Random Notes from a Crank

I'm in the midst of reading Range: Why Generalist Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein, and in Chapter 4: "Learning, Fast and Slow," he relates a lot of educational research that I already knew about spacing learning, generating educated guesses even if they're wrong, and self-testing. 

Another concept is interleaving, which is in contrast to blocked practice, which is when one practices the same thing or procedure over and over and over. In contrast, is varied or mixed practice, which researchers call "interleaving." With mixed practice, you vary the practice, so your mind can revisit the points, procedures, or moves. 

I came to one passage in the chapter that applies directly to my son. One of the sports he plays is competitive basketball. He's a strong ball handler and shooter, but he needs to do better at free throws. 

Here's the passage that stands is this one: "The 'desirable difficulty' coiner himself, Robert Bjork, once commented on Shaquille O'Neal's perpetual free-throw woes to say that instead of continuing to practice from the free-throw line, O'Neal should practice from a foot in front of and behind it to learn the motor modulation he needed." 

It's a technique to try. 

A few years ago I watched The Twilight Zone from the start, season 1 episode 1, to the end, which is season 5 episode 36. Seems like the appropriate time to rewatch all those fine episodes again. 

I could used to this working from home gig. I can't remember the last time I wore pants or jeans. I wear athletic shorts in the house, and then I change into shorts or athletic pants when I walk the dog or venture to a store. 

Music Friday: "Dance of the Clairvoyants"

As I'm sure many folks know, the new album, Gigaton, by Pearl Jam came out today. 

What's below is the tune that put out early before the album dropped. 

New Pearl Jam, people.

Random Notes from a Crank

Throughout this whole Covid-19 disaster, I've unfollowed a number of fools on Facebook because of their moronic posts. 

We know of a number of people who vacationed during the start of this whole pandemic. 

Idiots. 

And some of the people who went around galavanting around the country were 60 and older. 

People can talk all they want about how the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus problem, but Moscow Don cut funding for the Pandemic Response Team in 2018, which there is a video that confirms that act, and as The Washington Post recounted in a well-researched story, "US Intelligence Reports from January and February Warned about a Likely Pandemic," Moscow Don was informed by multiple people about the like likelihood of this virus becoming the major problem it is. 

Because of the administration's lack of planning and response, the impact of Covid-19 is a catastrophe. 

Here's the lede from the article: "U.S. intelligence agencies were issuing ominous, classified warnings in January and February about the global danger posed by the coronavirus while President Trump and lawmakers played down the threat and failed to take action that might have slowed the spread of the pathogen, according to U.S. officials familiar with spy agency reporting."

And there's this: “'Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were — they just couldn’t get him to do anything about it,'” this official said. “'The system was blinking red.'”

Of course, in a press conference two days ago, Moscow Don implied that he inherited a defunct system to respond to this disaster. He's blaming Obama. However, Moscow Don cut the funding for the response team for dealing with pandemics. 

And courtesy of knowledgeable friend from FB, here is a chronological list of his idiotic comments:
January 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.”
February 2: “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”
February 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”
February 25: “CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.”
February 25: “I think that's a problem that’s going to go away… They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”
February 26: “The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”
February 26: “We're going very substantially down, not up.”
February 27: “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
February 28: “We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical.”
March 2: “You take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?”
March 2: “A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.”
March 4: “If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work — some of them go to work, but they get better.”
March 5: “I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work.”
March 5: “The United States… has, as of now, only 129 cases… and 11 deaths. We are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible!”
March 6: “I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down.”
March 6: “Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They’re there. And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.”
March 6: “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”
March 6: “I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault.”
March 8: “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine-tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus.”
March 9: “This blindsided the world.”
March 13: Declares state of emergency and says “I do not take responsibility for anything”

The time home has let me watch season 6 and the start of the new season of Clone Wars. As Star Wars franchises go, Clone Wars has to rank in the top five best. The Empire Strikes Back is number one, but the Clone Wars series might rank as number two for me. 

After watching two documentaries on jazz artists, I purchased some albums I have on CD but not on iTunes. The Birth of the Cool is about Miles Davis, which was quite interesting. Chasing Trane is about the meteoric rise of John Coltrane and his fascinating music. I highly recommend both. 

Music Friday: "I Stay Away"

In light of Covid-19, this song seems appropriate. 

Musing of the Moment: The Best Words

tremendous, incredible, not been done before, great, fantastic, absolutely fantastic, pretty quickly, I can tell you, really good job, 100 percent, very successful, faster than people think, the big ones, great meeting, they've been fantastic, trust me, it was an incredible thing, fantastic job, big, I don't think I've ever seen anything like it, important people, going big, that's the way it'll be, great job, very simple, like nobody's ever seen, massive numbers, tremendous amounts, totally

The words above are the verbal filler that Moscow Don uses when he gives a speech. And I compiled these during a highly scripted speech. 

Regardless, this is a worst-case scenario: a pandemic hits the US while the country is being led by a science-averse clown. And it's a pandemic because the country is being led by a science-averse clown.

Music Friday: "Fire"

I forgot to get around to posting on Friday, so this is late. 

I suspect this is the song that stations are going to be playing since "Colors" is getting played out. 

Random Notes from a Crank

A recent column in The Washington Post has an interesting take on why Biden will win the Democratic nomination: he's more likable. The columnist Max Boot applies Occam's razor to Biden's candidacy in "The No. 1 Reason Biden Is Likely to Beat Trump." 

Knock on wood...

I recently got a subscription to The Athletic. I'm enjoying it because they have people doing some strong long-form sports journalism. In fact, the articles about the Premier League teams I like ~ Tottenham Hotspur and the Wolves ~ are excellent. 

I recently reminded myself of Todd Snider's book: I Never Met A Story I Didn't Like. I may have some people read essays from that book this summer. And probably from Amy Schumer's book too. 

With coronavirus now being rightly called a pandemic, The Washington Post also has a good article on how the virus seems to be sparing kids: "Coronavirus Is Mysteriously Sparing Kids and Killing the Elderly. Understanding Why May Help Defeat the Virus." 

Musing of the. Moment: Pandemic

Since the Who just declared that coronavirus is a worldwide pandemic, it got me to thinking about a board game. 

The game is called Pandemic, and having played it a number of times, it doesn't surprise me how hard it is to mitigate a virus like this because we are such a globalized world. It spreads rapidly, and when playing the game, we've never stopped the pandemic. 

This shit is scary. 

And Moscow Don's administration should be faulted for not doing enough.

Random Notes from a Crank

Eating establishments putting up campaign signs for candidates makes it easy to not frequent them. 

For example, a couple of eating establishments in our town have signs up for Mary Miller for our representative in the House. Based on her TV commercials that are all over the local channels, she appears to be bat-shit crazy. 

During the commercials she talks about the spectre of "Godless socialism," how she supports Moscow Don "draining the swamp," and how she's a "Christian." 

The somewhat humorous aspect of the ads is that she has this weird Marge-Simpson-like voice that's a bit disconcerting. 

As I've written about somewhat, I've been watching Premier League soccer this year because I enjoy it. I watched an MLS game today, and it's clear MLS is the AA or AAA of soccer leagues in terms of quality. 

Regardless, I hope the St. Louis soccer club is a strong one. 

Watching the XFL has been interesting. I think the NFL should adopt how they do kickoffs because the way they do it is much safer. 

The three different levels of point/s after touchdown are interesting. 

Let's go Battle Hawks. 

Fumbling Toward Culinary Talent: Sausage and Shrimp Soup

I cobbled together this soup today from an assortment of foodstuffs I had in the freezer and about the house. It's pretty damn tasty. 

Ingredients
Olive oil
1 whole yellow onion, chopped finely
2 stalks of celery, chopped finely
3 medium size carrots, chopped into half-moon  slices
2 tablespoons of minced garlic
4 tablespoons of spicy harissa
1 ring of turkey kielbasa, chopped into half-moon slices
3 quarts of reduced sodium chicken stock
2 cans of canellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 package of uncooked frozen shrimp, thawed and shelled
Salt and pepper to taste

Process
Coat a large Dutch oven in olive and heat on medium-high. Add the onion, celery, and carrots, add some salt and pepper, and cook until sweated down substantially. Add in the garlic and cook for approximately a minute. Then add in the harissa and cook for approximately five minutes Then put in the smoked kielbasa and cook until some browning happens.

Add the stock and beans, heat it to high until boiling, and then reduce to medium. Cover with the lid cracked and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the shrimp and cook for five minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. 

Music Friday: "Darkness on the Edge of Town"

Yesterday while working I listened to some albums by Springsteen, and one of the albums was Darkness..., which some people consider one of his best albums. 

 Here's the album's famous title track.