit more rapid than I expected, but absolutely what I've assumed would happen for the last 20 years. I remember when we invaded, saying "I want to know what our exit strategy is, or else this is just another Vietnam." Turns out that's exactly what has happened. Afghanistan has a very long history of being nearly unconquerable. Genghis Khan was successful, but only because his army permanently moved in and never left. In fact the Hazara people literally look different than other tribes, due to their Mongolian heritage. But the Romans, the Russians, Alexander the Great, and the United States, have all been defeated in trying to conquer Afghanistan. If only President Bush would have rewatched the Princess Bride in 2001, and remembered the all important maxim: "Never get involved in a land war in Asia."

I hate that we weren't successful, and the good lives that were lost. But I don't see it as a surprise at all. America is not good at ending wars. I think the ending of World War II gave us hubris for the other conflicts that we entered in the 20th (and beginning of the 21st) century. You cannot force a people to choose what they don't want. And with Afghanistan, though there are many people there who are good people, there still weren't enough to fight against the inertia of thousands of years of tribalism and war lords. Which we should have been well aware of, and many of us were....but the top brass and politicians, chose to deny this.

I've seen people asking why we didn't maintain a force there, like we did with Japan and Germany. The reasons for keeping those bases were strategic, to keep footholds in Europe (against Russia) and in Asia. Afghanistan really doesn't fulfill that need. And with the cost of a place that has NEVER been stable, the maintenance is too high. Japan and Germany had successful economies and stability; Afghanistan doesn't and won't. We would pour far more into the bribes needed to keep the wolves off in that region, in perpetuity, than we would gain strategically. Attacks on the Green Zone never stopped. The prices never stopped being paid by American personnel. The same can't be said of Germany and Japan. I fully believe that if we were to wait ten more years, we would just spend trillions more that could be spent here, with the same result.

At some point, you have to disavow the sunk cost fallacy, and withdraw. Should that have been done at a more measured pace? Sure, of course. At the least we should have had a solid plan on how to get our allies out, who would surely be sacrificed.

But I ultimately believe we were well past the point where we should go. And I've spent my whole career involved in that war, it breaks my heart that we weren't able to save the good people from the bad; I hate how many of our friends and coworkers were lost in the prime of life, for the glory of a politician's lost cause. I hate seeing the equipment that we left to try to do the right thing, get taken by the Taliban (just like what happened when the Russians left). I hate seeing a new vacuum for bad actors come into existence. But I hate even more, that our past leaders thought that the risks of fighting a new war for bad reasons, were worth it. Because, as a 19 year old, I knew how it would end. You can't tell me they didn't see it too. But too many people wanted to get rich at the top, and didn't pay a price. And from the good old adage, Never let a crisis go to waste, they didn't. So I hope that the leaders from 2001 and on get accurately called out for wasting blood, time, and money, for the most predictable end all along. And the death of hope for a people, that was never going to be. As a nation, I hope that we can learn some lessons about fights that are worth the cost, and that you should never enter a room without knowing how to get back out of it again.

How I really feel about billionaire joy rides to “space”

I usually find space and flight among the most inspirational things there are. I love the idea of humanity exploring and learning together, I think it's great that Space X has made using reusable rockets an achievable thing, and that it gives us data we can use in so many ways, and helps advance science and exploration.

That said, the billionaire boys club dick waving contest has been so depressing, I've avoided watching the launches. Here are these jerks that underpay the people that built their companies, racing to get to the very tip of space (technically the outer atmosphere), meanwhile the earth is burning, melting, and flooding, racing to prove that....well, they just can. Jeff Bezos, one of my least favorite humans, literally said he started Blue Origin because he could think of nothing else to do with his money. 😑 No wonder his philanthropist ex left him. I have never seen a better case for taxing rich people than these antics.

How about helping to build the infrastructure of the country that your company has used every single day, Jeff? How about building hospitals? Fighting vaccine disinformation? Building a tool to detect deepfakes? How about paying for childcare for your workers? Making it so they don't pee in bottles at work because of how totalitarian your warehouses are? You could build roads, put ENTIRE cities on new forms of power, help clean plastic out of the oceans! Make desalination plants for the west coast! ORRRR.....make a giant dick that doesn't even really make it to space, spewing an atrocious amount of pollution for no net scientific gain, and look like the biggest dork I've ever seen while doing it. Literally the only good thing about this to me has been seeing Wally Funk finally make it to space. Did you know that to Jeff Bezos, spending $80,000 is the equivalent of you or I spending $1. THAT'S how much money he has. I think it's fine to have millionaires, I still think they should be taxed and we need to close the loopholes that make it so they don't pay taxes at equivalent rates like the rest of us, but I think it's immoral to have billionaires. It's the sign of broken systems and broken people. You really have to have greed to make billions of dollars, and keep it. And I know, Jeff Bezos has given away pittances to people. But he has kept a LOT. And spent billions more on this useless stunt.

The world NEEDS help. America NEEDS moral leaders and business leaders. And this just AIN'T IT. Do better, jackasses. Regular people are the ones whose shoulders you stood on (and, faces, in many cases); why don't you try doing things to help us, instead of making the most ironic and crappy representation of leaving us behind to die in our petty poor people filth that you can.

Mort by Terry Pratchett, and a general reflection on Death

Since I read War of the Worlds when I was in first grade, I’ve been a science fiction and fantasy fan. It doesn’t take much poking around my interests to see that I’m an avid reader. Back around 1999, I read Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s collaboration, Good Omens, and subsequently loved it. I also truly loved the TV show version, which we all know is a dicey gamble at best, when it comes to transferring the written word to the silver screen. It was witty, irreverent yet respectful, and thought provoking about the most serious topics, in the most fun way.

However, it pains me to say, that’s as much Terry Pratchett as I had ever read. I know, I know! I KNOW. This was largely due to the fact that he’d written so much, I just didn’t really know where to start. There are plenty of guides online that told me what to start with, but they all differed, and I was paralyzed by choice. I’ve known this whole time that i was missing out, but hadn’t remedied it.

I finally bit the bullet a few weeks ago, and read Mort. I loved it. It makes Death someone that you would actually not mind meeting, scythe and all. Considering the fact that mortality is inevitable, I find this a very comforting anthropomorphization of an idea that modern Western culture seems to have done its utmost to avoid. I find memento mori to be a thing our current culture lacks, and through Death in Terry Pratchett’s books, and Death in the Sandman books, I think there are two very healthy ways of approaching the unavoidable specter of….well…..Death.

Frontispiece from Folio Society’s beautiful edition of Mort by Terry Pratchett

“THAT’S MORTALS FOR YOU, Death continued. THEY’VE ONLY GOT A FEW YEARS IN THIS WORLD AND THEY SPEND THEM ALL IN MAKING THINGS COMPLICATED FOR THEMSELVES. FASCINATING.” -Death, Mort

I love this quote from my In-Laws: “One out of one dies.”

They say it whenever life is just a bit stressful, or problems are a bit too big, and every time it makes me feel better. I hear that there are attempts to expand the human lifespan to 150+ years, and all I can think is, BLECH who would want that. I certainly wouldn’t. I intend to enjoy life as much as possible while I can, and then embrace the big nap when it’s my turn. I hope that I’ve left a legacy and stories to entertain and make my loved ones proud, but I would have no desire to outlive my natural life. And I think that’s a good thing.

Over the past year, there has been a lot of insanity from a lot of people. In many, many ways. And I think a part of that, has been a primitive reaction to having to stare death in the face. Many people have managed to run from the idea that yes, we all will die. If you buy a certain type of protein shake, or do yoga, or follow the right directions, on a primal level, it seems that we bought off on an idea that we could delay, or entirely ignore, the inevitable. And we couldn’t. And this past year, that came and looked us right in the peepers, and we couldn’t look away. So a lot of people just….lost it. Maybe they flipped out and got themselves banned on airlines when they were asked to wear a mask. Maybe they punched someone over a parking space. Or maybe they just decided that rather than cope in a healthy way, take a vaccine to keep themselves and their loved ones safer, they would….decide that it was all a big plot to implant magnetic microchips or whatever, brought about by….checks notes ….ah yes, satanic baby eating lizard people.

So rather than double down on crazy and decide to jump into the deep end of lunacy to avoid confronting that death comes for us all (though there are certainly ways we can mitigate some of the means, but not the end result), I try to face it. I take the Victorian approach. I like to look for beauty in graveyards. I enjoy watching movies with heartwarming death themes (thank you, Tim Burton); and now, I’ve fallen headlong into Terry Pratchett’s Death representation. I think it’s scary because it’s unknown, but I think it’s futile to fear what we can’t avoid. So we might as well humanize it, since it’s a truly human experience.

Death from the Sandman Comics. She so cute.

I’m just another mortal here, doing a slow shuffle on this coil, but I’m doing the best I can. So much of what motivates us is fear. Not necessarily conscious fear, like “Oh no I’m going to be late if this light doesn’t change” fear. But rather deep seated fears about love, death, judgement, and rejection, that usually wrap themselves up and dress themselves in the clothes of more mundane things. And I think that the more we can drag those deep seated fears out and name them to ourselves, the more we have a chance at happiness, and sanity. So if you’re looking for a way to do that, I highly recommend reading Mort by Terry Pratchett, or the Sandman “Death” comics, because it’s a way of making something we can’t avoid a bit less scary, naming it in a warm caring light, and taking the chill off.

Hard Truth Thursday

The internet, as the internet does, is handwringing about Gina Carano (who played Cara Dune in the Mandalorian) being let go by Disney, for divisive and false public social media posts. This got me thinking in general about some of the current flavor of “Modern Problems”, and I came up with a short list of (possibly) hard to swallow facts.

HARD TRUTH THURSDAY:

1. MLMs are not your "small business", and if you sell for one you don't "own a business".

2. Gina Carano was not a good actress anyway. But she was good at looking badass and standing around, I'll give you that. If she was lead in a series, it would have been a bad series.

3. "Free Speech" means the government can't punish you for expressing your opinion, not that other people have to applaud you for shouting terrible ideas in a public forum, or that companies have to keep you employed when you violate the rules you agreed to when you were hired, against shouting bad ideas in a public forum. Express controversial ideas in private if you don't want repercussions.

4. "Something seems fishy" doesn't discount peer reviewed studies and I won't agree that it does. Your poor instinct doesn't trump facts.

5. We as a species look for patterns where there are none. If you see a bunny in the clouds, that doesn't mean there's a bunny in the clouds. If you think you see a conspiracy with lack of true evidence upon inspection, then you don't really see a conspiracy. Stop guilelessly believing that the world is like the plot of a Dan Brown book because it's a more interesting story and easier to draw on paper.

6. Just because you can put together words and use oxygen talking about something that you don't understand, doesn't mean that the words you say have equal value to an expert who DOES know what they're talking about. Keep your mouth shut if you are trying to discredit things and can't prove it. It's exhausting and the same four people liking and agreeing with you, doesn't mean you're right. It means they are ignorant too.

7. Pick up a book. Turn off reality television. Don't listen to biased talk radio or 24 hour news. It affects your cognitive ability in an obvious way and it shows. ANALYZE.

And with that, have a nice Thursday :)

2020 Retrospective

I've been struggling with what to say about 2020. And I decided I would take it as a way to talk about the things I learned over the year, because ultimately it was a year of learning lessons and adapting.

1. I learned that I need more quiet time. Both from social media noise, and general media noise, and from a busy life in general. I think about how much time I spent running around before, sitting in traffic, shopping unnecessarily....and now that I've had the chance to break routine, I don't miss it. I enjoy a quieter life, with more meaningful interactions, surrounded by those I love most.

2. To be more patient. There are very few things that I need right now, and many things I don't. Those lines are very clear now.

3. To appreciate nature more. I've always loved being outside, noticing plants and animals, and the wind in trees, the way water moves in different conditions. When we lived in Virginia, we were in a very urban environment. It had many beautiful areas, but it was hard to get lost in nature. I enjoyed being close to things to do, but the trade off was being very tightly packed with others. Now that we've moved to a place that is slower, more spread out, and has more breathing space, I love getting to know nature more. That included learning to forage for mushrooms, and cooking them for the family to eat. Identifying new plants and animals, working in the garden, noticing the way things change as the seasons move forward.

4. To focus. With less noise, the chance to focus more on things that matter has presented itself. I've tried to listen. I have spent so much quality time with my kids and husband. I've gotten to spend more time doing the hobbies I love. Reading, making things, playing with my kids, and yes, video games.

5. To realize who matters to me. This has been a double-edged sword. I have learned just how deeply I love some people, near and far. I've been worried for them all, praying for them, trying to give signs that they are in my mind and heart. Waiting, as patiently as I can, to see some people that I just thought I could see whenever I wanted to hop on a plane, or drive. However, this year has also taught me, not all people are worthy of that love and care. It has taught me to focus more on the people that are good humans, who love one another as they want to be loved, who value lives that don't match their own, who are willing to make minor sacrifices to help strangers. Because, I don't have enough of myself to give, where I can continue to give and give and give to everyone. I try to be kind and helpful, but ultimately...I give more to the people who are more likely to give to others. Some of the people I learned weren't in that camp, truly surprised and disappointed me. But the lesson was an important one. As I say, Don't pet every stray dog. Some of them will bite. I can wish the best for people, and pray for good things and clarity in the future....but I no longer take extra effort once I've seen someone's true nature. Like Maya Angelou said, Once someone shows you who they really are, believe them the first time. That's been a very painful lesson, but ultimately a good one.

6. To appreciate. In our disposable and instant culture, it's so easy to sweep along in the current and the noise, and not truly appreciate the things we have. This year has been excellent for teaching me to appreciate. To appreciate warm hugs from friends. To appreciate meeting people in real life for the first time, when you've only been virtual friends. To appreciate the warmth of a good meal, brought by an enthusiastic and happy server, in a good restaurant. To appreciate going to see a movie in a theater, with friends. To appreciate travel, of any kind. To appreciate a shared smile between strangers in public. To appreciate how children flock together like birds when they gather at parks, whether they knew each other or not. To appreciate the chance to browse in a book store, to grab a drink at a bar, to take a spontaneous trip. These are things that I will truly appreciate, when I can do them again.

There's more to say, but that was enough to type. And I hope this year teaches me more and helps me grow more, but I hope with less tears and worry than this one had. I hope you learned and grew too.

A review of "Goldilocks" by Laura Lam (intense spoilers!)

Oh dear. I truly wanted to enjoy this book. I give it three stars, because I found the quality of the writing itself to be really good. Nicely formed sentences, good cadence, intelligent.

But I took away 2 for the plot.

I didn't know what I was getting into with this book. I saw it in the "New Science Fiction" section, read the synopsis, and thought I'd try to support a female science fiction author. When I picked up the book and read a couple pages, I thought the prose was well crafted (I'm getting increasingly picky about that).

SPOILERS AHEAD btw

So when we started off the book by having women thrust out of working by a misogynistic government, I thought that was interesting. When 5 women astronauts who had been cherry-picked to head a mission to the first "Goldilocks" planet, but then were ousted so that men with less training could take over, decided to steal the rocket and do the mission anyway, I thought that was a fun ride.

But as I continued through the book, I found things increasingly improbable. When it was continually implied that random people could "hack the encryption" on various systems, as a software developer, I rolled my eyes. It's the software equivalent of the classic "Enhance!" trope in movies. But all that was okay.

But in chapter 9, at the end, when the lead character discovers she got pregnant the night before launch...by her step brother....that's when I thought in my head, "Oh lord here we go." And yes, it got sillier after that. First of all, I was supposed to have sympathy for what was basically an incestuous relationship. Note: I do NOT have sympathy for that.

Then you get into the parts of a virus being engineered to kill everyone on earth, so the smuggled embryos the female Elon Musk character had managed to smuggle on board can start a "new civilization". So the inevitable mutiny happens, the women who (for pretty undefined reasons, given the risk and vilification they would receive) decided to steal the spaceship, jettison the "cryo" backup crew, and keep pushing forward....decide to TURN BACK, with the space baby and its mysteriously convenient baby spacesuit and space c-section.....well, I'll be honest here.

I felt as though what was clearly meant to be a flag-waving feminist novel, shot itself in the foot. With the silly pregnancy, and all the crazy interpersonal ridiculous drama that overshot any of the interesting science, this was my conclusion: This book made the argument that if the men would have just been allowed to do the mission, they would have gotten it done, instead of having crazy emotional catfights, turning back, abandoning ship and killing 1/3 of the population, and a totally improbable pregnancy. I REALLY doubt that's the point the author wanted to make. But here we are.

I wanted this to be a book about female engineers being equally footed and discovering true life on a another planet. What I was left with was an improbably "Real Housewives of Cape Canaveral: The Crazy Billionaire Science Edition". It was truly a let down. I'd try to read other things by the author, since hopefully they wouldn't go to the plot improbabilities that this one did. But as a STEM female, I felt this made the exact opposite points, and delivered the exact opposite ideas, of the uplifting book I hoped this to be.

One more note: This is an extremely dark and depressing book for the pandemic. The world in it is dying of a pandemic and global warming and misogyny, so if you are looking for any sort of escapism, this is NOT. IT.

COVID-19 update and info dump, part 2

Hello readers. Just figured I’d add a few more things that I’ve learned. The numbers are jumping up, and will continue to do so. But there are still things we can do at home to help this out!

• CONTINUE PHYSICAL DISTANCING. This means, stay 6-10 feet away from people you don’t live with! You can carry this disease for days with no signs, so it’s not worth the risk! Still go on walks outside, but if you see someone else, move 6 feet away :)

• Sew cloth masks! These can be used for less critical diseases or other people that are sick, so that the N95 masks can be used for COVID-19 cases. AND in a worst case scenario, they are good for nurses and doctors in the trenches of this disease; they are definitely better than no masks at all. Even the CDC agrees. Also, make some for you and your family! If you’re carrying it now (god forbid, but people are), it will also help you keep from transmitting. And it’s better protection than none at all. Here’s a pattern if you know how to sew. This is one step we can do right now!

• On the note of other cottage-industry measures, if you have a 3d printer, you can print N95 masks that take cotton rounds as filters and can be washed.

• There’s also a very real chance that soon, 3d printers could be helping to make ventilators. In Ireland, an open source ventilator design is getting tested currently to see if it works, and if so, the makers of the world can assist with the sever shortage.

• Plant your own victory garden! As this goes on, a good way to help alleviate the pressures of the shipping chain, and to give you something fulfilling to do at home, is to plant your own vegetable garden. It’s the perfect time of year to get started.

• Order takeout to support a local business! There are ZERO cases of food transmitting COVID. It could potentially be on the packaging (though that hasn’t been known to happen), so the solution is, when you get home with your food, take the food out of the to-go containers and put it on your own plates, and wash your hands. The transmission would be from package, to hands, then if you touched your face. So disrupt that chain and you’ll be fine. If there WAS some of the virus on your food, it would die in your stomach. You would not catch it. If your local restaurant offers curbside delivery, ask them to set the bag on the ground by your car for you to get it, to maintain the six foot distance. If you are paying at the restaurant, bring your own pen to sign the receipt.

• Download folding@home and let it run on your computer! This program studies the composition of the virus (and others), to help learn more about its composition in order to find a treatment. Your computer’s processing power will be chained with that of millions of others around the world to form, essentially a distributed supercomputer. You can leave it to run when it’s idle, just download the client and push start. (Also, if you want to join my team, its identifier is 244329 Here’s the official link

• Finally, if you can’t find hand sanitizer or cleaners, don’t forget, regular soap and water break this virus up! Use a cloth with soap and warm water to wipe down lightswitches, doorknobs, and other frequently touched surfaces. This virus is pretty fragile in the wild and can be easily destroyed with soap and water, thank heavens.

• Give blood!! There’s a big need for blood, and they are being VERY careful. If you go, just socially distance while you are waiting. You can sign up in advance to find a place to donate.