Oscar Fail

It seems a simple enough task. Tally votes, print each winner’s name onto a card, and put each card into an envelope. For each award, hand the proper envelope to the presenter. How do you screw that up? The accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers managed to do it.

PwC says they are working to find out how it happened. That shouldn’t be hard. It’s not like a jet airliner crashed in the rainforest and we have to figure out which of a bazillion things went wrong. When handing out award envelopes there are a limited number of ways to fail.

Imagine you work for PwC and here’s your job: put the card for Best Picture into the Best Picture envelope, and when the show gets to the Best Picture category, hand that envelope to the presenter. Most people would presume that if a third-grader can do it, an international accounting firm should be able to do it.

This begs the question, did someone at PwC outsource the job to a third-grader? I envision an accountant sitting behind a desk and thinking, “I’m not going to waste my time stuffing cards into envelopes. I’ll take this stuff home and let my 8-year-old do the work. It’s so simple, what could go wrong?”

Sure. What could go wrong?

Perhaps next year the Academy should hire an actual third-grader to hand out the envelopes. If a third-grader screws up, people will just shrug and say, “Well, that’s what happens when you hire a third-grader.” The screw-up won’t be so epic. And bonus: a third-grader would do the job much cheaper than an international accounting firm. In fact, the Academy could probably pay him with Kit Kat bars and he’d be perfectly happy. I’m pretty sure PwC won’t do the job for Kit Kat bars. Although after this year’s Oscar fail, a case of Kit Kat bars seems more than sufficient payment.

Half Moon Run

The song of the day is Call Me In The Afternoon from the 2013 album Dark Eyes by Canadian indie rock band Half Moon Run.

Katy Perry

The song of the day is 2017's Chained to the Rhythm by Katy Perry (Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson) featuring Jamaican singer-songwriter Skip Marley.

Commercials

TV once had these things called programs but that apparently ended a few years ago. The amount of time devoted to programs shrank, and the amount of time devoted to commercials grew, until one day there was nothing on TV except commercials. TV commercials now run twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

It’s possible I’m wrong about this, as I don’t have the fortitude to watch TV non-stop for a week. I admit it’s possible the powers-that-be slip in an actual program now and then. But my belief that TV is nothing but commercials is a reasonable conclusion based on experience. Whenever I turn on my TV, a commercial is running. So I decide to do something useful, such as go to the kitchen and wash the day’s dishes. I return to the TV and I see a commercial is still being aired. I watch the commercial for a while, and then another commercial comes on. I switch the channel, but the new channel has a commercial running and it’s the same commercial I just watched on the previous channel. So I turn off the TV and I go to my computer and visit the World Wide Web – a pastime which was once a pleasant journey of exploration through cyberspace but is increasingly being overrun by commercials.

For example, every YouTube video I watch has an annoying ad for some kind of “leaf filter” gutter protection. This has been happening for months. Why does YouTube show me gutter protection ads? I’ve never typed “gutter protection” into any search engine. I have no interest in gutter protectors. My house doesn’t require gutter protectors and my garage, which sits adjacent to two tall trees, already has gutter protectors installed. And yet for months I’ve been presented useless ads for gutter protectors. Ninety percent of the YouTube ads I am shown are for gutter protectors. The other ten percent of YouTube ads I am shown are for a YouTube ad-blocker. Ironic, isn’t it?

I miss the old days, when TV had programs. Maybe they’ll come back, when enough people get fed up with non-stop commercials and “cut the cord.” Why pay a company a pile of cash every month for the privilege of watching their commercials? In my humble opinion, cable-TV companies should pay me to watch their commercials. I watch their commercials, I send them a bill, and they send me a check. Everybody wins.

I know what you’re thinking, but – I can dream, can’t I?

Intentions

After the Titanic disaster in 1912 in which more than 1500 people lost their lives – many because there were too few lifeboats – the U. S. government instituted a requirement for ships to carry an adequate number of lifeboats for the number of passengers on board. It seemed to be a reasonable requirement.

Three years later, in 1915, the S. S. Eastland, a steamship retrofitted with the requisite extra lifeboats and carrying 2,572 passengers, was beginning a tour on the Chicago River when it rolled over and capsized. An eyewitness account by writer Jack Woodford is recounted in Wikipedia:

And then movement caught my eye. I looked across the river. As I watched in disoriented stupefaction a steamer large as an ocean liner slowly turned over on its side as though it were a whale going to take a nap. I didn't believe a huge steamer had done this before my eyes, lashed to a dock, in perfectly calm water, in excellent weather, with no explosion, no fire, nothing. I thought I had gone crazy.

The resulting death toll was 844 including 22 entire families. The calamity was called the Eastland Disaster. An investigation determined the disaster was caused in part by a design flaw that made the ship top-heavy. But the coup de grâce, the last link in the causation of the disaster, was the weight of the additional lifeboats. Without the additional lifeboats, it is likely that no one would have died that day.

Perspective

I opened my browser to Google’s home page, and my eyes rested upon the menu icon. And I contemplated it.

What do you see? How would you describe it? Some would say it’s a group of dots. But is it?

Let’s make a simple change. Let’s change the background color that borders the group of dots to the color of the dots. Then here is what we have:

Now it looks like tic-tac-toe lines. Let’s reverse the colors: gray to white, white to gray. Then we have:

I started with dots and ended with lines, without drawing any lines or erasing any dots. So is the image made of dots or lines? Or is it both, or neither, and is what you see dependant on your perspective?

Lunch

I ate lunch at Burger Tycoon today. I ordered the Tycoon Junior, fries, drink, and chicken nuggets with Buffalo sauce. The lady who took my order appeared to be of advanced age. If sun exposure causes wrinkles, she had apparently lived most of her life eight feet from the sun. And she was one of those people who calls everyone “sweetie.” Call me old-fashioned, but I normally address complete strangers as “Sir” or Ma’am.” For me to address a total stranger as “sweetie” or “sweetheart” or “honey” would be unthinkable. But, I suspect the use of overly familiar wordage is a requirement for waitresses, especially in the South.

I was their only customer, never a good sign. When I got the burger it was barely warm. (Still tasty, but hot would have been so much better.) The fries were satisfyingly hot but salt-free. (As everyone knows, unsalted French fries are simply the best.) I got a drink from their self-serve machine, but the ice-maker was broken. A few shards of ice fell into my cup before the machine went dry. I went to the counter and picked up my order; the woman told me she would bring me the chicken nuggets when they were ready.

I ate my burger and fries but the chicken never came. I asked for the nuggets on the way out. The lady said, “Are you ready for them now?” I wanted to reply, “No ma’am, I thought I would go home and let you Fedex them to me.” But I held my wisecrack and took the nuggets home, where I consumed half of them and put the remainder in the fridge.

My stomach didn’t feel well, and that slowly progressed to – well, let’s leave that to the reader’s imagination. I think we’ve all been there at least once.  By this time I was sure the cook had dropped a chicken nugget on the floor, picked it up, blew if off, and put it into the bag. That was unfair, as Burger Tycoon may have had nothing at all to do with the unpleasantness I was experiencing. Nevertheless, I envisioned events thusly:

“Yo, Devontae! You dropped a nugget! You know the five second rule.”

“Thanks, Shaquilla. I got it. Hardly any dirt on it. Just a little of that sticky stuff that leaks out of the fryer.”

Eventually I resorted to Pepto-Bismol. When that didn’t help, I took Imodium. Maybe it was the combination of pink and green, but my agitated innards calmed down.

This left me with the question, what do I do with the remaining half dozen chicken nuggets in the fridge? Do I take a chance and heat them up for supper or do I throw them out? Being a single guy who keeps no food in the house, the chicken nuggets were pretty much my only option. Besides, I was now stuffed full of Pepto-Bismol and Imodium, so I was feeling fairly bullet-proof. And if any of the nuggets had bacterial contamination, I could at least make those germs sweat before I ate them. I set the toaster oven to 350° and let it heat up. Then I put the nuggets into the oven for 10 minutes, took them out and turned them over, and put them back into the oven for another 6 minutes. The nuggets were a wee bit dry after this second cooking, but dunking them into Buffalo sauce greatly helped their flavor. Chicken nuggets are, after all, simply a vehicle to get Buffalo sauce to one’s mouth. Just to be sure there were no dangerous germs in my tummy, I sterilized it with a liberal quantity of alcohol before going to bed. It must have worked; there were no noxious consequences.

I’ve sworn off buying meals at Burger Tycoon, but I know that won’t last more than a month or two.

The DeVos Scenario

Let me start by saying this blog is not, and was never meant to be, a political blog. It was intended to be about my own observations on life and not about the president, the Congress, or politics. However, when it comes to Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress there is just so much eye-popping fodder for commentary that it’s difficult to resist.

For example, take Betsy DeVos … please! This billionaire heir to the Amway fortune was nominated by Trump to run the Department of Education. Democrats opposed her on the flimsy excuse that she had never attended a public school, her children had never attended a public school, she was unfamiliar with public schools, she was unfamiliar with laws designed to protect students, and she is opposed to public education – preferring vouchers and for-profit charter schools. Teachers’ unions and even some charter school organizations all across the country opposed her nomination. But their opposition was ignored. After all, what do teachers know about education? Republicans confirmed her nomination with the help of an unprecedented tie-breaking vote from the vice president.

One might wonder how someone so seemingly unqualified could get this job. Was DeVos nominated by Trump because of the 200 million dollars that she says her family might possibly have donated to the Republican Party? No, that can’t be the reason. After all, you can’t buy these Cabinet-level government jobs. Can you?

Fifty Republican senators voted to confirm DeVos for education secretary. Of those 50, Betsy DeVos and her family have donated about a million dollars to 21 of them. (There is a list on this page at the Center for American Progress.) But again, this is America and you can’t buy a Cabinet-level government job. However, you wouldn’t know that from appearances. In fact, going by appearances, one might think Republicans are saying “This country is a plutocracy and screw you if you don’t like it.”

And, maybe it is a plutocracy. Going by appearances, it seems a lot of voters prefer to live in a plutocracy. Good luck to them, and let me know how it works out in the long run.

Deregulation Begins

Trump promised to get rid of cumbersome federal regulations, and the process has started. The Congressional Review Act (CRA) is a law that empowers Congress to undo any federal regulation within 60 legislative days of its enactment. As a result, there are more than 50 major Obama-era regulations (PDF) that the new president and the Republican-controlled Congress want to (and can) overturn. Here are some of the regulations that are on the Republicans' hit list. (Some have already been repealed.)

The coal mining stream protection rule. Coal mining companies can't dump toxic waste into streams (for reasons that should be obvious). Repealed by the House and Senate Feb 1.
Fortune

The methane waste rule. Oil and gas companies operating on federal and tribal lands must capture and sell methane generated by methane leaks, as opposed to flaring it or releasing it into the atmosphere. (Methane and CO² are both greenhouse gases.) Overturned by the House Feb 3.
Utility Dive
ThinkProgress

The resource extraction rule. Publicly traded oil, gas, and mining companies must disclose payments they make to foreign governments (in order to deter corruption). Repealed by the House and Senate Feb 3.
Reuters

The Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule. Contractors must disclose labor law violations or alleged violations they've had in the last three years when bidding on federal contracts over $500,000.  Overturned by the House Feb 5.
Engineering News-Record
The Hill
JDSupra Business Advisor

The Social Security gun rule. Social Security disability insurance records may be used in gun background checks to deny the sale of guns to the severely mentally ill. Overturned by House Feb 3.
New York Daily News

The Fiduciary Rule. Investment advisors can't rip off their clients by intentionally giving them bad advice. The rule was to take effect Apr 10, 2017. If the Fiduciary Rule is not repealed, Trump may decide to defund it – which will have the same effect (for the next 4 to 8 years) as a repeal.
Time
Time

A final note: The CRA states that after a regulation is overturned by Congress, the agency that issued it can never issue a new regulation of "substantially the same form."

Trump Lashes Out

Here’s a headline I’m getting tired of seeing:

“Trump Lashes Out At …”

If you go to your favorite search engine and search for “Trump lashes out” you will find the following targets of Trump’s anger:

• Iran
• Malcolm Turnbull, Australian Prime Minister  
• Democrats
• Protesters (Trump calls them “professional anarchists and thugs”)
• Federal Judge James Robart (Trump calls him “so-called judge”)
• Federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel (Trump calls him a “hater”)
• News media (Trump says “crooked media” and “sleazy media”)
• Journalists
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Paul Ryan (Wisconsin Congressman and Speaker of the House)
• John Lewis (Georgia Congressman and civil rights leader)
• Berkeley university
• Bill Clinton
• Hillary Clinton
• Barack Obama
• Michelle Obama
• Sexual assault accusers (Trump calls them “liars”, vows to sue)
• Rigged voting system
• Rigged debate commission
• New York Times
• Washington Post
• Senator Jeff Flake (Republican from Arizona)
• FBI
• CIA
• Intelligence Officials
• Alec Baldwin
• Saturday Night Live
• BuzzFeed
• CNN
• Bloomberg News
• Wall Street Journal
• Meryl Streep (actress and philanthropist)
• Jeff Bezos (Amazon CEO)
• Khizr Khan (Muslim father of fallen US soldier)
• Chuck Jones (Carrier’s union leader)
• “Hamilton” audience that booed Pence 
• Mother of crying baby at Trump event
• Maureen Dowd (columnist and author, Trump says “neurotic dope”)
• Foreign-lobbyist donations
• Alicia Machado (former Miss Universe, Trump says “Miss Piggy”)
• GOP senators (Trump: “GOP traitors and self-righteous hypocrites”)
• Russell Moore (Christian theologian)
• Fire marshals at Trump events
• Senator Ted Cruz (Republican from Texas)
• George Will (Pulitzer Prize–winning conservative commentator)
• Jon Stewart (comedian, actor, former host of a satirical news show)
• Jeb Bush (businessman, politician, and 43rd Governor of Florida)
• Hugh Hewitt (conservative radio talk show host)

There are probably many more – Trump seems to stay pissed off at somebody or something. But I’m ending the list here. There comes a point when I have to say “point made, ‘nuff said” and call it a night.

A Simulated World

The first practical home computers came into existence in the late 1970s. My first computer was an Osborne One that I purchased in 1982. It was suitcase-sized. This was shortly before the IBM PC and all its clones came along. My current computer is a Dell Inspiron. Let’s compare the two computer systems.

Osborne RAM: 64 kilobytes (roughly 64 thousand bytes).

Dell RAM: 12 gigabytes (roughly 12 billion bytes), almost 200,000 times greater.

Osborne disk capacity: Two 5-1/4" floppy drives, 90 kilobytes each.

Dell disk capacity: 1 terabyte internal drive and 4 terabyte external drive, total 5 terabytes, about 30 million times greater.

Osborne CPU: 8-bit CPU with a clock speed of 4 megahertz.

Dell CPU: 4-core 64-bit CPU with a clock speed of 3.3 gigahertz. Each 64-bit core runs 825 times faster than the Osborne's 8-bit CPU.

Osborne video: 5 inch, black and white, text-only analog monitor.

Dell video: 23 inch, high definition color graphics, flat-screen digital monitor.

Osborne price: $1800.

Dell price: Today, a system similar to mine (computer, monitor, external drive) can be had for about $600.

Obviously, the power of computer technology is growing exponentially. Meanwhile, the cost of computer technology is dropping fast. My current computer system is easily thousands of times more powerful than my first system yet cost one third as much. And we’re only at the beginning. Imagine what computers might be able to do in 100 years. Or 1000 years. Humans might be living in virtual worlds that are indistinguishable from what we consider the “real world,” which itself might be a virtual world.

Marion Hill

The song of the day is Down from the 2016 album Act One by songwriting duo Marian Hill (Jeremy Lloyd and vocalist Samantha Gongol). The popularity of the song has surged following the Jan. 14 premiere of its Apple iPhone 7 + AirPods ad synch. A video of the duo performing Down is on the YouTube Music Foundry here. Their name comes from two characters, Marian Paroo and Harold Hill, from the musical The Music Man.

Trump Discovers My Blog

I was afraid this would happen. Trump has discovered my blog and has issued another Executive Order.