A very reliable actor

Robert Duval has died, and while I wouldn't say that his presence in a film or show would always make me want to see it, it was always clear that he was an extremely reliable, quality actor.   We seem to have fewer of that type of actor around these days - or is that just generic, semi-nostalgic, early geriatric, views forming in my head?  😐    

What a photo...

As I have mentioned over the years, there's a gap below a balcony at our house that possums from time to time use as a nest during the day, and it's particularly charming when it's occupied by a mother and young offspring.  Hence, I can sometimes be sitting on the sofa watching TV, look up out the window and see a furry tail, and know that we have a lodger.

Or, as has been happening recently, I might hear a plop and look out to see a young possum has fallen off the perch, so to speak, and is on the ground; sometimes clawing at the glass window, sometimes in the nearby bush.  When the baby looked too little, we went out and picked up it and put it back up with its mother, which tended to gaze down from above but not often make a move to recover said offspring.  (I suspect they have a big fear factor about being in the open in daylight.).   And even if no one is sitting near that window when the fall happens, our dog has a few times alerted us (by going nuts at clawing and barking at the glass to try together to the furry thing that probably resembles a rat to her part Jack Russell brain) that the baby possum is on the ground again.

Which is all by preamble to posting this recent photo, taken by my daughter, of the young possum in the bush, before it's Mum actually did come down and carry it back up.  (It is, in fact, now big enough to scramble up the bricks itself.)

What a pretty creature, hey?

My daughter sent it to friends, and apparently some said "ooh it's  so clear it looks likes AI", which annoyed her.  "AI is making taking a good photo pointless, if people can't tell if it's real anyway" she grumbled.

So yeah, I guess a clumsy possum has helped, in a very small way, to encourage the "anti AI slop" views of at least two humans. 

I hope this is an adequate palate cleanser to the previous post.  

The "Masterpieces" That Left Me Cold: Why I’m Done Pretending

We’ve all been there. You’re sitting in a theater (or on your couch), the credits roll, and you’re left wondering if you accidentally watched a different movie than the critics did. At the Opinion Dominion, we don't give out participation trophies for "ambition." If the engine doesn't start, the car doesn't move—no matter how pretty the paint job is.

Today, I’m putting two "untouchables" on the chopping block.

1. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

The world called it a "symphony of motion." I called it an exhausting, two-hour desert trek that forgot to pack a script.

I’m told the "visual storytelling" is the point. I’m told the practical effects are the hero. But at some point, I need a reason to care about the people inside the vibrating metal boxes. Without a narrative pulse, Fury Road is just high-budget noise. It’s a technical achievement, sure, but as a movie? I’m still waiting for the plot to kick in.

2. The Truman Show (1998)

This is usually the part where someone says, "But the philosophy! The allegory for the media!" I get it. The idea of The Truman Show is fascinating. But the execution? It’s a tonal mess that collapses the moment you ask a single logical question. We are expected to believe a global corporation spent thirty years and billions of dollars on a simulation that could be ruined by a falling light or a localized rain shower?

Jim Carrey is doing his best, but the movie is so busy being "profound" that it forgets to be believable. It feels like a high-concept "Twilight Zone" episode stretched thin until it breaks. I didn't feel enlightened; I felt preached at by a movie that wasn't as smart as it thought it was.

3. Uncut Gems (2019)

Critics praised this movie for being "stressful" and "anxiety-inducing." Since when did a panic attack become a substitute for a good story? Watching Adam Sandler’s Howard Ratner make the same catastrophic mistake for two hours isn't "visceral filmmaking"—it’s repetitive and irritating.

There is no character arc here; there is just a man shouting over electronic music until the movie finally, mercifully, ends. If I wanted to feel stressed and annoyed by someone else's bad financial decisions, I’d just check my Twitter feed for free.

 

---

The Bottom Line: A "great concept" is just a sketch. A "technical marvel" is just a demo. If the soul isn't there, I’m not buying the ticket.

I know, I know—I’m "missing the point." Or maybe the point just wasn't that sharp to begin with. Which "classic" do you secretly (or loudly) despise? Let’s burn some bridges in the comments.

 

An experiment

Inspired by this video by a very, very angry guy in the US who found Google dropped his company search result ranking dramatically, only to get it back to No 1 by following Google AI's re-write suggestions, I thought I would ask Gemini to make a post that would attract views here.

I expect it will definitely not work - it seems to think (perhaps swayed by noting today's post about The Pitt?) that I primarily write about movies and TV and such like.   It suggested the "contrarian opinion" post, and I nominated the three movies that came to mind as awful, even though critics liked them.  The views expressed do sum up pretty well why I think they are terrible - but the writing sounds nothing like me.

But I'll just post it and see what happens.  

The Pitt, noted (with spoilers if you have never watched it)

I've never commented about The Pitt, the first season of which I watched at the end of last year, and I'm a couple of episodes into the new season.

Of the first series, I would say it wasn't 100% flawless, but it was extremely likeable and addictive.

The flaws:   the whole Dr Robby freaking out with guilt on the anniversary of his mentor's (I think) death a few years ago seemed a bit heavy handed and unrealistic to me - as was the framing device of the season that made it seem like doctors at this workplace pretty much routinely consider suicide at the end of each shift!  The black doctor who stoically continued at work despite having a miscarriage - seems to be pushing credibility a bit too.   And a pedant might also argue that Dr Robby is too good to be real - but the season gives him some flawed moments too, and Noah Wylie is such a charismatic actor, he really sells the character.

As to why I like it a lot is pretty much down to the quality of the ensemble acting, some of which felt a bit "clunky" in the first few episodes, but that feeling had gone entirely by about half way through the season.   You really, really start to feel that they are real, and the subtly of some of the interactions - where a mere look on their faces can convey so much meaning - gives me a lot of pleasure.   As does the superb choreography of the camera moving around the set.   I bet Spielberg, the master of "blocking", loves it too.

There's also the fun of whether or not you'll be grossed out (or surprised in some other way) each episode by the extreme care they have taken to depict surgery, injuries, body parts (or childbirth!) realistically.  There must some Hollywood props company that specialises in human bodies and body parts that must be making a great income from this show. 

I also love how it incorporates obviously real issues in the American health system - which probably makes MAGA types think it's being too "political".   (They probably hate the sympathetic way it portrays  multiculturalism in the workplace too.)   

So, overall, it's a fantastic modern update of ER, and a couple of months ago, the New York Times had a long article on the career of Noah Wylie which paints him as a nice guy who really deserves the success of this show.  (He is a co-producer too.)

So, I strongly recommend it.   

      

Suspect this is true

From an article in the Atlantic (mostly behind a paywall, though):

Many people think that they have a set type, and that all they need for eternal bliss is to find someone who matches it. When people peruse dating profiles, they’re often looking for someone who has specific interests, qualities, or hobbies. But according to a growing body of relationship research, many people end up marrying someone with few of their must-haves and a lot of “haves” they didn’t think they desired. A person might say that they’re looking for a partner who’s funny and conscientious, but then end up in a happy relationship with someone who is neither of those things. “People don’t know what they want,” Samantha Joel, a psychologist at Western University in Ontario who studies relationships, told me, “and people don’t know what they’re going to like until they meet someone.”

About the new photo under the title

It's been many years since I changed the photo at the top of the blog (and I think it's only visible on the web version, not the mobile version, anyway); but I just wanted to say that it is cropped from a photo taken on the recent Japan trip, looking towards the mountains around Nangano.

What caught my eye about it is the way the two "background" clouds look very much like they are were put there by two strokes of an ink brush.  

That is all.

Major media warnings on American recreational drug use are on the rise

It has seemed to me for a while now that there is something of a pushback on the easy access to (and overuse of) recreational drugs (of the "other than alcohol and nicotine" kind) being reflected in the big US news sources I subscribe to.   (And it's funny how they are classified by Rightists as "too far Left", even today.)

First, the New York Times editorial board:

It’s Time for America to Admit That It Has a Marijuana Problem

Some of the highlights:

This editorial board has long supported marijuana legalization. In 2014, we published a six-part series that compared the federal marijuana ban to alcohol prohibition and argued for repeal. Much of what we wrote then holds up — but not all of it does.

At the time, supporters of legalization predicted that it would bring few downsides. In our editorials, we described marijuana addiction and dependence as “relatively minor problems.” Many advocates went further and claimed that marijuana was a harmless drug that might even bring net health benefits. They also said that legalization might not lead to greater use.

It is now clear that many of these predictions were wrong. Legalization has led to much more use. Surveys suggest that about 18 million people in the United States have used marijuana almost daily (or about five times a week) in recent years. That was up from around six million in 2012 and less than one million in 1992. More Americans now use marijuana daily than alcohol.

This wider use has caused a rise in addiction and other problems. Each year, nearly 2.8 million people in the United States suffer from cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, which causes severe vomiting and stomach pain. More people have also ended up in hospitals with marijuana-linked paranoia and chronic psychotic disorders. Bystanders have also been hurt, including by people driving under the influence of pot.

The article does not argue for re-introduced prohibition, though, but makes a very reasoned case that the legalisation in the US has happened with far, far too light a hand on regulation.   (Something that has been obvious to outside observers - like me! - from the start.)    

The rest of the piece makes some good, practical suggestions, the first of which (significantly raising tax on joints) I bet will have induced some fury in the comments.  But the second point is so obvious, it's baffling why it hasn't happened already:

A second step should be restrictions on the most harmful forms of marijuana, which would also be similar to regulations for alcohol and tobacco. Today’s cannabis is far more potent than the pot that preceded legalization. In 1995, the marijuana seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration was around 4 percent THC, the primary psychoactive compound in pot. Today, you can buy marijuana products with THC levels of 90 percent or more. As the cliché goes, this is not your parents’ weed. It is as if some beer brands were still sold as beer but contained as much alcohol per ounce as whiskey.

Not surprisingly, greater THC potency has contributed to more addiction and illness. The appropriate response is both to make illegal any marijuana product that exceeds a THC level of 60 percent and to impose higher taxes on potent forms of pot, much as liquor is taxed more heavily than beer and wine.  

 Anyway, it's well argued.  Let me dip my toes into the comments section, which (if past experience is any guide) might be full of users naysaying that there is a problem at all.  

Well, blow me down:  I've probably scrolled though to about 50 - 100 comments, and I would say those supporting the editorial are running at about 7 or 8 out of 10.   Seems to me there may be something of a real sea change going on.

Another couple recent articles of interest appeared at the Washington Post, written by a doctor, warning of the dangers in the rise of recreational use of the fly agaric mushroom (you know, this one):

 

 

which, it turns out, is toxic and can kill.  Again, a significant part of the problem is the America capitalist system that gets away with making exaggerated or false claims because of the slowness of government to regulate: 

Despite those dangers, a fast-growing consumer market has taken hold. Vape shops, convenience stores and a cottage industry of online retainers now sell harvested amanita mushrooms and products containing their main psychoactive compound, muscimol. These products are frequently marketed with sweeping and baseless health claims, from curing anxiety and depression to enhancing creativity, improving sleep and offering a “safe” psychedelic high. ...

Eric C. Leas, a public health professor at the University of California at San Diego, believes the surge is partly due to consumers conflating these mushrooms with psilocybin. That confusion is amplified by aggressive marketing and distribution. “A lot of companies are looking for a new edge in the competitive market of loosely regulated psychoactive substances and trying to capitalize on consumers’ interest in mushrooms,” Leas told me.

Then she wrote about "microdosing" on hallucinogens such as psilocybin, MDMA and LSD.   

 

I've always been a skeptic about that practice, and yeah, predictably, it has no proven benefits at all:

A 2026 meta-analysis of 14 studies found no overall cognitive benefit from microdosing psychedelics. In fact, users showed a significant decrease in cognitive control.

People who choose to use these substances for lifestyle enhancement should understand that the current evidence does not back up the promised effects. If the goal is better mood and improved mental sharpness, they should consider evidence-based approaches, including regular physical activity and strong social connections.

Good to see some pushback on silly trends, often pushed along by greed.

 

On another topic related to libertarian views on drug use:   I've noticed that despite the best effort of the tobacco industry to morph itself into a "tobacco and vape" industry, Asian countries seem to be emphatically not buying it.   (Sinclair Davidson must be crushed.   Also - is he still doing blockchain twaddle research for a living?   Along with "I'm the nice one from the IPA" Chris Berg?  Yeah, seems so.  Still, cool that they decided to go in a "let's limit our profile and influence by going into a field that will soon be considered a bit of puffery with next to no practical use" path.  I'm sure it provided some nice conference holidays, but at what cost of relevance to anything real?)

 

Anyway, I digress into bitchiness!

 

The reason I'm talking about vaping in Asia is because I've noticed how widespread the vaping ban now is: 

Major countries with strict bans include

Singapore, Thailand, India, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Brunei, and several Middle Eastern nations like Qatar, Oman, and Bhutan.  

And don't forget Japan, which has something approaching a ban, but one a bit more complicated than other countries.

 

Good to see...  

A few Musk observations

*  Honestly, if you don't look at X, you are underinformed as to what an awful, awful person he is.   (And you don't need to follow his account - he'll make sure you see his deep thoughts anyway.)   

* As he has many times before, his grandiose plans seem to suddenly be set aside, or re-arranged massively, with his priorities now said to be to build a city on the Moon instead of Mars.  Now, while I have suggested at this very blog for the last 20 years (!) that the Moon could indeed serve a "lifeboat" function to recover from planetary disasters that could strike the Earth, I suppose I should be grateful that the richest man on the planet's priorities now align at least closer to mine.   But - he's still obviously over-promising to give a thrill to his followers: it won't be anything like a "city" on the Moon for (I would guess) another century or more.   And it doesn't need to be.   It will be more like Antarctic research station(s), perhaps a few in different locations:  but no one's going to be calling them "cities".   And it will indeed be an interesting time while the surface gets explored up close, in sufficient detail, as to work out the best sites for long term, permanent outposts.   Confirming water near the poles, and/or structurally solid lava tubes, will be quite exciting for those of us keen to see people (or robots) doing useful stuff on the Moon.  We could have been doing this already if NASA and Musk didn't continually muck around with their priorities.

* Of course, perhaps in compensation for pulling back on Mars, Musk decided to go over the top in another proposal - that he'll go all in on data centres in orbit.   Again, I've seen stupid gaga followers immediately endorse the idea as if "of course it will work, he's a brilliant visionary".   But count me firmly on the side of "this is never going to happen, to any significant extent, in this century, if ever" corner, because it fundamentally doesn't make any sense.   I mean, even O'Neill with his grandiose solar power arrays to power the Earth scheme (I used to like the idea, as a teenager, but that was before the advances in rocketry slowed down to a 50 year crawl) basically argued that it really only worked if you made the solar panels from Moon dirt flung into space from a lunar mass driver - and no one knows how hard that is to do yet.  (Yes, Musk has said something about a mass driver on the Moon - but I would bet my last dollar that no one has seriously worked out how much a workable one would cost to set up on the Moon.)

Look at this headline at Fortune, which is just pure BS:

The details in the article:

 Musk said getting all that AI and solar capacity in space will require about 10,000 launches a year—or a launch in less than an hour every day. SpaceX is the most prolific rocket company and set a record last year with 165 orbital launches.

SpaceX could pull off a 10,000-per-year launch cadence with 20 to 30 Starship rockets, he added, though the company will make more than that, enabling perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 launches a year.

He pointed out the airline industry has much quicker throughput than that. The number of daily flights around the world tops 100,000. 

In case people hadn't noticed:  rockets aren't airplanes, and there is zero practical proof that Musk's Starship will ever have the turnaround ease with which he pins his "hopes".   The space shuttle was supposed to be able to turn around between missions with relative ease - it never happened.   

AND BESIDES - putting massive solar arrays in orbit is just going to make the risk of Kessler syndrome events far, far more likely - and the concern of Kessler himself is that the risk has already soared very high with Musk's Starlink satellite constellations.  (Anyone who watches Sabine Hossenfelder would know this - she was only talking about it last week, I think just before Musk's hyped his AI dream).  If it happens, Musk will go down in history as the idiot who bought his way into creating a disaster that slowed down humanity's colonisation of any other body due to making it too hard to get safely through low Earth orbit for a 100 years or more.

So yeah, I think it is pretty outrageous that there isn't a more assertive condemnation of Musk promising stuff that the strong consensus of experts would say he cannot possibly deliver.   

Update:  this guy gets it exactly right, I reckon:

Meanwhile, satellite technology consultant Christian Freiherr von der Ropp says that SpaceX’s plan belongs “more to the realm of speculative vision than near- or mid-term engineering reality.” He pointed to other hurdles such as shielding the data centers from radiation and the economics when it’s easier to maintain and upgrade ground-based data centers.

“Launch, replacement, and station-keeping costs for vast numbers of high-power, short-lifetime compute platforms (in space) would likely exceed the cost of building and operating ground-based data centers supplied by cheap renewable energy,” he said. 

Still, von der Ropp suspects Musk’s ambitions are also about marketing. “Proposals of million-satellite 'data centers in space' appear far more aligned with long-term narrative building than with executable infrastructure planning. It is reasonable to interpret such visions as strategic storytelling that highlights technological ambition and future AI compute potential,” he said.   

 What bothers me, though, is the politeness used, rather than speaking the blunt truth, which goes like this "Elon Musk, like Trump, is a long term bullshit artist who makes ridiculous claims in the interests of building his personal wealth and power.  He now has a coterie of fellow tech billionaire in the AI/chip business who won't speak honestly about his self serving narrative, because it suits their wealth and power ambitions too.   Honest engineers have a duty to speak bluntly about this, instead of just watching how it affects their stock investments and then saying 'could have told you that a decade ago' when the schemes evaporate, again."  

Snowy scenes and more

OK, so let's talk about these photos.

In the mountains outside of Toyama, which is North West of Tokyo and on the Sea of Japan, there are the "historical villages of Gokayama", known for their old, thatched roof houses.  I think it fair to say most  people probably visit them in any season other than winter, and it seems you certainly won't be overrun with other tourists if you do go while they are covered in snow:  

In the smaller village we went to, there was a house set up as a small museum (second photo above), and it contained this example of old style "winter footwear".  I am curious as to how warm they might keep feet.  

Truth be told, I thought the effort put into the on site history stuff was pretty minimal, but it was interesting to learn that the local industry in these old settlements used to be silkworm raising (in the attics of the houses), and making saltpeter for use in guns.

 

I didn't go into the mini "saltpeter museum" house, but this is how it was made (and the process is very  different from what I would have guessed): 

Below the floorboards, around the irori sunken hearth, people would dig holes 2.7 meters deep, and fill them with soil, mugwort and other mountain plants, and silkworm waste. Over the following four years, this mixture would decay and undergo further processes, eventually becoming saltpeter. Saltpeter was then used as the main ingredient for gunpowder for rifles. 

I need to understand this better: 

Traditionally, one of the main industries in the Gokayama region was the production of
saltpeter (potassium nitrate) from the mineral niter, an essential ingredient in
gunpowder. The saltpeter industry operated for over 300 years during the rule of the
Kaga domain in Gokayama, growing exponentially after the introduction of European
matchlock guns in 1542. The production of saltpeter in the area was kept secret even
from the shogunate (the ruling military leadership of Japan) in order to strengthen the
defense of the Kaga domain, which bought up large amounts of saltpeter every year.
Gokayama was an ideal location for secret niter production as the area was isolated and
much of it remained unexplored.

 

Saltpeter was created in a hole up to 2 meters deep under the irori fireplaces of the
gassho-zukuri (steep thatched roof) houses of the Gokayama region. The hole was filled
with a mixture of materials including straw, soil, mugwort, and silkworm excrement,
then left to ferment for around five years. The irori fireplaces were used to keep the
materials warm during the fermentation process, and the materials in the hole were
mixed together once a year to expose them to air and to add in extra ingredients. Over
time, calcium nitrate formed in the soil through the nitrification of bacteria. To extract
potassium nitrate from the soil mixture, water and soil were mixed together, and the
water into which the calcium nitrate had dissolved was concentrated through heating.
Grass and wood ash were then added to the concentrate to remove impurities. The
potassium carbonate contained in the ash reacts with the calcium nitrate in the
concentrate to form potassium nitrate and calcium carbonate. The calcium carbonate
precipitates because it is insoluble in water. The liquid is then filtered, boiled down and
condensed, and then cooled to obtain coarse saltpeter crystals. The collected saltpeter
crystals were sold to the Kaga domain and delivered to their warehouse in Kanazawa. 

 

Man, that's complicated!  And who worked that process out??   The Wikipedia entry is very badly written, and doesn't explain it.   In fact, it's rather hard to get a single site that explains it clearly - this one notes that England got the manufacturing idea for it from a German engineer (who got paid by Elizabeth 1 for the process);  this site says China invented gunpowder, and Japan got the use of it in guns from the Portugeuse, but doesn't explain how the Japan learnt the method of in-ground fermentation for making saltpeter.  

 

Oh well, I digress.

 

Another nearby town had several guesthouses you could stay in, and as such, the place seemed a little more "lived in" than the first small village:  

 

 

It's all very, very pretty, of course.   I might add more photos later...

Back to Brisbane - and the hero of the journey

I got back last night from my travel to new (for me) parts of Japan (and an overnight stop in Taipei on the way back).

I will make a stupid triva post first.   

A few trips back, while in Singapore, I decided to do something other than putting dirty washing in flimsy plastic garbage bags and went to a cheap "dollar store" type place (in Katong) and bought this:

 

It folds flat when empty, has a zip at the top, stands up neatly in the corner when you start putting dirty clothes in it, and conveniently hides the contents from the hotel room cleaner or when you are walking to the laundry/laundromat.  (If its a laundry service, they are happy to put the clean clothes back into it.)

It cost, I think, $5, and it just stays in my main suitcase between trips, so it's never forgotten.

My wife thinks it's vaguely ridiculous that I am so greatly impressed by the improvement it has made to travelling, but I strongly recommend everyone acquire one.

I am happy to be sponsored on a Singapore trip to buy them for readers who take my advise and acquire this particular design of bag.  Please send me your interest...:)

 

Scenes from Japan

Tomorrow it's supposed to be 38 degrees in Brisbane. 😬

But where I am at the moment, as noted the last post, the days are not breaking 0. Some photos....

Quite a change in the weather

Forecast in my home city for the next 7 days:

 Forecast for a city in Japan in which I should be by Saturday (and this is still on Honshu: it's not even Hokkaido):

 😬

 

 

The algorithm wanted me to revisit this

Maybe if I look at my video viewing history I might get some idea as to why Youtube put this old video in my recommended list.  I have mentioned it here before, many years ago, and it remains the most magnificent celebrity cringe ever created: 

 

Oddly enough, in the shower last night it suddenly came to me that Shatner doing a spoken word, slowed down, version of They Might Be Giants first hit "Don't Let's Start" could be hilarious. I started hearing it in his voice in my mind: 

You are the cat, 

you are the phone,

you are an .... animal

The words I'm singing now

Mean nothing more than

meow?

to.... an animal

A ridiculous man in the most ridiculous presidency

I never thought I would be living in a period in which I can wake up every morning and wonder "Did the US invade a European ally overnight?"   

The appalling Republicans and Presidential excusers in Right wing media world would be beside themselves if a Democrat explicitly tied a threat of military aggression to not getting an award, like a cranky 5 or 6 year old.  But here we are:

Store confirmed Trump’s leaked message in a statement Monday. He said Trump was responding to a text that Store had sent on behalf of Norway and Finland, conveying opposition to U.S. tariffs against European nations rejecting a takeover of Greenland. “We pointed to the need to de-escalate and proposed a telephone conversation,” Store said.

The attempt to defuse tensions seems not to have worked. Trump’s reply came shortly after.

“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump wrote in the text, which was first reported by PBS.

Store said he made his support for Greenland and Denmark clear, and that he has repeatedly explained to Trump that it is up to the Nobel Committee, not the Norwegian government, to award the annual peace prize.

Then Bessent does he "no, don't listen to what my boss says, this is what he's really thinking" act:

On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sought to reframe the narrative. “It’s a complete canard to think President Trump’s action on Greenland is due to” not receiving the Nobel Prize, he told reporters on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

European retaliation, he added, would be “very unwise.”