@habits

Here are some notes on recent tv shows and movies that I enjoyed

Star Wars: Visions on Disney Plus – I love this concept; take Star Wars’ almost limitless IP and let indie filmmakers go wild. The result is a series of animated shorts in an incredible variety of visual styles and story genres. It reminds me of a gentler, more uplifting Love Death and Robots. Within its 9 episodes are characters and stories that could become much more. In particular I liked episode 7, The Elder.

Resident Evil on Netflix – the show itself wasn’t so remarkable, but I really liked the female protagonist (Ella Balinska). She has this great mix of athleticism and vulnerability, and I think she’d be fantastic in that Angelina Jolie / Milla Jovovich action/adventure genre. Also I like anything zombies, and this show – as well as the recent movie Army of the Dead – both hint at an exciting potential evolution for the cliche zombie story: Make the zombies smart, show them in a hierarchical, evolving society, with impressive leaders, differing roles and strengths, internal social tensions. I Am Legend also hinted at this.

The Boys S3 on Amazon Prime – boys oh boys was it good. Each episode was a standalone movie. Twists galore. It really avoids the filler episodes that plague a lot of other multi-season shows. Writer producer Eric Kripke is just a boss. The lead actors have really settled into their roles, there’s great chemistry between them. The show leans into everything that makes it special — bloodier, grosser, weirder. Antony Starr (Homelander) is just off the charts acting. And I like anything with Karl Urban (Butcher), including the underrated Dredd.

Icarus documentary on Netflix – I only watched half, but talk about stumbling your way into the middle of (doping) history! I mention it here because it made me wonder if a pro-doping league (of any sport) could be MORE successful. Let athletes take whatever drugs they want, and have that be open and available to all participants. I bet it’d result in some very exciting games and lots of broken records. I think the overton window will slowly shift this way, because entertainment is about extremes, and we watch sports to see the limits of human potential and human drama. Doping enhances both. Lebron James claims to spend millions each year on his body, adopting the latest in science and supplementation and equipment with an army of world specialists to support. Is he natural? Where and how do you draw the line?

Life at 40
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/a40463065

I’m two years away from 40 and it’s true that the passage of time seems to accelerate as you age. 40 also reminds me of this beautiful sentence from a different article:

At 40, we’re no longer preparing for an imagined future life. Our real lives are, indisputably, happening right now. We’ve arrived at what Immanuel Kant called the “Ding an sich” — the thing itself.

A smart crypto critic
https://amycastor.com/2022/07/03/crypto-skeptics-step-up-lobbying-efforts-with-their-first-ever-conference

r/buttcoin has certainly picked up in activity and glee since the most recent crypto crash. I like to see what the critics and haters are saying because the best ones – such as Amy – share info and perspectives I would otherwise miss. But many – if not most – critics are against bitcoin and crypto for very personal reasons. And for those critics, I don’t understand why they would spend any of their limited time or energy or resources in this way. There’s not much to gain from it in a tangible sense, besides short-lived emotional rewards. Yet as I type that last sentence, I realize that much of what we’re motivated by is short-lived emotional rewards. Aren’t you glad you’re reading this

Learning calculus at 65
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/teaching-myself-calculus-at-sixty-five

I love the spirit of this post and would love to be actively learning and growing in such a conscious way at 65, 72, 89, whatever years I’m given. I love to read stories of people who go back to university in their 40s, or start a new business in their 50s, or move to a new country in their 60s, and so on. As Confucius says, 活到老，学到老.

Orwell on Hitler
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/george-orwell-s-1940-review-of-mein-kampf

In his own words:

Again, the situation in Germany, with its seven million unemployed, was obviously favourable for demagogues. But Hitler could not have succeeded against his many rivals if it had not been for the attraction of his own personality, which one can feel even in the clumsy writing of Mein Kampf, and which is no doubt overwhelming when one hears his speeches … The fact is that there is something deeply appealing about him
[…]
The initial, personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is here. He is the martyr, the victim, Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon. One feels, as with Napoleon, that he is fighting against destiny, that he can’t win, and yet that he somehow deserves to

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/14/movies/janeane-garofalo.html

Interesting take on Janeane Garofalo’s career, and how she may have sacrificed some mainstream success because of a distaste for “selling out”. I’ve always liked her style of dry witty kinda dark humor. Sarah Silverman is like the R-rated Janeane. Now I want to go to Brooklyn and watch one of her standups. Here’s a Janeane Garofalo joke I found on the internet:

Listen, young people, I understand narcissism – clearly. But at least I have the decency to hate myself. And that’s what’s missing from the young people. They don’t have the debilitating self-loathing and the second guessing.

https://twitter.com/address_eth/status/1549818088396406784

Crypto/web3/blockchain is a new internet. And a new internet needs a native naming and address system. There are two such systems I like: ENS (.eth names) and HNS (Handshake tlds/). They are compatible systems, though that’s not initially obvious. ENS has the growth and momentum right now. But Handshake has the potential to completely re-wire the internet naming system for the better, helping us move away from trusted third parties and bureaucratic capture, towards self-custody and greater programmability and user choice. Not investment advice blah blah

https://www.exponentialview.co/email/3ec31bca-1d2c-438c-831e-ad1d0341f8d7

Global warming is real, but is it entirely (or even mostly) man-made? Recently I’ve been reading Bjorn Lomborg’s work and it’s opening my sleepy eyes. I assume global warming is at least partially man-made, but to what extent, and whether it warrants such wholesale investments in new policies, regulations, and business practices — that I don’t know. ESG feels increasingly like a boondoggle. Maybe I’m just getting old.

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549782314829357056

Turkey. Sri Lanka. Argentina. Now Pakistan. We are seeing the cresting tides of a global sovereign debt crisis, and unlike 1997, the American-led world order is far more hamstrung in its ability to help. America is dealing with record high levels of consumer inflation, government debt, and political polarization. And since Obama, it’s steadily retreated from its role as the world’s policeman. Who watches the watchmen?

https://www.tubefilter.com/2022/07/14/youtube-tiktok-time-spent-kids-2021

Kids (4-18) are spending more time on TikTok than YouTube. This gap has grown in recent years. I watch TikTok sometimes and can attest to its addiction. TikTok is FAST and once you adjust to it, you don’t wanna return to slow. On a tangential note, I quite like Netflix’s playback speed feature. I play most movies and TV shows at 1.25x now, and will watch more Netflix on my laptop than my “smart TV” because the smart TV lacks that feature.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/june-huh-high-school-dropout-wins-the-fields-medal-20220705

39yo June Huh won the Fields Medal. In high school he dropped out to become a poet. I see in his story further evidence of the deep unity within all knowing. Many years ago a friend and I were discussing the idea that we could live in a simulation. To which he replied, “If we’re living in a simulation, then math is the operating system”.

https://thebitcoinlayer.substack.com/p/is-bitcoin-an-inflation-hedge-yes

Nothing groundbreaking here, but I enjoy Nik’s newsletter. And I re-iterate my base case that bitcoin will hit $1M before 2030. After which, it will crash to something like $200K, and the naysayers and critics will be in oestrus, and the cycle will repeat.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/11/well/family/check-in-text-friendship.html

After reading this (and I had to find a roundabout way to read it because I don’t pay for the NYT and had reached my limit of free articles), I emailed two friends from college and (surprisingly) they replied rather quickly. I will try to do this more often – maybe even create an explicit habit out of it.