Month: January 2024

I went on about it on BlueSky, but one thing I’ve started to get irked by is the complaint from authors of clickbaity articles online that they are not responsible for the titles of the posts their words appear below. While I’m certain that’s true, it’s your name on the thing. If you want someone else to be held to account, point at them, and let them hold specific accountability for their remonstrable actions. Otherwise, your name’s on it, bud. If you don’t agree with it, make that clear and take an actual stand, and not a soft shrug that wants the benefit of the traffic without the blame. Ya can’t have it both ways.

Inputs

1: By the time this publishes, it won’t have happened yet, but I’ll be watching the Buccaneers hosting the Philadelphia Eagles down in Tampa. Do I hold out much hope at their winning? No, no I do not. However! Being a fan is being, by definition, unreasonably supportive of an organization that couldn’t care less about your existence as anything but a paying body, bolstering their bottom line. Fandom continues apace. Go Bucs!

2: I live in Wisconsin, where the entire state is basking in the glow of a blowout victory over the Dallas Cowboys, and will now face the 49ers in California¹Though not in San Francisco, because the stadium is nowhere near the city. next week. It feels like 90’s revivalism, Green Bay and Dallas and San Francisco being the relevant playoff organizations at the end of the season. Here’s hoping for continued success for the Packers, if only for the continued improved moods of my friends and neighbors. When the Packers win, the state is a brighter place to live. The sun shines a little higher in the sky, the beer tastes a little better, the brats snap more tautly, the cheese curds squeak a little sharper. Bang on the drum, and Go Pack Go²Of course, should they and Tampa both win, y’all know which side of the Battle of those Bays I’ll be on.!

3: It is Martin Luther King Jr Day in the US, which is a holiday in remembrance and reverence of the work to recognize and respect the rights of all, and one of the most emblematic figures behind it and out in front of it. I won’t be another white guy to co-opt the day to show my own bonafides or to glom onto an effort by recommending the same things everyone points to today³Other than to remind folks about the Letter from the Birmingham City Jail, written in the margins of a statement from white clergy denigrating the efforts of King and on scraps of paper while a political prisoner, which clearly calls out how safe white “allies” are that in name more than deed, but I would recommend taking at least a few minutes today to read, or watch, or listen to those whose voices keep that effort alive and continue to call attention to our opportunities to create a world ready to accept and include all within it.

Projects In Progress

Diagramming things and determining MVPs, and how to do things with the least amount of effort/long-term cost.

Notes:

• 1
  Though not in San Francisco, because the stadium is nowhere near the city.
• 2
  Of course, should they and Tampa both win, y’all know which side of the Battle of those Bays I’ll be on.
• 3
  Other than to remind folks about the Letter from the Birmingham City Jail, written in the margins of a statement from white clergy denigrating the efforts of King and on scraps of paper while a political prisoner, which clearly calls out how safe white “allies” are that in name more than deed

We’re halfway through the second blizzard of 2024, with about 5-6 inches of snow so far with an estimated accumulation of 10ish for this event, on top of the 8ish from the last one. This Winter took the shit talk personally, and after a brown Christmas and New Year, decided to ring in the changing of the year with enough thick, wet, fluffy snow to turn the world into a frosted wonderland.

Inputs

1: Watched the Friday ep of Pablo Torre Finds Out, with guests Katie Nolan and Dan Soder. It served as a fantastic inside baseball follow-up to her Jeopardy performance earlier in the week, as well as a great recap of the New Year’s Urn drama down in ‘bama.

2: Also watched the Wednesday ep of Pablo Torre Finds Out, in which we learn that Duke all-timer JJ Redick turned down multiple offers to join or outright run coaching staffs for multiple NBA franchises to run his son’s 9-year-old traveling basketball team. An incredibly endearing story about fatherhood, maturity, learning how to lead, and learning the joy of following one’s true values.

I would never have imagined the scrappy Dukie who was easy to loathe in college would turn into someone I immensely respect, not only for his commentary work on his own podcast and on network shows, but as someone who has had to learn how to be the best version of himself, and is sharing that experience with us.

Pablo, I echo so many others in observing, has found an incredible voice on his own show, and these two episodes give a small slice of that larger, laudable whole. You can see, even in his joviality, how much he cares, not just about the topics or the effort of his journalistic instincts, but about the people with whom he spends his hours each week.

3: Via Futurism, a story about Amazon selling products whose sellers have overseen so little that they include labels such as “I’m sorry but I cannot fulfill this request it goes against OpenAl use policy. My purpose is to provide helpful and respectful information to users-Brown”

For a long, long time, Amazon has clearly not given a shit about the quality of products sold via its storefront, happy to be the fulfillment center for whatever from wherever to whomever. It screams out for oversight which seems to echo into the void. And I say this as a (very unsuccessful and to date not-compensated) Amazon “Partner” and as some one who has interviewed for roles at Amazon in the past.

Projects In Progress

No news is news of nothing, I suppose?

A warning in advance¹Mostly to my mom, who reads these and also doesn’t really care about sports in that way. Sorry ma!: we’re going very sports heavy today, because the sports world has gone heavy on its own. That prefaced, lemme check off the list of football stories in the last 48 hours:

• Pete Carroll is out as head coach of the Seahawks
• Nick Saban retires²Dan Lanning has already come out to say he’s staying at Oregon. I’m mildly concerned that Marcus Freeman might get poached for the gig, which would be a real gut-punch in a year that feels like Notre Dame might be lined up for a shot at the title.
• Bill Belichick “mutually separates” from the Patriots
• Mike Vrabel is fired from the Titans, a job no one thought he’d lose so much as potentially choose to leave if the previous point happened for that job
• Pat McAfee concludes his Aaron Rodgers segments through at least the end of the football season

2024 is gonna be one of those years, it feels like. Buckle up, we’re in for a long one!

Inputs

1: So, apparently, in order to give statues to the on-air talent for Emmy wins by the program (who are, by the rules for the award, ineligible to receive them), ESPN submitted fake names as parts of crews for College GameDay and other programs, then removed the name placards from the trophies and replaced them with the on-air talent. This story is both a bizarre and an amazing effort by the producers to circumvent Emmy rules to a) reward, and b) stoke the egos of, the people working on the show for, y’know, working on the show. In conclusion, awards are dumb and make people dumber³Which does not stop my wanting one. Because I am also dumb..

2: Stephen A Smith rode the wave off Katt Williams’ performance on Shannon Sharpe’s show and decided, fuck it, he’s opening the gates on “the fat bastard” for a full damned hour. Dan LeBatard has a great breakdown of the power dynamic behind this whole thing, with Smith coming up on contract renegotiations and the work he’s doing to build his own broadcasting empire as the legacy media continues to fracture and allow for a furthering of the Cult of Personalities era.

Broadcasting rights are essentially the glue holding a lot of these networks together, and as the personalities see this, there’s a scramble to build something for themselves that isn’t beholden to the network for continued existence. Whether sports is a precursor to a larger movement or is a special case due to inherent factors remains to be seen.

3: Ok, non-sports pivot: This story is going rather under the radar in the US, but has some significant lessons that we desperately need to learn, about privatization, the fallibility of algorithmic management, the continued need for common-sense actors to keep a hand on the tiller, and the, not merely deleterious, but actively damaging (to the tune of 4 suicides and hundreds of others convicted of erroneous crimes, their lives ruined, and the institution’s permanent stain). What happened? A poorly programmed algorithm was put in charge of the Post Office in the UK.

This article from 2021 does a good job of explaining some of the technological flaws, as does this appearance from its author on the YouTube series Computerphile. Essentially, entries into an accounting system weren’t handled correctly via software and human errors in how the entries were made into the system, leading to accusations of theft against the individuals running postal offices.

The new attention to the scandal comes at the premiere of a new series on ITV in the UK staring Toby Jones, which takes what is sort of a complex issue related to double-entry bookkeeping, database management, and CRUD issues in writing to said databases, and turns it into an accessible drama about the lives affected by this failure.

Projects In Progress

Actively fighting choice paralysis: the persistent condition of my life.

Notes:

• 1
  Mostly to my mom, who reads these and also doesn’t really care about sports in that way. Sorry ma!
• 2
  Dan Lanning has already come out to say he’s staying at Oregon. I’m mildly concerned that Marcus Freeman might get poached for the gig, which would be a real gut-punch in a year that feels like Notre Dame might be lined up for a shot at the title.
• 3
  Which does not stop my wanting one. Because I am also dumb.