Friends

 There is a story which makes the rounds in Jewish circles regarding the origin of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer. I will include an image from the Artscroll machzor. It is blurry but, hey, these days, who isn't? nowutimean?

This is the text as it reads on the OU website, "The Bishop of Mainz summoned Rabbi Amnon, a great Torah scholar, to his court and offered him a ministerial post on the condition that Rabbi Amnon would convert to Christianity. Rabbi Amnon refused. The Bishop insisted and continued to press Rabbi Amnon to accept his offer. Of course, Rabbi Amnon continued to refuse. One day, however, Rabbi Amnon asked the Bishop for three days to consider his offer."

Compare that to the Museum of the Jewish People, "...about rabbi Amnon of Mainz who was a friend of the local Christian ruler, who urged him again and again to convert to Christianity. Whether out of fear, courtesy, or sincere intentions, rabbi Amnon promised his friend he will consider it for three days. Then he felt deep remorse and suffered a lot. When the time came, he tried to avoid the bishop, who was surprised at his friend’s behavior, and soon sent people to force him in. Rabbi Amnon then begged his friend to cut off his tongue that made him utter the words he regretted so much."

If you can make your way through the image or look in the Museum write up, you will see that the relationship between the Bishop and the rabbi was marked by the word "friend."

I'm not one who is especially expert on the range of relationships that can be called "friendship" but if the connection to the "other" makes multiple amputations possible, I would suggest that the word "friend" might not be the best choice to characterize the bond.

This is why I don't have friends. I like my arms where they are.

small change

I recently got deferred from a blood donation program -- not for a bad reason, mind you, as I simply had donated blood too recently for them to allow me to donate again. They thanked me for the attempt and sent me on my way with a $50 debit card. Nice deal, right?

So I take the free $50 and go over to Amazon to see what the world has for me. I don't generally buy things for myself, so when I get what is effectively free money, I splurge. I made sure, as I assembled my order, to keep the total under $50 as I had no intention of spending what is actually my own money. This was house money. So I ended up with an order which was somewhere in the $47 range.

This isn't the first time -- I have gotten cards like this for various promotions and each time, I use up an amount close to the max, but not the whole thing. Then, as is my practice, I put the card aside and forget about it. What use is a card with a buck or three on it? I'm not going out to buy penny candy so that money is as good as inaccessible. And with the number of cards with which I have engaged in the last 2 years, I am sure that if I collected them all and had some way to check their balances, I would be able to piece together a solid ten or twelve bucks.

But I don't have all the cards, I don't remember how to access each one and I'm way too lazy to try any harder. And therefore, somewhere there is some amount of money which is legally mine but which I am apparently "leaving on the table." So here's my deal:

I will continue doing this but will work to stack up the cards.

You will buy all the cards off of me and take upon yourself the work of discovering how much is left on each. You can keep all of that but I will ask for an up front payment of what I am confident is less than half of the total potential value of the cards. Same with random gift cards, but then, I would only charge a quarter of what I suspect is on each.

Takers?

Facing my fear and fearing my face

I'm scared of a lot, and not even always in groups. Stuff scares me, but what really makes me soil everyone's underwear is the not stuff, and especially the not yet stuff. I live in fear of the hypothetical, afraid of who knows what will be. I'm constantly imagining catastrophes by the score then worrying if I'll have time for them all. Today's irrational fleeting moment of terror? Shaving.

You'd think that I would have some sort of normal concern about missing a spot and being laughed at by everyone, or about slicing my own throat and things going south from there. But no. There I was, besodden with Barbasol working my way back to cute, babe and shaving up a lather. I got towards the end and my ever lurking OCD insisted on a particular and symmetrical pattern of shaving. I acquiesced figuring nothing could go wrong. Cheeks, throat, ears, chin and then finally, approach the mustache in a balanced fashion, repeating left and right until my efforts meet smack dab in the middle of the philtrum.

Now when one shaves using the technology I have near my disposal, one must occasionally rinse the razor so the sharpest cutty-thing won't be dulled by layers of whipped cream and talk of insurance. There is also a tendency to glimpse up and evaluate progress, checking for those possibly missed spots which until now didn't faze me. I looked up and saw myself shaven except for a wonderful gray Hitler-esque mustache.

And that's when the worrying started.

What if, I considered, my razor were to stop working now and I was left with a Hitler mustache? I suspect that that would be frowned upon in a variety of establishments. But with no razor, I would have to go out to the store to buy another. People would see me in my not seen in a while whisker style.  Or what if I were to suffer a surprise qualifying medical event and was suddenly indisposed position of needing help? The medical providers would see me as a man with a Hitler mustache and they might draw the wrong conclusion regarding my personal opinion of Hitler (Hint: not a fan). And what if, what if, what if I died right there in that space, in that moment. I keeled over or under, around and through and ended up ended right there on the floor? How would the police report describe me? "Overweight Hitler enthusiast"? Ain't nobody have any time for that. Not now and not in the future.

All these thoughts possess me for the 6 seconds it takes for me to rinse the razor and complete shaving. But that 6 seconds, every time I shave, well, that there's who I truly, truly am.

the radius of convenience

OK. As part of my ongoing series of investigations into my own head I have decided to add in visual aids to put my feelings into pictures.

Today's topic is revisitng my feelings about travel. This time, with pix!

When I look at the world, or at least, parts of it, I start by creating a circle

There are things I need -- a place to pray, a place to eat or buy food, maybe a Judaica store. I look for places that are surrounded by the things that make my practice of my identity easy.

Then we have the world which is also, strangely enough, expressed by a circle

Jewish museums, Jewish friends, Jewish history -- I have no interest in most things, but I do like to visit people I know and see things that matter to me.

These circles overlap pretty completely when assessing my life in Teaneck, Bergen County and the NYC tri-state area. When I consider traveling, I use the same metric to decide whether a trip would be a reasonable decision to make. I find that in most places in the world, those circles barely overlap. The few things I want to see are not necessarily anywhere near a community where I can comfortably practice my religion.

In most of Israel, these circles are effectively identical. Why would I ever go somewhere where I would have to compromise either of the priorities that those circles represent? 

A giant ask

Because I have some time off from school and have been hanging around with family, my thoughts have been wonderfully bizarre. Today, I would like to address the elephant-sized mass in the room, elephantiasis.

As is well know, elephantiasis is a condition in which a human's pieces, and sometimes bits, swell to the side of an elephant and they insist on calling their teeth "tusks."

The classic case impacts a man's private areas, and is best represented by Da Vinci's "Vitruvian man with elephantiasis."

[that was my image -- this one was made by ChatGPT, while Gemini refused to cooperate

]

First, a question -- 

Would you say that this guy has humantiasis? How about this guy?

or even

The famous guy who had this condition was known as the Elephant Man. This was a stolen title, as that was already taken by Babar.

and this unretouched actual real life I mean it photo of Babar

And then there's this guy who clearly has elephantiasis of the heart

So please, won't you donate something to someone so that we don't have to worry about turning into elephants, part by part, and they won't have to worry about turning into people.

Bless.

Why Anti-Semitism annoys me

Weird that I feel it necessary to explain why I don't like the world's oldest obsession.

But anyway, I'd like to address a couple or few eternal stereotypes of Jews. I'm sure others have done this already and, heck, I'm not 100% sure I HAVEN'T but here we go (these are the ones that popped into my head as I wrote this):

1. Jews control the __________ industry.

fill in the blank -- banking, movies, political, educational etc.

This is why this claim is dangerous: it might as well be true. I haven't done the statistic-generating fieldwork and research to confirm it, but let's say that over 75% (I chose at random) of the businesses, entities, boards related to industry X is headed by/run by/owned by someone who, based on his maternal parentage was Jewish at birth, according to all sects of Judaism. So what? If we are picking a single demographic element, then pick others. How many are married? How many dye their hair? How many are lefties? How many are in some religion or another, or a political party?

Why is there an assumption that people who share a designation in the "religion" column share anything else? Why is there a baseline assumption that leadership immediately and exclusively provides to other members of our tribe certain advantages, or work together to control the minds of the rest of the world?

First of all, Jews never agree on things. The entire idea of a shadow group working to control things is laughable if you have ever been to a shul meeting. Then the idea of "Jew" is problematic. Many might not accept certain of your examples as Jewish. Doesn't that skew your results?

And of course, one would have to assume that being Jewish has an opinion and impact on your business decisions without any specific knowledge. This invents the conspiracy of Jewish collusion because all would be driven by precisely the same interpretation of Jewish teachings to agree on how to incorporate Jewish ideas in the mass consciousness.

Um, no.

Look at a sample: Mr. M (Jewish) controls Company M which is part of the ??? industry. He doesn't hire me (also Jewish) because I won't make him enough money. He is driven by an interest in making more money. Is there anything wrong about that in the U.S.?

2. Jews are good at ____________.

Don't start with me on this one. I'm no good at science and even less so at math. I don't know law, I'm not a doctor or in finance. I'm not even in real estate. Some Jews are good at. Same as "some Episcopalians." Same with "Jews are smart" (as supported by the Nobel prize lists). None of this is directly causally related so it does nothing but encourage people to think of the Jewish attitude as a superiority complex.

3. Jews are cheap.

Do you realize how dumb this sounds? Are you starting with the premise that spending money unwisely is to be admired? Do you speak with the privilege of always have been rich? This accusation only makes sense if it stems from a personal experience in which a Jew was stingy WITH HIM. So the behavior of one Jewish person became a collective trait through a process I like to call "laziness." Are there Jews who are thrifty? Sure. Are there some who spend more than they have? Yup. These are functions of being human and not robots. None of it comes from the religion.

Over time, Jews have had to be very careful about money because they never knew when they would be kicked out, taxed, rampaged or accused of treachery, locked in a tower and set on fire. Being limited in job choice also made earning a living tough. So people without a lot learned to be very careful with what they have. 

-----------

Side note -- why do people feel comfortable assuming they know about "Judaism" because they read something somewhere? Are people that forward and arrogant when it comes to other ways of life? People never want to ask questions, and even less often want to listen to answers. But they want to speak with authority and tell me that when I object on the grounds that I live the life and she is wrong, I'm told I'm a liar.

New TV Show Idea!

Title: The Wandering Jew (negotiable -- studio wants "Black Hat"  or "Rabbi Bookman, Jewish Investigator")

The scene is somewhere in Mid-Europe in the 17th or so century. The time is difficult for Jews but one Jewish sage, who travels from town to town to hear questions and kill chickens, works tirelessly to protect his people, AND THE LAW.

Meet Rabbi Moses Jewowitzbergstein (check with legal; they'll know), known as Rabbi Magic. He goes to where there's trouble and sticks the long nose of Jewish law in to it. (guys -- is that offensive? Go ask 100 random teenagers, but if they don't get it, don't explain it; that's another vote for "not offensive") He works to defend the innocent and expose the guilty, regardless of race, creed, or ability to kill you if you don't help. And probably if you do, also. Following the 46 minute story arc model we get towards the end with the a-ha/reveal moment. The hook is that it is sourced in actual Jewish law and other canonical texts! He quotes the talmud when it makes a point about psychology or logic, he cites Maimonides when he wants a medical opinion and medrash to explain the origin of stories and beliefs. He uses verses from the Hebrew bibles (note -- find out about it; what's it called and where can we get one) and explains moral points with arcana from rabbinic, mystical works.

Once every few episodes he does some Talmud magic to whip up a solution. Often he sets a trap

Most of the people reject and attack him. but he uses his Jewish-folksy ways and a timely quote or two to win people over. Usually, anyone who is persuaded dies in some tragic but not quite exactly heroic way in the third act. Eventually, he threatens to leave and gets as far as 5 minutes out of town when he already hears sounds of gun shots, breaking glass, women screaming and general lawlessness settling in, so he sighs, turns around and returns.

 He takes from these textual sources (and he speaks of talmudic conversations as if they happened in front of him -- we will need some recuring Jewy looking actors and they should learn to speak Hebrew from that humus guy down the block. He's brown, right?) and assembles all those sources and then writes them all down, many times. He invites all the other cops, suspects and investigators, plus a number of hangers-on, and hands out the papers. He then proceeds to give a 35 minute speech going through all the sources and deriving from this the truth regarding the suspect at hand and a good lesson about how we need to be better people.

Here is an example of one potential outcome:

The truly guilty party will be the only one who doesn't fall asleep and is caught at the door by Mini Golem* and his pals who were opening up the door to see if the rabbi was finished talking and they happened to whack him in the head. One boy dropped his lollipop but his older sister rolled her eyes and took the one from her mouth and gave it to him to keep him quiet. Then she mumbled "I hate you, but in a good way" she smiles at the camera, and, scene.

* sorry -- forgot to tell you: suggestion from Bob that we have a feisty mini-Golem sidekick who gets into trouble but always stops the little altar boy (under orders from his evil and possibly abusive boss) from claiming a blood libel (I'm thinking more like a priestly Ren and the submissive-turned-sadistic altar boy, much more in the mold of Stimpy. Can the b plot be the A plot sometimes? Do Golems...is that the pl -- check. have girlfriends? Would she break her golem's heart if he had one (maybe longer arc -- Yosele Golem, he lovable and sweet, mute amnesiac who loves Jews but must remain forever alone as he is not Jewish and is really, really scared of knives+++alt idea, he can never become Jewish because when he was formed nothing was placed "there" and the rabbis are still arguing about it (once every few, he gets an update or letter or something about his case). 

Also, comic interludes while Rabbi Magic [NOTE -- idea for tagline -- each week a character says, "That rabbi's doing his magic again" or something like that] moves into town, meats locals, chants blessings (find out what rabbis did at that time) is killing chicken [note -- consider Turkey around thanksgiving**Marketing**) and looking at women's underwear (bloomers -- PG-13 for anti-chicken violence is as far as we can go). He explains ideas about Jews and Judaism (we will need some writers who know something about Jews so if we have any wikipedia editors on staff, lift him/her for this. Also for cred we should probably have a rabbi look things over so head over to Berkley and take the first one you see. They all think the same anyway. Bob suggests that we can just ask Chat GPT but on the prompt say "answering as if you are a rabbi..." and this could save the huge amount we otherwise would have to pay if we asked an actual rabbi to make a living teaching us about Judaism! Recurring joke -- the rabbi keeps missing a sale or a bargain.

a movie review

This is being dictated into my phone and I don't know how to do punctuation and back spaces and things like that so there's a lot of not that here. 

I sat down to watch karate Kid Legends this evening simply because it existed and I thought it was probably a good idea for me to have some idea of what's going on in the world. The movie what there was of it did not fail to disappoint to fail or vice versa I'm not sure which. the writers took the inherently complicated story which haunts the Karate Kid universe and stripped it down so that there were no confusing subplots or complicated, well, plots. It boiled down to two young men punching each other to the delight of the irresponsible quasi adults that are the hallmark of the millennial identity.

I made that last part up. Did that sound reasonable to you?

Anyway the movie is relatively short somewhat harmless and it has a few good cameos and it's also got some really horrible acting a lot of punching and foreshadowing and all the other things that make for a movie so this certainly qualifies as such the end.

High Holiday prayers - a question

Today we have the result of very little research but a mind wandering throughout synagogue services on the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana.

In terms of the Jewish liturgy through the year, one thing that we don't do very much is repeat prayers. There are very few times when we are told "say this x number of times". Usually, when we pray, we say and we move on. There are exceptions through the year. Based on my zero research and doing this entirely from memory, our repetitions through the year are limited to two verses said when the Torah is taken out of the ark on a holiday which happens on a weekday, and a few statements made during the sanctification of the new moon. That's it. While there are prayers that we say more than once a day, each time we say it is a discrete instance, separate from the others.

Then we hit the high holidays and suddenly we are swamped with prayers that we repeat. Before we blow the shofar, we say a chapter of Psalms 7 times. When we do kaparot, we recite it 3 times. Yom Kippur is bookended by the repetitions (three times for Kol Nidrei and then the culminating repetition of the Sh'ma and other phrases 3 and 7 times at the end). Suddenly, we say things over and over.

What is it about the high holidays that makes repetition so essential?

twenty-four years later

 My experiences have become history. What I see when I close my eyes is now fodder for history textbooks. Students in high school hear my stories as if they happened in another country, in another lifetime.

As time passes, our memories bcome distilled down to the essence, the few and striking facts that stand out and which we enshrine in our long-term memory, rife with sensory details to make the scene complete. But it doesn't seem like that's fair.

Twenty-four years -- longer than a lifetime, almost a quarter century. How much are we allowed to keep hurting? When are we supposed to move on or forget, because in some ways, I can't do either. Look at video from the Hindenburg disaster; it looks like it was recorded at another time. Even video from Pearl Harber -- it still looks separated by years. But look at the video from 9/11. It could have been recorded yesterday. Cars look pretty much the same. Buildings? The same. The quality of the recording? It looks current. It is easier for the past to become part of the past if we can distance ourselves fom it and consider it archaic. This is why, when we recall religiously significant dates and events, we are driven to picture ourselves as being part of the event so it does not become an empty ritual recalling a distant and irrelevant past.

Do we want to keep living with 9/11 as current events? Isn't it, though? Aren't we still living in the shadow of 2001? But at the same time, High School students see the day in the same way that they look at any other ancient history. We have moved on so now the question is, how tdo we want to hold on to it and do we want to keep it fresh so that we feel the pain acutely, or should we let it become the dull throb that we get used to over time?

I look at the sad moments of my life (dating back to the religious ones) and I see that tere will always be this tension between embracing the now and living as part of a heritage and storied history.

I don't know if I want to remember, but I have been brought up to know the importance of not forgetting.

Hey Lifetime, you want this?

 Idea for a story --

grandfather, from the old country, constantly talks about going back "home" one more time to revisit his childhood etc and makes his kids promise to take him before he dies. Then he goes blind and the doctor says he doesn't have much time. His kids look at the bank account -- no way we can afford a trip to "home" but what if we just go to the "little X" neighborhood in [insert random American City here].

Then hilarity ensues as they try to keep the old man in one neighbor hood and when he wants to travel to the countryside to his childhood farm, they have to pay extra to rent a junky car because it makes the rental place look shlubby. Then they take the worst roads and hire actors to play roles in the country side, and also back in the city. Finally the "trip" has ended. Bonding has taken place and a the generations are reconciled. Redemption occurs and a heart is completed. Mysteries solved and there has been positive character growth all around. We discover at the end that the grandfather knew from the get go that it was a scam. The old country is not and hour and a half away bay plane, especially one which didn't require passports. But he wanted them all to feel useful and reconnect with their heritage. Maybe after learning about it and recreating it, they may want to go visit. The kids say that they knew he knew but that he, realizing how silly this all was, respected the effort and would not collapse the charade. Their goal hadn't been to trick him, but to get him to confront his childhood (trauma? mystery? Don't know, maybe to win a bet or meet with a person or a lawyer to resolve some legal, financial obligation -- wait, how about "they had earlier promised their late mother that they would get him to face up to...) by visiting so everyone gets what he wants.

It plays as a family friendly (possibly holiday) film. Mostly comedy but with a few emotionally stinging scenes so the adults will understand the depths and authenticity and the kids will see the broad and clear binaries of "happy and sad" flipped around in an innovative and educational way.

You can't spell Daniel without AI. I can, but soon, no one will

During our pre-first day meetings, the faculty were given a session on the use of AI. Some new(er) sites and technologies were discussed and we were tasked with trying them out. So I did. There was one resource that could make quizzes. I live on quizzes -- they are more frequent than full scale essays and easier to grade than single-page responses. I usually use 2 kinds of quizzes, vocabulary and reading. So I went to the website and put into the "resource" the entire (public domain) text of a particular book which I enjoy reading, and I asked the AI to make me a reading quiz (short answer). It came up with a bunch of very interesting questions. I asked it for an idea map which it constructed using only the text of the book. Rather than see this as a boon, I am worried. As the short-cut apps improve, there will be less reason to have to read the text. I work hard at explaining to my students that the summaries available miss stuff, but this trainable AI will miss less and less. I looked at the quiz and was comforted to know 2 things:

1. The questions I ask appear to be spot on as the AI came up with the same ideas

2. There are details more insignificant and less necessary than the ones I ask about.

I also found that the AI system could make very simply inferences but did not have the breadth of knowledge to explore deeper concepts. There was room for me to introduce external concepts into the classroom, ones that AI could not import, but that might also be temporary, as I could train the system on my notes, or on external (approved) resources which will bolster my specific point of view about the text. I also noted that the AI could not distinguish between "new vocabulary" referring to the reading level of the English words and the fact that the text included invented words. But on the whole, this could easily generate passable reading quizzes and book summaries.

Then I asked a different system to make a multiple choice quiz for a specific unit of a specific vocabulary book that we use. I did not provide the text. The system found the text and the unit and crafted a multiple choice quiz. It wasn't the style I use and it didn't have the trick answers I like to lay down as mines to trick those who do not read or study thoroughly. Could I refine it to cover multiple units? Maybe, I guess. Could I tweak my prompt to tell it the style I want? Probably.

All in all, this could be a real time saver for me. Except that I would then not be refreshing MYSELF by rereading the text or poring over the vocab book -- test item creation is its own form of study and I, as the teacher, miss out on that opportunity when I outsource the quiz making to the skynet.

Do I go to my classes and tell my students about these resources? Heck yeah. But wouldn't I, then, be providing for them a way to get around having to study (in the case of the literature quiz, at least) because the internet can provide a more guided set of summaries than a static "Spark Notes" can. Maybe this should be the new mode of teaching a book. Tell students to use a resource to generate a brain map, or practice quizzes or chapter summaries before reading that chapter and then let them try again after reading it. I'm not sure yet, but we are driven by the results we want to see and I have to come to terms with what skills and habits will be essential in the future and then shape my approach to address those needs.

AI can replace pre-teaching. AI can replace quiz making (and, in some multiple choice cases, grading). AI can replace note taking and essay generating. What can't AI do that I can, and that I bring to the classroom? Maybe, bringing humanity and the love of learning to the classroom. Or maybe it's that I can balance a hockey stick on my nose.

Well, AI? Can you balance a hockey stick on your nose? Yeah...you run away. Dan, FTW.

Brain sells

I have a limited number of brain cells. I'm not saying I can count them, but my finite skull cannot hold the planet sized brain that might allow for knowing everything. So the fact is, I don't know stuff and I have had to forget stuff. But what confuses me is how my brain has decided what to keep and what to forget.

I was driving in this morning and I recalled a conversation from some point in high school. My friend, Alon, was telling a story about his brother (whose name might be Jared but this, I don't remember). I recall the punch line and precisely what he reported his brother said. I shan't repeat it because it is a bit off color and might embarrass the brother (whom I have never met) but I remember it. I can't remember a huge slew of stuff I need on a daily basis -- names, dates, phone numbers and directions. I have brain cells that are used up remembering stupid sports trivia, cultural references, stuff I learned in college, and childhood traumas, so they are tied up and unable to be allocated to recall where I put my glasses. Spoiler alert, you put them in the laundry. Don't wonder why. Things got weird, deal with it.

I believe in a memory much like a line item veto. I should be able to choose whether or not I remember a fact (I can then choose to qwrite down the things that I don't intend to waste brain space on). That way, I can voluntarily forget that I once had a peanut butter sanwich at the house of a girl whose name is Michelle, and whom I went to pre-K with. I have no more details about this event and it has never served me as anything useful. But I have it -- a full blown memory which is a complete misapplication of resources. I don't know Michelle's last name, or why i was eating a sandwich at her house. I was, I'm guessing, 3 years old. Or maybe 4 or 5. Whatever. I was little. Stop grilling me about it.

What else do I remember? The combination to my locker in high school (34-24-14). I assume I won't need that. A conversation I had with a school friend named Stu about how to hold your hands when running around in gym. 10 or so years old. Unneeded. How about the name of the first podiatrist I saw when I was a teenager. Or the pediatrician's office I used to go to and the huge container of multi-colored Tootsie Rolls. I remember the SRA's and the colors and how I always came in second to Leora. Argh, why can't I wipe that one and reuse the brain cells to help me understand bitcoin? 

Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find

Just a note on AI that came to mind this morning:

AI is an echo chamber. The voice we put into it drives the response. Ask why "Why is X better than Y" and you will get a raft of paragraphs and sources.

Then ask "why is Y better than X" and you might very well get an equal and opposite set of proofs.

Now this is all well and good when one is trying to muster sources to support a conclusion he has already adopted. But using this method when constructing a prompt proves dangerous when one doesn't realize that this is what is going on. When a person uses a prompt like this without considering that it is an echo chamber, one will mistake the AI generated response with an authoritative voice supporting a position.

The individual runs the risk of confusing an echoic response with an objective collecting of facts. But the wording of the prompt excludes the viability of the other side -- it reinforces the belief that the answer produced is all there is.  The person does not need to consider any other point of view because the LLM has spit out the words which support the view looked for in the prompt.

If we aren't aware of how we ask a question, we will not be aware of potential limitations on the answer.

I get the sense that this could be changed into a good speech on repentance and asking for forgiveness but I'm in a secular mode right now.

Coffee Talk

I like coffee. Hot, iced, room temp, I don't care, as long as it has the important attribute of being coffee. Not a drink made with coffee, and not coffee adulterated by sweetener and lightener. If I could find a way to avoid having to add water, and just chew roasted, ground beans, I might do that.

I like the dark and the bitter. I like coffee that fights with you even before you drink it. I want a cup of coffee that I will remember, long after I have thrown out the cup, realized that it wasn't my cup and that it wasn't supposed to be thrown out, fished the cup out of the garbage, washed it thoroughly and left it to dry, only to have some guy bump it off the counter and have it break so it gets thrown out anyway. Like long after that.

I want the coffee that eats like a meal.

But, and this is important, it is my belief that each of us can only ingest a specific amount of caffeine in his or her lifetime and once you get past that amount, you are in team-foul territory. I reached my personal point of no caffeine in the summer of 1999. I was drinking about a gallon of iced tea a day and suddenly couldn't sleep. Weird, right? So I switched to decaf. Don't hate me, haters, While I can ingest a small amount of caffeine (in the form of chocolate, generally) I try really hard to avoid drinking hi-test coffee. Sometimes it might have no impact, but it might also give me the jitters, the sweats, the unquenchable appetite and the cravings and that's a game of chance I'd rather not play.

So, yes, I drink decaf (it does have a little caffeine in it, but so far, not enough for me to decide to move to Postum) and I like it. Dark, bitter decaf is what I'm all about. This has put in the position of trying out different coffees to find the right decaf for me. For a while, I have been drinking Keurig pods -- they are pretty good but they take exactly the kind of effort I am worst at: "effort." We have a coffee shop in the school building (don't ask) and I often get my coffee from there and the premade, room temperature decaf is wonderful (as is the fresh triple decaf espresso in a little cup). But go to the store and the options are more limited.

I first ran into the Chosen Bean a bunch of years back. Cold, bitter, delicious and more expensive than any coffee has the right to be. Also, not carried by most stores so hard to find. I started ordering it by the box from California and it came packed in cold packs and only occasionally spilling all over everything. I found that they had 2 formulations, one of which was a concentrate that I was supposed to water down. No thank you. I just drank the concentrate. Mmmm Mmmm good. But I couldn't afford to keep drinking it and still be able to pay for luxuries like oxygen so I backed off.

Then I found Coldbruh with its pseudo-hipster name and its Sunny-D vibes. It is in squeezie-bags guaranteed to dribble all over me no matter what I do. The flavor is not as strong or complex as the Chosen Bean but this is available at a local store and it slightly less expensive than the Chosen Bean stuff. It also uses the "Swiss Water" method.

Here's what I know about the water situation. From what I recall, to get caffeine out of coffee beans, you have to rinse them with water and who knows what else. Apparently, doing that sucks out other important flavor crystals so decaf lacks some of the flavors and crunch of regular coffee. But water that has absorbed all the other nasties can still suck out more caffeine without bothering with the other stuff. So coffee people get this water that is already full up of other stuff so that the water only attacks the caffeine. It's like science or something. But both the Chosen Bean and the Coldbruh (and Power Coffee Works in Jerusalem) use this method. It is, clearly, an expensive method. Remember, American Cheese is cheaper than Swiss Cheese. So there's that, but who wants to put cheese in coffee?

Then I heard of another brand, "Stok" with a line over the O. It was significantly cheaper but it was available at Shoprite and I practically live at Shoprite so this looked like a major win. I'm willing to ignore the line over the O in the same way I could look past the man-bun on the Coldbruh. I drank it. I don't know if it was the lack of Swiss water, or the fact that it was slow brewed, but the coffee lacked any will to fight. It wasn't bad, per se, but it lacked depth and character. It just wasn't that great. I looked at the ingredients (DECAFFEINATED COFFEE (WATER, DECAFFEINATED COFFEE), NATURAL FLAVOR.) and I noticed that the drink has 3 carbs per serving. I have no idea where those carbs are coming from. Look at the ingredients. What is providing carbs? "Natural Flavors"?

And as I finished the first 48 ounces, I noted that the bottle says, "Coffee Beverage." What the heck is a coffee beverage as compared to coffee? And with those ingredients? Do we have to call it "cofee" so that it isn't held to the standards of actual coffee?

Those are my choices. I also drink a lot of decaf (not herbal) iced tea. Don't get me started on decaf tea.

War of the Words [sick]

 I had heard that there was a new movie available, and I'm not one to say no to a very small group of movies that I can't fully define. But this one boasted an incredibly low score on Rotten Tomatoes so the promise of a horrible movie got me.

I took a look: War of the Worlds (and I didn't hate the Tom Cruise version). Ninety minutes. But it seemed like more. A lot more. Like it would never end.

First, the good news -- the story telling technique was interesting and was a great comment on our reliance on technology and social media. But the reality of data collection was downright scary (if a tad unrealistic).

Now, the rest. Ice Cube is really the worst actor I have seen. Maybe ever. I have seen worse from non-actors, but this is a guy who is supposedly an actor. He was just bad. But this is appropriate because he was playing the absolute worst hero, ever. An unlikable jerk who doesn't know if he wants to keep his glasses on or take them off. So he just yells.

The effects were a small cut above an Asylum flick. The plot, pacing and writing were miserable and, worse, illogical. Continuity wasn't even attempted. The product placement is so thick that there was placement WITHIN other placement.

I saw this on Amazon Prime Video and it was offered with limited commercial interruptions. Too limited. There needed to be more interruptions.

One thing to look for -- go to about 1:06 and watch Mr. Cube's mini rant. That is actually good stuff. Then slog through the stock footage hit parade and listen carefully at 1:16:45 (approx) after he punches the thing. You're welcome.

It was a compelling movie in it own way -- I can admit that. But at the same time, it was infuriatingly bad, with a story that made no sense. I think I caught COVID by watching it.

National Fake League has begun again!

 A new season and a new opportunity to rig games. My movement to reveal the hidden layers of scripting in the NFL continues!

I was watching a preseason game yesterday (Eagles vs. Bengals). Third quarter, last minute of play in the quarter. The play happens and the quarterback, under pressure has to dump the ball. After the play, the booth guy says, "and we have a flag." OK, that happens. But the call that we hear is "illegal formation" (or possibly "illegal motion," I wasn't paying total attention). Then they showed the replay and it is clear that there was a holding penalty at the end of the play. The hold was right in front of the official (heck, the defender raised his arms after the hold and looked at the official with that "wasn't me" face) and then the flag flew. It was obvious from the timing and location of the flag that it wasn't a pre-snap penalty. It was a hold, clear as day.

No mention by anyone in the booth. In fact, no speaking. Cut to comemrcial.

Eh, I will pass

With all the fuss about AI recently (most of it made by me...you should see the living room) I decided to turn my gaze inward and try to figure out my resistance to interacting with the future rulers of earth.

What follows is a series of observations, not a cohesive essay, so bare with me (I'm not wearing pants).

I have, on my phone, a couple of these apps that present a human voice and mechanical mind. Thing is, the spoken word component is a lie. All one ever needed was a written-to-speech converter. This is nothing new https://www.naturalreaders.com/online/ . Heck, go back and watch Wargames -- the WOPR (nicknamed Joshua) communicates in written words but the synthesizer converts it to speech. It isn't speaking. So let's get that out of the way. The computer is still running and still running like a computer. What we have is really just a spoken word interface for a text based search engine.

See, that's the thing. Underneath it all, the "AI" is just a search engine and a predictive language engine. There is no thought or consideration. It is just as easy for me to type in a search as it is for me to speak (unless I'm driving). And while the results can be combined and read to me, all we have is a program that mines for info in the same old way.

Some of the more advanced interfaces attempt to refine their approach, but really they are all just running an algorithm to recognize words, create searches and then put the information together in sentence form. And you can "speak" back to them. But what do they do with the words you say? Bottom line is that the system is recognizing words and phrases and assembling words and phrases in return. But none of it is real. 

Our approach to language is that we master spoken word communication first. We speak before we can read. The written form of the language then spends a lifetime trying to catch up. We develop inflection, intonation, pauses, body language and all sorts of things that allow us to communicate in the spoken sphere even without the specific use of words. We can pick up on sarcasm, or lies, flirting or fear and we recognize the limitations of written language in capturing the meta data of our conversation.

Computers are native to the written language. That's all they know -- words and phrases and their semantic position and value. Not only do we lose the emotional context when we type, but a computer is incapable of recognizing and including spoken word tools when it tries to transfer its data to the spoken word. 

But we forget that the computer can't pick up on subtleties, choose to omit, or lie or spin and we project our expectations and our emotional content onto what the computer presents. So when I sit down and speak with my Gemini, while it might sound understanding or might make me feel better, it isn't really doing anything intelligent. It is Eliza for a new generation. In truth, spoken natives (humans) and written natives (computers) will always be separated by this rift.

On another note, I was shown this thing called "Grok" yesterday. Grok takes still photos and turns them into 5 second videos. I was able to see a video of my mother (A"H) when she was younger. I saw a "video" of me as a baby. And you can set it to be normal or funny. But the bottom line is IT NEVER HAPPENED. We are recording over the past because we think that a computer's revisionist vision of our past is preferable as it is in motion. We are dissatisfied with the fact that in the past, certain technologies didn't exist so we are inventing a more technologically gifted past which then creates a false version of our own histories. We can't even believe our own photos anymore. This isn't only about the distant past. I can show someone a "video" of a wedding from last night and that person will assume that the video is an actual recording of  the events of last night. But it might have no basis in any truth but it will look authentic and might lead people to draw conclusions, pass along stories or perpetuate the lie. And how can it be disproven?

I just sent a letter out to the student body as composed by AI. Next I'll send out one that's actually useful

Garbage time

 I have a demonstrated record of saving the world. I gave you all my sage advice here and I stand by it. But I'm no one trick pony. I am willing to trick ponies many times! So here is my new way to save the world.

If I recall correctly, we have a space station. We keep it up in space somewhere and from it, you can see my house. We are also hoping to be able to build more space stations and maybe a staging area for travel to other places, like space and stuff.

Also, and here's a fact you can take to the bank, the sun is large and has a strong gravitational pull. The bank doesn't care, but you do you. I would assume that science types could figure out how to move space stuff into a trajectory that will eventually have it crash into the sun -- or to be more precise, burn up as it nears the sun. And because space has no speed limits, we can develop a slingshot or some sort of cannon that shoots stuff towards the sun at really high speeds for fairly low cost because we don't care about safety and such.

So here's the plan -- we make a stripped down space hauler and load it up with trash, then we send it up to the space station which then takes the trash and fires it into the sun. Bam. No more garbage problem. The sun won't mind because it is a mass of incandescent gas a gigantic nuclear furnace and has no feelings that matter.

But, you say, it is prohibitively expensive to fire stuff into space. What if we compressed our trash so much that a lot fit on the spaceship? Then we wouldn't have to make that many trips. And what if we found a way to turn some of that trash into a fuel that would serve the propulsion needs. How tough can that be? Lots of stuff burns, so just burn lots of stuff. The ride doesn't need to be smooth as the rocket can be unmanned and remotely piloted and reused.

So basically, we can get rid of our garbage (and the pollution that incinerating it would create on earth), energize our space program and save humanity.

You're welcome.

Radio, Radio

I like radio. In fact, I like radio so much that I went to school to study radio. And you know what I did? I studied radio and it was glorious. I practiced being on the radio, learning how to run a radio station, editting material for the radio, and even producing a live show and conducting interviews. I was a radio junkie par excellence.

But, as the talmud often asks, "why radio?" This is a fair question, and, as with most such questions, it goes back to childhood trauma. Not so much trauma as craziness. Yeah, that's the word.

I went through all sorts of crazinesses as a youth, and one I remember, and I have no idea how or when it started, was a fear that I was the only one left alive and awake on the planet. Yes. That was a real fear of mine. I needed to be back home and in bed before my parents went to sleep. I was afraid that I was all alone. Really, that's what it boiled down to -- I hated being alone. So when I went down the block to a friend's house (yes, to play D+D...shhhhh) and my parents said that they were going to sleep early, I left while it was broad daylight and sprinted home so as to be there and safe. Crazy, I know.

Until one night, when I turned on the radio. It somehow reminded me that while I was lying there, all alone, there were other people alive and working. To know that I could turn on the radio and hear people who shared the night with me was to connect with reality and to be part of something. It restored a sense of well being. Maybe that seems grandiose but it actually was that life changing for me. So I really got into listening to the radio and I felt a kinship with it.

In college, I started out just being a guy. A guy who had some friends but hadn't found his calling. Then, sometime in my sophomore year, someone invited me to the radio station. And that was that. I again felt like I could connect with people -- other employees, radio devotees and other hangers on. People called in to tell me that they heard me; I was the voice in the night representing all that is still alive, their beacon. Even in the depths of 3:30 AM, I was alive and so were listeners. Some called in and that was always weird, but hey -- alive!

No, I am not invoking any Bon Jovi song. Radio didn't save my life. It just validated my neuroses so, yay radio!

A book review for the 9th of Av

 Strange choice of topic, I know, but I spent much of yesterday reading Noa Tishby's "Israel" and I wanted to sum up my thoughts about it.

It isn't a bad book. That's what I'm saying on a bottom line level. Now to the specifics.

First, super to you, Ms. Tishby, for writing this book. It has the potential to do good. So, yeah.

But here's where I start getting critical. First off, the tone of the book betrays that the author doesn't know what kind of book she wants to write. Her use of slang and catchphrases already makes her prose look dated, but it also screams of patronizing younger readers. Here's a remarkable fact, youth of the world, Noa Tishby knows what "AF" stands for. Isn't that grand? And that she uses it repeatedly; that makes her cool, right? She uses "cray" so she must be in touch with youth culture, right? Feh. She doesn't know for whom she is writing this, struggling to balance the tongue in cheek with the historical. This just waters down its factual power.

Also, I wasn't keeping count, but I found at least 3 errors in the text. One was an internal contradiction, one bespoke an ignorance of the bible and one flawed historical reference. And the transliteration and translation of some of the Hebrew was horrible. If the book wants to be taken seriously as a reference guide, then its facts must be above reproach. But if I, a guy sitting on a couch, trying to avoid humanity, can spot easy mistakes, others can. And if I find 3, I worry that there are 30. It is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. How can I trust the rest of the work if I can find mistakes in it?

She also doesn't seem to know if she is writing a memoir of her family, a series of shout outs to her friends and colleagues, or a work of historical significance. She bounces between voices, foci and subjects, often addressing the reader directly in a way that undercuts the ability to take the work seriously.

Her facts are great. She does break down history into understandable chunks, but this reveals another area of difficulty for the author. Tishby is an avowed and unapologetic leftist (as it relates to Israeli policies). She does try to acknowledge her agenda and balance with a presentation of both political sides, but every time she does this, it seems that she simply points out why the right was right and why all of her left-leaning stances have been disappointed by reality. But she still tries to keep to the left.

This is a book that could unite disparate elements of Israeli society (or the American diaspora Jewish society) and is a book that could have been so much better had the content been handled more competently. It has stuff I haven't read before (historical facts that, if they are accurate, are very important in presenting the Israeli position) but it also wallows in the whole "my family was awesome and I have suffered in between all the stuff I have accomplished so I will speak for everyone and say, my family was awesome. And also, the people I quote from our conversation also wrote books that support what they told me personally because I'm a celebrity in Hollywood"

At first I wanted to hate this as a self-indulgent piece of promotion. Then I wanted to look it because it brought a good organizational scheme and some valuable facts to the table. hen I wanted it to be done because I got tired of her bouncing around, paralleling her family's existence with that of the state of Israel.

So, is it a good book? Yes and no. Worth reading, especially on the 9th of Av? Yes, but maybe take a salt suppository before you start.

MCLANE!

 As I thumbed through the detritus that passes for television, with the championship spud, and the reality shows about swapping your spouse with a bear on a remote island, and the soap doctors, I fell upon the 5th installment of the Die Hard chain, "A Good Day to Die Hard." It was just starting and I, never having seen it, felt that this was an opportunity heaven sent for me to brush up on my cultural knowledge. 

This movie, the final installment (since the 6th one was canceled) of the Die Hard franchise has Bruce Willis' John McLane running through Moscow, making a mess of things and whining about being on vacation. While there were a few moments in the 4th movie that strained credulity, this movie choked the life out of credulity and then sat on its corpse after eating beans. Lots of beans. Everything about this movie is bad -- from the acting and dialogue to the incidental music and the effects.  The story didn't really exist.

The movie was actually offensively bad. Why offensively? Because someone or ones, somewhere thought that the audiences were so stupid that they would not notice how bad this movie is. Shame on you, media gatekeepers, and how dare you think that I am that dim.

I enjoyed the first 3 movies and didn't hate the fourth. This 5th one was beneath contempt. Fortunately, I keep extra contempt under there so I was OK.

I do have an idea, though -- I'd like them to take the first part of the movie, culminating in the three protagonists driving off together, and then reshoot the rest so that it plays like Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood, and make it a travel film. Think "To Wong Fu..."

Bleeding Blue and Orange

 As a dyed in the wool Mets fan, I have learned to live with disappointment. I have learned not to get my hopes up so that, when the team chokes, as, statistically, they will, I won't feel too, too horrible. I recall as a youth, watching the Mets and Yankees playing the Mayor's Trophy game. When the Mets won this meaningless, pre-season exercise (the Mets went 10-8-1) I celebrated because I knew it wasn't going happen much and a little bit of a moral victory was enough.

The midsummer classic was always something of a let down as well. The Mets, you see, were not very good and were often populated by players who were, well, unremarkable outside the confines of my mind. So while some teams, their magical players topping all the lists, contributed chunks to the All-Star team, I always had to make due with the fallback -- each team gets at least one player on the team, regardless of votes. I always wanted that Mets player to do something remarkable and prove that the team had value and stars and its own magic.

This is why 1979 was a high point for me. The Mets had 2 (count 'em, TWO) players on the roster, catcher John Stearns and first baseman Lee Mazzilli. Stearns was a legend. I was just a boy, but he was everything a catcher was supposed to be, and more. Both were approximately .260 hitters and neither was destined for Cooperstown. Stearns was a reserve and didn't see any action. Mazz got up twice to represent the Flushing Faithful. He tied the game in the 8th with a homerun (IIRC, it hit the yellow line) and then forced in the leading run with a walk an inning later.

And there it was. Our guy, a Met, didn't just play but was instrumental in getting the win for the National League! Without him, the NL would not have its 45–48–2 record in All-Star games.

And as a 10 year old Mets fan, things were not going to get much better than that. Even today, as the Mets are actually playing something resembling baseball and they have enough of an imposing line up that their players actually get voted and start the game, I get a thrill when I read that Pete Alonso hit a homer in the All-Star Game, but it isn't the same. Back then, that home run was proof of life. It was a shock as the whipping boys from Queens finally showed up.

That year, the Mets finished 6th in the division, with a record of 63-99-1 but for one shining moment, I had reason to brag.

Childhood trauma

 I have stumbled upon a trauma from my youth, and I wished to confront it and commit it to form, lest I ever forget (as happens more and more these days). Now, when someone calls me out for some reason, i have another trauma in my stable that I can trot out and blame. Winning!

This is the scenario which inspires deep and deeply held dread -- hanging around with friends, getting ready to play softball. They are all talking about breaking in their new gloves, and one, clearly an expert points out the inmportant of applying neat's foot oil.

They all pause and nod, pounding their fists into their gloves in silent agreement.

I am afraid to say, "Hey, excuse me everybody, but what is a 'neat' and why would you somehow want to get oil from it's feet?"

A New Ad Campaign Idea

 Pick a competitive binary from the marketplace. The ad is an interview with a representative of one product. During the interview, he bad mouths his competition and the people who patronize his competition. Handheld camera and the framing as a hidden or candid moment...the camera quickly focuses on a bag from the competition. The rep looks at it and at the camera and says "I wouldn't ever use it if it didn't work so well."

Collective Stupidity, a rant

As I was watching TV last night, it dawned on me not just that we have evolved into a species that cannot fold a road map but is fearless about going unfamiliar places because of a slavish faith in Waze or some equivalent. We cannot think but we can know a lot more by virtue of the cloud.

The weather alerts (because, hey, it's gonna rain, and the people need to know) struck me as concerning. The weather folk (and a proud people they are) hype up a weather "event" and turning it into a weather "crisis." More rain! Run for your lives. You've seen rain, but not like this. Film at eleven. They bring in experts who show us amorphous but colorful blobs so we can tell if it is raining outside because looking would be too much trouble. And I'd be disappointed if I looked outside and didn't see red and orange hovering everywhere like the doppler readout on TV.

Meanwhile, the talking heads who have a lot of experience not getting in out of the rain tell me things like "Don't put your head under water and try to breathe" and "you know the joke about the flood and the guy on the roof who prays to be saved et cetera and then at the end, God says that he sent 3 boats?  Well that's crap. There will be no divinely inspired boats. Leave now." The underlying message is "prove to the world that every quasi- human on the evolutionary train that led to you didn't die in vain -- use your brain and don't be stupid."

Expected and usual weather patterns (heck, we have a hurricane season so we know they're coming and we can stop shhoting ducks and aliens and start shooting hurricanes) should be something we are used to by now. In the same way that the traffic report doesn't include all the places at which there is always traffic, so noting it is unnecessary, the idea that after a humid day, there will be torrential down pours should not surprise anyone. And we have all lived through it, so all we need is a weather person saying "expect the usual heavy rains from this time to that time and act accordingly." Period. Done.

But we are a nation of shouting because shouting (especially shouting first) is what makes the green flow so we send fools into the storm to tell you to be inside, and we remind you that surfing during a hurricane, brave and awesome looking as it might be, should be discouraged except among the most hard core and awesome people, so that's not you, right? Wink wink. See you on the beach. And I have become a member of the "cull the herd" school of curmudgeonliness so you kids go and have fun. We have to tell drivers, "Don't drive into standing water if you can't judge the depth and can't see the other side, and don't drive into flowing water at all. You can get donuts tomorrow." The expectation of idiocy (and the reliance on it to provide for quality news reports) creates an intellectual elite. Not only do they understand this pandering to the lower intellectual classes, but they are acutely aware of themselves at the top of the smarts-food chain because the mass of people haven't a clue.

This leads, of course, to bilateral resentment (how dare you be so smart! vs. how dare you be so stupid!) and, probably, helter skelter.

Random Rambling

The human race has continued to evolve over time. I, for example, am no longer monkey, but I am now a chimpanzee (h/t Beck). I believe, though, that environmental factors have influenced the way we have evolved. As medicine has evolved, we have become both stronger and weaker; more informed and cautious, but more reliant on experts and this leads to a decentralized society, no longer with a specific medicine woman or man.

So things change. Heck, I think that if we were to make it 95 feet down the line to first base, there would be an initial increase in outs, but eventually, the athletes would get stronger and faster and evolve into a new runner who can beat that throw.

Technology has helped us evolve into a species with a shorter attention span. We have also lost a baseline set of gross motor skills and strength because we focus on smaller, lighter devices (I am guessing that fine motor skills have improved over the years, just not the muscles that have to do with writing stuff by hand). The computer age made our ability to outsource thinking easier and we developed to expect instant answers, and immediate access to things that in the past we would never have been able to approach. The concept of "digital solitude" (that is, our practice of spending more hours in front of a keyboard than interacting with people) has apparently led to a declining birth rate. (the NYT article is behind a paywall, so here's the NY Post https://nypost.com/2025/03/31/lifestyle/screen-time-blamed-for-cross-cultural-drop-in-birth-rates/)

This isn't just about the loss of a skill, or some sort of experience gap, but a rewiring of our brains and bodies to be able to excel in a very different type of world. The continual imposition of AI into our daily lives will force us to evolve more, to depend on technology so as not to be able to do things on our own.

We are becoming extensions of the cloud, instead of the cloud being an extension of us.

the Pacekeeper

I pace. A lot. I find myself just wandering back and forth, possessed by some manic energy which manifests as a slow shuffle back and forth, not active enough to burn any calories, but not slow enough to sit down. It's a lose-lose, as long as "it" isn't "weight."

I come by this pacing habit honestly. No stealer of paces, I. It is genetic. I first noticed that my uncle was a pacer a long time ago. He was over at our house and he paced. And I noticed it. Sort of hard to hide, but I am still proud of my observational skills. Therefore, since he paces, and he is my uncle, science demands that I pace as well. Quads erat demonstratum, baby. Amirite?

By the way, when I say that my uncle is a pacer, I refer neither to the car, nor the basketball team, for as far as I know, he is neither of those. There might be other things he isn't, but I'm going to start by being sure he isn't an auto or professional athlete. I'm pretty sure he isn't a horse, but who knows? Call that indications for further research.

I actually believe that the canals on Mars were created by a couple of neurotic people full of nervous energy, pacing back and forth waiting for something. Just over millions of years.

So I was standing in the shower this morning and I realized that the water drains, because it does. Then, when I turned the water off, I noticed that it still dribbled and moved towards the drain. You see, a bathtub has a slight pitch, a shallow down-angle which encourages the water to roll down, overcoming the pull of gravity and geting water to flow. Amazing.

What that means is that if I walk from one end of the tub to the other, I am walking downhill! And, more importantly, if I turn around and walk back, I'm walking UPHILL! So now, if I pace while I taking a shower then half of my steps are uphill. I'm guaranteed to get in shape as long as i walk in the shower. Genius, I say.

Next, I have to find a way to get my bicycle into the tub so I can work on my hill climbing skills as I prep for the Tour de France.

Recent Viewing

 On my diet, one thing I'm allowed to consume is media, so I have been watching stuff recently and I have opinions.

First, the movie "Heads of State" with John Cena and Idris Elba.

It was sufficient and passable. It doesn't stay with you much but it was certainly diverting for a little bit.

Then I finished watching Ironheart. Six episodes, the first three make a reference or two to the greater MCU but episodes 4-6 are all about integrating with the universe. The universe, thus far, has tread very carefully on the tension between magic and technology. Tony Stark and Dr. Strange epitomized that conflict and then Spider Man bridged the gap, briefly. But Ironheart really tries to reconcile the two on an institutional and not anecdotal level. Previously, magic was about the stones, or combat and not about the existence of magic in the "real world." This show tries to bring magic into our world unapologetically, throwing around buts of magic and connecting it to technology just as a matter of course. Note -- The Librarians The Next Chapter has been dealing with this all season and somehow, they deal with it more cleanly. In the MCU it just opens up way too many questions. The series opened up a LOT and there are loads of questions left which might help this series somehow connect to some other phase 5, 6 or 7 piece.

So was it "good"? No. It was meh. It had plot holes and lazy writing but it did work very hard to make me question so much of what I thought I understood about the MCU. Is that a desired conclusion? My guess is that full MCU fluency will require one to watch this. It won't be especially enjoyable, but you have your marching orders.

And finally, I watched "The Old Guard 2." Here is my best advice: before starting this, watch The Old Guard again. Then turn the TV off and go to sleep. You're welcome.

Geez, that is a bad, bad movie. It looks like it was 3 different movies that were quickly and carelessly slapped together. It is a mess. If I had seen this first, I wouldn't have cared about a sequel. And I still don't.

Pretty darned bad. 

Dream fulfillment

 I hear of a story of a sage who, after many years of struggle, makes it to the Kotel, the Western Wall.

He finally is there, praying with fervor as this is the object of his many years' quest. He said that he had dreamed of seeing its splendor every day and this was a dream come true. 

And now, he was asked, now what will you do? You have been to the wall. What's left to achieve?

And he said, I still dream that dream. Every night. I shall work to fulfill it every day.

Just in time

 Movies don't present an accurate or realistic time scale. A guy has to drive any distance so he jumps into a conveniently close car and zooms off. He doesn't futz with the mirrors or seats, or accidentally turn on the wipers while trying to figure out where the gear shift is. No messing around with the air conditioning or heating or starting the car and having the radio playing loudly on a weird station. And he knows the way, doesn't hit traffic, finds a spot, makes all the lights, skids to a stop in a conveniently close parking spot, and doesn't get tangled in the shoulder belt. No waiting to close all the window, finishing singing to just this song, turning the key and having to jiggle it to get it out of the ignition, checking the back seat, or making a note of where he parked. He shows up right on time, regardless of distance.

Any way, time's passage in modern cinema is inconsistent and often arbitrary. So there.

On a side note, I watched the last half an hour of "Knowing" last night and I have to say that the ending was completely horrible. It was just goofy and silly.

Questions about the strike zone

 

Computers will eventually take over calling balls and strikes using a series of cameras and lasers to assess the location of the ball as it passes through the strike zone.

The strike zone, as it is based on the physical proportions of each individual [3], is constantly shifting as the batter moves in the batter’s box so the computer system would have to be able to figure the ball’s passage at the version of the strike zone extant at the specific instant that the ball crosses the plane of the zone.

The strike zone is a projection out from the batter’s body which means it has depth (unless it is purely two dimensional projection [2]) and therefore must be accounted as 3 dimensional [ibid, next sentence].

A three dimensional Strike Zone would have the depth equivalent to the breadth, from left shoulder to right shoulder of the batter, as it says, “midpoint between a batter's shoulders”.

************************

“take over” – now they are used on TV (*) and in pre-season as a resource to help in challenges (**)

“a series of cameras and lasers” – which have to be retrofitted into each stadium

“as it passes” –  this will be the explained below

“physical proportions” – As it is written, “The official strike zone is the area over home plate from the midpoint between a batter's shoulders and the top of the uniform pants -- when the batter is in his stance and prepared to swing at a pitched ball -- and a point just below the kneecap. In order to get a strike call, part of the ball must cross over part of home plate while in the aforementioned area.” [1]

“purely two dimensional” – but this leads to the question of “from where on the three dimensional body does the rectangle intersect? The very beginning of the body, the middle or the end?”

“3 dimensional” – questions: where when passing the breadth of the batter, must the ball be in (***) the strike zone? Can it (****) at any point, be “of” the zone, or must it do so at one specific part of the zone, though this would reduce the zone to two dimensions in a way (*****). Can a ball leave or enter the zone during its passage (i.e. is it accounted as a strike from the beginning or at the end (******) but both are unnecessary)?

“a batter's shoulders” – and if the batter moves as the ball passes through do we account the zone based on when the ball passed the midpoint even if the batter crouched at that moment to make the pitch be called a ball?

 

++++++++++++

 

[1] https://www.mlb.com/glossary/rules/strike-zone

[2] see https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/by-ditching-mlb-rule-book-abs-strike-zone-has-found-its-footing/  which states, “Now, the zone is a two-dimensional box set at the halfway point of the plate (measured from front to back)”

[3] page 164 here https://mktg.mlbstatic.com/mlb/official-information/2025-official-baseball-rules.pdf

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

(*) though the image on the screen doesn’t seem to move with the batter and might not be the official strike zone used by the league, just a technological suggestion by the TV system

(**) I have not seen these questions dealt with so I don’t know how the pre-season judging implements its zone

(***) – or according to some, just touching

(****) – is there a minimum percentage [A] of the ball which must pass through or is a ball that even only kisses [B] the zone a strike?

(*****) – as the projection at a standard moment (for example halfway through) could then be accounted from the start as a two dimensional expression as the remainder is never necessary

(******) of a three dimensional zone with depth

 ============

[A] some say any amount, others say one third or one half

[B] as one is next to the other connected at only a certain point but not overlapping at all, as one kisses a holy book. The rules (page 155) state “if any part of the ball passes through any part of the strike zone” but as a ball is a sphere, reckoned in 3 dimensions are we considering the strike zone also 3 dimensional? The remainder of the definition on 155-156 never explicitly says that the zone is two dimensional but it relies on an image on paper which must be 2 dimensional. Can we assume from its use of a 2 dimensional image that it is limiting itself to 2 dimensions or is it simply a convenience because when the rules were written, there was no way to account for depth in diagrams. Or maybe they just didn’t think of this question.

Magical Geometry

I think it is time for us to take a moment and admire baseball.

Is it rigged like football? The jury is still out, but in the meanwhile, we can wax poetic about the game, itself, and ignore the specific iteration that has become the MLB.

First, baseball a 3 season sport. That doesn't mean that the players play during 3 seasons (though they do) but that the sport is, as part of our cultural parlance, become identified with three distinct seasons, something no other sport has accomplished.

Baseball blooms like the early buds, who embrace the spring as it shakes off the winter and use their early flowers to make us all appreciate the change from snow and ice. Baseball heralds the warmth of the spring, and the promise of renewal, a new season, a new chance for the Mets to suck again. Like I said, poetry. It has a spring season which both matters and doesn't, but it is part of the entire baseball season. "It's warm again and there's new grass on the field."

The boys of summer really hit their pace as summer sets in. All the associations (hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet included) of the sport with summer, independence, and American Ingénue-ity, all the way to the Midsummer Classic and beyond identify baseball with the summer -- the heat, the sweat, the flies and grounders.

Then we have the autumn, dominated by the World Series and fall ball. Crisp, clear evenings watching a team work its way through the playoffs easing our way into shorter days and a chill in the air as we near the Fall Classic.

The game defines and is defined by 3 quarters of the year (and the winter meetings plus the various winter leagues) and that's awesome.

Then we have the miracle that is the dimensions in baseball. Somehow, the distance of 90 feet down the baseline is the exact right distance to make ground balls thrown to first a close play. Somehow, the distance of 3-450 feet seems to be the right dimension to weed out the home run hitters from others.

Were the numbers and angles and sizes etc built knowing the limits of human, physical performance, or have we evolved into a species which has certain responses based on the demands of baseball? Was the distance down the lines or from the pitcher to home tinkered with to find the optimal numbers, based on trial and error and human effort? If the distance down the line had been set at 85 feet, would we make for better and faster infielders or just more men on base? Are we driven by baseball, or does baseball reflect some established limitations and reality?

One third of the season is gone and the magic continues.

LFGM

Science Problems

 Yesterday, I proctored a whole bunch of really smart 11th grade kids (who cannot access the internet like my smart TV can, so who's smart now?) as they took an honors level physics final. I took physics when I was in 10th grade and I remember a very few things. I remember vectors -- a vector is the hypoteneuse of a triangle created by someone floating down river while also needing to get to a spot on shore.

Since I'm not much a sailor, I never really worried about vectors but I remember them. And the whole "compute the accelaration" thing doesn't get used much. I just push down the pedal and car makes go fast.

While I was proctoring, I discovered, though, that what I learned as the "left hand rule" is now the "right hand rule"! What the hey? When did that happen? Now, true, my grasp of physics is so limited that when I drop a ball is doesn't hit the ground, but I'm pretty sure that it was the left hand rule and it had something to do with electric current or hitchhiking. The details are not clear -- I took the final in 1985 and didn't do especially well. In fact, I felt that the most precise answer to most questions on a physics test was either "why ask me?" or "yep, that's a toughie". Strangely, those same answers worked for other science and math tests. Talk about grand unification theory!

I have, though, determined that physics, as a discpline has a lock on the best word problems. If you are taking a biology test, you get prompts like, "You eat a piece of cherry pie. Then what happens?" Not very interesting.

Or chemistry? "You add some green powder to some red liquid and light a fire -- present the formula for the brown sludge you have to comb out of your hair after the explosion." I mean, sure, "explosion" but still, meh.

Then you get to physics: "you are holding on end of a mile long spring as you float, alone in the depths of space. How high and how quickly does anyone have to send a magnetic pulse through the aither so that light will refract in a way to close a circuit without any loss of acoustic energy?"

Now that's a prompt.

The Uniform Code

 I crave consistency and predictability. I like to feel in control, so I go places early, thus controlling when I arrive. This all provides a blanket of regularity -- a reassurance that all makes sense.

So imagine my surprise when I turned on the Mets game and saw jerseys like this

I thought I was watching a Rockies game (or a Mariners game). But, no -- this is a Mets uniform which just looks like a Rockies uniform. Or a Mariners uniform.

It used to be so simple. When your team is the home team, it wears a bright white uniform. For away games, your team wears gray ones. If your team colors were blue and orange, the accents would be blue and orange. That was a rule and it made things make sense. Then suddenly, my team has a blue uniform (that's OK, the team colors include blue) and a black uniform, a red uniform and 

 and a green one

I turn on some game and the team in coral with reflective black lettering is playing the team in vermillion with neon lettering but tomorrow, they will be the team in the pixelated grayscale camouflage playing the infrared team wearing the yellow caps to commemorate the loss of the team owner's favorite chimp. Much like Dolly Parton and wigs, the teem never wears the same uniform twice. Now I understand that this is a marketing ploy to get fans to shell out for a uniform in each flavor with every and any font but I shouldn't have to be looking at a color chart to figure out who the home team is.

Home uniform, away uniform. That's all the world needs.

A hot take on current events

 In a recent tragedy, two Israeli embassy employees were shot after an event in Washington, D.C. Aside from the crazies who justify murder and defend it as a viable expression of resistance to actions of a foreign government, people see the murders as wrong. I see the murders as wrong. So let's not get the wrong idea about what I'm about to explore.

One thing which is being thrown around is the claim that the murders were not just an attack on Israel (seeing the 2 employees as proxies) but that they were anti-Semitic. I have been wrestling with that and I'll explain why:

the attacker targeted Israelis (though even this is unknown and until we know how he chose his targets, we won't know his motivation explicitly; we will just be inferring)

the attacker recited slogans that relate to Israel, Gaza and the mideast. He said and did nothing which invoked religion.

one of the victims was not, according to Jewish law, Jewish. Did the shooter know or care about his religion? Does it matter if the attacker THOUGHT he was Jewish? Or thought that he was Jewish according to Judaism (does killing obvious non-Jews coming out of a synagogue make the attack anti-Semitic?) The victim was only patrilineally Jewish -- who determines religion to find out if the attack was religiously motivated?

the attacker attacked outside of a Jewish museum and after an event that was sponsored by a Jewish group. Was it just that assumption of Jewishness because of context?

I just have questions -- I don't know whether this is a prime example of the difference between pure anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, or where this is an example of how the two are conflated accurately.

Standing alone, together

 There's something about a prayer that's magic (H/T SOB).

Every few years, I like to visit Israel because I like to visit the Kotel, the Western Wall. I use those moments to recharge my spiritual battery. I go up to the wall and I close my eyes. I turn on all my other senses and I try to soak in the experience, planting memories and feelings that I will tap into for the next weeks, months and years when I pray elsewhere. It is sort of like my version of Tintern Abbey. 

There is a tension I have noticed in prayer, but not a bad one -- the role of the individual and of the community. We try to pray with a minyan, a quorum, so that we can unite as a congregation and petition God as a force. But our central prayer, the Amidah (standing) [also called the Shmoneh Esrei though that only really applies to the weekday version, and even then, in the breach] separates us from the collective. We stand silently, We retreat into our own personal cocoon of prayer. The community, abuzz with the sounds of prayer turns silent. And when you close your eyes, or cover yourself with a tallit, or look down into your prayerbook intently, everything else disappears and you are now alone, standing in front of the Creator, using your own voice to plead. I close my eyes and I'm in front of the Kotel again. No matter how crowded the room, when I close my eyes, I'm alone -- just me and the big guy. Brutal honesty and no one else is there. The room is empty.

But then, in the words of my prayers, I notice something. Though I am alone in the presence of God, I pray in the plural. It isn't all about me. I'm still part of the collective even in my most private moments. An entire room of inviduals, silently standing before God, pleading for the group. I love that moment because it ties together so many opposites. This prayer symbolizes, to me, the reconciling of theoretically mutually exclusive concepts which then allows me, the finite, to connect with the infinite.

It is a beautiful feeling to so lose yourself in singular prayer that you forget that you are part of a united force of ten or more, all actually praying together, unaware of each other's existence.