Wild Strawberries

Wild Strawberries (1957), dir. Ingmar Bergman 
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The Mechanic

Masters 2024: Generational excellence like Scottie Scheffler's is riveting, even when it seems boring

Scottie Scheffler is different, but you can be lured, for months and years, into thinking he's the same. Same talent, same person, as a dozen others that came before. His greatness sneaks up on you, and as late into the Scheffler Era as this past Sunday, you heard people call him boring; you heard them call his win boring. I think they're wrong, insofar as you can affix a label to that type of thing, but explaining why means explaining the difference, and how that difference is generational and therefore fascinating in ways that many of us watching the back nine at Augusta felt but couldn't name.

Moment 1: This is a memory from Rory McIlroy's brief existence as a killer, from Sunday at the 2014 PGA Championship in Valhalla. He was on the verge of winning his fourth major, and at the 10th hole, a tough par 5, he was the only player to hit the green in two and the only player to make eagle—an eagle he badly needed, trailing Rickie Fowler by three. But his second shot, a 3-wood, started low and left when he intended to draw it, which McIlroy readily admits. It gave him visions of a ball he had pulled OB on the same hole, with the same club, on Thursday. This time, though, the ball had a perfect fade, and came to rest seven feet from the green. It was the most important shot of his day, and it was lucky. He was celebrated that night as a steely-eyed closer, but the approach on 10 threw a kink into the juggernaut narrative, because, in order to win, he needed a big break.

But so what? This is golf. Everybody needs a big break when it comes to winning majors. Right?

Moment 2: From the press conference of Ted Scott, caddie to Scottie Scheffler, Sunday night at the Masters: (...)

It occurs to you then that Scottie Scheffler seems to be the one person in the world right now who doesn't need a big break to win. When he's in the hunt, it's everyone else who needs the break.

And even when they get the breaks, it doesn't seem to matter.

This is what’s called generational talent, and we haven't seen it in almost 20 years. Steve Stricker read the tea leaves when he picked Scheffler for the 2021 Ryder Cup—a decision that was richly rewarded—and starting in 2022, he was off to the races. The only hiccup was a few putting woes last year, but even that only served to highlight how remarkable his ball-striking had become—instead of winning, he was finishing third. When he fixed the putting, with help from a new coach and a bit of equipment advice from Rory McIlroy, he soared yet again to the top of the game, but this time he seemed more indomitable, more inevitable, more brilliant.

The sustained success of the last three years has officially made him the best professional golfer since Tiger Woods, a conclusion supported by analytics, the eye test, and every other metric you could dream up. With fewer majors, he has nevertheless leaped past Spieth, McIlroy, and Koepka in terms of pure ability. He doesn't have their legacy, yet, but if we're talking about peak performance, he's already surpassed them.

He's so much better than everyone else, which is a sentiment that is both commonplace—I saw it on Twitter over and over again—and revelatory. It's the thing you say because there is nothing else to say. You're left with the wild truth, which words can describe but never capture.

All of which is to say, nothing about what Scheffler is doing can possibly be boring if you appreciate golf and you appreciate excellence. It doesn't matter that the back nine turned into a blowout. It doesn't matter if his personality isn't quite what you want it to be—I personally think Scheffler is much smarter and more interesting than he's given credit for, but it's also true that he fits into a mold that you could call "American golfer" better than more singular personalities like Tiger or Phil ever did. It doesn't matter if he falls back on simple explanations or if he lives a simple life; the excellence speaks for itself. It's exciting for him.

This is why the experience of watching the Masters on Sunday was—at least for me—completely riveting even in the eventual absence of competitive drama. There's something irresistible about this kind of greatness, and it doesn't depend on whatever wild charisma inhabits the soul of a Jordan Spieth or Rory McIlroy in moments of high drama. This is more like reading about the campaigns of Ulysses S. Grant in the Civil War; there's something a little grim and attritional about it all, but there's a reason his memoirs were a massive bestseller and remain highly regarded. You can't help but feel in awe of Scheffler when he hits his competitive stride.

Nobody can tell anyone else what should be exciting to them, but if Sunday at Augusta felt dull to you—as it did to some—it might be time to recalibrate how you're watching. Scheffler has reached a level we haven't seen since the greatest player in history was at his peak, and there's no sign that he's about to stop. But of course he will stop, just like Tiger stopped, and then the moment will have passed, and if you didn't appreciate it at the time—if the jaw didn't drop, if the eyes didn't open a little wider—you won't get a second chance.

by Shane Ryan, Golf Digest |  Read more:

Image: Ben Walton

[ed. All true, which isn't to say he's isn't golf media's worst nightmare. A vanilla kind of guy with very little outward personality, God-loving, no drama, never prone to wild insane/impossible shots that viewers will likely remember for the rest of their lives, or that inspire younger generations. Just mechanically and emotionally gifted... surgical is a term I keep coming up with. The opposite of Seve, Tiger, Phil, Rory, Jordan, et al. that made the game not only exciting and beautiful to watch, but thrilling to see from an individual perspective. See also: Professional Golf Is at a Crossroads. How—and When—Will It Find a Resolution? (The Ringer).]

"How does the PGA Tour, apparently locked in a forever cold war with LIV, market the soft-spoken Texan, who has locked down a starring role by dint of his dominance? He is, in some ways, the actualization of the earnest-man-of-the-people-with-electric-game gimmick that was affixed to Phil Mickelson and heavily promoted in Mickelson’s early career until he turned out to be a David Mamet character. Scheffler seems like a genuine everyman, unlikely to be losing bazillions in betting anytime soon.

Affable and possibly a tad oafish, Scheffler doesn’t seem like a bully. He has nothing of Tiger’s borderline psychopathy or Phil’s above-it-all swagger or Brooks Koepka’s kick-your-ass-in-the-cafeteria jock-ness. But after watching him win week after week—this makes for three wins in his past four starts—I think he might be a bully just the same. On Sundays, he’s like an anaconda that slowly suffocates its prey. He’s undemonstrative to the point of signaling inevitability. His game seems to say: “I will continue to do unbelievable things until you agree I am the winner, and then we can go back to being friends.” You could argue that’s even scarier than Tiger’s legendary mindset. We’ve seen great champions such as Rory and Jordan Spieth bubble up and win a bunch of majors and then recede to merely being amazing. Scheffler may be different."

~ Scottie Scheffler Has Become Golf’s Most Pleasant Destroyer (The Ringer)

Married Role-Play

The Plumber

Husband: So, what seems to be the problem, Miss?
Wife: My drain is clogged. Clogged bad.
Husband: Oh, yeah? Well, let me see if I can un-clog it.
Wife: You really think this is a job you can handle?
Husband: There's no job I can't handle.
Wife: (scoffs)
Husband: What?
Wife: I'm just thinking about the porch you've been promising to stain for literally a year now.
Husband: Jesus, what the hell does the porch have to do with this?
Wife: It has everything to do with it!
Husband: You know what, unclog your own goddamned drain!
Wife: Stain the porch!

Doctor & Patient

Wife: Hi, doctor, thanks for seeing me on such short notice.
Husband: My pleasure.
Wife: Did I put this gown on right?
Husband: Looks good to me. Real good. So, where's your pain?
Wife: In my leg.
Husband: Here?
Wife: Higher.
Husband: Here?
Wife: Higher.
Husband: Here?
Wife: Do you feel anything?
Husband: Just that you didn't shave your legs. A little effort would have been nice, Karen.
Wife: Oh, fuck you.

Husband: Fuck you! (...)

The Pool Boy

Wife: Manuel, you must be so hot out here.
Husband: Sí.
Wife: Want to come in for a glass of lemonade?
Husband: Sí.
Wife: I made too much, and I'm alone in here. All alone.
Husband: Sí.
Wife: It's only 3:15, so my kids won't be home until ... dammit! We have to pick up the kids at 3:30.
Husband: Los niños?
Wife: Stop it, Phil! We really have to pick them up.
Husband: I thought you said we had time!
Wife: Sorry if I'm the only one who pays attention to the kids' schedules.
Husband: I bought a mustache for this!

by Colin Nissan, New Yorker | Read more:
Image: Louis Debenham/Getty

Alice Brasser, Skyline, Airport. 2024.

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Margaret McIntosh, Hell in a Handbasket, 2022
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The Masters’ Oldest Caddie

Tommy Fleetwood hung back a little, easing his gait, the way friends do. Gray Moore shuttled along, trying to keep up, but resigned to his own speed. Sometimes it’s tough to tell which side his limp favors, right or left. The hobble sure seems painful.

It was a little after 4 o’clock on Friday. Fleetwood and Moore were completing their 26th hole of the day, up and down and around Augusta National, where the hills and slopes rise and fall and the fairways are shaped like whalebacks. It’s one of the most demanding walks in golf, but one they both know and one they’re making together this week. It was the duo’s second day in the 88th Masters Tournament, the result of circumstances no one wants but that have to be maneuvered.

Because maybe that’s what it’ll take to win.

Fleetwood, 33, has played 33 career majors. Back in 2019, when his hair was even longer, he was a 20-something with two solo runner-up major finishes. The breakthrough felt inevitable. Now it’s 2024 and everyone is still waiting, no one more so than Fleetwood, a curious player who isn’t especially long, isn’t especially strong but is obviously a world-class talent.

For the past eight years, Fleetwood has navigated professional golf with a shadow that could cover Augusta’s 14th green. His caddie, Ian Finnis, is 6 feet 6. He has arms like fire hoses and looks like he should star opposite Jason Statham. Their partnership goes back to their teenage years along the English coastline, just outside Liverpool. As a 15-year-old, Finnis caddied for Fleetwood in major amateur events like the British Amateur, the English Amateur and the Lytham Trophy. As an adult, he was the best man in Fleetwood’s wedding.

Fleetwood estimates that Finnis, known around professional golf as “Finno,” has been on his bag in all but one event in the past eight years. The lone event he missed was for the birth of a child. The partnership has survived everything but is now navigating some hard realities. Since December, Finnis has suffered complications from an illness that has finally forced him to step away. The decision was made for Finnis to return home and rest following The Players Championship in March, miss one event — last week’s Texas Open — then return for Fleetwood’s eighth career Masters appearance.

As this week arrived, though, Finnis was still home in Liverpool. The Telegraph reported he is suffering from a chest infection.

Which is why, earlier this week, Jesse “Gray” Moore strolled over to Terry Holt, a Champions Tour caddie who works for former Masters champion Mike Weir, and asked, “So am I the oldest one here or are you?” Holt laughed, eyed up Moore and said, “Well, I’m 65.”

“Welp, I got ya by a few,” Moore said.

With a gray goatee and a voice at a whisper, Moore, 70, has spent parts of 30 some-odd years at Augusta National, we think. The details are loose. Augusta National club rules restrict any and all employees from commenting on anything regarding the club, but we know for sure he looped this course for years before eventually working his way into the club’s caddie office, handling training and scheduling duties. He hasn’t walked on every blade of grass, but he at least knows how each bends.

In 2017, entering their first Masters, Fleetwood and Finnis were linked up with Moore to answer all their requisite questions and he joined them for a practice round. As the years went by, he turned into their advance scout, sharing what he knew about any changes being made to the course. Because players in the Masters field who are not former champions have to go through certain club protocols to play the course before tournament week, including needing to use one of their caddies, Fleetwood always used Moore for those early-season practice rounds while Finnis followed along.

It’s called local knowledge, and Moore has it by the barrel. He was born and raised in Augusta, growing up playing Augusta Municipal Golf Course, and later became the city course’s assistant pro. According to longtime Augusta Chronicle writer David Westin, Moore didn’t exactly give lessons but more so made sure the place stayed open.

Augusta Municipal, known locally as “The Patch,” is about 7 miles from Augusta National, out near the regional airport, across the street from American Legion Post 205, where bingo is scheduled for every Thursday. There, Ira Miller, the course general manager, said Moore is a modern throwback to another era, back when local caddies were required to be used by Masters participants. Now lionized in history, the Black caddies of Augusta National became an institution, from Jim “Big Boy” Dent to Ike “Stabber” Choice to Tommy “Burnt Biscuits” Bennett. The club controversially lifted its locals-only rule in 1982, making way for pros to bring their preferred caddies.

Moore, who is White, represents a time when the town still had its place in the tournament field.

“He’s a pretty good guy,” said Bobby “Cigarette” Jones, an 84-year-old Patch regular and former Augusta caddie in the heyday. “And he’s a good card player.”

by Brendan Quinn, The Athletic | Read more:
Image: Jamie Squire/Getty Images
[ed. Masters Sunday. Tommy's my favorite but a little too far back I think, unless he has an amazing round. We'll see. [UPDATE]: Scheffler wins again...zzzz.]

On Coming to Terms With a Near-Death Experience

I Nearly Died Drowning. Here’s What it’s Like to Survive.

Spring in Montana is a season of waiting, trapped in a limbo of rotten snow and inaccessible trails. It makes me feel desperate: a rare warm day followed by another sleet storm, the high-octane days of summer still impossibly far away.

In May 2019, I was crawling out of my skin. The high-elevation north-facing trails were still sheets of ice and the south-facing trails were shoe-sucking mud. I was so sick of my gym routine that I’d sit in the parking lot for 20 minutes, willing myself to go inside.

 

I’d moved to Montana from the northeast nearly a decade before, drawn to lofty mountains to reinvent my tame life in suburban New Hampshire. I immediately began compiling a résumé of outdoor activities: I learned to mountain bike, became a strong climber, checked peaks off my list, and worked as a horseback guide. Backcountry recreation was the social currency and my value hinged on accepting every invitation, so I did my best to learn everything.

But no matter how many skills I picked up, my struggles with asthma meant I often fell behind. I was the last one to the top of the switchbacks, watching my lean, muscled friends vanish over the ridge as I sucked air through a windpipe that felt like a crumpled straw.

I made up for those cardio challenges with an uncanny ability to reject fear. I volunteered to go first on intimidating climbing routes, humming to stay calm as I gripped miniscule edges and pressed my feet against glassy slabs of rock. I fell often, once catching my leg behind the rope and flipping upside down, my head ringing as I smashed into the wall. My belayer called up in a panic and offered to lower me, but I was already pulling myself up the rope before I’d stopped swinging. My self-worth banked on being the most fearless, camping in winter storms, grabbing the reins of the horse who had thrown me, pulling pebbles out of my knees and joking about how hard I’d hit the ground.

That frenetic activity level of summer and winter made spring’s dullness harder to bear. I craved movement in the backcountry and the social life that came with it. Kadin texted me one of those afternoons when I was flopping around the climbing gym mats delaying my workout. He was a climbing partner, decently good friend, river guide, and enough of an enigma that I wasn’t sure whether I had a crush or he just had enough mystique to seem appealing.

He asked if I had a kayak.

I responded right away. Yeah, an old river runner. You looking to get out this week?

My kayak was a 15-year-old Wave Sport Frankenstein I’d picked up at a pawn shop the year before. I’d spent that summer paddling the reservoir south of town, occasionally running a calm section of the Madison River. The boat was narrow and prone to tipping. I planned to take a roll clinic the following summer, as I was determined to gain aptitude in yet another outdoor sport—just enough to feel confident on beginner whitewater.

The section of the Gallatin River that Kadin wanted to run was near my house, easily accessible and less intimidating than anything in the canyon. Despite being an open section of water, it was still technically early-season conditions, ice cold and scattered with hazardous deadfall. I accepted the invitation immediately.

I didn’t consider whether or not I was comfortable paddling that stretch. Along with the desire to keep up with my peers, my ability to assess risk was skewed after years of narrow backcountry escapes, a well-documented phenomenon where your risk perception shifts after successfully navigating unpredictable situations. From outrunning lightning storms to losing the trail to tackling climbs well above my grade, I’d encountered plenty of tenuous scenarios and always figured it out, scraping by without too much damage.

The Adventure Experience Paradigm describes this well; it uses a simple line graphic to show the interplay of risk and competence. When the risk is low and the skills are high, the person is toward the bottom of the chart in the “realm of exploration and experimentation.” When competence and risk are balanced, the participant is in the middle, and when risk exceeds competence, the outcome can be catastrophic. The more experience someone has with navigating risky situations, the more confident they become, skewing the variables. My boating experience was minimal and that section of river was not for beginners, but I had scraped by enough times that my risk assessment was dangerously off-kilter. It was a really, really bad combination. (...)

My boat wasn’t cooperating the instant I dropped into the river. The water was too fast and unpredictable. Every time I tried to adjust course, I was buffeted by the current. I scolded myself to paddle like I knew how, but this wasn’t the type of kayaking I was used to—my reflexes were slow and instincts incorrect. My boat’s slim bow dipped and rose, and I flexed my legs against the thigh braces in an attempt to stabilize. An icy splash of water streamed down my jacket. I knew I shouldn’t be on the water.

I was desperate to be off the river but I also wasn’t in control. That realization turned into panic as I was catapulted forward in the current, glancing sidelong at the bank rushing by and knowing I didn’t have the skills to eddy out. Too much was happening too quickly. The spray skirt felt like a vise around my waist.

A wave hit me in the face and I gasped, swiping a hand across my eyes as I heard Kadin yell behind me.

“Stay to the left! Maggie, the left!” he shouted.

I turned to hear him better, and when I looked forward I had dropped into a trough and the current swept me to the right.

I blinked to clear water from my eyes and saw why Kadin had yelled to stay left. I was heading right toward a massive strainer, topped by a downed tree at head height. It was as thick as my torso, the gnarled root ball creating a dam for a jagged pile of broken logs.

I threw my arm out and collided with the tree with a sickening whack. Before I could take a breath, my boat flipped and I was underwater.

Oh no, I thought. I am in so much trouble.

It was silent underwater, yellowish-green and brighter than I would have thought. Fist-sized rocks bouncing next to my head were the only indication of how fast I was moving.

You’re moving, which means you’re not pinned against the strainer. Get air. You have to roll.

I’d never practiced rolling a kayak—the roll clinic was still on my long list of goals—but I knew to snap my hips into the side of the boat and leverage with the paddle. My boat was built to roll, but I had no muscle memory to draw from to actually execute the move. I also had no paddle—it had been ripped from my hands when I hit the tree.

I threw my hips into the side of my boat. It rocked a few inches, then settled back.

I fought panic. Try again, you need to get air.

I threw my hips harder into the side of the boat. Nothing. The effort took energy and energy took oxygen. A countdown started in my head. I only had a few minutes to get out of the boat. How long had I been underwater?

Wet exit. Pull the spray skirt.

I frantically felt for the grab loop, but I was upside down and disoriented. When I found it after wasting more precious seconds, I leaned back and pulled as hard as I could. It didn’t budge. More seconds went by. My heart started thudding more rapidly and I felt that familiar aching burn when you stay underwater too long.

A thought came into my head, momentarily paralyzing me: these might be your last few minutes.

My clumsy gloved hands scrabbled uselessly at the edges of the neoprene trapping me in the boat. As I realized I couldn’t release the spray skirt that way either, panic, regret, and sorrow flooded my brain.

Please no. Please don’t let it end like this.

This is where my brain split into two tracks running at the same time: a sadness track and an action track.

The sadness track focused on my family. My parents and three younger siblings all still lived in the Northeast. They supported me but didn’t understand my drive to keep pushing, and they continuously begged me to be careful. I thought about my mother, wracked with nerves whenever I’d casually recount another close call. I thought about my dad. His cancer had just relapsed; my family was already suffering. My drowning would destroy them.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for my family, I made a mistake and I wish I hadn’t come here and I’m sorry.

The action track said: keep trying until it’s over.

by Maggie Slepian, Longreads | Read more:
Image: Diana Robinson Photography (Getty Images)
[ed. I had something like this happen to me. My girlfriend and I were canoeing a fast water stream and hit a big sweeper broadside, immediately spilling both of us into icy cold water. The current that pushed us up against the tree's dense tangle was strong enough that we could barely move and it kept pushing us under. I held on with one arm and grabbed my gf with the other, eventually push/pulling her high enough so that she could climb up on a branch and finally pull herself up along the half submerged trunk. But she couldn't help me and I kept edging further out into the river hoping to get around the end of the submerged tree or at least find a less tangled location, but the current kept getting stronger the further out I went, and the harder it became to hang on. Finally, barely able to keep my head above water, the only option seemed to be to get under the tree and hope it wasn't tangled limbs all the way down. I exhaled one last time and let the current push me under, quickly sinking and pulling myself down along an underwater branch toward the bottom. Suddenly I felt a rock and pushed hard to get through the remaining tangle. It worked, and I popped up on the other side, eventually floating downstream to a nearby sandbar. Close call, with all the elements of ignored risk as related in this story. In fact, in Alaska, it's a pretty common cause of death - underestimating risk and overestimating abilities (otherwise, how would you know your limits?). My friend and former colleague Brad Meiklejohn with The Conservation Fund has written an excellent book covering this and other topics called The Wild Trails. Here's a conversation (YT).]

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Chet Baker

Chet Baker, Time After Time, 1954
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3- Body Problem TV Series: For and Against

(Warning: Spoilers below.)

[ed. There seems to be quite a stark divide among viewers of Netflix's recent tv special 3-Body Problem (and also those who've read all three volumes of the book vs. those who haven't) - FWIW: I *have* read all three and enjoyed No. 2 The Dark Forest the best. Here's my general take on the tv show: yes, they took some massive liberties with the story (like splitting one character into multiple versions, ie. the "Oxford Five". The obvious DEI involvement in casting. The unexplained shadowy government agency/entity overseeing and controlling events. The over-the-top destruction of a container ship with microscopic, indestructable nanowires, etc. You can read more below. But! I also found the show to be pretty faithful to the general theme of the books, and mostly coherent (I imagine) to anyone who hadn't read them and absorbed all the various complexities (and there are  many, many complexities). In other words, I found the tv show enjoyable despite it's numerous liberties and inconsistencies. So anyway, here are a couple reviews - for and against. If you haven't seen the show and are planning to, just move along and come back later if you're still interested. This'll all make more sense then.]

For:

Against:

Someone please explain to me how its RottenTomatoes approval stats (77% with the pro critics, 81% audience) are possible, because holy hot damn, is it wildly incompetent at storytelling.

First, my background: I went to technical film school, and, between the ages of 19 to 26 or so, I made it a personal mission to see *every* movie that came out in every theater in my region (first Phoenix, then L.A.). I made an exception for The Barney Movie (although I never quite felt right about deliberately breaking that streak), and certain special-interest releases (Christian propaganda, etc). After seeing a movie, I'd read professional reviewers, like Ebert, for further education. I usually wrote my own reviews on Livejournal.

In other words, while I am not a professional critic, I certainly had the viewing-and-reflection habits of a professional critic, and thus I tend to have broadly similar standards and tastes of a professional, not-ideologically-captured critic.

Which is why I'm so bewildered that *any* professional critic could give 3 Body Problem a positive review. The choice to relocate the story from China to England had dire consequences on the believablity of a story which requires draconian government control, a China-sized government infrastructure and resources, and a culture of isolationism.

The show attempts to recreate the CCP's draconian power by imagining an unnamed British shadow agency to whom all other agencies and government officials unquestioningly defer. They are fully empowered to do CCP-esque things like send a heavily armed strike force to arrest everyone at a peaceful semi-religious gathering of 100+ people with no probable cause, to commandeer military personnel and equipment at whim, to detain people indefinitely with no probable cause, to access and monitor people's home security cameras, internet and phone communication, to straightforwardly murder 1000+ people *including children* living on a retrofitted container ship in pursuit of a MacGuffin, and do it *IN THE PANAMA CANAL*, in broad daylight, like *TEN MINUTES AFTER A CRUISE SHIP GOES BY* and surely like *TEN MINUTES BEFORE THE NEXT SHIP IS SCHEDULED TO COME ALONG,* without said large-scale murder and extremely visible carnage being noticed and investigated by the Panamanian, American, or any other government.

The issue of scale and isolationism is likewise just as absurd; I routinely laughed out loud at the scenes of a dozen British scientists formulating an elaborate nuclear powered space probe plan to gain intelligence about a coming alien invasion without any seeming awareness of, or intention to, consult with NASA, Elon Musk, the European Space Agency, the Chinese National Space Administration, etc about said plan. There is even a speech about how these people in the room are so very critical to future, and the show certainly seems to want the audience to believe that the future of the species depends on these people in this room, particularly our protagonist, and and no one else executing their plan.

Not until said plan was fully formed, anyway, at which point Shadow Government Guy picks up the phone and tells an American, "Hey, we have a plan and you're going to go along with it, we gotta borrow Cape Canaveral and your nuclear bombs."

There are almost as many other problems with the script as there are scenes across all the episodes. In one scene, a human who's been having phone calls with the aliens (or the aliens' AI) for decades reads the story of Little Red Riding Hood, at which point it the alien starts asking questions like, "why did Little Red Riding Hood want to get eaten by the wolf" and eventually asks enough questions that the human realizes that the aliens *don't understand the basic concept of deception,* lying, fiction, and presumably metaphor, exaggeration, figures of speech, etc. due to their form of instant psychic communication.

First, how did this not come up sooner after decades of chats? This is the very first time the human is reading the alien a work of fiction which prompts the alien to ask a couple of illuminating questions?

Second, bullshit, because the aliens (or their AI, which would of course be a reflection of their knowledge) have built an advanced video game for humans, which would require the aliens/alien AI to be capable of imagining and envisioning things that aren't real and didn't happen, and thus capable of fiction.

Third, bullshit again, because in the very first communication with the aliens, an alien tells a human, "don't try to reach out to us again, our civilization sucks," and when the human does it anyway, the next aliens are like, "hey, we're great and come in peace."

Fourth, bullshit again-again, the aliens/AI later take control of every screen on the planet to tell all humans, "YOU ARE BUGS," which stands in stark contrast to Shadow Government Guy definitively stating in one of the strategy meetings *after* this event, "we know the aliens can't lie" as an expository rule of this particular universe.

Then there are the hundreds of little details which are just wrong, like a 40 million dollar estate which includes a business and homes being liquidated and distributed into the bank account of one of its heirs within two days; the existence of a somewhat dilapidated bungalow perched in perfect isolation over a deserted beach by what sure looks like the White Cliffs of Dover, an inability to track a helicopter and a general lack of awareness about a retrofitted container ship with a 150ft satellite dish perched on its deck (is that even seaworthy for a transatlantic crossing?), an extremely high-value target in tremendous danger of assassination being escorted into the UN building through the front door and then getting shot in a bullet-proof jacket by a sniper who doesn't bother to reload and try again, despite said character being very obviously unharmed and with an unprotected head, and on and on and on.

And then there are all the other more ephemeral problems of the series; disastrously awful casting choices, laughably inept visual effects sequences, flat cinematography, a score which is somehow intrusive *and* boring at the same time, and on and on and on.

With the exception of perhaps one or two well-acted scenes and one well-written scene, the entire show is just...utter...clownshoes.

So I ask...*how?* How can anybody watch this show and not notice these glaring, unforgivable errors?

Errors which purportedly cost $20 million dollars an episode to produce?

And no, critics are not supposed to "shut their brains off and just enjoy" a given work of art; their whole job is to analyze it for people who don't want to invest any time in a work which might disappoint them.

"It doesn't have to be good" is never an excuse.

via: Christina the StoryGirl (ACX)

With a Strat You Can Rule the World

Celebrating its 70th birthday this spring, the Strat – or Fender Stratocaster – may now be the most recognisable musical instrument of all time. It is almost certainly the bestselling guitar, loved by legions of riffing stars. “The Strat is as sturdy and strong as a mule,” Keith Richards once said, “yet it has the elegance of a racehorse. It’s got everything you need, and that’s rare to find in anything.”

Bonnie Raitt got her first one in 1969, buying it on the street at 3am after a gig. She has played it at every one of her shows since, and it was pivotal to her 13 Grammy wins. “There’s just a tone that doesn’t happen with other guitars,” she says. “It’s all about that middle pickup – you just can’t beat it.”

Radio repair man turned inventor Leo Fender could not possibly have known what he was starting when he began designing the Strat in the early 1950s. Perhaps because he wasn’t a guitarist, he approached the design differently, with an eye on not just manufacture but also repairability. Hence the bolt-on, rather than glued-in, neck. He had hit the mark a few years earlier with the Broadcaster, later renamed the Telecaster due to a legal wrangle with rival manufacturer Gretsch. He also designed the Fender Precision bass. Both were instant successes, popular with western swing bands, but the Telecaster was and remains a slab-like, utilitarian workhorse – two pickups, no nonsense. And as much as musicians loved its sound, they often complained that its square edges dug into their ribs and banged their hip bones.

The Strat, with its neatly nipped navel and two-horned cutaways, is probably what first comes to mind when anyone hears the words “electric guitar”. Millions of players have learned on a Strat – whether made by Fender, its budget Squier imprint, or one of the numerous companies producing copies. Many others dream of owning a top-of-the-range model from the Fender custom shop, costing a five-figure sum. Then there are the secondhand Strats with one previous famous owner. The black 1969 model that Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour played on The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall went under the hammer for almost $4m, in aid of a climate change charity.

So what does a Strat sound like? Anything you want. You can get a taste of its range on all these tracks: Misirlou, Apache, Nowhere Man, Little Wing, Smoke on the Water, Comfortably Numb, There Is a Light That Never Goes Out, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Last Nite, and I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor.

Blues maestro Joe Bonamassa has one of the world’s largest guitar collections, including many museum-grade vintage Strats as well as the Howard Reed, the first black Strat. “Talk about Leo Fender getting it right the first time!” he says of the man whose small California company changed the world. “Very little has changed between 1954 and now,” he adds. “It’s essentially been the same guitar for 70 years.”

Indeed, there have been only a handful of alterations. In 1956, alder replaced ash for the body, while rosewood fretboards arrived in 1959. Tone knobs have changed shape, lacquer has been improved, wiring has been tinkered with and necks have morphed. But a Strat has always been a Strat.

“Fender are in a weird business,” says Bonamassa, whose favourite is his 1955 “Sunburst” Strat, nicknamed Bonnie. “Imagine being the CEO of Ford and your core business is making a car that looks the same as the one you made in the 1950s. And your customers don’t want improvements like satnav or electric engines. Guitar companies are selling nostalgia – but also something that’s timeless so it stays relevant. If you have some creativity, ingenuity and a little chutzpah, you can rule the world with a Strat.”

“My favourite term for this is ‘colouring inside the lines’. The Strat exists – and there are things you can tinker with inside that. It’s what Leo Fender did and it’s what we continue to do. What’s fascinating is that it has never become a relic. That’s down to new bands coming along and blowing up the music scene with a 70-year-old design. The Strat is reinvented with each generation.”

For all its instant recognisability today, the Strat that Fender first designed was basically a glorified Telecaster. But the arrival of designer and engineer Freddie Tavares changed that. He took inspiration from the two-horned Precision bass while adding innovative touches including the gamechanging tremolo bridge – incorrectly named since the pitch-shifting effect the short metal arm creates is actually vibrato. Three pickups and advanced switching offered greater tonal variation than almost any other guitar on the market, while curves, contours and chamfers were added in all the right places, meaning the Strat sits on the hip and clings to the body more like an item of clothing than a musical instrument. (...)

When the Stone Roses were recording their eponymous debut album in 1988, the producer John Leckie was unimpressed with the thin sound coming from John Squire’s Gretsch Country Gentleman, so rented him a Strat. “I ended up buying it,” says Squire. “It was a battered pink one – and it was a great guitar.”

Squire says he’s not a collector, although, while he’ss speaking to me by phone from his home, there are four Strats around him. His favourite is a candy apple red that can be seen in the video for Just Another Rainbow, the recent single from his collaboration with Liam Gallagher. This 2012 masterbuilt 57 reissue is “all over” their new album: Squire says if could get away with it, it would be the only guitar he’d play. “They’re like a Swiss Army Knife,” he says. “They can do everything. There’s a sound in there that reminds me of Hendrix’s less ferocious moments. I think of them like a pair of brogues – something that just doesn’t need any more refinement.” (...)

Leo Fender sold his company to media giant CBS in 1965. While collectors covet pre-takeover instruments, citing a drop in quality under CBS, the company increased sales by 30% in its first year, and 45% the year after, taking the electric guitar to dizzying new heights. After a steady decline in sales in the 1970s and 80s, though, CBS sold the firm to a group of investors, including employees in 1985. These days, Fender is largely owned by Servco Pacific. As a private company, it doesn’t release sales figures, but Norvell nods when I suggest there could be millions, possibly tens of millions, of Strats in existence. It was also reported that the pandemic years saw Fender’s best ever sales, suggesting there is still plenty of appetite for this 70-year-old classic.

by Andy Welch, The Guardian |  Read more:

Image: Bonnie Raitt; Robert Knight Archive/Redferns
[ed. Eh, not really a fan. Great guitars, just kind of generic. Glad the article mentions Freddie Tavares, the unsung Hawaiian hero responsible for many important contributions.]

Emil Nolde, 1914
via:

Cover Photo: Lisa Genet. Rosa Yemen (1979)
via: Vinyl Artwork

[ed. French singer Lizzy Mercier Descloux, along with guitarist D.J. Barnes (Didier Esteban) formed the band Rosa Yemen in 1978. According to Wikipedia: self-taught as a guitarist, she expressed herself as a minimalist within the no wave genre, concentrating on single-note lines combined with wrong-note harmonies and funky rhythms. See also, for example: Decriptated (YT).]

Marcin Wasilewski Trio

The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter

I decided to read a 600-page book about Jimmy Carter because I was tired of only reading about the historical figures everyone already agrees are interesting.

John Adams became an HBO miniseries. Hamilton became a Broadway show. The Power Broker and The Years of Lyndon Johnson became such status symbols that there was a whole pandemic meme about people ostentatiously displaying them in their Zoom backgrounds. But you never hear anyone bragging about their extensive knowledge of the Carter administration.

Like most people under 70, I was more aware of Carter’s post-presidency role as America’s kindly old grandfather, pottering around holding his wife’s hand and building Houses for Humanity. I mostly knew that he liked to wear sweaters, that he owned a peanut farm, and that he lost to Ronald Reagan.

But I wondered what, if any, hidden depths lay within the peanut farmer. Also, I wanted to enter this contest, and I didn’t want to pick a book that I thought a bunch of other people might also review. So I turned to The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter, by Kai Bird. Like Carter, this book seems to have been largely forgotten. It won a Pulitzer, but I had never heard of it until I googled “best book about Jimmy Carter.” It seems to have gotten a lot less attention than similar recent biographies about Grant, Roosevelt, and Truman, and it’s hard to imagine it ever becoming a TV show or a musical.

Carter was born in 1924 in Plains, Georgia, which, as you can tell from the name “Plains,” is very dull. His father was a successful farmer, which made his family wealthy by local standards. Almost every other Plains resident during Carter’s childhood was an impoverished African-American, many of whom worked on the Carter farm, a fact that is often cited as the answer to the central mystery of Carter’s childhood: how he grew up white in the Depression-era South without becoming a huge racist. It probably doesn’t tell the whole story, though, as his siblings came out just about as racist as you’d expect.

Carter attends the Naval Academy and eventually becomes a lieutenant on a nuclear submarine. At one point, he participates in a cleanup mission in which he is lowered directly into the core of an active nuclear reactor, thus causing him to develop superpowers that he will later use to win the presidency. Perhaps because of this experience—but, more likely, because he realizes that his deep-seated religious beliefs make him a poor fit for a career in an organization designed to wage war—he quits the Navy at 29 and returns home to Plains. “God did not intend for me to kill,” he says, which would have been an awesome catchphrase had those superpowers actually been real.

Searching for a new career, Carter runs for State Senate, loses due to voter fraud, then challenges the results and wins by 15 votes in a new election. A few years later, he runs for governor, and loses for real this time, to avowed segregationist (and man with a truly awesome name) Lester Maddox. Having never experienced failure in any way before, Carter is plunged into a profound spiritual crisis by this loss. Today, we would probably just say he was depressed. But as a religious Christian in the Deep South in 1966, you don’t “get depressed,” you have a spiritual crisis.

In 1970 Carter runs for governor again. This time, however, he decides to do whatever it takes to win. He runs a sleazy campaign that flies in the face of his modern-day reputation as kindly and honest. His campaign strategy has two core planks: 1) pretend to be a racist to appeal to the masses, and 2) avoid taking a stand on any other issue. Carter describes himself nonsensically as a “conservative progressive” and avoids commenting on the Vietnam War or the civil rights movement. He’s so good at pretending to be racist that the white supremacist White Citizens Council endorses him. He even wins the endorsement of his old opponent, outgoing Governor Maddox, who’s term-limited from running again. As far as anyone can tell, Carter never expresses any second thoughts about his disingenuous behavior during the campaign. Having passed through his spiritual crisis, he’s now guided by an unshakeable faith in his own goodness—a faith that justifies a victory by any means necessary.

The “fake racist” strategy works. Carter trounces his opponent, a wealthy businessman named Carl Sanders who he caricatures as “Cuff Links Carl”—when he’s not busy falsely accusing him of corruption, or hypocritically bashing him for his support of Martin Luther King. In January 1971, Carter is sworn in as the 76th Governor of Georgia.

Just a few minutes into his inaugural speech, Carter drops the pretenses of his campaign and executes on one of the most dramatic about-faces in modern-day political history when he declares that “the era of racial discrimination in Georgia is over.” The crowd gasps audibly, and outgoing Governor Maddox denounces Carter as a liar before the inauguration is even over. But Carter doesn’t care. He’s governor now, and he’s going to do what he wants.

II.

And what he wants to do is… well, honestly, not all that much. Carter’s governing style is less “bold visionary,” more “competent manager.” He appoints more minorities to civil service jobs, starts an early childhood development program, and passes a reorg that streamlines a bunch of governmental agencies, but mostly he thinks about running for president. Governors in Georgia are limited to a single term, and Carter has national ambitions. He commits privately to a presidential run only a year into his time in the governor’s office.

When he first enters the 1976 Democratic primary, Carter is a complete unknown, and the general consensus is that he’s the longest of long shots. (“Jimmy who?” one opponent asks.) But two things go very, very right for him. First, he’s one of the few people who fully understands the changes to the Democratic primary process that were implemented after the chaos of the 1968 convention. He stakes his campaign on the now-familiar strategy of winning the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, which is groundbreaking at the time. More importantly, the fact that no one has ever heard of him turns out to be a huge advantage in the wake of Watergate, when voters are hungry for an outsider.

Despite the fact that his gubernatorial campaign was premised entirely on obscuring his actual beliefs, he opens his presidential campaign with the slogan “I’ll never lie to you.” He runs an Obama-esque campaign, emphasizing his personal background and outsider status rather than any specific accomplishments. By the time he wins the primary, he has a huge polling lead over the incumbent president, Gerald Ford, who’s unpopular thanks to his recent pardon of Richard Nixon and the memory of that time he slipped and fell down the stairs of Air Force One.

Carter then proceeds to squander almost his entire lead via a series of poor campaign decisions. First, he’s so overconfident that he refuses to prepare for his first debate with Ford, and completely bungles it as a result. He then sits for an interview with Playboy weeks before the election and, completely unprompted, mentions that he’s “looked on a lot of women with lust” in his life and “committed adultery in [his] heart many times.” There’s a growing perception that Carter is, in the infamous words of one journalist, “a weirdo.” (...)

Although his lead shrinks consistently up through election day, Carter nonetheless manages to squeak out a narrow victory against Ford, 49.9 to 47.9%. Had just 10,000 voters in two states flipped their votes, Carter would have lost the electoral college. But they didn’t. And now, the weirdo has become the president.

III.

You’re Jimmy Carter, and just 23 years ago you were an unemployed Navy dropout. Now, you’re the most powerful man in the world. What do you do next?

The first answer is, you micromanage to a spectacular degree. Alone among all presidents since Truman, Carter refuses to appoint a Chief of Staff. He then immediately demonstrates why he needs one by involving himself in a comical number of minor decisions, including personally deciding which magazine subscriptions his speechwriting team should get, cutting down on the amount of food served at breakfast with congressional leaders, and canceling car service for his staff because it’ll save $92,000 of the $409 billion federal budget. Oh, and he also insists that all White House thermostats be set at 65° (55° at night), though this last mandate is eventually rescinded when the staff—some of whom are so cold they’ve been typing with gloves on—rebel.

The charitable interpretation of these decisions is that, in the wake of Watergate, Carter wants to emphasize that he and his staff are servants of the American people. The uncharitable interpretation is that Carter is an obsessive egomaniac who believes there is no situation that won’t be improved by his personal involvement.

The next thing Carter tries to do is a little bit of everything. Since his campaign was mostly focused on his personality and outsider status, he doesn’t have a specific core promise to fulfill, and as a result, his time in office is a hodgepodge of different legislative priorities. Sounds like a recipe for complete gridlock, but amazingly, Carter gets a good chunk of his agenda through Congress. He deregulates the airline and trucking industries, establishes the Department of Energy, and teams up with Ralph Nader to implement vehicle safety regulations. He passes a sweeping civil service restructuring bill, reforms Social Security, and expands the Head Start program. Oh, and along the way he also legalizes craft brewing. (...)

Somehow, he does all of this while having one of the worst relationships with Congress of any modern president. Some of the conflict is personal: Carter is the anti-LBJ in that he hates dealmaking and is perpetually unwilling to compromise. Deep down, he sees the dirty business of politics as inherently sinful, and he doesn’t understand why everyone can’t just do the right thing, especially when he’s explained to them at great length why it’s the right thing to do. He has huge Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, but they relate to each other with barely veiled contempt. (It doesn’t help that Carter is the complete personal antithesis of Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, a classic old-school Irish Democrat who loves back-slapping, cutting deals, and being a part of the Establishment Carter ran against.) Carter repeatedly vetoes bills passed by his own party because he has minor issues with them. At one point, he petulantly vetoes a $37bn defense bill because he thinks one specific item in it, representing less than 2% of the total, is a waste of money.

But some of the conflict is structural. To his credit, Carter is one of the first politicians to see that the post-New Deal consensus is fraying. Economic growth is slowing, inflation is rising, union membership is declining, all of which means that the traditional Democratic way of doing things—launching new federal programs, catering to interest groups, and accepting some waste and inefficiency as a cost of doing business—is on its way out, even if the old-school Dems don’t realize it yet. Really, Carter is less of a Democrat and more of a 1920’s-style Progressive Republican in the model of Teddy Roosevelt: focused on efficient, rational government, non-ideological problem-solving, and ethical stewardship.

Carter finds more success in the arena of foreign policy, where instead of dealing with mercurial politicians from his own country, he can deal with mercurial politicians from other countries. He starts by tackling the third rail of the Panama Canal. The United States built the Canal by essentially colonizing the part of Panama it runs through, and obviously, the Panamanians aren’t super cool with that. The U.S. government has been kicking the can down the road since the LBJ era by continually promising to return sovereignty over the canal to Panama eventually, and after over a decade of “eventually,” the Panamanians are getting impatient.

The politically easy move for Carter would be to drag out the negotiations until the canal becomes the next president’s problem, just as Johnson, Nixon, and Ford all did before him. But for better or for worse, Carter almost never does the politically easy thing. “It’s obvious we cheated the Panamanians out of their canal,” he says, and he negotiates a treaty in which ownership of the canal is turned over to Panama, in exchange for the U.S.’s right to militarily ensure its “neutral operation.” It’s a clever diplomatic solution—Panama gets nominal ownership while we retain all the benefits ownership provides—but the American public hates it. To the average voter, it feels like we’re just giving some random country “our” canal.

To get the treaty approved by the Senate, Carter plays the congressional negotiating game well for the first and maybe only time in his presidency. He lobbies heavily for his treaty with every senator, cutting individual deals with each of them as needed. One even goes so far as to say that in exchange for his vote, Carter has to… wait for it… read an entire semantics textbook the senator wrote back when he was a professor. Oh, and Carter also has to tell him what he thinks of it, in detail, to prove he actually read it. Carter is appalled, but he grits his teeth and reads the book. It’s a good thing he does, because the Senate ratifies the treaty by a single vote. Although it remains unpopular with the general public (five senators later lose their seats over their yes votes), those in the know understand that Carter cut a great deal for America. Panamanian dictator Omar Torrijos knows it too. Ashamed of his poor negotiating skills, he gets visibly drunk at the signing ceremony and falls out of his chair. He also confesses that if the negotiations had broken down, he would have just had the military destroy the entire canal out of spite.

Flush with confidence from his Panama Canal victory (his canalchemy? his Panamachievement?), Carter decides he should continue tackling foreign policy problems other people think are impossible. And there’s one obvious candidate: the conflict between Israel and the Arab states. Every single one of his advisors tells him this is a huge mistake and he definitely shouldn’t get involved, but knowing Carter, this only makes him want to do it more. His strategy: bring Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin to Camp David for a series of intense negotiations. As usual, Carter believes that if he can just get the relevant parties in a room with him, he can convince them to see things his way.

At Camp David, as with the Panama Canal, Carter reveals himself to be a masterful negotiator, which only makes his constant inability to successfully negotiate with Congress all the more infuriating. When dealing with his own country, he’s disgusted by the horse-trading inherent in politics and continually shoots himself in the foot by refusing to get in the muck. But somehow, when dealing with other countries, he’s able to accept that there’s inevitably going to be a certain amount of dirty work involved. This biography doesn’t really try to provide a theory for this discrepancy, and I wasn’t able to come up with one either. Perhaps Carter holds his own country to a higher standard—or perhaps, as president, he sees himself as above Congress and expects a subservience he doesn’t expect from other countries’ leaders.

Anyway, after two weeks of nonstop conversation between the three countries’ teams—during which negotiations almost fail more than once—they reach a deal. Essentially, the broad outlines are: 1) Egypt will officially recognize Israel and end the state of war between the two countries and 2) Israel will stop building settlements in the West Bank and transition towards self-governance for inhabitants of both the West Bank and Gaza. The Camp David Accords, as they’re known, are a phenomenal success, putting the region on a path straight to the utopia it is today: a prosperous, conflict-free Middle East in which democracy and human rights flourish and the Palestinian people have full self-determination.

Sike! Obviously, that doesn’t happen. The Camp David Accords are seen as a triumph at the time, but in the long run, the picture is more mixed. The first part of the deal holds up, even after Sadat—who ends up becoming quite close with Carter—is assassinated by fundamentalists just a few years later. But the Israelis immediately welch on the second part of the deal and continue building settlements. Today’s Israel has more than 20x the number of settlers as it did then, making the intensity of the Carter/Begin dispute seem depressingly quaint in retrospect. 

by Max Nussenbaum, Slate Star Codex/CFB | Read more:
Image: Andy Warhol

Ray Troll: 'A Look Inside My Brain'

In the late 1980s, Ray Troll was living in Ketchikan, slowly establishing himself as an artist obsessed with the natural world and possessed with a boundless sense of humor. Inspired by the annual return of salmon to nearby Ketchikan Creek and intrigued by their life cycles, Troll had recently come up with a drawing of two of the fish, coupled with the words “Let’s Spawn.” It was, he said, “a euphemism for the dance of life.”

Around the same time, a Troll friend and fellow artist, Juneau-based William Spear, had begun selling enamel pins of his paintings. He suggested that the two collaborate, with Troll providing a piece that could be sold as wearable art to tourists traveling through Southeast Alaska.

Digging through his work, Troll returned to his salmon drawing, changed the caption to “Spawn Till You Die,” tweaked the image and offered it to Spear. “I did a very reduced version of it for the pin,” he recalled. “But the pen and ink drawing, I made it into a T-shirt. And the rest is kind of history.”

Troll’s T-shirts quickly became popular farther down the coast in Seattle, where musicians in that city’s then-nascent grunge scene started wearing them onstage. From there the shirts and the drawing spread across the country and Troll was on his way to international renown. “If there’s one thing I might be known for when I’m dead and gone,” he said, “it would be that image.”

More than three decades later, that drawing, wildly popular in Alaska, has provided both the title and cover art for a career retrospective recently published by Clover Press. “Spawn Till You Die: The Fin Art of Ray Troll” contains more than 200 examples of his now iconic drawings and paintings, which blend scientifically accurate depictions of living and extinct animals with surreal scenery, pop culture references, psychedelic colors, zany humor and endless puns. “You’re looking inside my brain when you go through this book,” he said.

by David James, Anchorage Daily News |  Read more:

Images: Ray Troll

[ed. An Alaskan institution.]

Suicide Mission

What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

John Barnett had one of those bosses who seemed to spend most of his waking hours scheming to inflict humiliation upon him. He mocked him in weekly meetings whenever he dared contribute a thought, assigned a fellow manager to spy on him and spread rumors that he did not play nicely with others, and disciplined him for things like “using email to communicate” and pushing for flaws he found on planes to be fixed.

“John is very knowledgeable almost to a fault, as it gets in the way at times when issues arise,” the boss wrote in one of his withering performance reviews, downgrading Barnett’s rating from a 40 all the way to a 15 in an assessment that cast the 26-year quality manager, who was known as “Swampy” for his easy Louisiana drawl, as an anal-retentive prick whose pedantry was antagonizing his colleagues. The truth, by contrast, was self-evident to anyone who spent five minutes in his presence: John Barnett, who raced cars in his spare time and seemed “high on life” according to one former colleague, was a “great, fun boss that loved Boeing and was willing to share his knowledge with everyone,” as one of his former quality technicians would later recall.

But Swampy was mired in an institution that was in a perpetual state of unlearning all the lessons it had absorbed over a 90-year ascent to the pinnacle of global manufacturing. Like most neoliberal institutions, Boeing had come under the spell of a seductive new theory of “knowledge” that essentially reduced the whole concept to a combination of intellectual property, trade secrets, and data, discarding “thought” and “understanding” and “complex reasoning” possessed by a skilled and experienced workforce as essentially not worth the increased health care costs. CEO Jim McNerney, who joined Boeing in 2005, had last helmed 3M, where management as he saw it had “overvalued experience and undervalued leadership” before he purged the veterans into early retirement.

“Prince Jim”—as some long-timers used to call him—repeatedly invoked a slur for longtime engineers and skilled machinists in the obligatory vanity “leadership” book he co-wrote. Those who cared too much about the integrity of the planes and not enough about the stock price were “phenomenally talented assholes,” and he encouraged his deputies to ostracize them into leaving the company. He initially refused to let nearly any of these talented assholes work on the 787 Dreamliner, instead outsourcing the vast majority of the development and engineering design of the brand-new, revolutionary wide-body jet to suppliers, many of which lacked engineering departments. The plan would save money while busting unions, a win-win, he promised investors. Instead, McNerney’s plan burned some $50 billion in excess of its budget and went three and a half years behind schedule.

Swampy belonged to one of the cleanup crews that Boeing detailed to McNerney’s disaster area. The supplier to which Boeing had outsourced part of the 787 fuselage had in turn outsourced the design to an Israeli firm that had botched the job, leaving the supplier strapped for cash in the midst of a global credit crunch. Boeing would have to bail out—and buy out—the private equity firm that controlled the supplier. In 2009, Boeing began recruiting managers from Washington state to move east to the supplier’s non-union plant in Charleston, South Carolina, to train the workforce to properly put together a plane.

But after the FAA cleared Boeing to deliver its first 787s to customers around the end of 2011, one of Swampy’s old co-workers says that McNerney’s henchmen began targeting anyone with experience and knowledge for torment and termination. One of Swampy’s closest colleagues, Bill Seitz, took a demotion to go back west. A quality control engineer named John Woods was terminated for insisting inspectors thoroughly document damage and repair performed on composite materials, which were far less resilient than steel. Good machinists and inspectors who wore wristbands in support of a union drive were framed with dubious infractions. “Everyone from Everett started dropping like flies,” remembers a former manager at the plant.

“There’s a form we all had to sign that says you take responsibility for anything that goes wrong, and it states pretty clearly that if something happens to a plane because of something you did wrong, you can face a major fine or jail time for that,” the manager recalled. “The Everett managers took that seriously. Charleston leadership did not.”

The bosses hit Swampy with a new initiative called “Multi-Function Process Performer,” through which quality inspectors were directed to outsource 90 percent of their duties to the mechanics they were supposed to be supervising. This was supposed to speed up production and save Boeing millions once it successfully shed the thousands of inspectors it intended to axe. Swampy believed relying on mechanics to self-inspect their work was not only insane but illegal under the Federal Aviation Administration charter, which explicitly required quality inspectors to document all defects detected, work performed, and parts installed on a commercial airplane in one centralized database. Swampy knew he was caught in a prisoner’s dilemma. If he went along, he was breaking the law; if he didn’t, whistleblowers who complained about unsafe practices were routinely terminated on grounds of violating the same safety protocols they had opposed violating.

Swampy calculated that it would be a bigger pain for Boeing to fire him for doing the right thing than following orders, so he kept his head down and continued managing his inspectors as though he were back in Everett, taking special care to meticulously record every episode of noncompliance (and nonconformance, which is similar but not identical) he encountered. He documented his discovery that machinists installing floor panels had been littering long titanium slivers into wire bundles and electrical boxes between the floorboards and the cargo compartment ceiling panels, where they risked causing an electrical short. A series of mysterious battery fires had already caused the FAA to ground the 787 for a few months just over a year after the first plane had been delivered. He wrote that 75 out of a package of 300 oxygen masks slated for installation on a plane did not actually pump oxygen. His team compiled a list of 300 defects on a fuselage scheduled for delivery, and he discovered that more than 400 nonconforming aircraft parts had gone missing from the defective parts cage and likely been installed on planes illegally and without documentation, by managers and mechanics desperate to get them out the door.

Few quality managers were as stubborn as Swampy. A Seattle Times story detailed an internal Boeing document boasting that the incidence of manufacturing defects on the 787 had plunged 20 percent in a single year, which inspectors anonymously attributed to the “bullying environment” in which defects had systematically “stopped being documented” by inspectors. They weren’t fooling customers: Qatar Airways had become so disgusted with the state of the planes it received from Charleston that it refused to accept them, and even inspired the Qatar-owned Al Jazeera to produce a withering documentary called Broken Dreams, in which an employee outfitted with a hidden camera chitchatted with mechanics and inspectors about the planes they were producing. “They hire these people off the street, dude … fucking flipping burgers for a living, making sandwiches at Subway,” one mechanic marveled of his colleagues; another regaled the narrator with tales of co-workers who came to work high on “coke and painkillers and weed” because no one had ever had a urine test. Asked if they would fly the 787 Dreamliner; just five of 15 answered yes, and even the positive responses did Boeing no favors: “I probably would, but I have kind of a death wish, too.”

by Maureen Tkacik, The American Prospect | Read more:

Image: Gavin McIntyre/The Post and Courier via AP
[ed. Oh, and guess what? Just yesterday: Engine cover of Southwest Boeing plane falls off during takeoff (WaPo).]

How Tech Giants Cut Corners to Harvest Data for A.I.

In late 2021, OpenAI faced a supply problem.

The artificial intelligence lab had exhausted every reservoir of reputable English-language text on the internet as it developed its latest A.I. system. It needed more data to train the next version of its technology — lots more.

So OpenAI researchers created a speech recognition tool called Whisper. It could transcribe the audio from YouTube videos, yielding new conversational text that would make an A.I. system smarter.

Some OpenAI employees discussed how such a move might go against YouTube’s rules, three people with knowledge of the conversations said. YouTube, which is owned by Google, prohibits use of its videos for applications that are “independent” of the video platform.

Ultimately, an OpenAI team transcribed more than one million hours of YouTube videos, the people said. The team included Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president, who personally helped collect the videos, two of the people said. The texts were then fed into a system called GPT-4, which was widely considered one of the world’s most powerful A.I. models and was the basis of the latest version of the ChatGPT chatbot.

The race to lead A.I. has become a desperate hunt for the digital data needed to advance the technology. To obtain that data, tech companies including OpenAI, Google and Meta have cut corners, ignored corporate policies and debated bending the law, according to an examination by The New York Times.

At Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, managers, lawyers and engineers last year discussed buying the publishing house Simon & Schuster to procure long works, according to recordings of internal meetings obtained by The Times. They also conferred on gathering copyrighted data from across the internet, even if that meant facing lawsuits. Negotiating licenses with publishers, artists, musicians and the news industry would take too long, they said.

Like OpenAI, Google transcribed YouTube videos to harvest text for its A.I. models, five people with knowledge of the company’s practices said. That potentially violated the copyrights to the videos, which belong to their creators.

Last year, Google also broadened its terms of service. One motivation for the change, according to members of the company’s privacy team and an internal message viewed by The Times, was to allow Google to be able to tap publicly available Google Docs, restaurant reviews on Google Maps and other online material for more of its A.I. products.

The companies’ actions illustrate how online information — news stories, fictional works, message board posts, Wikipedia articles, computer programs, photos, podcasts and movie clips — has increasingly become the lifeblood of the booming A.I. industry. Creating innovative systems depends on having enough data to teach the technologies to instantly produce text, images, sounds and videos that resemble what a human creates.

The volume of data is crucial. Leading chatbot systems have learned from pools of digital text spanning as many as three trillion words, or roughly twice the number of words stored in Oxford University’s Bodleian Library, which has collected manuscripts since 1602. The most prized data, A.I. researchers said, is high-quality information, such as published books and articles, which have been carefully written and edited by professionals.

For years, the internet — with sites like Wikipedia and Reddit — was a seemingly endless source of data. But as A.I. advanced, tech companies sought more repositories. Google and Meta, which have billions of users who produce search queries and social media posts every day, were largely limited by privacy laws and their own policies from drawing on much of that content for A.I.

Their situation is urgent. Tech companies could run through the high-quality data on the internet as soon as 2026, according to Epoch, a research institute. The companies are using the data faster than it is being produced.

“The only practical way for these tools to exist is if they can be trained on massive amounts of data without having to license that data,” Sy Damle, a lawyer who represents Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, said of A.I. models last year in a public discussion about copyright law. “The data needed is so massive that even collective licensing really can’t work.”

Tech companies are so hungry for new data that some are developing “synthetic” information. This is not organic data created by humans, but text, images and code that A.I. models produce — in other words, the systems learn from what they themselves generate.

OpenAI said each of its A.I. models “has a unique data set that we curate to help their understanding of the world and remain globally competitive in research.” Google said that its A.I. models “are trained on some YouTube content,” which was allowed under agreements with YouTube creators, and that the company did not use data from office apps outside of an experimental program. Meta said it had “made aggressive investments” to integrate A.I. into its services and had billions of publicly shared images and videos from Instagram and Facebook for training its models.

For creators, the growing use of their works by A.I. companies has prompted lawsuits over copyright and licensing. The Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft last year for using copyrighted news articles without permission to train A.I. chatbots. OpenAI and Microsoft have said using the articles was “fair use,” or allowed under copyright law, because they transformed the works for a different purpose.

More than 10,000 trade groups, authors, companies and others submitted comments last year about the use of creative works by A.I. models to the Copyright Office, a federal agency that is preparing guidance on how copyright law applies in the A.I. era.

Justine Bateman, a filmmaker, former actress and author of two books, told the Copyright Office that A.I. models were taking content — including her writing and films — without permission or payment.

“This is the largest theft in the United States, period,” she said in an interview.

by Cade Metz, Cecilia Kang, Sheera Frenkel, Stuart A. Thompson and Nico Grant, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Jason Henry for The New York Times
[ed. Read the whole thing. Of course it's illegal. Arrogantly so. It's part of Tech's ethic - move fast, ask for permission/forgiveness later. Congress needs to get off their lazy, self-absorbed asses and do some fast moving themselves (ha!). Big Tech have simply become modern day robber barons. See also: OpenAI transcribed over a million hours of YouTube videos to train GPT-4 (The Verge).]