Bottom Story of the Day

Magnus Carlsen's illegal pants (x/twitter)

One of the best chess players in the world was banned from a tournament for refusing to switch out his pair of jeans:

five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen arrived at the upscale Cipriani Wall Street, host of this year’s World Rapid Chess Championship, wearing something organizers considered utterly inappropriate. He was sporting a pair of jeans.

To FIDE, the game’s world governing body, this was as unacceptable as moving a pawn three spaces.

Denim, FIDE said, is “explicitly prohibited under longstanding regulations for this event” and promptly fined Carlsen, one of the greatest chess players of all time, $200 for his infraction. When the chief arbiter requested that Carlsen change his clothes, he declined to do so. And as a result, the 34-year-old grandmaster from Norway wasn’t assigned a match in the following round. It was chess’s equivalent of a one-game suspension.

Carlsen responded by quitting the tournament altogether—and then pulling out of the World Blitz Chess Championship, too.

“At that point, it became a bit of a matter of principle for me,” he said in an interview on his Take Take Take chess platform. “I’m too old at this point to care too much.”

Carlsen added that he’d been returning from a lunch meeting and barely had time to go back to his room, where he put on a shirt and jacket. He even threw on a different, dressier pair of shoes. But once the arbiter warned him about changing his trousers, Carlsen decided he’d had enough. Instead of arguing about pants, he figured he might as well spend his New Year’s somewhere warmer than freezing New York.

There are some people who are bigger than their sport. Tiger Woods, at his peak, was bigger than golf. Magnus Carlsen is bigger than chess. FIDE would be wise to consider that power dynamic when it seeks to assert its authority over a trivial matter like wearing blue jeans.

Santa Cruz Wharf

Debris from the partial collapse (CBS/YouTube)

The Santa Cruz Wharf experienced a partial collapse after being buffeted by large waves on December 23rd. Repairs had been planned since 2014 but were stymied by environmentalists to protect seagulls (who are not endangered): [bold added]

Strict permitting requirements and lengthy litigation by environmental activists have stalled efforts to fortify the pier that could have helped it withstand the storm, current and former city officials say.

At the center of the delays: seagulls.

It was for the benefit of the western gull, commonly known as the seagull, that the city of Santa Cruz delayed the most critical part of the repair work, installing new timber piles — the columns that hold up the wharf — until September, because gulls and another bird, the pigeon guillemot, make their nests in the wharf’s wooden beams.

The protections for the birds are imposed by the state Coastal Commission, from which the city must obtain a permit before it can do repairs. Most major construction — including replacing the piles — must take place between September and March to avoid the nesting season.

“Our work window is a very narrow six months over the winter time when we tend to have storms and big waves,” said Tony Elliott, director of Parks and Recreation, which oversees the wharf. “The wharf is a 110-year-old structure, and it requires a lot of work. … It takes more than six months out of the year to maintain it effectively.”

Neither the western gull nor the pigeon guillemot are endangered species, yet the Coastal Commission says federal and state laws protect their nesting areas.

One can see thousands of seagulls in San Francisco and down the Peninsula in Foster City. They swoop into the stands at the end of Giants games, looking for scraps. They are ubiquitous, far from endangered, and, frankly, hazardous to human and animal health. Somehow I think the seagulls will adapt if they couldn't nest at the Santa Cruz Wharf over several summers.

The blame for the wharf collapse rests squarely on the shoulders of the California Coastal Commission, which refused to modify its protection of the nesting areas of a species called by many as flying rats.

James Earl Carter, Jr. (1924-2024)

Former President Jimmy Carter, 100, has died:

The 39th president’s sole term in office was marred by a listless economy and stubborn inflation, squabbles within his party, gridlock in Congress and the seizure of American hostages in Iran. Considered a long-shot Democratic candidate when he announced his bid, Carter would broker a historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt and set in motion other changes that would dominate global politics in subsequent years.

Many of the achievements for which he was recognized came after he left office in January 1981. He was the most active former president in modern U.S. history, gaining renown for work over four decades monitoring elections around the world, fighting neglected diseases, working to raise living standards for the poor and advocating for human rights. He did much of this work through the Carter Center, the humanitarian nonprofit he founded with his wife, Rosalynn Carter, in 1982.

“Jimmy Carter will probably not go down in American history as the most effective president. But he is certainly the best ex-president the country ever had,” said Gunnar Berge of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in his 2002 speech presenting Carter with the peace prize.

Because of the Iran hostage crisis and moribund economy during his term, Jimmy Carter's Presidency is poorly regarded. But there were some positives:

But he had some notable successes in foreign affairs, including the Camp David Accords. Signed with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, they reshaped the Middle East by bringing a lasting peace to two hostile nations. And domestically, the president was able to push deregulation of airlines, railroads and other industries. He signed a law establishing the Energy Department to regulate existing sources of energy and fund research into new sources and other technologies.

If there's one thing that I remember about President Carter, it's his outspoken Christianity. He was mocked by the Eastern cognoscenti for the Playboy "lust in my heart" interview:

"I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times."

In his defense he wasn't saying anything that most red-blooded American males didn't identify with, but back in the '70's one just didn't talk about such things in public. To his secular supporters he had committed an unforced error by bringing up one of the central struggles of being an evangelical Christian---that God judges men not by their actions but by what is in their hearts:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.---Matthew 5:27

Jimmy Carter spent his post-Presidency showing everyone what it was like to walk the walk over more than four decades. He and Rosalynn lived humbly in Plains, GA and gave generously of their time and money to philanthropic endeavors.

IMHO, Jimmy Carter's failures provide the answer to a question that journalists liked to ask during the recent Presidential campaign: "How can Christians vote for a rapist, serial liar, and convicted felon?" The answer is obvious: we elected a saint once before, and look where that got us. R.I.P.

Fish Story

Thomas Czernik with his 6-ft catch (Luong/WSJ)

Warm-water fish are showing up in New England waters, which would probably have gone unremarked except these fish include the giant tarpon:

Now tarpon—nicknamed the Silver King after its majestic size and shimmering silver color—are surfacing in New England waters. The warm water trophy fish, which can grow to eight feet, weigh 280 pounds and live for 50 years, are prized by anglers who primarily fish for them in Florida.

The massive prehistoric fish has been shocking Northeast anglers, who are normally looking for striped bass, fluke, bluefish and the occasional shark. Scientists and marine biologists are mystified.

When confronting an invasive species, the first question should be: are tarpon good to eat? Unfortunately, no. Per Google AI:

No, tarpon are generally not considered good to eat because their flesh is full of small, hard-to-remove bones, making them more trouble than they're worth, and most people choose to catch and release them as a sport fish instead of eating them.

A giant fish filled with small bones, Tarpon are sport fish that are usually tossed back. Look for their presence to grow in the North Atlantic.

Spam

Costco's semi-annual spam sale used to occur like clockwork in March and September. COVID caused Costco and Hormel to suspend the sales for 3 years, and they resumed in 2022 .

However, the timing is less predictable. The most recent markdown was in August, and another started yesterday.

How will I know when to borrow my neighbor's pick-up truck?

Property for the People

Federal land in Utah (Peery/AP/WSJ)

One of the first moves that a financially distressed company makes is to sell off unproductive assets to pay down its debt. Economist Thomas Sowell says that strategy should apply to the Federal government, which is not realizing revenue from its vast landholdings:

Some of that land—such as military bases—is used to house the government’s own operations. But the great majority of that land is not.

The rest of this government-owned land is so vast that there is little to compare it with—except whole countries. And not small countries like Belgium or Portugal. The amount of land owned by the National Park Service alone is larger than Italy. The land owned by the Fish and Wildlife Service is larger than Germany. The land owned by the Forest Service is larger than Britain and Spain combined. The land owned by the Bureau of Land Management is larger than Japan, North Korea, South Korea and the Philippines combined.

The idea of selling huge amounts of government-owned land is not new. Before the federal income tax was created in the early 20th century, land sales were sometimes a significant source of federal government income in the preceding two centuries. The prospect of large-scale land sales was considered during the Reagan administration, but the political opposition was too strong.

As of 2015, government-owned lands were valued at $1.8 trillion by the Commerce Department.

$1.8 trillion, even if adjusted higher from 2015 to current dollars, will hardly put a dent in the national debt of $36 trillion. However, it would be a mistake to limit the financial analysis of government assets to market values equivalent to undeveloped land.

Once these assets are sold, no longer will they be drains on the Treasury for their maintenance and security but contributing value to the economy as sites for residences and businesses. And with future positive contributions come future taxes.

After all, the entire United States west of the Mississippi was once as useless as Federal land is today. If Federal lands were to be used to their full potential, who knows what marvels may ensue?

There's Gold in Them Thar Buckets

(AP 2008 photo)

A Christmas surprise in a Salvation Army bucket:

An anonymous donor dropped a rare gold coin into a red kettle operated by the Napa Salvation Army on Saturday.

Volunteers discovered the 1-ounce South African Krugerrand gold coin while counting donations after a day of bell ringing at Napa’s Bel Aire Plaza, Larry Carmichael, a corps officer of the Salvation Army of Napa, told the Chronicle on Sunday.

“This is not a coin you carry in your pocket to toss anywhere,” Carmichael said. “Whoever had it was intentional about where they were donating it.”

...The organization’s annual red kettle donation campaign, which started at the Oakland Ferry Landing in 1891, collects millions of dollars nationally to fund its holiday meals program. In Napa, donations also fund a culinary arts training program, music classes for children and housing grants for more than 100 local families.

What I like about this story is that the donor wanted anonymity (and didn't even want to document the donation for the IRS!). Yes, he or she could have private, practical reasons, but I like to think that this was the motivation:

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.----Matthew 6:1-4

The spot price of gold is about $2,630 per ounce, and the value of a 1-oz. Krugerrand tracks spot gold closely.

Merry Christmas!

Songs of the Season

(Reprised):

In the late 1990's my former employer could draw on a talent pool of more than 200 financial professionals to put together a decent holiday choir. The grainy video (VHS tape) and monaural audio won't attract any hits today, but Christmas is a time of nostalgic sentimentality...



Note: here are parts Two, and Three.

Part Four is below:



Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow...

But the fates do not allow. As this year has reminded us, Our time together is fleeting, gone in the wink of an eye. Like the ghostly watchers in Grover's Corners, we have an eternity to mull the regrets of moments unappreciated until too late.

Use It or Lose It

Looking healthy (medium.com)

U.S. researchers found that (pre-GPS) professional drivers had a lower incidence of Alzheimer's disease: [bold added]

A new study found that U.S. taxi and ambulance drivers had the lowest percentage of deaths attributed to Alzheimer’s disease among more than 400 occupations. The drivers mostly worked before GPS navigation systems were widely used.

The researchers hypothesize that taxi and ambulance drivers could have a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s because they are constantly using navigational and spatial processing, says Dr. Anupam Jena, a professor of health at Harvard Medical School and associate physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and senior author of the study.

Those on-the-fly decisions about how to get from point A to point B when a road is closed or blocked may protect the drivers’ cognitive abilities, the researchers speculate.

“They’re making decisions literally every few seconds about where to go, where to turn,” says Jena. “The way that your brain is used over the course of your career or the course of your life might impact the likelihood that someone develops dementia.”

The research supports other evidence that education and brain stimulation may help to at least delay symptoms of Alzheimer’s. An earlier study concluded that dementia risk was lower among people with cognitively stimulating jobs compared with those whose jobs were more repetitive, according to the 2021 research in the journal BMJ that looked at the occupations of more than 100,000 people across multiple studies...

A well-known 2000 study found that London cabdrivers had an enlarged part of their hippocampus. That section of the brain plays an important role in many cognitive functions, including spatial and navigational memory. The hippocampus is typically among the first parts of the brain that Alzheimer’s affects, which is why trouble with navigation and remembering directions is often an early symptom, says Wolk.

The theory goes that the brain, like muscle, grows stronger and bigger with use and makes individuals more resistant to the maladies of aging. (Earlier this year we had commented on the hypothesis that the human brain had been shrinking over millennia because more of its functions have been off-loaded to technology.)

Whether true or not, it can't hurt to use our brains more, especially now that there are many enjoyable (puzzles, education, social interactions) activities to choose from. And certain professions--like taxi and delivery-truck driving--allow one to earn a living and keep one's brain healthier for longer.

The Cards Are Mailed

We finished signing and addressing the Christmas cards and will drop them off at the Post Office this afternoon. Most of the addressees will receive them after Christmas, but at least the postmark will verify that we got them out before Wednesday.

I still have some business forms to be filed with California before year end and some donations to be reviewed (we're itemizing in 2024), but the holiday to-do list is nearly checked off and, at the risk of jinxing it, the signs point to a Happy Holiday week.

The Jesus Look

Bob Sagers, cheesemonger, models as Jesus (Raff/WSJ)

Pictures of baby Jesus are common during this time of the year. Utahans take it a step further:

Models who look like Jesus are in high demand in Utah. That’s because for a growing number of people in the state, a picture isn’t complete without Him. They are hiring Jesus look-alikes for family portraits and wedding announcements. Models are showing up to walk with a newly engaged couple through a field, play with young children in the Bonneville Salt Flats, and cram in with the family for the annual Christmas card...

Finding a model can be difficult. Areas of Utah with high concentrations of Mormons—who also call themselves Latter-day Saints or LDS—tend to lack potential Jesus doppelgängers. Some men who work or volunteer for the church, one of the state’s largest employers, are required to shave every day and keep their hair short.

I doubt that historically accurate representations of Jesus are what is being demanded. The WSJ interviews of Jesus models indicate that customers think that He looks like a healthy white American male with a beard. Oh, well, give the customers what they want; their hearts seem to be in the right place,

Much More Than Dates

Back in the '50's perishable Christmas gifts were rare. Air shipments were not available to the hoi polloi, and refrigeration was prohibitively expensive. When California relatives did send food to our Hawaiian household, it was usually in the form of dried dates, which I did enjoy.

In recent years most of the holiday food shipments (meats, cheeses, fresh fruits) we've received require refrigeration. This year my brother, who lives in Orange County, mailed us a package of California dried fruits. I'll savor them with my morning coffee, thinking of the dates I delighted in a lifetime ago.

Manifest Destiny

(From Cambridge dictionary)

There's an irritating self-help phrase that thankfully one doesn't see much of anymore--"controlling your own destiny" (by definition you cannot change your destiny/fate)--but the sentiment, however awkwardly stated, is clear: achieving one's goal requires planning and execution and now many people add something else, manifesting.

Visualizing the success you want to achieve, or manifesting, took off this year.

Go online, and seemingly everyone is making vision boards, writing down their goals repeatedly and saying them aloud like a mantra.

Singer Dua Lipa swore by it to achieve big goals, and Cambridge Dictionary named “manifest” its word of the year. In the first eight months of 2024, there were more than 130,000 searches for it on the dictionary’s website. On TikTok, the hashtag #manifesting has 1.6 million posts and #manifestation has 6.5 million.

Some psychologists say its current meaning, which involves visualizations and affirmations to make something happen, can be traced to the bestselling 2006 book “The Secret.” Its recent resurgence reflects a desire for people to exert control over their lives, even when the outcome might be largely out of their hands...

Successful people have long worked to visualize the outcome they wanted or repeated positive phrases to achieve a goal. But recently, as more people have taken it on, they say they have learned a key lesson: If you don’t couple manifesting with action, it can be a waste.

What distinguises manifesting is the picturing of the goal before one plans and executes. Your humble blogger didn't do much visualization during his productive years and undoubtedly could have accomplished more than he did. But he...I...ended up happy in ways that I did not envision. Manifesting can help, but it isn't for everybody, especially if life is more journey than goal.

Squirrelly Behavior

Vole aka "meadow mouse" (Sonja Wild/UC Davis/SFGate)

Aa a beginning grade school reader in the 1950's my first reading material was the classic Golden Books. I moved on to the "Mother West Wind" series by Thornton W. Burgess (1874-1965), who populated the Green Meadows with over a dozen animal characters. My favorite was Danny Meadow Mouse, who frolicked with Jerry Muskrat, old Mr. Toad, Jimmy Skunk, and Chatterer the Squirrel.

A recent discovery revealed that Thornton W. Burgess' Green Meadows is red in tooth and claw, and we're not even talking about predators like coyotes and cougars: [bold added]

Squirrel eating vole (Sonja Wild/UC Davis/SFGate)

In June 2024, Jennifer E. Smith of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire received a disturbing report from her research team conducting fieldwork at Briones Regional Park in Contra Costa County. It’s a sprawling expanse of grasslands and oak woodlands known for scenic trails, views of Mount Diablo and a thriving bird-watching scene. However, Smith’s students had documented something far more unsettling than a rare bird or damage on a trail: an unsettling description of a California ground squirrel actively hunting, killing and ripping apart the bodies of tiny California voles...

For squirrels observed consuming their kills immediately rather than carrying the carcass back to a den, the behavior followed a grimly methodical pattern. In every case, the squirrels “first removed the head of the vole” before pulling meat from the torso. They then “stripped fur from each of the body parts” before devouring the exposed flesh, organs and even cartilage, behavior that was reminiscent of a more seasoned predator.

The scientists speculate that a spike in the vole population induced the squirrels to switch to an easier, abundant source of protein. What was remarkable was how quickly the mainly granivorous ("relying primarily on seeds, grains and vegetation") squirrels became skilled predators.

Danny Meadow Mouse needs to be more careful about who he hangs out with.

LOLOCT7 Wasn't What Everyone Thought It Meant

(Photo from KABC LA)

Am antisemitic group complained about a personalized license plate spotted in Culver City:

the advocacy group StopAntisemitism shared a photo of the plate, “LOLOCT7,” spotted at a busy intersection in Culver City (Los Angeles County). The organization suggested that the plate celebrated the deadly terrorist attack [by Hamas on October 7, 2023], which it described as a “vile mockery” of the tragedy...

But the son of the car’s owner, who spoke anonymously to KABC-TV in Los Angeles, explained that the plate’s meaning had been misinterpreted.

He clarified that “LOLOCT7” was intended to reference “Lolo,” the Tagalog word for grandfather, “CT” for the Cybertruck model and “7” to signify the number of grandchildren the owner has.

The Filipino family said this explanation was shared with the DMV when the plate was first requested. The Cybertruck owner is in the process of getting new plates.

For most Americans the plate is likely interpreted as "laughing out loud" re "October 7", the date of a murderous terrorist attack. To the Filipino family the characters were an abbreviation for "grandfather." "Cybertruck," "7 [grandchildren]." The dispute was resolved quickly because the owner agreed to change the license plate.

In a multicultural society these misunderstandings can easily happen. Sometimes the dominant culture says or writes something that offends a minority group; in this rarer case the minority makes an expression that offends the dominant culture and the dominant culture cares. We are used to both sides being intransigent, and it's a relief that the "offending" side agreed readily to modify its material.

Promises, Promises

Our Bay Bridge toll was 75 cents in the 70's (KQED)

A one-party State that has no fear of political opposition and is responsible only to itself for obeying rules will inevitably be corrupt. Case in point: bridge tolls have been diverted, and more toll increases have been requested. [bold added]

Part of a $3 Bay Area toll increase that voters approved in 2018 for public transit and freeway improvements is effectively being used as a slush fund for bridge maintenance.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s legally questionable diversion betrays promises made to voters. It affects the funding source for $4.5 billion of capital projects required by the nine-county ballot measure, known as Regional Measure 3...

RM3 provides $2 of the current $7 auto toll and, starting Jan. 1, $3 of the new $8 toll. The remaining portions are from separate authorizations for other purposes.

MTC’s comingling of these different portions affects both cash revenue from bridge tolls, expected to be more than $800 million this year, and liability for the $11 billion of borrowing through bonds the agency has issued since 2001, for which it still owes nearly $10 billion.

The comingling also makes it impossible to determine whether the diversion is limited to the RM3 portion of bridge toll revenues, or if other portions are also being misdirected or leveraged for excessive borrowing.

Despite the opaque finances, the commission on Wednesday will consider raising tolls another $2.50 by 2030, bringing the total to $10.50. The proposed increase, which would involve 50-cent annual increases starting in 2026, is supposed to be for bridge maintenance and rehabilitation.

But without transparent bookkeeping, agency commissioners and the public cannot intelligently evaluate whether the additional $2.50 toll is needed...

The melding of revenues from and debt liability attributable to the different portions of bridge toll revenue make it nearly impossible to ascertain whether other parts of the toll revenue are also not being spent as intended.

The problem is exacerbated because each component of the toll is permanent — there are no expiration dates — but the expenditures in many of the cases are for finite projects. That eventually leaves extra money.

Which raises the question: If MTC staff is correct that it can use any toll funds for bridge maintenance and rehabilitation expenditures, then does it really need to again permanently increase tolls, this time by another $2.50? Alternatively, if it raises tolls for bridge work, should it start phasing out other toll components for projects that have been completed?

Despite representations made to the voters that higher tolls will be used for non-bridge purposes (e.g., BART, Caltrain, freeway widening), MTC staff now claims that they can be diverted to bridge repair.

The lesson that sadly must be learned every few years: California governments promise the voters anything to increase revenues---whether they be taxes, bond issuances, or fee/toll hikes--then break those promises because no one will be penalized.

An Oldie and Goodie

(Album cover from Wikipedia)

San Francisco's most-streamed Christmas tune is a 1958 number:

This year, a new star has risen to the top of San Francisco’s holiday music charts.

Well, not exactly new. “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” the famed rockabilly tune sung by a then-13-year-old Brenda Lee, was recorded 66 years ago. Since then, Lee’s song has enjoyed a slow and steady climb up the charts, and this time around even beaten Mariah Carey’s fabled “All I Want for Christmas Is You” to become the most-streamed holiday song in San Francisco heading into December, and the city’s 10th most-streamed track overall.

Below is 80-year-old Brenda Lee reprising her Eisenhower-era hit.

Gaudete Sunday

Today the Advent candle is rosy pink:

The third Sunday of Advent in the Roman Catholic calendar of the church year. The term is derived from the Latin opening words of the introit antiphon, “Rejoice (Gaudete) in the Lord always.” The theme of the day expresses the joy of anticipation at the approach of the Christmas celebration. This theme reflects a lightening of the tone of the traditional Advent observance. It was appropriate for the celebrant of the Mass to wear rose-colored vestments on this day instead of the deeper violet vestments that were typically used in Advent. This Sunday was also known as “Rose Sunday.” This custom is not required in the Episcopal Church, but it is observed by some parishes with a traditional Anglo-catholic piety. This custom is reflected by the practice of including a pink or rose-colored candle among the four candles of an Advent wreath.

The beauty of the rose candle on Gaudete ("rejoice") Sunday shines in a darkened world, foreshadowing the Light to come.

Paper is Still the Gold Standard

(Image from tvtropes)

You're on your deathbed and still of sound mind. Your estate is to be evenly split between your son and daughter, but Jack has never come around to see you while Jill has not only visited you daily but handled all the day-to-day minutiae of your finances and running your household.

You now want to leave everything to Jill, but there may not be time to get a lawyer to change your will. Surely it must be better to record a selfie on your smartphone rather than scrawl a note on a piece of paper. But that would be wrong.[bold added]

While most of the business of life has gone digital, estate law remains rooted to ink on paper. Americans who try to phone in or record their estate plans don’t realize that video and audio recordings don’t qualify...

Aside from audio and video, some states will allow an electronic will. But a paper will, drafted by a lawyer, and signed by you with a “wet signature,” witnessed and notarized, is still the gold standard.

If you insist on putting your final wishes on video, it behooves you to have a printer nearby. You can transcribe your speech using any number of programs and print the text. Make corrections by hand, and sign and date the final product. Et voilà! A piece of paper that should hold up in court with the bonus of having made a video that will add authenticity to the change in the will.

Estate law will undoubtedly catch up to technology in a decade or so, but many of us boomers won't be able to wait that long...

Timelines Timeliness

(Image from eBay)

Just in time to assuage unhappiness with current politics, the concept of multiverse timelines has caught fire:

On Joe Rogan’s podcast last month, the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen explained his theory that “the timeline has split twice in the last nine months. . . . The world was going to head in two totally different directions.” The first split was when Donald Trump was shot in Butler, Pa., on July 13. The second was on Election Day. Twitter is awash with posts from some users exclaiming that they “love this timeline” and others lamenting that they “hate this timeline.” Ezra Klein, doyen of the intellectual left, said in a Nov. 19 podcast that he’s watching Mr. Trump’s nominees “to see what timeline we’re in.”

The notion of this timeline implies the existence of that timeline—an alternative reality in which things unfold differently. Much as the idea “We are living in a simulation” saturated social media during the Covid-19 pandemic, “this timeline” is the latest exclamation of discomfort with our present reality.

Though it’s especially prominent among those who are online and anti-Trump, references to the timeline aren’t the sole province of the left. Last month, David Friedberg, co-host of the tech podcast “All-In,” repeatedly used the term to indicate his elation with political circumstances: “I am so shocked and surprised in a positive way that we ended up on this particular timeline. . . . We’re on this timeline and I do think the United States, as Neo, dodged a lot of bullets here.”

The invocation of Neo, hero of the film franchise “The Matrix,” is telling. The concept of timelines originates in science fiction and is linked intimately with the multiverse, the idea of parallel realities with similar people and personalities but different events and outcomes. This connection to science fiction is perhaps why the theme has resonated with Silicon Valley’s newly right-leaning techno-utopians, as well as members of the left.

Human beings have always believed--or imagined--that there are realities different and maybe better than the one we are stuck in. From heaven to reincarnation, from a simulated universe to a multiverse, there may be a super-reality where our good behavior is rewarded or our lives can have a second chance.

Just as Marxists saw benefits in religion because it was the "opiate" of the masses, conservatives won't decry multiverse-ology because it keeps many leftists quiet, and besides, it may be true (!). Meanwhile, your humble blogger has given up trying to understand the current timeline and is just enjoying the show.

A Good Home

The truck arrived at 11:30, and the Volkswagen was winched up onto the flatbed.

Carlos said he would take a few months to fix it up. He will bring the car by when he was finished. Carlos intends to commute in the VW from San Mateo to his job in Redwood City. He was the only buyer among three who promised not to flip the car immediately for a profit.

A car is not the same as a beloved pet, much less a human child, but it's nice to know the car that I've had for 51 years is going to a good home.

Good Times

The 1976 pink slip

The California State Automobile Association clerk studied the Ownership Certificate ("pink slip") for the 1967 Volkswagen bug. The pink slip was 48 years old and was in a format that he was unfamiliar with. He called his supervisor for help in filling out the paperwork for the transfer of title.

After 51 years I said goodbye to the automobile that I had driven in college. In 2020 I thought I would keep it forever. In 2022 there were still strong reasons for holding on to it.

However, circumstances changed, as they always do. Repairs were required, and it is difficult to find mechanics who were versed in the electrical and engine systems of old Volkswagens. And even if I could get it fixed, no one in the next generation wanted it. Was I interested in using it as a local runaround car? Not badly enough to hold onto the Bug. In bygone days I had invested $thousands (pictures below) to keep it together, but no longer.

2012: before

2012: after

Carlos, who works in Foster City and lives in San Mateo, had been eying the Beetle for a decade. After he called in October, the time seemed right, especially since I'm on this kick to minimize the assets that my heirs have to deal with.

Goodbye, girl, we had some good times.

Nvidia's Management Secret: Top Five Things

(Bennett / aol photo)

Founders of world-class companies each have their distinguishing management characteristics--think Steve Jobs' perfectionism, Bill Gates' ruthlessness, and Elon Musk's first principles. Jensen Huang's is T5T (Top Five Things):

T5T emails began as a solution to a surprisingly tricky problem. Huang is allergic to the bureaucracy that infects organizations as they get bigger. But as his startup grew, he “needed to somehow keep tabs on what was going on inside Nvidia in order to make sure everyone had the right priorities,” [“The Nvidia Way" author Tae] Kim writes.

This turned out to be harder than etching billions of transistors on a silicon wafer.

The documents that make it to a typical CEO tend to get so watered down along the way that they’re liable to leave a puddle on his desk. Huang doesn’t bother with any of them. He doesn’t believe in formal strategic planning or status reports, either. “Status reports are meta-information by the time you get them,” Huang said last year. “They’re barely informative.”

He doesn’t want information that has already made its way through layers of management. What he wants is “information from the edge,” he said last month in a public interview with Laurene Powell Jobs.

The way he solved this problem was by asking roughly 30,000 employees at every level of the company to send regular emails to their teams and executives that even the CEO can access. Which he does—every single day. They’re usually brief and include a few bullet points, and glancing at them gives Huang a snapshot of what’s happening inside Nvidia, Kim writes.

It might just be the only way he can get the sort of unvarnished truth that nobody wants to give the CEO but every CEO needs to get. After all, Nvidia’s employees are not telling Huang what they think he wants to hear. They’re just telling him things.

T5T emails became a “crucial feedback channel” for Huang, Kim writes, because they allowed him to pick up on trends that were obvious to junior employees, even when top executives were completely oblivious.

All the aforementioned founders have been called workaholics because they don't make the mistake of over-delegation. Over-delegation tempts them to coast on their marketplace dominance, which dissipates often invisibly because they took their foot off the gas.

Through T5T Jensen Huang seems to have found an efficient way to access uncurated information flowing through his vast organization, but he still has to work around the clock. May he remain at Nvidia's helm for many years.

Too Much Communication, Too Little Specificity

OTOH, if they say it's an emergency
but don't self-identify, it's likely a scam.

The Two Most-Dreaded Words in a Text Conversation are "call me":

For years, people have complained about receiving “call me” texts from parents, siblings, colleagues and bosses.

Much like how generations interpret emojis differently and Apple’s tapback message reactions don’t mean the same thing to everyone, the meaning—and urgency—of “call me” isn’t consistent. If “call me” comes with a GIF or an emoji, it could mean the conversation isn’t serious. Used with a period, some may interpret it as a sign of trouble. No punctuation could indicate there’s an emergency.

The deliberate ambiguity of a texted "call me," IMHO, is a power play. The recipient is forced to call on the off chance it's an emergency:

Cindy Chang, a 48-year-old clinical health, weight-loss and wellness coach in Brooklyn, N.Y., frequently spams her 18-year-old son.

She calls him on FaceTime, texts him, and then continues to do both over and over when he doesn’t answer. She calls to find out when he’s coming home, what he wants to eat or what groceries to buy—all conversations Chang sees as important enough to warrant a call (or several).

Chang says while her son isn’t a fan of her “call me” messages, she loves them because they let her “be immature and bratty” with her son.

“I try to bring more fun and joy into our relationship even though it irritates him,” Chang says.

Maybe it's a generational thing, but this boomer sees "call me" as extremely discourteous: 1) If a call is necessary, I always initiate it and don't make the other party have to call me; 2) If I do text a phone call request, I always give a short explanation about the seriousness, i.e, "X is in the hospital" or "need to discuss dinner plans"; 3) at minimum I add at least add another word, "call me please."

I'm on so many text threads that I've turned notifications off (one reason: someone sends a picture of her kid, and 10 people respond with a love-it emoji). One benefit of being over 70: I can claim (feign) tech ignorance: "I'm sorry I didn't see your text--these phones are so complicated!"

The Restoration of Notre Dame

The 2019 fire at Notre Dame (WSJ/AFP/Getty images)

Like many who watched in horror five years ago, we thought that Notre Dame Cathedral had been lost forever to fire. Yesterday it re-opened, radiant and gleaming.

The limestone facade of Notre Dame Cathedral is radiant. Its ornate gargoyles and angels show no signs of the smoke and flames that once billowed from the church. The cavernous interior is immaculate, the soot having been meticulously scrubbed from its arches.

By almost any metric the restoration of Notre Dame has been a success, coming five years after a fire swept across the masterpiece of Gothic architecture, nearly destroying it. On Saturday, a host of global figures, including President-elect Donald Trump, gathered inside the cathedral for a solemn ceremony to mark its reopening.

Notre Dame’s revival is nothing short of a miracle to many, a sign that cooperation across France and beyond to achieve a singular goal is still possible.

We marvel that the skills necessary for the restoration had not been lost, that there was little dithering over what the "new" church should look like, that funds were raised quickly, and most of all, that beauty came back into the world.

Pearl Harbor: Receding into History

Last year's Pearl Harbor Day post was about Lou Conter, the last survivor of the USS Arizona. Lou Conter died last spring.

Conter died Monday morning [April 1, 2024] at his home in Grass Valley, Calif., according to his daughter Louann Daley.

Born in Ojibwa, Wis., in 1921, Conter was 20 years old when the USS Arizona was bombed by Japanese forces at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

The USS Arizona’s bombing was the deadliest of the attacks that day, killing 1,177 people—nearly half of the 2,403 who died during Pearl Harbor. Conter was one of just 334 people assigned to the USS Arizona who survived.

Conter escaped the burning wreckage. As he and others guided crew members to safety, “more often than not, their burned skin would come off on our hands,” he wrote in his 2021 memoir, “The Lou Conter Story.”

“It was horrible,” he wrote. “Absolutely horrible.”

Despite his work that day, he said he didn’t want to be called a hero.

“I consider the heroes the ones that gave their lives, that never came home to their families,” Conter said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal last year. “They’re the real heroes.”

...He got his pilot wings in November 1942, and was part of a team that flew Black Cat aircraft overnight doing bomb runs in the South Pacific, Conter said. He was shot down twice, once in September 1943 and a second time three months later. Both times, Conter said, he used a lifeboat to get to shore.

After World War II ended, he returned to California and signed up for the reserves. In the early 1950s, he served again in the Korean War.

Conter retired from the Navy in 1967 as a lieutenant commander and became a real-estate developer in California.

Pearl Harbor is nearly as remote from today's children as was the Civil War from the first Baby Boomers. We grew up in a world where the deeds of "ordinary" men like Lou Conter were taken for granted. Now such strength of character seems uncommon, and its prevalence in the World War II generation impossible to imagine. R.I.P.

Sam Wo: The End?

Chef David Ho (Strazzante/Chronicle)

Every month we hear a report of a well-known San Francisco restaurant closing--often these announcements come as a surprise--but Sam Wo's demise has been in the cards for at least a decade. Its closure (for health code violations) occurred in 2012, and it reopened in 2015 at a different address. In 2020 long-time chef and co-owner David Ho, then 65, was feeling the effects of age.

His body is full of aches and pains. He’s scared of catching the coronavirus. Still, he doesn’t want to stop working, despite the pleas of his business partners. Even his daughter has expressed concerns he’s working too hard without a staff to back him up, according to co-owner Steven Lee, who helped resurrect Sam Wo, Chinatown’s oldest restaurant, after it temporarily closed in 2012.

Sam Wo will probably close on December 31st.

A 116-year-old San Francisco Chinatown landmark, Sam Wo Restaurant, is set to close Dec. 31 — potentially for good — as chef and co-owner David Jitong Ho retires and his partners scramble to find a successor.

First opened sometime after the 1906 earthquake by Chinese immigrants, Sam Wo Restaurant became a haunt of the 1950s Beat Generation poets, including Allen Ginsberg, and workplace of the late Edsel Fong, whose colorful personality earned him the title of “world’s rudest waiter” from Chronicle columnist Herb Caen.

Ho, the second generation of his family to helm the restaurant’s kitchen, has been working at Sam Wo since 1981, except for a three-year break starting in 2012 when the restaurant temporarily closed. The 69-year-old said he is exhausted from the years of toil and needs to retire, in part, because of two torn tendons in his arm.

Sam Wo Restaurant was the subject of one of the first posts on this blog in 2003. At that time David Ho had already worked in the kitchen for over 20 years. He deserves a happy and restful retirement.

Tsunami Warning Cancelled

At 10:44 this morning three iPhones in our house blared an emergency warning. A 7.0 earthquake had occurred in the waters off Humboldt County, over 260 miles north of San Francisco. The earthquake was just close enough--and Foster City just close enough to the Bay--that we could not disregard the dangers of a tsunami.

And so it was that our eyes were glued to the TV on the off chance that an evacuation would be announced. To our relief the tsunami warning was canceled within the hour:

Temblor CEO and Stanford Geophysics lecturer Ross Stein gave ABC7 News an explanation for the change. He said the earthquake initially appeared to be a 6.0-magnitude shallow earthquake, the kind that involves “a lot of vertical motion of the seafloor, which tends to produce more tsunamis.”

It didn’t take long, however, for scientists to realize it was a much larger 7.0-magnitude earthquake and a different type of earthquake that is unlikely to produce a large tsunami, he said.

It was “a very typical, garden-variety event on this northern extension of the San Andreas Fault, which we call the Mendocino Fault Zone. In that respect it doesn’t move the sea floor up and down very much,” said Stein.

Of course, we were relieved that there was no tsunami. It would have drastically inconvenienced our Christmas shopping activities!

But seriously...this was another demonstration of the inadequacy of our evacuation plans. We did have "go" bags at the ready, every car had at least half a tank, and we did have an idea where to seek temporary shelter. However, what to take and what to leave behind had not been finalized, I had not digitized and stored key documents in the cloud, nor had we updated our wills since 2002 (we do have draft revisions that have not been executed).

At least we know what our top New Year resolutions will be.

Ramen Surprise

Three months ago we wrote about how the tonkatsu ramen purchased at Nijiya Market had soup that came in a plastic bag.

Perhaps enough customers complained to cause the supplier to eliminate the plastic bag; when I emptied the contents into a bowl, the gelatinized soup was on the bottom. (The soup was no longer liquid; the formula obviously had been adjusted.)

The other change was a 30% increase in the ramen price, from $9.99 to $12.99. I thought food-price inflation was over!

Egg Recall

The eggs we bought at Costco last week have been recalled:

Costco has issued another major food recall due to potential salmonella contamination, affecting over 10,000 units of organic eggs sold at its warehouses nationwide.

The recall, announced Nov. 27 by Handsome Brook Farms, covers Kirkland Signature Organic Pasture-Raised 24-Count Eggs. More than 250,000 eggs were found to have been potentially contaminated with salmonella after being mistakenly packaged for retail sale...

The affected units have the UPC number 9661910680 and a use-by date of Jan. 5, 2025. They were packaged in plastic egg cartons labeled with the Kirkland Signature logo and mostly sold in Southern states.

The Universal Product Code matches the eggs that may have salmonella. We've consumed nine eggs already to no ill effect, but we'll not take any chances and return what's left.

We've been buying foods labeled "organic" because of their putative health benefits, but there is a trade-off. Organic fruits and vegetables need to be washed thoroughly because they are grown without pesticides; some foods spoil faster because they don't have preservatives; and who knows whether egg salmonella has increased because hens are raised without antibiotics?

We still must be vigilant against food-borne illness, and buying organic is no panacea.

Not the McDonald's Demographic

The $14 honeymoon oyster at Water Grill is topped
with roe, sea urchin and a quail egg. (Cahill/WSJ)

The hottest trend in fancy restaurants: single-bite dishes that can cost $30.

Tiny portions of intricately assembled ingredients are gracing menus. Many incorporate caviar, seafood or Wagyu beef. The bites are meant to start the meal, and many cost $20 to $30 each, often more than heartier appetizers.

For restaurants, it’s a way to fatten check totals, since customers remain just as likely to pay for larger plates. And customers order their own because they are too small to share. Diners are drawn to the novelty—and the social media hype.

It's a way to taste very expensive ingredients without breaking the bank, as well as have something to brag about on social media. However, I suspect that many old-timers like myself will gag at the (lack of) value proposition and decline to order. Life is simpler and cheaper when one doesn't care about how many hits one gets on Instagram.

Hospital Chaplaincy

Spiritual care volunteers and staff at Stanford Hospital Chapel

Before an Episcopal priest can be ordained, he or she must complete several months of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE). In CPE the students minister to non-Christians as well as Christians, much as priests do in the real world.

Clergy that I have spoken to have said that their most intense and rewarding experiences have occurred while they did their CPE as hospital chaplains. [bold added]

Hospitalized patients and their families often struggle with religious and spiritual quandaries but can’t attend their houses of worship or don’t have one. Chaplains thus fill crucial gaps. As the religious makeup of the U.S. has changed in recent years, their profession has begun to do so too. Board-certified chaplains are now increasingly trained to help patients of diverse beliefs. To learn about their vocations, I [note: Columbia prof. of psychiatry Robert Klitzman] recently conducted an in-depth study, speaking with 50 chaplains from across the country and from different faiths.

While chaplains aid countless patients, they are in many cases marginalized and underfunded. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services allows for direct reimbursement for spiritual services only within the Veterans Affairs system. Offering spiritual care for hospice patients enrolled in Medicare is mandatory but not directly billable. As a consequence, many hospitals have no chaplains; some rely on local volunteer clergy, who know only their own faith, or on other healthcare professionals to fill in for spiritual care...

Chaplains are often the only staff with time to talk to patients, whom they can therefore get to know well. I learned of one patient who phoned the on-call nurse every day at 2 a.m., complaining of pain. The staff tried altering his medicine without success. Finally, a chaplain spoke to the patient, who turned out to be carrying significant guilt from his mother’s suicide when he was 18. When the chaplain arranged for the man’s elder siblings to talk about it, they were “aghast,” the chaplain told me. “They reminded him that their mother had mental-health issues: ‘Don’t you remember?’ It was like a 50-pound weight had been lifted. After that, he never again called the nurses at night.”

Chaplains also serve as critical mediators in conflicts among patients, families and physicians. At another hospital, a teenager who was dying wanted to donate his organs. Soon he was brain dead and on life support, which surgeons planned to remove in the operating room. The boy’s family wanted to be present when he died, but the surgeons refused for fear that they’d disrupt the procedure.

Presented with an impasse, a chaplain negotiated a solution: The family would dress in sterile gowns and stay in the theater for three minutes. The family and physicians sang “Amazing Grace,” the boy’s favorite song. When he died, the mother said to the chaplain: “Thank you for that gift. . . . We got to sing my son into heaven.”

In my research it wasn’t uncommon to learn of medical professionals wary of spiritual care, which they saw as having no medical benefit. Yet spiritual counseling can help patients choose palliative care when the treatments available are both futile and painful.

In facing serious disease, millions of patients find themselves pondering the eternal. Most of us will die in hospitals, far from any religious institution, and might benefit from chaplains’ care. Our healthcare systems would do well to recognize and value them more.

Spending one or two nights in a hospital changes a person. Although WiFi is now commonplace, the hospital environment is not conducive to endless Internet surfing or scrolling through social media. The patient confronts thoughts he may not be accustomed to having, especially if he is non-religious.

In his hour of need, there may not be family members the patient is comfortable talking with, and he can't bother medical personnel, whose focus is usually confined to the health of our physical bodies.

That leaves the hospital chaplain, whose job has expanded to being ready to converse with those who are members of different faiths-or no faith at all. In an increasingly irreligious society the irony is that the need for chaplaincy services has never been greater.

Temptation Avoided

In bygone days I might well have succumbed to the temptation. 20-lb. tom turkeys that had been priced at 99¢ / pound were marked down by $10, i.e. they were half-priced.

Getting the turkey would have involved a one-day obligation to prepare, roast, and carve the bird. And to what end? To add 20 pounds of leftovers to those already in the refrigerator.

Tangible objects--turkeys, computers, cars, houses--are not only assets but liabilities. They require a commitment to use, consume, maintain and repair.

The cost of the $10 turkey markdown greatly exceeded the benefit when one assigns a slightly positive amount-even $2/hour--to one's time to extract value from the purchase. I looked at the toms wistfully, then moved on.

A2 Milk: a Product That May Take Off

(Stephen Lam/Chronicle photo)

"A2/A2" may sound like the latest Star Wars character, but in real life it just may represent the future of dairy:

Alexandre Family Farm is one of the country’s only producers of A2/A2 milk, which is touted as a superior, easier-to-digest dairy. Many lactose-intolerant people say they can drink it without any discomfort. Chefs from Michelin-star restaurants are clamoring for the unusually luscious, delicious milk...

A2 milk’s growing fanbase — which includes a growing number of top Bay Area chefs — believes it’s the future of dairy. The global A2 milk market size was valued at $2.24 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow particularly fast in the United States in the coming years, according to Fortune Business Insights. The rise of A2 milk comes as the broader dairy industry is in crisis, facing declining sales amid the explosion of plant-based milks. A2’s proponents hope it will stage a comeback for dairy.

“It’s not going to happen overnight but in 20, 30 years I think all milk will be A2, or pretty close,” said Stephanie Alexandre, co-owner of Alexandre Family Farm, whose creamery is in San Leandro. “It’s changing the industry.”

...A2 milk’s road to mainstream consumption is not without challenges. It’s significantly more expensive than conventional milk. At $7.99, a gallon of Alexandre A2 milk costs twice as much as the average in the U.S. Alec’s Ice Cream pints aren’t cheap — around $9, though it depends on the store. For farmers, it’s costly to breed and maintain a fully A2 herd of cows, who must be milked and kept separate from other cows, Alexandre said, especially without the processing resources of a large, commercial dairy business.

Speaking as one who avoids dairy products because of lactose intolerance, I don't mind paying a higher price for A2 milk if it means I can occasionally partake of cheese and ice cream; it will represent a small increase to the food budget, equivalent to visiting Starbucks a couple times a week. While A2 may remain a niche product, I'm betting it will take off.