I have been sort of keeping each chunk of social media separate from one another. This is one of my first crossovers. Just for the hell of it. I am testing embedding video with an iframe.
i love this part
made this the other day and uploaded it to FB but didn’t put it in WP. I am uploading it now to test the sharing feature to FB. it does work the way I would like it to using one of my plugins but as far as i can tell, i can’t share it as an animated gif. i can only share a thumbnail jpg. if you want to show animated gifs on FB, you have to upload them directly.
Thre Big Short Audiobook Review and some Personal Rants
I am winding up on the book now. I have about 1 hour left. I spent a little time talking about this in a video I have yet to edit. I am sure I will not sound that articulate in regards to many of the subjects covered in the book. But, I still have an opinion. Imagine that.
I have seen a lot of booms and busts in the market since I first started paying attention to it in 1993. My first exposure to it was in creating a fake portfolio within America Online. I had a bit of disposable income at the time and no one was expounding upon the wonders of home ownership yet. To this day, I still do not own a home and I dream of making the right choice with the markets. I don’t see it as a fault. I took time away, between 2001 and 2013 but now I am back in and I love it. I truly think that the less people learn about the markets as a whole and the more time they put into “increasing” the value of a real estate purchase is proportionate to how fucking stupid they are. I cannot say this more strongly. As a matter of fact, if I were a budding home purchaser, I would be suspicious as hell of whatever the motives would be for anyone to speak highly of home ownership. If you ain’t gonna pop a couple out and you ain’t going to sock them into a learning institution within walking distance of the property then you are a moron.
What gives me this new found confidence? My own decisions and one of the people highlighted in the book, Michael Burry, the guy that was played by Christian Bale in the movie. Actually, each of the foresight leaders in the book were as pretty darn close to anti-establishment as you can get, each in their own ways. But, Burry struck a chord. He was actually a doctor in residence when he chose to get into investing professionally. He had $40k in cash and a $100k in medical school debt. The movie picks up at the point where he had already succeeded and created an office or his company, Scion capital. His methods for success were not unlike some of what Buffet was famous for, value investing. But, what made him very controversial was his moves with the bond market which is what The Big Short is about.
I actually have no interest in the bond market. I think it is necessary for the most part, especially things like municipal or federal bonds. The Big Short is all about mortgage debt bonds. At first listen, the idea of buying debt makes no sense and that initial shock should stay with you. It should make you suspicious about the market permanently and it should make you raise the same fundamental questions regularly, or, you will be like the herd and drive the bus off the cliff. What could really blow your mind, is what would have happened if some of these guys did not simultaneously light a fire under the bond market in the way they did? Also, what has really been reformed? In my opinion, nothing has been reformed and the same mistakes are there waiting to happen again. That is hinted at in the book often but there are no directives, as there really shouldn’t be. I have to return to the track now because the reason that I think that the stock market is actually more important and its implications for the bond market is an item for another post. Chances are though, I would not discuss how the stock market will affect the bond market at all, I am not really interested in it.
I think I will rewatch the movie to get a better sense of the whole endeavor. I bought it about a year ago and I think I have watched it twice in total so far. Both the book and the movie go into the dynamics of the bond types and the repackaging of them as well as how they were all rated. In my little video, I mention the ratings agencies and how they are the ones that the taxpayer should be pissed at. In regards to the whole drop, I don’t really know how much was covered by the taxpayer(reference needed). But, what I do know is that if there were ever a time where the poor could have banded together to collectively fail and either accelerate or decelerate the collapse it was then. No one has ever heard of that ever taking place but the percentages were fixed. If you could have gotten a couple hundred thousand people to default on their loans at exactly the same time, they could have had the power of the banks themselves. The banks would have been forced to allow them to have free rent out of fear of the market collapse. Interesting thought. I wouldn’t want to be the guy to get them all to collectively act though. But they had the power of 100s of billions of dollars. To the average dork, asking them to default would have produced a reaction like, “well, i am going to default in 6 months anyway, might as well do it now”.
Avengers Endgame Comments
I feel somewhat compelled to say something about Avengers: Endgame because it became as big as it did. I don’t know what the stats are for the circulation of the Avengers back when I first started buying them but I can tell you this. I never, in a million years, expected Marvel to get this much attention. Sure, the Disney purchase helped but holy buckets.
I think Americans are generally myth-starved. As Winger says, we are mutts and we were generally kicked out of every other decent country so we need something to believe in that is particularly American. I guess people outside the US are OK with this and pat our wide-eyed, soul searching head with ticket purchases.
So what does the movie say about our heroes or the average American? We don’t really know. We do and we don’t. That is what was so great about Marvel comics. They draw you in and you never really get a sense of closure because it is the drawing in that is of value. When someone that has never come into contact with a comic book picks up a couple of super-hero comics and sees how they could relate to one another he would not be the slightest bit surprised to find out that the story does not end with one comic. He would also not be surprised to see that one hero would do a cameo in another comic that is headlined by different hero. He would probably say something like “that’s basic marketing and the story is sort of irrelevant”.
Anyway, do the powers and the costumes help us understand our own symbolism better? I would say yes. I would also say that the writing behind each of the characters and how they relate to their powers is incredibly complex. So complex in fact, that in order to get a full sense of what the Marvel purists intend for each character, it is not possible through just the Avengers. So, you gotta buy another comic book–nah, it is 2019–see another movie.
If you strip back the archetypes and see how Marvel treats them, there are fascinating things afoot: assassins, warriors, royalty, light, darkness, technology, color, regional demographics, magic, gesture, symbol, immortality, and mortality. In many ways, I am a Marvel purist and I think that whether or not the general public likes it, it has stayed true to its mission. It really cares about itself and it did a good job of taking care of itself. It can stand the test of time because of the death, the old age, and the trading of places. If you have collected paper comics for a couple of decades(and you can reach as far back as 5 decades now), you will see rejuvenation of characters with each generation. Endgame is so good because it is the first realization of that continuity in film and it really condensed it into the last movie, Endgame.
No one should be uptight with Stark dying. It makes sense. It also makes sense that Romanoff would die as well. I would like to explore her character further someday time permitting.
Anyway, if you want to see how a real fan reacts to Marvel’s influence on his life, check out this video. It is Kevin Smith talking about Stan Lee’s cameo in Captain Marvel. Marvel’s heroes have definitely had their impact on me and it is nice to see that I am moving in time with Thor. Wild stories, wild ride.
Solo: A Star Wars Story
I buzzed on down to the cheapie theater on the board the other day to see the 12:25 showing of “Solo: A Star Wars Story”. I had just finished playing tennis for 2 hours and decided to take it easy in the early afternoon. I haven’t been playing tennis much lately so don’t think this is a regular pattern or anything. Well, it turned out to be OK. I was very skeptical. I looked it up before I went and caught the fact that Ron Howard did it. This helped my expectations to be positive. I have always considered him to be an interesting film director and I have watched him since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.
I know that there needed to be some continuity between the actors appearances and this was done ok. It was a tall order for the filmmaker to do this accurately to make all the fans happy. The film did OK financially but it did not make a massive amount like some of the other Star Wars movies. I had negative expectations for it being under the Disney umbrella now. But, all in all, I would say that it was Star Warsy enough for me to appreciate it. The story was interesting in that it spotlighted the foundation of the rebellion with Solo’s relation to it.
I spent a lot of attention on the girlfriend of Solo and how she changed in the 3 years she was away from him. It was purposely not revealed what her “forced” training was and what her commitment became to the Crimson Dawn organization. I was not surprised to see Darth Maul(oops spoiler) as her new boss. He said very little in Phantom Menace so everyone that remembers that film would have liked a little more depth from him. She may be the first lady of the dark side that has ever shown up in film so far. I expect her role to cross over like a Marvel character into just about any film Star Wars related in the future. I feel my will ebbing away and I may purchase a future movie ticket as I am unable to resist her beckons and charms.
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Ready Player One review
I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. Actually, it really made me pretty emotional. I almost cried or full-on cried. But to explain why it would take a while. I am making this entry using voice, so there may be parts that sound conversational and may need some editing.
I really don’t want to cover the movie’s content. There are numerous angles from which to come at it. I would rather cover the historical significance. There is one thing related to the content that I would like to point out that some people may skip over and it has to do with me(typo, should be “the”) continuous recording of one person’s life in the movie. As expected it’s not a normal science fiction movie because it actually redefines the future of humanity. In my opinion the average science fiction movie doesn’t really redefine humanity’s future, it just highlights a certain technology and sells tickets based on how interesting it is. Of course it is a possible future and of course many things have to happen before the date of the setting to make this dystopian future a reality. But, those aren’t such big concerns. The average American probably thinks that VR gaming is an option but that movie in some ways presupposes its eventual dominance.
I’ve always thought that a movie like this one is far better to watch repetitively rather read any kind of review like the kind I am writing. There are concepts in this movie that involved virtual storage, virtual object generation and communication that can be better expressed with a less verbose means. In other words, just viewing the interface that’s envisioned is all that is necessary to fully grasp what the filmmakers are after. And more linguistic hand-holding is going too far the only response you can give is just say watch it again.
(4/12/18 I actually don’t mind this review in terms of flow. I spoke it in a Starbuck’s just after the movie. I only want to change one word and it’s a typo, I will put “typo” in parentheses next to it. I could have added a few more commas but hey, it’s voice in 2018. Incidentally, I went by Boosted Board to a matinee showing.)
Shin Godzilla mini-review –
I liked this movie more than I thought I would. It is a Godzilla reboot from 2016. There is a little something for every adult in this movie but not that much for little kids. Even Japanese kids will probably get incredibly bored. There isn’t really that much action and the type of action that there is can be classified as a certain type, little humans taking on the big monster. The puny humans use some innovative methods to take him down but a child may not understand what works and why it works. Not appealing to children may have hit the production in the pocketbook but I still found the film very enjoyable.
Why?
The scientific explanations for how he came into existence and how he should be fought were pretty interesting. There were various references to mutation, power generation and animal biology.
All conversation on courses of action were couched in a complicated web of interactions that had elements of consensus management. There were many political groups identified and from the initial alarm of monster’s existence all the way through to the various courses of action you could transparently see the machinations. Power brokers rose and receded and it often seemed like the processes were taking far to long and everyone was doomed because no solution worked to stop Godzilla. Then a scientific focus team was put together led by Rando Yaguchi(Hiroki Hasegawa) that came up with a solution that “just might work”.
The Americans were on the scene fairly early and offered to Nuke it but with a slight delay this never occurred. The US representative was Kayoko Patterson(Satomi Ishihara) who had a rather unusual role. It seems she had political aspirations inside the US but was connected to Japan in some way, unclear on which parent or parents were Japanese but her Japanese language was native level. It is possible that in order to appeal to domestic audiences, the actress was not encouraged to make errors in Japanese. She showed up in Tokyo to basically say that if the Japanese government did not act on Godzilla, the US government would.
There were a lot of actors in this film, far more than an average film and many of them contributed to dialog in meaningful ways. You could see branches of government interacting with each other and they stepped out of the federal and into the regional or local at a later point in the movie. All the communication patterns of each government official was carefully thought out in the script and the actors did a great job at showing what the colloquial reaction would be with the aid of some very familiar props.
It ends with Gozilla being frozen and the US pulling back from dropping a bomb. All the characters sort of rally together and how it was great that they could work together to pull it off. There is no hint of a sequel but based on the story, it is pretty easy to imagine they could make one and also throw in a Shin-Rodan or Shin-Mothra.
Overall, I give this movie two underutilized, odd-looking, tyrannosaurusy thumbs up.
Wintergatan – Soundcloud Album, song title “Valentine”
The Luv of Blade Runner 2049
I enjoy writing little reviews of movies that I have seen because I don’t want my consciousness to function like an old style overhead projector where you have plastic rolls on both sides and the spent content just ends up getting wound up and chucked. In other words, if I make an active attempt at digesting the material, I will commit it to memory in a way I find appropriate.
Why Luv? I think there are literally 1000 ways to write about “Blade Runner” and how it relates to its sequel. I chose to focus on her because I find her more interesting than other characters throughout both films. I won’t speculate as to why the casting brought Sylvia Hoeks to the fore because it is beyond the scope of this little post. Sometimes casting choices are made for very specific reasons like bridging cultures and languages with symbolic figures. Instead, I will cover why her character Luv is so ding danged interesting. She is actually fulfilling the role that Rachael filled for Tyrell. She is sort of a greeter, business manager and goon all rolled into one. Rachael was just allowed to hang out with Tyrell as a receptionist. One could say that this is a sign of the times and a woman in her role would have more responsibilities these days and that is fine. However, she seems to be an upgrade, an expendable upgrade.
OMG did she display emotion. When the newborn woman was being killed, she cried. When she was squeezing the highball glass in Madame’s hand, she cried. It reminds me of how Roy and Pris kissed or how Roy allowed himself to get sad about death but at the same time was unsure. Luv may be displaying emotion now because it is more focused, because she is actually better at it over years of replicant refinement. I like this idea. What is it that bothers her the most? Death of her own kind it seems. She wasn’t shy in saying to Madame that she wanted to make a future with a hybrid replicant-human bridge. She supported life and the preservation of it while K was being asked to destroy that very same bridge. She had little spells of arrogance and showmanship but they were great and still fit. When she killed Coco and Rachael2, she was cold and calculating. Her general demeanor range was apparent, which elevated her emotional moments.
She treated K like a brother otherwise she would have killed him when he was down just after Luv destroyed K’s AI Joi. Or, you could look at it like she wanted K to focus on where he should be placing his affections as she took out the competition. One way that Luv was able to track K was through the AI because she had a realization once Joi went “off the grid” and could not locate K as easily.
Luv was not really a villain in the classic sense because she was fighting for life although she has no idea what Wallace would do if he found the hybrid child. Her name actually was brought up as significant by K but he basically said “you were important enough to Wallace to be given a name”. Neither one of them explored the semantics of the name though which also could be seen as symbolic throughout the movie. Why name her “love”? Hard to say but it is not surprising to see the concept of Love as secondary to cold scientific experimentation and calculation. And, possibly because of that subordination, the life span of “Luv” was shortened. Culturally, the term “Love” as a term of endearment to refer to another person is used far more in Europe than in other English speaking regions and this could have been done to target European audiences as the director is French-Canadian.
Familial love seemed to triumph in the end but there is no real reason why. K grew to appreciate Deckard over time and maybe his memory implants had an impact on his actions. By visiting his daughter in the end, Deckard is bringing the very danger to her that he sought to avoid when she was a child. Obviously Wallace ends up escaping and he can make as many Luvs as he wants. Unless K somehow recovers from his injuries, there will be no one around to protect both the father and daughter from future attacks. If there is no 3rd movie, and I hope there won’t be in so many ways, we can just assume that Wallace is going to be a nice guy and let them live happily ever after.
It took 35 years to make #2 and I think it should take another 35 to make #3. Maybe in the mean time Hollywood will address some of its script writing issues like how to account for the inability to track people in the future. They seemed to have gotten away with diminishing the connection to Asia in this movie and many could see this as an easy way out. You could say the entire continent died out in the famine before Wallace rose to power but there are enough Asian writing characters visible in the film to indicate that at least 3 languages survived. The integration of a Somali speaker in the movie also indicates that Africa may have made it through time but that can’t be said with any accuracy. In my opinion, it says more about casting and that choice reached back to the US Midwest, all the way to the Somali community of Minnesota.
Maybe genetically designed people end up dreaming of wolves dressed as sheep. When K was looking for anomalies in the genetic sequences, the computer was speaking Japanese to him. Why would that particular technology be of Japanese origin and why did it speak Japanese to him but understand English as part of K’s usage of the voice interface? Why Johnnie Walker Black label? And why was he driving a Peugeot as a standard issue LAPD vehicle? Feel free to comment below or send me a message through social media.