The Potemkin City

Marc Benioff (Chron photo)

In our day trip yesterday your humble blogger didn't see the urban decay that has characterized recent accounts of San Francisco.

Billionaire Salesforce founder and San Francisco native Marc Benioff hinted that the City had been cleaned up for the Dreamforce conference:

“When the city of San Francisco wants to look good and look shiny and safe, it can do it,” he told reporters at the event. “It looks great. It looks very safe right now.”

“Unfortunately, the city doesn’t always take itself as seriously as it does during Dreamforce,” he said. “If they can do it for Dreamforce, why can’t they do it every day?”

Benioff did not say whether Dreamforce will return to the city next year, after previously saying that the 40,000-person conference could move if it is affected by the city’s homelessness and drug-use issues...

Security was robust on Tuesday and Wednesday around Moscone Center, with police officers patrolling the area and event staff vigilant about confirming attendees’ badges and inspecting bags for electronics at security checkpoints on Howard Street.

It's disheartening that even San Francisco's biggest fans like Marc Benioff are skeptical about whether leaders can fix its problems. On the other hand it's encouraging that when the City "wants to look good and look shiny and safe" it still can. It's unclear how it will turn out, but I'm an optimist.

Giants v. Guardians: Unexpectedly Pleasant

There's no substitute for travel if one wants to get a full sense of a place. In this case I'm not talking about visiting another country or another State, but just spending time in the maligned City by the Bay.

It was a perfect day to take in our one Giants game of the season. Highway 101 North from the Peninsula was moderately busy at noon, a sign of returning commerce, but still not up to the levels of 2019.

We pulled into Oracle Park's Lot A, a quarter-mile south of the stadium. The Mission Bay district, formerly the land of railyards and industrial warehouses, has been transformed with residential highrises. The UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay opened in 2015 and the $1.4 billion Chase Center, home of the Golden State Warriors, opened in 2019.

McCovey Cove behind right field and the O'Doul Bridge

There was nary a homeless person or drug dealer in sight as we walked with hordes of fans over the draw bridge and to the south gate, both of which were named after baseball legend Lefty O'Doul. Except for areas under construction, the sidewalks were pristine and wide. Perhaps by coincidence there were friendly patrol officers all around Oracle Park

We got to our seats at the bottom of the first inning, and the Giants were already trailing the Cleveland Guardians by a score of 4-0. The Giants looked lifeless; by the bottom of the 7th, with a score of 5-2 and taking into account the Giants' month-long lack of hitting, we talked about leaving after the 8th. But to everyone's surprise

Wednesday, the Guardians led the entire way until the eighth when their lead evaporated with one swing of J.D. Davis’ bat. His three-run homer tied it and San Francisco went on to win 6-5 in the 10th on LaMonte Wade Jr.’s late-afternoon heroics, a sacrifice fly to left with no outs.

The Giants won on a walk-off sacrifice fly, an unexpected outcome just three innings ago.

In fact the whole pleasant experience today was unexpected. Maybe next year we'll sign up for two games.

Half a Brain is All I Need

(Part of) our brain is in the Cloud

In 2018 I tried to buy the maximum memory of 512GB for a new iPhone XS Max but had to settle for the 256GB model in inventory.

Five years later the XS Max is only 40% filled. I didn't create as many files or download as many apps as I thought I would, but the main reason the extra storage is unnecessary is that I've transferred most of the files to Apple's iCloud. (Our subscription costs $9.99 per month for 2TB, which can be shared among the family.)

The larger iPhone capacity was unnecessary because some of the tasks could be offloaded to Apple's network.

It turns out that there's a biological parallel: the human brain has shrunk over the past 5,000 years. [bold added]

But a growing body of evidence suggests our brains recently changed in an unexpected way: They diminished in size sometime following the end of the last Ice Age.

“Most people think of brain evolution happening in this linear way. It grows, plateaus and stops,” said Jeremy DeSilva, a professor of paleoanthropology at Dartmouth College. “But we’ve lost brain tissue equal to the volume of a lime—it isn’t a tiny little sliver we’re talking about.”

The precise timing of that post-Ice Age brain shrink has remained a mystery until now. A group of researchers led by DeSilva used a mixture of fossil and modern specimen data to pinpoint that this loss of gray matter happened between 3,000 to 5,000 years ago, according to research published in June in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

Many anthropologists had initially posited the changes coincided with the advent of agricultural practices around 10,000 years ago, and a global shift away from hunting and gathering.

The more-recent dates from DeSilva’s group point to booming eras for ancient civilizations in North Africa, the Middle East and South America—complex societies that they think may have played a role in the shrinkage.

They hypothesized that human societies got so cooperatively organized in the past 3,000 years that we began relying on what researchers call collective intelligence.

“It is the idea that a group of people is smarter than the smartest person in the group,” said James Traniello, a biology professor at Boston University and one of DeSilva’s co-authors. “So basically, if you live in a group, you solve problems more rapidly, more efficiently and more accurately than what’s possible for any individual.”

Traniello said the inspiration for applying this idea to why human brains may have shrunk came from “ultrasocial” insects such as ants. Ants form highly cooperative societies in which division of labor has favored smaller-brained individuals due to an advanced level of social organization.

The researchers suggested that perhaps our need to maintain a large brain—to keep track of information about food, social relationships, predators and our environment—has also relaxed in the past few millennia because we could store information externally in other members of our social circles, towns and groups.

We don't have to hunt to survive, so it's logical that our senses--and the related parts of the brain--don't have to be as acute as they once were. Nor do we have to store as much knowledge in our head when we can rely on other people, books, and the World Wide Web. The extra brain cells are not needed.

However, I'm still going to try to get the 1TB version of the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Annual Check-up

I checked off a couple of items on last year's list, but the doctor added some to take their place.

The #1 goal, lose 10 pounds, is an old friend. I blame the post-COVID bounce in socializing and trips to Hawaii.

Monitoring blood pressure is a new addition. The readings have been climbing over the years, and weekly home measurements will help him decide whether to put me on medication when I come back in three months.

One health worry that's no longer on the list: last month's colonoscopy removed five non-cancerous polyps. I won't have to schedule another one until 2027.

It could have been worse, so I'll take it.

The House is Just a Metaphor

In Chapter 6 of “12 Rules for Life" Jordan Peterson is not really talking about organizing your stuff.

Set Your House in Perfect Order Before You Criticize the World

If you are suffering—well, that’s the norm. People are limited and life is tragic. If your suffering is unbearable, however, and you are starting to become corrupted [by thoughts of revenge], here’s something to think about.

Consider your circumstances. Start small. Have you taken full advantage of the opportunities offered to you? Are you working hard on your career, or even your job, or are you letting bitterness and resentment hold you back and drag you down?

Have you made peace with your brother? Are you treating your spouse and your children with dignity and respect? Do you have habits that are destroying your health and well-being? Are you truly shouldering your responsibilities? Have you said what you need to say to your friends and family members? Are there things that you could do, that you know you could do, that would make things around you better?

Have you cleaned up your life?

If the answer is no, here’s something to try: Start to stop doing what you know to be wrong.

It's easy to place blame on other people, the environment, or bad luck, and in truth a reasonable person must acknowledge that miserable circumstances are often caused partially or even mostly by outside factors over which we have no control.

But we can't get to a better place until we clean up the clutter in our emotional house.

Cash: Still the King

You still need to carry both

Square has expanded beyond its roots in mobile payments and now offers an array of services, such as inventory and payroll, to businesses. The risk to small enterprises is that their dependency on one provider like Square could be disastrous when the provider shuts down:

During what would become an hours-long [Thursday noon - Friday morning], nationwide outage of payment system Square...restaurants and bars throughout the Bay Area who rely on Square to take payments were left frustrated and scrambling. Many posted to social media, telling customers to bring cash.

Contingency planning is often neglected, and this experience should be a wake-up call to small businesses to work on back-up plans.

But customers need to be prepared, too. I've had to pay cash on two different occasions this year when the systems on fast food franchises went down. As noted earlier this year,

My thicker wallet undoubtedly reflects personal insecurities. I carry at least $100, 1 debit and 3 credit cards, a driver's license, a gym membership, a health insurance card, and an auto club card.

It has to be said: every small business I deal with--independent restaurants, dry cleaners, and hair salons-- prefers cash. When I handed a cab driver cash instead of the credit card he was expecting, his eyes lit up.

So carry a little green in your wallet: it insures against system outages, and it seems to make merchants happier!

An EV Will Have to Wait

Filling a tank is easy, charging a Tesla needs parking instructions.

Buying an electric car has been the medium-term plan, but lately I've been having second thoughts that have nothing to do with range anxiety.

Operating an electric car means learning a new way of performing basic functions, like opening the door, turning on the "engine," and braking. [bold added]

On the Ford Mustang, you press a circular button on the door and it pops open.

On the Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5, the handle is flush with the car and pops out when the car is unlocked. With the Tesla Model Y, you need to push in the wide part of the handle then pull the longer skinnier part toward you. Thankfully, there’s a GIF for that...

Instead of a physical key fob, Tesla provides a hotel-style keycard. You can also use Tesla’s smartphone app as a key. As soon as you open the Model Y’s door, the touch screen powers on and you can operate all controls...Ford, Hyundai and Kia stick to start/stop push buttons. There are key fobs, but you can also set up the apps as keys...

OK, you know how traditional automatic-transmission cars creep forward when you take your foot off the brake? That generally isn’t the case with EVs. To move, you tap the accelerator. (Even in reverse, which can be a little unnerving.) As soon as you take your foot off the accelerator, the car slows and brakes on its own. You only hit the brake pedal itself if the car isn’t slowing quickly enough. Most EVs let you do “one-pedal driving”—that is, driving with only the accelerator.

In our three-car non-EV family it's already crucial to be aware of which car I'm driving. The oldest, a 2004 Camry, doesn't have infrared sensors that trigger beeps when the car gets too close to a stationary object or pulsing sounds when a vehicle or pedestrian approaches. I've caught myself counting on a warning light in the side view mirror, then remembering to turn my head to check the blind spot in the old car.

If I got used to driving an EV, I'd have to remember that our ICE (internal combustion engine) cars won't automatically brake when I take my foot off the gas pedal. The variation would be extensive if we got an EV, so for safety's sake, we'll wait until more user-friendly and standardized controls are developed.

[Side note: why don't we at least get rid of the pre-sensor pre-GPS 2004 Camry? We need an old car to drive into and park in San Francisco, where windows are smashed and catalytic converters are cut off with impunity.]

They Want More Than You Can Give

(NYT image)

Slightly unexpected, but this finding comports with my own experience: [bold added]

A large number of employees leave soon after their first promotion, according to new data from payroll-services provider ADP. Analyzing the job histories of more than 1.2 million U.S. workers between 2019 and 2022, the ADP Research Institute found that 29% of people quit their jobs within a month after their first promotion. It estimates that the departure rate for similar workers who weren’t promoted was 18%.

People quit their jobs for a host of reasons--whether they're successful at their current employer or not--but it may seem puzzling that the recently elevated have higher turnover than other employees.

In my case I knew after a year that working as an auditor for an accounting firm was not for me, so I finished the two years necessary to fulfill the CPA licensing requirement, spent another year in Taxes, then departed for a bump in pay. Shortly thereafter, I began managing people. Doing that in real life was far more complicated than what was taught in a business course.

One of the reasons for leaving after a promotion is that the new job often includes supervision of others. Without training, new managers often flounder. In addition supervision has only gotten more complicated in the COVID era.

Managing teams has gotten tougher with hybrid and remote work, and many new managers are caught in the middle, balancing bosses’ desire for buzzing offices with employees’ desire for greater autonomy.

“They’re sort of left on their own to adopt a whole new style of management that for many of them is very foreign,” says Heather Barrett, a director at Gallup, who co-wrote the research report.

Maybe the real story isn't lack of training but how no one, not the supervisors or the supervised, has people skills any more. Combined with high expectations and lack of patience, discontent is high.

In the age of virtual communication working conditions have never been more accommodating, but unhappiness has never been higher.

I Wonder if the Bed Vibrates

Part of the $4,500 package (WSJ)

Here's another Korean activity that might catch on internationally--"hotel" wedding proposals that cost thousands of dollars, not including the ring: [bold added]

29-year-old office worker [Oh Hae-rim] did have her heart set on one luxury: a night at a swanky hotel where her future husband would pop the question...

“Everyone prefers a hotel proposal,” Oh said. “It’s every woman’s dream.”

Oh’s boyfriend chose Signiel Seoul, a luxury hotel, which sells an “Eternal Promise” package with flower decorations and Champagne that starts at $1,200 a night. She snapped a photo of the rose petals and candles that her boyfriend prepared, and posed in front of “Marry Me” letter balloons holding a bouquet of flowers. She placed a blue Tiffany shopping bag containing a necklace next to her in the photo. Oh, for her part, gave her intended a fancy watch.

More than 40% of South Korean women want their wedding proposals to happen at a hotel, according to a recent poll by a local matchmaker. More than a third of men, in the same survey, cite “financial burden” for not wanting to propose.

Young husbands-to-be, who likely don't have a lot of won lying around, are usually the ones who pay for the proposal:

Kim Jae-hyun was stunned when his girlfriend showed him a photo of a Chanel handbag her friend received when getting proposed to at a hotel. “I started calculating how much it would all cost in my head,” he said—probably at least $3,000.

Over drinks, Kim and his friends, some married, others not, discussed whether they could afford a Chanel bag, and if it was really necessary for a proposal. His single friends thought a sincere expression of love before asking would be enough. His married friends disagreed, arguing Kim might hear about his lack of proposal panache the rest of his life.

He originally planned to propose this summer. But now he has decided to wait until the end of the year. “It will give me some time to save up,” Kim said.

Kim, listen to your married friends and spend the money. You might live another 60 years, and most assuredly you will get more than $50 of grief each year if you didn't make her proposal dream come true.

Best wishes, by the way.

Presidential Material

He does look presidential

I'm entranced by the idea of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) becoming President just for the confusion that it would engender.

There may be no practical difference between "Whitehouse says" and "the White House says," but copy writers would have to guard against using phrases like "Speaking from the White House, Whitehouse..." or "Invited to the White House by Whitehouse..."

If he's going to get to the presidential mansion, Senator Whitehouse should avoid sillinesses like accusing a Supreme Court justice of "improper opining":

Mr. Whitehouse is famous for publicly examining Brett Kavanaugh’s high-school yearbook for subtle messages of, well, we never could figure it out. And now he says Justice Alito committed “improper opining on a legal issue that may come before the court” in his recent interview with this newspaper [the WSJ]...

Our favorite line in Mr. Whitehouse’s letter says that “at the end, Justice Alito is the beneficiary of his own improper opining.” In other words, how dare Justice Alito defend himself from unfair attacks by Mr. Whitehouse, whose real goal is to coerce the Justices into doing his political bidding.

Senator Whitehouse didn't just say it but wrote a letter to Chief Justice Roberts complaining about Justice Alito's "improper opining." The Chief Justice is now obliged to compose a letter in return, and I'd give a penny, or even two, for his thoughts.

Good Reasons to Stay

Less than a 10-minute walk from our home.

A San Francisco couple in their late 60's weighs the pros and cons of moving back to the Midwest. The negatives about San Francisco have been publicized for years, but it's rare to hear about the positives.

Many of Karen Yoder's reasons for remaining in SF are similar to mine for staying in the Bay Area. (These I have highlighted in yellow.)

We still have so much to do before we leave San Francisco, and we finally have the time and ease of mind to do it.

We’re within a 15-minute bike ride from major museums, concert halls, theaters, sports stadiums and other cultural offerings we seldom visited before. I’ve mapped out the free-admission days at the Asian Art Museum and the DeYoung Museum.

We really should attend the renowned San Francisco Opera at least once. And we never get enough of Giants games, sitting on the upper deck looking down at first base and out over the bay, our bicycle in free valet parking.

We want to explore more streets by bike, climb all the beautifully tiled stairs up the city’s hills, discover more hole-in-the-wall restaurants and find the best fresh fish in Sunset-district markets.

We have a network of friends, built up since we arrived in 1989, and a strong church community. Some of those friends live in our immediate neighborhood, which has a small-town feel. We run into acquaintances on the sidewalk, shopkeepers know us and a neighbor keeps us abreast of our block’s news when she walks by with her dog.

Within an easy walk [blogger's note: or ten-minute drive] are three grocery stores, our hospital, a library, a post office, a live-music venue and dozens of restaurants and coffee shops. Our “pantry,” as we call it, is the corner store across the street.

A few blocks from our house begin the car-free paths leading through Golden Gate Park and to the Pacific Ocean, where other cyclists recognize us and wave.

And all that’s just in the city. We frequently bike across the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin County or south down Highway 1 along the ocean. The Sierra Nevada are about a three-hour drive away.

We also have unfinished business: We want to continue our research on our 1893 house’s history, according to which the first owners emigrated from Eastern Europe and had a business in the Gold Country before settling in the city. The next owner kicked out his mother-in-law, who then sued him. The house begs us to tell its story.

Meanwhile, we’re sharing its charm with others. We open the door to friends nearly each week for dinner and an evening of quilting. We offer it as a space for fundraisers, music performances and seminars. We greet curious tourists from our stoop and give them a quick history of our block.

Why would we want to leave now?

Well, for one, as a reader writes to remind us: “San Francisco is one of the most expensive places in the country.”

That may be true for housing costs and taxes, but our remaining mortgage payments are low. As retirees, we don’t have some expenses that make living costly, such as school tuition. We seldom eat out. We ditched our car during the pandemic and maximize senior discounts.

I could go on.

It’s a dilemma. I love San Francisco, and I love Kansas. I share the sentiments of author Allen Say, who has straddled lives in Japan and California. In his children’s book “Grandfather’s Journey,” he writes: “The funny thing is, the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other.”

We’re beginning to talk of a hybrid solution: Sell the house, move to a small condo, and divide our time among the city, Kansas and travel.

We like our doctors and know how to get around the area. More than that, we know how to get around our house. The ability to find light switches and the refrigerator in the dark should not be underestimated!

Finally, we're lucky that economics is not the prime motivator that it is with many people. We enjoy a beer-budget lifestyle and are unlikely to outlive our savings.

Relocating to a cheaper area just to leave the kids a bigger estate is not a good enough reason to move. Yes, we're aware of other reasons, but this is not that post.

Truth and Consequences

Today the priest spoke about Matthew 16, one of the more challenging Gospel readings. Jesus tells the disciples of His fate: "great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised."

Peter tries to deny the prophesy---as any of us would to a friend or relative who predicts catastrophe for themselves--but Jesus adamantly rejects Peter's good intentions: "“Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me."

When we believe a truth and state it forcefully, it can rupture relationships and jeopardize our comfortable lives and jobs. Speaking the truth will set us free and likely allow us to live our best life in the long run, but it is not easy to do.

Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? -----Matthew 16:21-28

Jordan Peterson's Rule 8: "Tell the truth. Or, at least, don’t lie"

"At the beginning of time, according to the great Western tradition, the Word of God transformed chaos into Being through the act of speech. It is axiomatic, within that tradition, that man and woman alike are made in the image of that God. We also transform chaos into Being, through speech. We transform the manifold possibilities of the future into the actualities of past and present.

To tell the truth is to bring the most habitable reality into Being. Truth builds edifices that can stand a thousand years. Truth feeds and clothes the poor, and makes nations wealthy and safe. Truth reduces the terrible complexity of a man to the simplicity of his word, so that he can become a partner, rather than an enemy. Truth makes the past truly past, and makes the best use of the future’s possibilities. Truth is the ultimate, inexhaustible natural resource. It’s the light in the darkness.

See the truth. Tell the truth.

Truth will not come in the guise of opinions shared by others, as the truth is neither a collection of slogans nor an ideology. It will instead be personal. Your truth is something only you can tell, based as it is on the unique circumstances of your life. Apprehend your personal truth. Communicate it carefully, in an articulate manner, to yourself and others. This will ensure your security and your life more abundantly now, while you inhabit the structure of your current beliefs. This will ensure the benevolence of the future, diverging as it might from the certainties of the past.

The truth springs forth ever anew from the most profound wellsprings of Being. It will keep your soul from withering and dying while you encounter the inevitable tragedy of life. It will help you avoid the terrible desire to seek vengeance for that tragedy—part of the terrible sin of Being, which everything must bear gracefully, just so it can exist.

If your life is not what it could be, try telling the truth. If you cling desperately to an ideology, or wallow in nihilism, try telling the truth. If you feel weak and rejected, and desperate, and confused, try telling the truth. In Paradise, everyone speaks the truth. That is what makes it Paradise.

Tell the truth. Or, at least, don’t lie."

Excerpt From: Jordan B. Peterson. “12 Rules for Life.”

Not Tending to Basics

Check 5378 for $320 mailed on 8/5, bank account not cleared as of 8/21

The license and registration fees were due by August 22nd so I mailed the check to the DMV's Sacramento post office box two weeks early.

I do pay bills electronically, but for payments that have tax consequences (part of the license renewal is personal-property tax, which may be deductible on Schedule A) I like to write an old-fashioned check. It's nice to have a copy of the cancelled check to show the IRS in the event of an audit.

Aware of the security risk from dropping off a letter at a mailbox, I mailed the DMV payment from the Foster City Post Office on August 5th.

On August 21st I checked the bank account online. The check still had not cleared the bank.

The problem lay with the DMV cash receipts system or the U.S. Postal delivery system, but it wouldn't be wise to invite a late-payment penalty and try to appeal it. So I paid the fee on 8/21 directly using a Discover credit card.

Sure enough, California and the USPS didn't lose the check. It was deposited on August 31st (above) and I have a credit balance that I hope will get back in a month or so.

People disagree about many aspects of government, but the vast majority, I suspect, want government systems to work quickly, effectively, and honestly. An accurate cash receipts system is basic to organizations, and the structural principles were known decades before electronic data processing (EDP) was ubiquitous.

I worry about a California government that's always working on the next big thing and not tending to basics, like handling checks or verifying unemployment claims (EDD fraud is $32 billion). No one pays the penalty for the systems falling apart, and no one gets promoted for tending to them.

Utopia in Solano County

Flannery Associates has published drawings of the new city it plans to build in Solano County. As others have noted, the new city seems positively utopian: [bold added]

The Silicon Valley billionaire-backed plan to build a 21st century utopian city on agricultural land on the edge of the Bay Area has a name and a website featuring the first renderings of what the Solano County dreamland might look like.

The initiative’s name — California Forever — was unveiled Thursday afternoon after a two-week period in which the group’s acquisition of 55,000 acres in southeast Solano County has come under fire from politicians, farmers and environmentalists....

The first renderings from California Forever evoke a cityscape with a dreamy white stucco and red rooftop Mediterranean vibe that might be found in a Greek or Italian village. There are hillside neighborhoods stepping down to what must be the banks of the Sacramento River, kayakers tooling through lily pads and anglers fishing from the riverbank at sunrise.

The irony of this plan is that, toward the end of the 20th century, San Francisco was well on its way to becoming just the sort of paradise that California Forever envisions for Solano County.

What derailed San Francisco was not sinister outside forces but its own policies toward drug use, homelessness, and crime and punishment.

Without firm actions to prevent the same from happening to their utopia, the California Forever reality will never come close to the idyllic pictures that were shown us this week.

On the bright side, these "average billionaire" investors are in their 50's and 60's and have experienced triumphs, failures, and a few tragedies. They're not teenagers who have no idea how to execute a utopian construction plan (for example, see high-speed rail).

They've earned the benefit of the doubt.