Calling out some unconscious bias in the SF Superior Court

I just concluded serving on a jury in SF Superior Court on a criminal charge.  The most important thing to share is that it was a valuable experience and I came away with a high opinion of the behavior and integrity of the judge, the assistant district attorney, the City's defense attorneys, and our jury.  I think we all did a good job.

However, during jury selection, I started to notice a pattern that concerned me.   Asian potential jurors were being asked questions that seemed to me to be missing the point of what they were trying to say.   Soon after I suspected it was a pattern about Asians, the last four potential jurors were dismissed; all of them Asian.   I decided to approach the judge, and was asked to speak to the courtroom on the record after all the jurors had left.

At that point I explained my observation and gave three examples.  I also made it clear that I do not believe this pattern would have any effect on the justice in this case.  I just felt that after hearing about the importance of surfacing unconscious bias for two days that the court itself was exhibiting some, and it’s my responsibility to say something once I saw something.  I am pleased to say that the judge expressed appreciation that I would make this statement and that he and the lawyers all took my observations to heart, although of course I don’t know how valid they found them.  They asked if it would bias me against any of them (answer:  no, they all did it) and if it would bias me in the case (also no).

After thinking about it afterwards, I realized that there is a common thread to the observations, and I’ve never really thought about this as an Asian perspective, but maybe it is. 

1.       1)  We like to follow the rules.  Most of ‘em weren’t made to be broken.

2.       2)  We don’t like to say we’re absolutely 100% sure about anything.

Several times people were asked if they were certain that they could not be affected by personal bias regarding the credibility of policemen, the gender of the defendant, the presumed guilt of an arrested person, the certainty of circumstantial evidence, or willingness to be swayed by the opinion of an admired fellow juror.   It is my inference that following the repetitive focus on being unbiased, they were uncomfortable with giving the impression of too much confidence.  So while many of us took your questioning to mean, “Do you think it’s realistic that any of your biases (and we all have some) would affect your interpretation of the evidence?” and were comfortable saying no, I suspect their interpretation was “Are you absolutely sure that this particular bias can never affect your opinion no matter what?” and said, “No.  How can I be absolutely sure?”   Following that admission of the tiniest doubt, they became fish in a pond.

I recognize that the lawyers have a right to issue peremptory dismissals for whatever reason they want, but I think both they and the judge fell into this trap.  I’m willing to surmise that if you review the list of all potential jurors that were dismissed by any party, you’ll find that a majority, if not strong majority of them were Asian.

As I said, I don’t think this affects the worthiness of the jury selected in this case.  I have no reason to believe that Asians have a different view about what is just.   But I feel it is my obligation to warn you about this bias in the event a future case would ever be affected. 

God ≅ Pi (Just a little after Pi Day)

 I was just talking with my daughter and her friend (both 11th grade) about pi and how surprising it is that the relationship between circles and lines didn't come out to a less irrational number.  I mean, everything else in math and computers seems to come down to 0, 1, or 2^x so 3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 und so weiter seems kind of like a test to see whether or not you'll buy it and therefore everything else the teacher's going to feed you the rest of the year.

Then I decided to offer this:   Pi makes no sense if you start from the point of wondering why there's pi.   If you start from the point that there has to be a number that mathematically relates lines to the size of a circle then you have reasoned correctly that there is one.  And just to reward you with a bit of consistency that math is so good at, that number is the same, whether you're looking for circumference, area, or volume.  It's just weird. 

And then I said that this explanation is a lot like the existence of God.  If you decide to start with someone's idea of God and test to see if it makes sense, it's pretty easy to punch holes in the definition.   But at the same time, at least there was a lot of thought that went into someone's answer to the biggest question(s) in the universe.  That's at least deserving of respect, if not belief.  

On the other hand, if you start from the point that there's power in the universe greater than what we already understand, you'd have to be either an idiot or imagination-constricted to claim that there is not.  The entire premise of the scientific method is that there are ways to approach defining new things that we didn't already know.   Of course, the limitation of the scientific method is that it fails if it cannot rely on consistency.

So therefore the question of God is not whether or not power greater than us exists, it's a question of how tightly we feel comfortable defining it, or at least part of it.  And like pi, it probably is not a simple number or formula.   It's more like an irrational number. 

Boom!   I've had one epiphany today.  I can just go get lit now... it's Saturday.

I checked back with the kids to see what they thought about that.   And I got another one of those reminders that some things in life are still as simple as 0, 1, or 2^x.   And it's that even a good and polite 11th grader knows that saying "Yes" and otherwise staying quiet is pretty good cover for thinking about something else entirely.

Full disclosure:  I stole this idea about defining God by deduction from a C.S. Lewis book my old girlfriend Nancy (the Baptist) asked me to read.  But I claim credit for the analogy to pi!

 There's this new sucker post going around Facebook with a surprising amount of takers:

I would like to thank Everyone for telling me how to do the bypass. I wondered where everybody had been!

This is good to know: It's ridiculous to have over 540 friends and only 25 are allowed to see my post.

It WORKS!! I have a whole new news feed. I’m seeing posts from people I haven’t seen in years.

Here’s how to bypass the system FB now has in place that limits posts on your news feed.

Their new algorithm chooses the same few people - about 25 - who will read your posts. Therefore,

Hold your finger down anywhere in this post and "copy" will pop up. Click "copy". Then go your page, start a new post and put your finger anywhere in the blank field. "Paste" will pop up and click paste.

This will bypass the system.

If you are reading this message, do me a favor and leave me a quick comment...a "hello," a sticker, whatever you want, so you will appear in my newsfeed

 

 This is the parody I just wrote:

I would like to thank Everyone for letting me know who still falls for the bypass. I wondered if anyone was left!

This is good to know: Nothing you post on your Facebook page does anything to change what shows up in your news feed. It is just text. Someone at Facebook would have to deliberately program everything you think happens! And it would be stupid because it would undermine the control they already have over your news feed.

It DOESN'T WORK!! I thought the general population was excusably computer ignorant when the mainframe in "War Games" just up and decided that tie games of tic-tac-toe meant it should override nuclear launch commands. But that was 1983 and relatively few people had computer exposure.

I was sure everyone would roll their eyes and ask "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" in 1996 when the humans in Independence Day defeated the aliens by writing a computer virus and copied it into their advanced alien spaceship because the aliens happened to have a port that was perfectly compatible with the plug the human spaceship has. Surely everybody already had a drawer full of cords that never fit the device they wanted! But no! Audiences were fine with it! And that code was so universal even computers from another galaxy executed it. ChatGPT isn't that good. That human still has a job!

It's not possible I'd be the only one in the theatre shouting, "Come on! Why is he still on the access list?" when Tom Cruise broke into the building to kidnap the telepath by using his old eyeballs in a bag in Minority Report in 2002. Surely by then SOMEONE involved in the movie would point out that we already know today how to revoke people's access even if you use retina scanners. By then every movie was being edited digitally on a computer. But NOPE! That weak hack worked not just once but TWICE! Nobody learned from the first break in!

I have a whole news feed with posts from people I haven’t seen in years falling for this incessantly repeated dumb trick.

Here’s how to protect yourself from any future attempts to make you look silly. Hold your finger down anywhere in this post and "copy" will pop up. Click "copy". Then go your page, start a new post and put your finger anywhere in the blank field. "Paste" will pop up and click paste.

This will let everyone know you're never falling for it again.

If you are reading this message, do me a favor and leave me a quick comment...a "hello," a sticker, whatever you want, so you will prove you already get it or get it now

[ Guess what? *That* might affect who shows up in your news feed! With love and the best of intentions from GBM, 8/15/23 ]

Don't Fear the Boogeyman - Ads have always been about information you should parse

There's a recent Opinion piece in the New York Times that further perpetuates myths about digital marketing that should have been debunked years ago.   

I disagree strongly with this article. And except for select parts, it could have been written 20 years ago.  I started working in the ad tech industry in 2000 at Mediaplex. As far as I know, we were the first people to come up with behavioral targeting, though being on the buy side rather than the sell side, we could only use it to select creative rather than the advertiser. I left in 2014, when it had frankly become mechanical and boring rather than an innovative frontier.

 

First of all, advertising in concept is no different from what it's always been. Advertisers try to reach interested buyers, or in the best case, create interest by showing ads to people they hope are interested.  People try to be clever and scare you by saying, "You aren't the customer, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT!"  As if we weren't ALWAYS the product!  The idea that they target people with certain preference or lifestyle choices is not new. Sports sections have always run stamina and baldness ads. The audience at Harper's Bazaar is different from the one at Field and Stream. This has *always* been a profiling game. 

 

Second, ads have always included advertisers who are misleading or exaggerated. "Buyer beware" is part of the deal. We all know this. Despite that, I have been very happy with online-ad driven purchases that have alerted me to concerts I want to see as well as some products like the Grateful Dead metal logo that is now on my new car, or a free custom photo book that they usually charge $150 for but wanted me to try them out.

 

Third, and this is the one that people really don't want to admit, is that advertising is the tool that provides free content. Ads always paid most of the freight for newspapers and magazines. It was less obvious when it was a subsidy, and you still had to pay a subscription price. But the reason newspapers are dying isn't because you can read the news for free. It's because Craigslist and the like absolutely killed the value of want ads. It's another unintended consequence of the Internet, and Craigslist does no banner ads or targeting.

 

People have grown up with the Internet thinking that reading anything you want or using Google Maps or having an email address are all free because the Internet is a technology that makes them free. That is a COMPLETE LIE people like to tell themselves. Those things are free BECAUSE someone else is willing to pay for them. And those people are advertisers. 

 

People complain about compromised privacy, but if you make access to content "Free" if they'll only surrender some, they can't wait to click "Yes." We saw the same thing 30 years ago when people would give their personal information to anyone who would give them airline miles.

 

The true downside risk of the industry to society are these:

 

1) Advertisers are happy to target ads at stupid people because their money is just as green. Technology gives them greater ability to find the bigger fool.

 

2) The same technology can be used to manipulate the spread of fake news to the audience that wants to eat it up. Stupid people again... see point #1.

 

3) The technology only stops short of knowing people's actual identities with names by convention and compliance. There is the possibility of bad actors looking to do more than just sell products or swing an election. THIS is something worth focusing on.

 

If you're a teacher, fireman, or musician and you meet someone who asks you what you do for a living, it's easy to have a conversation about that. 20 years ago, when I told people I worked in Internet Advertising, they'd have one question before the conversation died: "So are you responsible for those annoying pop-up ads?" 35 years ago if I told them I wrote software for the phone bills, their one question would be, "Can you give me free phone calls?"

 

At this point, I have little sympathy for the fears of people who are suddenly freaked about what a big threat digital marketing is to the fabric of society. My own wife tried to use a Netflix special to claim more expertise than me in this area a few years ago and I asked her if she even understood what I did for a living for 15 years. Because I sure understand a lot more about what the psychotherapist experience is after being married to her for 20.

Speedy Chef Dude

 I, like probably many of you, managed to do a lot more cooking and therefore improving since COVID started.   I have been cooking for at least half my weekly meals since I went out on my own 35 years ago, but it hasn't been until recently that I've felt comfortable winging it in the kitchen outside of stir-fry and pasta-based dishes.

So I thought I'd share today's makeshift lunch as an example of my process and principles, in case anyone else is thinking about making the jump.  

First, there are certain things I always have on hand for makeshift meals:  brown rice, dry pasta, dry Chinese soup noodles, and frozen meat.  I took out a bag of Costco organic drumsticks this morning to thaw.   Then at 12:30 when I wanted to eat, I realized I didn't want to wait the usual 35+ minutes to bake them.  So this is what I did:

1. Turn on the toaster oven to 380 to pre-heat.
2. Put a cast iron pan on the gas stove and lit the burner.
3. Cut open the bag of drumsticks, washed off two of them, and then sprinkled some Shaloob seasoning (original flavor) on them, rubbing it in all over.   I discovered dry rub only about 10 years ago, but it's much easier to use than marinade because there's no soaking time.
4. Wrapped the chicken in a paper towel and put them in the microwave for 90 seconds to get the frozen all gone and the inside cooking started.
5. During that 90 seconds I put high smoke point oil (sunflower, probably a little more than a tablespoon) in the pan and threw in some pre-minced garlic.
6. The pan and oil were almost sear-ready when I threw the chicken in.   So that's some time saved by overlapping activities.
7. I let them sear, turning every once in a while with tongs, and adding a little more Shaloob.
8. After a few minutes of that, the oven was ready and I threw them on an open rack in there.  That cut my overall cooking time in about half and the first two cooking stages happened during time I'd have to wait anyway.
9. During the 10 minutes or so in the oven, I cut up some onion and threw it in the pan.   I used the spatula to make sure all the remaining burned bits got freed from the pan.   Then I added some day old steamed brown rice from the fridge, and a cut up cherry tomato that my wife wanted gone.  Then I threw in about a tablespoon of butter to add to the flavor and replace the oil.
   
10. Pulled the chicken out of the over, tested it for an internal temperature of at least 165, and then plated everything.

Voila!   Ready in less than 20 minutes and delish!   The only things that got dirty were the pan, tongs, spatula, fork, plate, and the surface under the chicken while seasoning.   I even used my napkin from eating to wipe out the pan and leave it seasoned, which I don't always do.  And it was cheap... 50 cents for each drumstick; almost negligible cost for everything else. 

I told my wife about it (because I had just invented that strategy to shorten the chicken cooking time) and she thought it should go on a blog.   I'm not starting a blog, but I'll add this post to the one I've got!

I didn't think of taking a picture of it, so here's a shot of a steak dinner I made last week with a similar amount of effort, except I marinated it:

I had not learned the proper searing technique until doing this one, but the Internet told me to get the pan as hot as it gets first... so turn it up to 11!

Comments and your stories welcome!

A Fond Farewell to Hammering Hank Aaron

 

Have you ever tried to remember how old you were when you had a lot of experiences and feelings you still can recall today? How does everybody remember the landmark year when you became more aware of the world outside of your direct experience?

For me, it was as an 8 year old. Dad took me to my first professional sports game, Giants vs. Cardinals at Candlestick Park on July 3, 1971. He got me interested in playing baseball, and he taught me how to learn to play well and subsequently have a discipline to learning any sport. I feel like I can set time markers for every range of 4-5 years since then based on what was going on in sports.

 

Starting last Spring, baseball players I learned about first who were still active started passing away. Glenn Beckert in April. Tom Seaver and Lou Brock in September. Bob Gibson, Whitey Ford, and Joe Morgan in October. Richie Allen and Phil Niekro in December. Don Sutton last week, and now Hank Aaron today. As far as I know, COVID isn’t being cited for any of them except Seaver.

 

Hank was already a living legend in 1971. Willie Mays, everybody’s local hero was ahead of him in home runs, but ironically, his fall from greatness started right about the time I started following the game. Everyone said it was Hank who had the best shot at getting to 715 and breaking the career home run record of the biggest dead legend in baseball, Babe Ruth. Hank never hit 50 home runs in a season but it was ridiculous how consistently he’d hit around 40. I got to see a lot more of Hank than Willie, because Willie was traded to the Mets in May of 1972, and it was always the Braves, Padres, or Astros playing when the Giants held their promotional games, like Bat Day or Fan Appreciation Day. 

 

Dad liked Hank because he always liked players who performed excellently, but were not showy about it. “Speak softly, but carry a big stick” has a particular metaphorical resonance with baseball. Hank seemed to be a quiet guy. You’d never see him making headlines for saying something or arguing with anybody, and I don’t remember seeing any interviews. Baseball would promote Willie because he ate it up, but Hank was a real lunch pail guy. Steady as sunshine in L.A.

 

We had heard about Hank getting a death threat as he closed in on 714. My memory might be shaky on when we learned what, but I remember having the sense that the Venn diagram of people who didn’t want him to get there had big circles for racists and Yankee fans and I don’t know how much overlap between the two. We certainly have learned a lot more since then about what kind of abuse black athletes have had to take in their lifetimes. Willie and Hank both played in the Negro Leagues before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, so we knew they went through many of the same experiences Jackie did. Jackie’s significance was well understood.

 

Hank did pass the Babe in April of 1974. A white guy ran on the field as Hank was rounding the bases and ran up to him with the intent to congratulate Hank. Security got him quickly, but you can imagine Hank wondering what was going to happen. He went and crushed 40 more and retired with 755… the new magic number my generation would revere. When Barry Bonds broke that record with the public very aware of steroids in his regimen and suspicious of even more, I could understand how people who weren’t Giants fans really would prefer he didn’t do it. The game stopped and the scoreboard showed a video of Hammering Hank himself congratulating Barry and as always, it was all class. 

 

Major League baseball recently said that they’re going to consider Negro League games official. So it would mean that Hank gets his crown back because that gets him over 762, which is what Barry finished with. Except for some reason, baseball will only count them through 1948, which was still before Hank's time. That seems like a weird place to stop, but I'm guessing they figured they had to draw the line somewhere before the Negro Leagues became the equivalent of the minor leagues and two years with the color barrier broken was it. Hank still holds the career record for RBIs, which is surprisingly not as widely known as you’d think. Rest in peace, Hammering Hank! You also have a legend that will never die.

Warriors - at this point in time

 I've been on social media via the WELL since 1986.  The WELL is basically the predecessor and paywall version of Reddit.

One thing that's always irritated me about the behavior of others   😄  in social media is when they'll react to something that just happened in a game, but give absolutely no context to it.   Like posting just "Panda!" after watching Sandoval hit a home run.  I mean, the great benefit of social media is that it doesn't have to be experienced in real time.  So I always set the context.

Well, more than context... I like to write little recaps.  Sometimes it's fun to look back over a long period of time at a group conversation.  When I do that, it's really helpful to have point-in-time recaps for context.

In this case, the Warriors are at a point in time where you know there's a big story before and a big story after.  So I wrote this up about last night:

One of the Warriors storylines this year is that Klay Thompson tore his achillies on the day of the draft and has to miss his second consecutive complete season.

The Warriors did not alter their draft strategy and still took James Wiseman #2 as their big man/centerpiece of the future.  Nobody knows whether or not they'd have taken SG Anthony Edwards if the T Wolves had taken LaMelo Ball at #1 instead.

The Warriors then spent what it took to sign Kelly Oubre for their Klay vacancy, and what it took was about $75 million when you account for the luxury tax hit.  Then Oubre, who was coming off a 35% shooting from three (career 32%) started ice cold with the Warriors, having only one good game from deep, sinking only 2 all season otherwise.

Kerr had been starting both Oubre and Wiggins, then pulling Wiggins first to let him come back and lead the second unit in the second quarter when Steph sits.  But last night against the Lakers, he did two things:

1)  Switched their rotation so that Oubre became the 2nd unit lead
2)  Put Oubre in charge of defending LeBron.

Result:  Oubre's signature game of the year!

>>  Oubre had 23 points on 9-of-18 shooting and four rebounds, and the Warriors outscored the Lakers by five points during his 37 minutes of effervescent play. James was held to 19 points on 6-of-16 shooting and committed five turnovers, and the Lakers were outscored by nine points during his 38 minutes.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/article/Warriors-unlock-Kelly-Oubre-s-potential-by-15880695.php


Nobody's dreaming about a title run, but best case scenarios for Wiggins, Oubre, and Wiseman would make them a team that shouldn't be taken lightly in the playoffs.  While LeBron did bring the Lakers a title after his "year off," he did it with the advantages of a shortened season and adding Anthony Davis.  It'd be remarkable if Curry is able to get the Warriors to the second round after having lost KD, Klay, Andre, Shawn, and Boogie.

Kevin Durant's career path, explained in musical terms

Many Warriors fans, myself included, have a hard time understanding why Kevin Durant would leave such a sweet situation with the Warriors to forge into the greater unknown with the Brooklyn Nets. But KD has always been intentionally transparent about his feelings; at least to the point he can articulate them.

I've come up with an analogy from the music world that fits like a glove, and oddly enough, is easier to relate to.

Kevin Durant = Neil Young.

Let's look at 1969. Crosby, Stills, and Nash (alias Klay, Steph, and Draymond) had all come from different backgrounds and groups, but they figured out that together, these three stars (on their way to superstardom together), could come up with the most beautiful three part harmony ever heard. They released their first album together, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and it stunned the world with its success, peaking at #6 on Billboard and eventually going quadruple platinum (2015 ring).

Meanwhile, Neil Young has his own pretty good career going. His second album also does well, going platinum but doesn't quite reach the heights of CSN, as "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" doesn't even crack the Billboard top 30 (Thunder 2012 finals). To the shock of many, he joins CSN and expands the already-supergroup. They were looking for someone great to fill in perceived gaps (keyboard playing), and even though it meant two lead guitarists in the group with Stills and Young (MVP's Curry and Durant), they were intent on figuring out how to play together.

Neil is perfectly happy to try to blend with these beautiful voices (game) and also to be just one of the Beatles - people know who they are individually, but they are all for one and one for all. They come out of the gate with a splash by playing Woodstock together (2017 ring) and then release the band's most successful album, "Déjà Vu" (2018 ring). The album was killing it in the charts and then, in reaction to the tragedy at Kent State (Dray's blowup), Neil writes "Ohio." In an unprecedentedly unselfish move, Graham Nash pulls "Teach Your Children" off the shelves as a single (Steph flying to the Hamptons himself to attract the MVP and then sacrifice his game for him), allowing "Ohio" to get the attention and crack the top 20 (KD's stellar runs with 40 point games when Steph was out).

This entire time, the members of CSNY continued to strike independent deals and release their own solo albums (shoe deals). This was not divisive... it's just the way things work. But however much Neil wanted to be just one of the guys and no matter how much they wanted him to be, many fans and critics complained that his fourth voice never really found an equal and balanced part. To them, "Déjà Vu" didn't really seem like a true CSNY album, it seemed like CSN songs ("Carry On," "Woodstock," "Our House", "Almost Cut My Hair") alternating with obvious Neil Young songs ("Helpless"). Neil started to realize that some people were never going to accept him as just one of the guys... it'll always be "CSN plus Young" and compared (sometimes unfavorably) to the greatness that was CSN without him.

Sadly, the band's attempt to follow up "Déjà Vu" with their next album "Human Highway" only got partially finished before bickering sank the band and Neil left (2019 Finals).

So to return back to my premise that we can understand KD better via Neil Young, let's imagine the conversation at the point Neil announces he's leaving.

Neil: Guys, I gotta leave the group.

CSN: But Neil, it's going great! Look at what we've accomplished together!

Neil: Yeah, it's been great, and I got the experience of having chart-topping singles with a band, but I think I'm ready to try something else.

CSN: Why would you try something else? What kind of person doesn't want to keep having septuple platinum albums like Déjà Vu? We can do this for years, man!

Neil: Don't get me wrong, I loved it. I just think more of it is just going to be more of the same. I want to have a different experience. Hell, I might write "Comes a Time."

CSN: Yeah, and you might write "Trans." Stick with a sure thing.

Neil: Sorry, dudes. I still love you and our time together, but I gotta do me.

What happens next? Neil goes on to have great albums ("Ragged Glory," "Harvest Moon," "Rust Never Sleeps") but also disaster albums ("Hawks and Doves," "Everybody's Rockin'", "Old Ways"). So there's highs and lows, but he gets to play with other people (fronting bands featuring Booker T and the MG's as well as Pearl Jam), and he still ends up going to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, both with CSN and as a solo artist. CSN goes on to more success, but never the same level of success. They pretty much all pegged the meter with "Déjà Vu."

But there is one light further down the tunnel. In 1988, Neil agrees to reunite CSNY after he promises David Crosby he'll do it if Crosby cleans up his drug problem. True to his word, he comes back to the team for a few more albums. Still not the group's highlight, but frankly, that moment I spent right in front of them at the second Bridge Benefit in Oakland is one of my most treasured live musical moments ever.

I mean, it was breathtakingly awesome. So I got that going for me. And that's good.

Explaining the solution that breaks the loop in "Russian Doll"

The new eight episode Netflix series starring the wonderful Natasha Lyonne has a lot of people buzzing.  There are interesting interpretations of what it all means (here's a great one about how it re-creates the 12 steps), but for me, the puzzling thing was the explanation of how they found the way to break out of their loop.  It went by a little quickly and didn't make complete sense, and I felt with the effort they put into the show and making her an expert game programmer, there had to be more to it than noticing they could have stopped each other's death.

I transcribed the key explanation.

Ep7 - 24:26 left

[Nadia and Alan realize that time started looping after they both
had an opportunity to intervene in the other one's death, but
didn't.  Nadia could have attended to him in the deli, Alan could
have stopped her from getting hit by the car.]

Nadia:  Easy there Mr. Rogers.  This is not good or bad, it's just a
bug.  It's like if a program keeps crashing - the crashing is just a
symptom of a bug in the code.  If the deaths are us crashing, then
that moment is the moment we need to go back and fix. 

Alan:  But if we were supposed to help each other and we didn't, how
is that not a moral issue?

Nadia:  What do time and morality have in common?  Relativity -
they're both relative to your experience.  [pause while he looks
confused].  I need a visual aid.  

So our universe has three spacial dimensions so it's hard for us to
picture a four-dimensional world, but you know computers do it all
the time.  So lucky for you, I have the capacity to think like a
computer.  What's this?

Alan:  It's a rotten orange.

Nadia:  In a two-dimensional world it's a circle.  In a
three-dimensional world, it's a sphere.  But in a four-dimensional
world (cuts it in half)...

Alan:  It's still ripe!

Nadia:  Time is relative to your experience... we've been
experiencing time differently in these loops.  But this; this tells
us that somewhere time - linear time as we used to understand it,
still exists.

Alan:  So the moment in the deli when we first interacted...

Nadia:  Still exists.

Alan:  So we should go back to the deli.

Nadia:  To that same moment, and we re-write that first interaction.
Just like you'd fix a flaw in the code, then we run a unit test. 

Alan:  Is that a term that people should know, or...?

Nadia:  Basically we run a little program and we see if the bug is
triggered.

Alan:  And how do we know if it's triggered?

Nadia:  We die.  Then we go right back to the deli and we try it
again.

Alan:  You're pretty smart!

Nadia:  Thank you for finally noticing.

---- 

Let's break it down. 

1) "Linear time still exists." 

OK, that's established sci-fi... we don't know that you can't jump into another point in history. Or as Ray Cummings' 1922 science fiction novel The Girl in the Golden Atom, Ch. V said: "Time is what keeps everything from happening at once."  

2) "We experience time relative to ourselves." 

Yes, I agree. My example is more pedestrian but universal. When you're engrossed in something, time flies by. When athletes are at their best, they feel like time slows down. This would lead me to expect that her point would explain weird speeds in time, but that doesn't happen. But what does happen is that she sees a younger version of herself and that is a big clue that their mutual existence could be happening at the same "time." Also, I think bending time goes a good way to explaining why they can relive the same night again and again but still remember what happened the last time. Living that time still happened in their consciousnesses. They never say that, but I'll buy it. 

 3) "If we go back to the point where the bug gets introduced, we can rewrite the program of the universe by behaving differently." 

OK, a computer bug with an infinite loop keeps doing the same thing over and over and despite Nadia's bug fix at work on the fly, you have to shut it all down and start over to change anything. But showing it get fixed in live action is nice theatre, and it's a believable add to say that people with apparently free will (and can trigger alternate responses in others) can break out of the loop when they have free will to behave differently. Frankly, I like that a little better than the Mr. Anderson anti-viruses in "the Matrix" chasing down the sentient programs that want to break out. And I like it a lot better than the computer in "War Games" somehow learning that if you can't win at tic-tac-toe then you can't win at nuclear war, so it ought to just go override the nuclear programs. 

The thing that takes some pondering is "What is the logical place to restart a loop in meatspace?" It's entirely true that the point of the logical flaw isn't necessarily right where you go back to, so it's OK to go back further than that. But why loop back to early in the evening when they're both looking at their mirrors? I don't know... maybe it's the infinite path of light that goes back and forth between a person and a mirror. The universe loops back to another point with loops. Even better; maybe the universe goes back to the last point they were both in a loop at the same time.

4) "We run a unit test. See if we still die." 

A unit test is when you are trying to test a single program by seeing if what you put in generates what you expect out. What they do is more like a system or integration test... what happens when you put this rewritten code back into the universe? Actually, it's more like throwing changes right into production because when they get out of the loop, regular life goes on. But I guess the writers thought "We run a unit test" sounded geekier than "We try our fix in production." But it does feel like testing to break, try again, break, try again with no real consequence except time... and their nights are getting shorter, so that's cool. They probably also thought that fixing the running man in real time was a closer analogy for the ending.

5) The orange is rotten outside but ripe inside. 

I got nothing for that. It just seems to be a nice visual symbol that the world is wacked out and getting wackier. I get that it's supposed to illustrate an epiphany about four dimensions and since time is the 4th you shouldn't get too freaked out to know it's malleable, but I can't say why the oranges just rot on the outside in the later loops.

Just some thoughts I had. Would love to hear alternate ideas in the comments!

Spiritual but not religious

Like many atheists, I chose my beliefs when I felt I had enough critical thinking skills to discount what I'd heard so far from various religions.  Evidence-based science seemed like a pretty reasonable way to view the world, although I admit that choice is a luxury of living in times where all my basic and many of my not-so-basic needs are easily met.

As I've aged and gotten around a little more, I have had experiences that the scientific method cannot confirm, yet I'm pretty sure what's happening cannot be accounted for by random chance or biased interpretation.  Here's a few areas:

Health:  I'm convinced that Eastern medicine (acupuncture +)  works for certain ailments and also provides explanations that resonate better than Western medicine sometimes.    I got Reiki and Reiki 2 attunements , and while I cannot be sure it's doing any healing, I know that some people can tell if I am or am not doing it at an accuracy well beyond chance.  I have a friend who's a practictioner and believer of the Wim Hof ice bath path to controlling his own immune system.

Energy:  I've felt the difference in energy at the vortex spots in Sedona and seen my wife react to the type (male or female) energy allegedly there without knowing about it in advance.

Death:  I've heard first hand stories and had personal experiences that strongly suggest the existence of souls, spirit world, and reincarnation.  The number of people with a common accounting of what happened when they were clinically dead also points to the distinct possibility that maybe you don't just cease to exist when your body dies.

Psychic:  I've had predictions made about my life with great specificity (as have others) that have come true enough to believe that some of the practitioners are actually connected to something.

Most or all of these things do not pass evidence-based thresholds, and yet they cannot be brushed off as chance or wish-fulfillment.

As atheism comes further out of the closet it seems clear that some atheists aren't just drawing the line of science and reason at whether or not there are any real gods, but rather it has become their only yardstick of truth in the universe.  I am wondering how the belief spectrum of the unmeasurable distributes among those who consider themselves atheists.  How big is the percentage that only accepts what science can measure?  What are the most popular non-scientific beliefs held by atheists?

I'm guessing it's an inverse pyramid as I've written it (most commonly believed at the top), plus there must be some I haven't even listed.  I'd love to hear other people's takes (including speaking only for yourself) on the subject.

The Worst Thing We Had to Live Through to Get to the Best Team Ever

The best part of any vacation is when you have already started to have fun, but the majority of the vacation is still ahead of you. If fortune smiles on us, that is the position we are in right now with the Golden State Warriors.

While I would hesitate to claim that the joy is only made sweeter by the suffering that came before it... well no I wouldn't. That's exactly how I feel. Four decades of mediocrity and disappointment killed most of the hope that another championship would ever come, and certainly made dreams of a dynasty feel completely foolish. People often say they knew something would happen in retrospect when they were right... I'll admit I knew it would never happen and I'm glad to be wrong.

The worst part was not just the losing. Most teams lose. The worst part was seeing former and almost-Warriors have their best years on other teams. No one cares that their superstar used to be yours. If anything, they're glad their GM was smarter than yours. No one cares that at virtually any time, you could construct a championship team from ex-Warriors. You just get bitter.

For those of you who experienced this with me, let's commiserate. Those of you have been on board since "We Believe" or later do not understand. The only player the Warriors might regret losing since then is Jeremy Lin, and even that makes you shrug rather than wince. You folks are invited to join me on a ride that will hopefully deepen your appreciation of where we stand today.

My first season as a Warriors fan was 1973-74. I was 11. After that season, we lost (or traded) beloved players like Nate Thurmond, Cazzie Russell, and Jim Barnett. But that didn't hurt so much because the next year WE BE CHAMPIONSHIP! Those were the guys on the outside. I still feel badly for Jim that he just missed that ring, after being one of the very few Celtics of the 1960's who never got a ring. Hopefully the current run evens the scales as far as he is concerned.

After the 1976-77 season, Jamaal (Keith) Wilkes left us in free agency for the Los Angeles Lakers. I know what you're thinking: "A future Hall of Famer plays in the Finals for the team that drafted him and a few years later he leaves for the team that just beat them in the playoffs? The outrage across the NBA community must have been deafening! Retired players must have been screaming that they would never have done such a thing." Nope. Crickets. Maybe the sound of laughing in the distance. Nobody cared but us.

But really, how mad could we be when after all he became a key forward in a dynasty known for their spectacular team passing and a transcendent point guard playing with unprecedented skills and conspicuous joy? I was comforted by the knowledge that if the same thing ever happened again, the media would immediately shame anyone who claimed that no one ever did that before and make sure everyone knew the first team to get screwed by this exact scenario was the Golden State Warriors. That's how karma works. So I got that going for me.

Silk Wilkes wasn't the only player to leave the Warriors in that inaugural year of free agency. Gus Williams was playing 23 minutes per game for us at PG and left for Seattle, becoming an All-Star twice, All-NBA First team once (1982) and All-NBA Second Team once (1980). He led the Sonics to the 1979 championship while averaging a team high 28.6 points per game in the Finals.

The Warriors used the comp pick they got for Wilkes in 1978 to pick Purvis Short, who was pretty good. But not as good as the guy who went right after him: Larry Bird. I skimmed a book on the Celtics in a bookstore once and remember reading something else about how the Warriors made it possible for the Celtics to get Bird. I forgot what it was though, and I hope someone reminds me.

Rick Barry left as a free agent in 1978 and the league compensated us with John Lucas (they did that then), who didn't really bloom until he left us too and was the starting PG for Houston when they went to the finals in 1986. In 1979 the three-point line was introduced and Lucas hit 12 for us while Barry hit 73 of them for Houston.

The Warriors felt they hadn't done enough to build the Celtics dynasty though, so they gave their 1979 #1 pick to them for Jo Jo White, then as we all know, gave them Robert Parish and the pick that became Kevin McHale in 1980 in order to get the overall #1 pick and take Joe Barry Carroll, a man so lackadaisical and focused only on getting his 20 points every night that the nickname "Joe Barely Cares" immediately stuck. So the Celtics and the Lakers met repeatedly in the Finals on the backs of ex-Warriors and that's how I remember the golden age of the 80s.

Despite all that, the 1980-81 Warriors are perhaps my favorite "Might have been" team because besides the potential of JBC, they also had Bernard King, Larry Smith, World Free, Purvis Short, and John Lucas. Pursuant to my theme, though, World Free has his best year after leaving the Warriors. In 1979-80 he averaged 30.2 points, 4.2 assists, and 3.5 rebounds per game while making the All-Star team. While Bernard King won Comeback Player of the Year and made the All-Star team and All-NBA second team as a Warrior, he really polished his Hall of Fame credentials when he went to the Knicks and scored 50 in back to back games and 60 in another one. He kept on scoring big for Washington, but it's not like he got more national coverage playing for those East Coast teams or was eventually the center of a 30-for-30 or something. Everyone thinks of him as a Warrior, right?

Following the 1984 season the Warriors had fully tanked and were in position to take Patrick Ewing as the #1 pick of the draft. But losing Wilkes and Williams to the inaugural year of free agency wasn't enough to torture us... this seemed like a really good time to institute the draft lottery and send Ewing to New York instead of us. But that's OK... what are the chances a guy that big will last 17 years and make 11 All-Star teams? What kind of attention will he get languishing in New York, anyway?

Leaving the Warriors isn't a blessing limited to players. George Karl quit as head coach after the 1987-88 season and it may well have had to do with the arrival of Don Nelson as GM, who then also took over as coach. George went on to win Coach of the Year with Denver and get to coach the All-Star team four times. He also led subsequent teams to the playoffs 20 more times. (He probably enjoyed the fabulous parting gift when the Warriors sent the pick that became Gary Payton to Seattle for Alton Lister right before Seattle gave him his next head coaching job.) Actually, my favorite memory of Karl as the Warriors HC was when Rick Barry was a TV reporter "interviewing" him remotely, but really offering his unsolicited advice that the Warriors needed to play better defense. George laughed and said, "Well I'm kind of surprised to hear you say that, Rick, but you're absolutely right."

The Warriors gave Rick Adelman a chance to suck as head coach, setting assistant Gregg Popovich free to see if he could handle the job in San Antonio. Whatever happened to that guy? After two crap ass years, they fired Rick Adelman after 1997 and he only coached 10 teams to the playoffs after that. Don Nelson, builder and destroyer of worlds, took Dallas to the playoffs four times (including the WC Finals once) between his Warrior stints.

Most people have heard tell of the Run TMC era in halcyon tones, as the precursor of today's small ball and fueled by three (borderline) HOF talents under 28. Guess how many years Tim, Mitch, and Chris actually played together. One. Right after they made and won a playoff series at last, the Don traded Mitch Richmond away for Billy Owens because Mr. Innovator felt that they had to get bigger. Billy was crap, and Mitch became the Kings' first star in Sacramento, logging these accolades mostly with them and finally getting a ring with the Lakers.

6× NBA All-Star (1993-1998)
NBA All-Star Game MVP (1995)
3× All-NBA Second Team (1994, 1995, 1997)
2× All-NBA Third Team (1996, 1998)

The Warriors cut UDFA John Starks from the team once they had Mitch. Starks played SG for the Knicks from 1990-98 and they made the playoffs every one of those years. So if you watched Jordan and the Bulls win their six rings over those exact same years, you got to watch an ex-Warrior mix it up with Michael regularly on the Eastern Conference center stage. Tim Hardaway lasted until the Warriors blew up the other team in the four-decade span with great potential, 1993-94's Chris Webber, Chris Mullin, Tim Hardaway, Billy Owens, and Latrell Sprewell. Webber also only lasted a year with the Warriors before going on to notch his belt accordingly:

5× NBA All-Star (1997, 2000-2003)
All-NBA First Team (2001)
3× All-NBA Second Team (1999, 2002, 2003)
All-NBA Third Team (2000)
NBA rebounding leader (1999)

Hardaway got to play in the playoffs seven more times while also making the All-Star team two more times, the All-NBA first team once, and the All-NBA second team twice. Webber played in the playoffs for 9 years after leaving the Warriors. Of those combined 16 postseasons, the Warriors watched them all on TV except for the one "We Believe" year. Everything the Warriors got for Hardaway and Webber turned into (or was already) bupkis, as tradition dictated.

In 1995, the Warriors blew another #1 overall pick, this time on Joe Smith, who played 2.5 mediocre playoff-free seasons for the Warriors before going on to play 10 postseasons for other teams. In 1996 the Warriors used their first round pick to pass up Kobe Bryant and take Todd Fuller, whose picture appears in the dictionary next to "plodding." In fairness, I believed Kobe when he said he'd rather sit out the season than report to anyone other than the Lakers, but in retrospect, that would have been a better use of the pick.

I'm just gonna straight out lift this paragraph from the all-time classic "How to Annoy a Fan Base in 60 Steps" by Bill Simmons (2012). Thanks Bill, for not only writing an excellent piece, but showing that someone outside of the Bay Area noticed how badly we fans were getting screwed.

That concluded a 20-year run with the following lowlights: five playoff appearances; 13 playoff victories total; three no. 1 overall picks and two other picks in the top three; eight players traded who ended up starting for a championship team or making a first- or second-team All-NBA (McHale, Parish, Webber, Hardaway, Richmond, Williams, Wilkes, King … and that doesn’t include Payton), three future Hall of Fame coaches who passed through on their way to a better place (Popovich, Karl, Adelman), two valuable bench guys buried in Golden State who thrived elsewhere (Mario Elie and John Starks), an All-Rehab Starting Five (King, Richardson, Mullin, Washburn, Lucas) and a Hall of Fame Absolutely-Coulda-Drafted-Him Starting Five (Bird, Garnett, Kobe, T-Mac and Payton, with McHale coming off the bench).

In 1997, a Warrior finally made the cover of Sports Illustrated for the first time since 1980. Unfortunately, it was for Latrell Sprewell choking his head coach, which eventually got him traded to the Knicks (because they needed more help from the Warriors besides Ewing and Starks, who was getting old) where he made one Finals among his remaining four trips to the playoffs.

By 1998, the Warriors decided to raise the bar and see if they could dump players before their best years on both sides of a trade. They drafted Vince Carter and missed his entire Hall of Fame career by trading him immediately for Antawn Jamison, who wasn't as good, but managed to win Sixth Man of the Year and be an All-Star twice while going to the playoffs seven times as the Warriors sat at home (again, except for 2007).

Now the Warriors had a rhythm. You didn't have to become a star after serving your Warriors apprenticeship. But having a long career and making the playoffs after but never before wearing the blue and gold is a pretty big club. Say hello to Larry Hughes, Donyell Marshall, Gilbert Arenas (Agent 00 made three All-Star and three All-NBA teams for Washington), Jamal Crawford (0 for 8 to make the playoffs before one partial year as a Warrior, 7 for 8 after), Marco Bellinelli, Troy Murphy, Mike Dunleavy, Brandan Wright, and Matt Barnes. Guys, thanks for making sure there would be players on postseason TV that we would recognize.

Oddly, a lot of this weirdness stopped with the "We Believe" team. We got guys like Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson, and Al Harrington whose Warrior contributions were pretty much in line with what they did before and after. Our homegrown guys like Jason Richardson and Monta Ellis played fine with other teams later, but they didn't make the Warriors look stupid for letting them go for garbage. Andris Biedrins had the courtesy to go into the tank and stay there. The Dubs stopped hitting their players with the All-Star wand as they walked out the door.

That's why I have to laugh when I hear someone say they've been a Warriors fan since "We Believe," as if those five playoff-free years gives them the credibility of having their loyalty tested before enjoying this opulent gift. In retrospect, 2007 was the dawn of normalcy, a feeling that sometimes things go well and sometimes they don't, but good times actually might be right around the corner.

If that's you, you don't have to apologize for joining Dub Nation when you did. Time dances with each of us in its own way. All are welcome, and all will have prizes.

But don't let us catch you saying something like "One more championship and the rest is gravy."

BECAUSE IT'S ALL FUCKING GRAVY!

(Steph, Steve, Bob, Joe... we can't thank you enough!)

It's Mourning in America

I was a baby when the Vietnam war was going. I had cousins who fought in that war, uncles who fought in either the Korean War or WWII. Thankfully, none of them died in any of those. But it was a reality of the 20th century that every generation has a war, and every man in that generation has a good chance of being drafted to go fight it. It was difficult for me to register for the draft when I turned 18, but my dad advised that I do it and decide what I do if the draft happens. *

Literally fighting for my country scared the crap out of me, especially if they were going to be non-defensive wars, as the trend clearly indicated. A draft today would probably be a spectacular failure. All the draft dodging that W got lambasted for would probably be SOP for the privileged class. Not just the kids… I can’t imagine a whole lot of PARENTS these days going along with their kid being drafted to fight some war for oil.

I am starting to think that in some way, 9/11 memorials have taken the place of the draft in terms of making people feel connected to wartime as a country. And perhaps that’s why there’s so much vitriol about any resistance to going along with the memorialization and the National Anthem. And I’m realizing that both of those are being used in a much more fascist way than I ever expected. "YOU WILL STAND FOR THE ANTHEM, DAMMIT! YOU WILL SHUT UP ABOUT THE IRAQI VICTIMS WHEN WE ARE MEMORIALIZING AMERICANS, DAMMIT. WHY ARE THESE PLAYERS TELLING US WHAT THEY THINK INSTEAD OF JUST PERFORMING FOR OUR AMUSEMENT?"

When I visited Hiroshima in 1992, it happened to be the anniversary of the bomb. There were so many peaceful memorials, especially in the park right where it went off. I appreciated them, I mourned with them. But by the end of the day, I had noticed that the Japanese were taking no responsibility for, you know, TRYING TO CONQUER ASIA. It was all victim talk. In fact, I believe there wasn’t even an official apology until after that.

I hate to say it, but America is looking as blind about 9/11. Yeah, it was a tragedy that shouldn’t have happened. But America has a definite hand in driving desperate acts by an entire region, and certainly going and killing a million and a half Iraqis in response doesn’t make us look like the best keeper of the biggest armament. I hoped the bonding from 9/11 would lead to greater understanding of how the world is connected and the importance of compassion from both the upper and lower hands. I feel like I’m seeing the opposite. There are way too many Americans who prefer polarization for its simplicity.

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* To be fair to Dad, he wasn't saying "Avoid any draft." When I said, "What if we get attacked right here in California?" he said, "Then I'm going down there and fighting myself." That was a great lesson in properly-placed patriotism.

The Answers to Everything, Coming Full Circle

When I was in 9th grade, I decided that I didn't believe in God.  This felt like my biggest step of rebellion at that point, living in an affluent Northern California suburb along a street with about a dozen churches in the half mile going south.  In retrospect, I wasn't really rejecting all definitions of God, just the Christian one as the only one I was really familiar with.  I was both finding that model both uncompelling and easy to rationalize as filling a human need as that handy answer to everything for the living conditions and community fundraising needs people experienced for a millennium and a half.

As I've aged, and noticed the fervor of which atheism has received vocal and popular support this century, I've kind of flipped about what position is actually the rebellious one.  I live in a time and place where scarcity is a non-issue, science explains a vast majority of what we face in our daily lives, and questions about the source of everything don't feel all that disconcerting or unreasonable to not know the answer to.  Frankly, atheism is much more likely to be the default position for today's upscale American in exactly the same way Christianity was for the less fortunate European of yesteryear.  It is a luxury to live in a world where man has control over enough things that we don't need the bigger answers.

In that context, I have to appreciate the efforts of any group who puts a huge amount of energy into developing a model for the universe that makes a serious effort to have internal logical consistency and also address the holes that others try to punch in it.  When it comes down to it, atheism isn't so much a belief as it is a rejection of other beliefs, and I no longer feel as proud about rejecting others if I'm not willing to bring my own project to the science fair.  I think my father was trying to tell me this once, but he couldn't articulate it in a way that registered for me.  But then again, his model of God was so not fleshed out that I've never found it much of an explanation either.

Today, at six years and one month, my little girl asked the big questions: "Where did the first people come from?" When given the theory of evolution, she followed up with "Where did the animals come from?" When given the theory of creationism, she said, "Then where did God come from?"

After some consideration, she decided that science sounded more likely than magic, and I assured her she was free to decide whatever she wanted and she could change her mind any time she wanted.  I think that kind of liberty is the greatest gift, and I hope she will always care enough to keep asking smart questions and looking for answers just because she can.

Why Christians feel that they MUST demonize homosexuality

Back to that baseball/politics forum I mentioned a couple posts ago. The arguments over the appropriate treatment of LGBT's have continued, and taken a stroll through parenting, in which our honorary wingnut has been arguing that parents of the same sex are necessarily "sub-optimal" to parents of both sexes. I offer my last post tonight below.

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Venice Glenn:
Sure. It's worthy to boil [disagreements] down [to the level of faith/core belief] though. Your arguments against gay parenting really have been about function and effectiveness though, not religion.

duckboy:
There's a lot more about my religion that you'd have to accept before the rest of that argument could hold much meaning for you.

Actually, on my way home after asking this question, I figured out the answer myself.

If you're a serious Christian, you want to follow the mandates of God, which essentially means the dictates of the New Testament, as interpreted by the leaders of your church for the most part. You've probably got contempt for the "Cafeteria Christians" who pick and choose the parts they want to believe, and don't really have a cohesive story about how it all hangs together. As far as you're concerned, your virtue hinges on being on following the party line seriously and consistently, and this extends to philosophical consistency in your world view.

The church believes that homosexuality is a sin, and afflicts people just as gambling, abuse, and addiction afflict others. As such, gay people are expected to battle against their sin, if they care about following the Lord's word, and straight Christians are supposed to help them fight. If this is what you believe, then you can't see it as a good thing that gays accept who they are and make choices that make them happy accepting it. If they can do that, then where's the penalty for sin? Where do these sinners get off, flaunting the Lord and having repercussion-free lives?

The serious Christian is stuck. If he supports gay rights, he's going against the church. If he fights against gay rights even though he doesn't think they're harming anyone, then even the most hardheaded person has to realize he's being a dickwad. The only way to feel better about it is to convince himself "Gay people harm society." If he does that he can take such weird positions as "Gays provide sub-optimal parenting" and "Redefining marriage is bad" without examining the lack of logic too closely. It's easier to believe it on faith than to watch it collapse under the weight of reason. That's why duckboy's response is honest... even if he didn't consciously mean it that way. His seemingly contradictory assertions that the arguments against gay parenting are practical, yet the true basis of the stance is religious are dead on.

Regardless of how well this has him pegged, the duck cannot respond to this post in any other way than to deny its accuracy. He cannot afford to be seen as someone whose faith trumps logic, fairness, and compassion. But I'm pretty sure I'm onto something worth discussing in forums beyond here.

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And that's what I'm doing. I think this is big. Won't change anybody's mind, but understanding the other side is better than just not getting what their problem is.

Glenn

How WATCHMEN the movie is different from the comic

I saw "Watchmen" today on opening day. I loved the 12-issue comic series (decidedly NOT a graphic novel at the time of release) back in 1986, and recently re-read the stories before seeing the movie. In retrospect, I wish I hadn't (as I didn't for "V for Vendetta") because it put me in a position to vividly know what was going to happen and also constantly compare the two. Alan Moore is consistent about hating the movies adapted from his comics, and considering how crafted his work is, I understand why any change is a bad change from his point of view. What follows is my take on the biggest changes. [Big spoilers to follow.] Obviously, the most most conspicuous change was to make the big disaster at the end be energy explosions in five major cities blamed on Dr. Manhattan instead of a giant dead squid-like creature dropping on half of Manhattan, but only Manhattan.

The change makes some sense in that more of the world will join together if more is affected. But I don't know that it's more believable that Dr. Manhattan's turned into a threat as opposed to a giant squid portending an alien invasion. Kind of a push. I suppose that gives Jon more of a reason to stay gone from earth (protecting the charade), as opposed to his "less complicated" reason offered. But perhaps the main reason I don't like the change is that cinematic explosions are a dime a dozen. When will we get to see a giant squid crush Manhattan? The non-Rorschach scene whose changes I liked least was the fire rescue. I liked that the comics had Nite Owl treating the whole thing like a full-service plane flight the whole way, complete with announcements of coffee service and moving himself to atop of Archie to make room. Plus, it would have been a great visual to have him flying it while standing on top. They do show the coffee cups being thrown out, but the effect just isn't the same. Furthermore, when he and Laurie finally consummate their relationship (successfully), the comics point out that the costumes helped. It's important that their costumed identities make them feel more powerful and confident. However, the more I think about it and review the source material, the more I think the character who got the worst end of the adaptation was Rorschach. It starts when he's being picked on for his mother's profession when he's a kid. In the movie, he jumps them and somehow takes two older, tougher bullies apparently out of surprise and a kind of rawness. He does bite the ear in the comic, but I think it's more significant that the way he gets the upper hand in that fight is by starting it by taking one kid's cigarette and sticking it in his eye. That not only makes the victory more plausible, it shows the extent to which he was willing to resort to out-of-proportion violence at a young age if he needed it to reach his goals. The other thing that happens to him as a kid is that his mother loses a trick and therefore money when he interrupts her with a john. In the movie, the money is not referred to at all. I think it's important that it's shown he's taking a beating from his mother because of cash, not some other emotional disappointment. The sessions with the shrink are compressed into one session, which shorts Rorschach in several places. First, in the comic he doesn't give the bullshit answers to the blot test until they've been doing this for a while. It's not until a future session that the shrink prods him to say what he really saw in those blots, and then he gives the explanation. In one of those sessions, he has a critical line about "masked adventuring" that doesn't make the movie. "We do not do this thing because it is permitted. We do it because we have to. We do it because we are compelled." He's saying "we," but in reality, he means himself. He's the only one who doesn't quit when the government tells him to. He also explains how and why he made his mask. He made it from a dress that was never picked up at a dressmaker because of its interesting shape shifting capability. It wasn't until he found out that the dress belonged to a woman who was brutally murdered that he "made a face [he] could stand to look at." The story of converting from Kovacs to Rorschach is changed in an important way. It's when he realizes the dogs are eating the kid that he splits them open and then completes his transition to Rorschach. It's important that it's the realization of what man is capable of completes the transition and makes him capable of killing any life, even dogs. In the movie when he doesn't realize it until he kills the man, it's possible to believe it's his first human killing that transforms him. He has to wait for the guy to come home in both media, but in the comic, he doesn't cut him up, he doses the guy in kerosene, and leaves him a hacksaw. The guy's only chance to survive is to cut through his own arm, and he can't do it, or is too cowardly to choose to. This is critical. Rorschach is now an avenger who believes that treating miserable people miserably is a part of justice. Finally (in the shrink sequence), his conclusion about the self-damnation of humanity gets to his shrink. The guy shocks his dinner companions with these stories, and comes to believe what Rorschach does. How many patients change their doctors that way? At the same time, his compassionate side is almost removed from the film. In the comic, when Laurie and Dan spring him from jail, he does address her respectfully ("Miss Juspeczyck", not "Miss Jupiter"). Subtle, but remembering her real hard to remember name rather than a stage one makes this doubly respectful, on top of the formality). He also says that he never liked her uniform, saying "Nothing personal," which shows that he recognizes that her sexually-charged outfit was unnecessarily inappropriate and sent the wrong message. He's the only guy in the whole story that can be called a women's libber! Then, when they go back to his apartment to get his backup gear (which was not recovered in jail), he confronts his landlady, who lied to the cops and said he sexually harassed her. He's ready to punish her too, but she begs for mercy because her kids are watching, and he leaves her alone. All this compassion is missing from the film. The worst offense is when he's killed by Dr. Manhattan. It's critical that he's been crying when he removes his mask. It's the only time we ever see him cry, and it's because he just watched thousands of innocents die in Manhattan (and only Manhattan in the comic), and the other people who know are willing to cover it up for the sake of world peace. He's moved to tears because he is moved by the deaths and believes with all his core that the cover up is wrong. Through all these things, we know he's not a crazy vigilante with no heart. He has a very strong code of ethics that is arguably better, more compassionate, and more consistent than anyone else's. The movie doesn't give him that. It does, however, give the certainty that his journal is published. In the comic, it's on the pile to be possibly selected by the newspaper flunkie. In the movie, the voice-over of the first line heavily implies that it got selected. Rorschach wins.

The Mormon case against the gays

I participate in an online community that is ostensibly about baseball, but the most heated discussions there are about Dubya Bush and Proposition 8. The most vocal person on the right pointed us to this screed from the Mormon (Latter Day Saints) church on the latter issue.

This person claimed we "might be surprised" by what we see there, and he was right, I was. I could not believe how completely wackadoo their position is. Check it out for yourself, but I think I'm paraphrasing it fairly as follows:

"Although we consider homosexual behavior a sin, we do not hate gays. We do not even find it sinful that they experience homosexual urges. They are facing temptation from the devil, as we all do, and whether that temptation is being quick to anger or acting gayly, it is a virtuous person's goal to defeat sinful temptation. If a man can not muster attraction to women, then he should live a celibate life... suck it up and play the hand God dealt you."

Yeah that's right, you heard me. "Being gay = just not OK." I appreciated getting the link to some source here, because the guy we talk to is much much cagier than this. He'll go on and on about how he thinks he supports equality with regard to civil rights, just not marriage, but he skips right over points he can't win and never comes right out and says anything as blatantly condescending towards the gay failure of will as my paraphrase above.

So I just wanted to write down my take on that position, right while I'm quick to anger, as that's often when the main points are the clearest. If you are a member of a church, then that's your choice, and it is protected by our constitution. If your church wants to have rules on gay marriage, multiple wives, or extended bong hits, you go right ahead. Gopod knows I've seen too many people tortured by their own church, but at least it's their own choice to participate.

But where does your jurisdiction end? Right outside of your fucking church! In a constitutionally secular country like ours, your church should have no legal impact on anybody who chooses to reject it. Isn't that why you numb nuts came to America in the first place... to escape religious persecution? Nothing, not even your God, gives you the right to force your crap on anyone who doesn't want it!

It's time we separated church and state from the business of partnership once and for all. Let religion have "traditional marrage." Let them define it any way they want. Hell, I don't even care if different religions agree. But that definition should have no impact on America's laws. If you want the legal benefits accorded to "marriage" today, then straights, gays, omnisexuals, and polygamists have to answer to the same rules.

I'm even for instituting this retroactively. Pick a date in the future in which all marriages are legally null and void. Give everyone time to apply for the new credentials before that date hits. Heck, you should be able to do it online in ten minutes if you can supply some information about where your current legal documentation is on file.

The wackadoos are entitled to their own lives. But they should stay out of everyone else's. Hell, if Republicans understand that about money, surely they can grasp the concept when it rises to subjects that are indisputably more personal.

Spoon-feeding the non-techies

The alleged talent of a product manager is to be able to bridge communication and thought between technical and non-technical people. This talent was best mocked in the movie "Office Space," and yet it is a valid yet ephemeral plus. Occasionally, I like to roll it out in full bloom, and foist in on a user population who hopefully get as much entertainment out of reading it as I do writing it. Here's my latest offering:

Team, A long time ago, perhaps centuries in dot-com years, a substantial portion of our Customer Support time was spent assuring clients and publishers that the variances between publisher-reported impressions and MOJO reported impressions were either minor, publisher mis-implementations, or simply misunderstood.

To illustrate this, I made an “Error Analysis Tool” (dart board) of six causes and said, “If you need an answer for your case right away, you can choose one of these because I assure you that one of them is right.” It wasn’t long before the clamoring for a less flippant and more elaborate (albeit not any more accurate) version of these cases moved Barak Ben-Gal, Director of No-One-Really-Knows-What, to write the original Discrepancies white paper. This was pretty – it had pictures and text boxes. It had credibility – it was thick. More importantly, Account Managers had something they could throw over the wall to clients and many times it answered their questions. Victory! 

Fast forward eight regular years to today, and the treasured white paper has become a relic. Much more has developed in our industry requiring explanation or analysis yet still falling into the big bucket of discrepancies. A young knight named Michael Hauptman joined the Company and has proceeded to deftly dispose of the old and write a completely new version of the document. This version is, I am pleased to say, delightfully concise, yet detailed. Accurate, yet comprehensible. It has a full mid-palette highlighting pepper and nutmeg with a long, lingering finish of smoky elderberries. In short, those of you faced with either diagnosing discrepancies or educating clients on them will find this one satisfying read. 

Accordingly, I have placed it on the client-facing Adserver documentation tab of Sharepoint. The direct link is here. If, as a creature of habit you cling to the Internal Documents link of Adserver, I am one step ahead of you. If you do not have the Firefox plugin for reading PDF’s, you can get that here. 

But if you ever want to see the original dart board, you’ll have to come by my office.

Thanks Mike, (achiappanza)

As my wife often says, I like turning something mundane into something fun.