Covid, Today, June 28, 2021

When I enter the search term covid stats on Google, the first thing I see is a database right there on the search results page. Sez it's from the New York Times, a source I've criticized often on this blog, for not being nearly as liberal as they claim to be, but when it comes to information like this, I trust them. 

The database sez there were no new cases reported yesterday in Washtenaw Country, Michigan, where I live, and an average of 4 new cases per day over the past 7 days.

The database says there were no new cases yesterday in the entire State of Michigan, and an average of 153 cases per day over the past 7 days. 

It shows 4,087 new cases yesterday in the entire US, and an average of 11,880 cases per day over the past 7 days, and 408,990 new cases yesterday in the entire world, with an average over the past 7 days of 371,504.

All of which makes me think that we are taking off our masks much too soon, bowing to pressure from idiots. Which is the last way people should react to pressure from idiots. 

I hope I'm wrong about that, and that this plague is actually much closer to over with than I realize. But I'm not taking off my mask yet.

Once Upon a Time in LA

An ad for a music festival this December. My first thought was, Wow, this will be the biggest music festival EVER. My second, probably more accurate thought, was, I'm 60 years old, most of these musicians are kind of old too, and for all I actually know about contemporary music, the biggest music festival ever might be going on right now, filled with superstars I've never heard of. There's only one artist in the first two rows on this poster I hadn't already heard of. I had to look up YG on Wikipedia. (For all I know, mentioning that I looked up something on Wikipedia might also make young people laugh and say, Awwww, he's so cute and old, still uses Wikipedia!)

 

Wait, I remember now, actually my first thought was: Wow, Al Green's still alive?! Sorry, Al. But Al's not the only one I'm surprised to see among a list of the professionally-active. George Clinton? Rose Royce?

The Isley Brothers? Really? Are there still any actual Isley brothers in the Isley Brothers?

So, very quickly, my thoughts went from things like, Wow, biggest music festival EVER to things like: will there be enough ambulances and wheelchair access there?

And I have to stop here because it's time for my nap. Hey, I hope it really will be the biggest music festival of all time and bring young and old people together and blow everybody's minds. 

Hey, maybe I'll actually be there myself. Stranger things have happened.

Critical Race Theory

News & Guts reports:

"While dozens of Republican lawmakers around the country speak out against critical race theory, there have been questions about whether these politicians actually know what they are fighting against."

Imagine how much time and energy might have been spared if more people had taken a similar approach with Jordan Peterson and postmodernism and Marxism!

Perhaps some people learned from the case of Peterson, and are better prepared this time around.

Who knows. It would be nice to think that there are people out there somewhere who are actually learning things, and therefore behaving in a more sensible and effective manner than they used to. 

Do Peterson and Republican wingnuts and similar idiots actually have a new positive effect, by acquainting people with things so as postmodernism and Marxism and critical race theory, things with which they were previously unfamiliar?

I should probably end this post pretty soon, I seem to be in danger of getting carried away by silly amounts of optimism. I like optimism generally but I believe that it can be overdone. 

Although I must mention before ending, for the benefit of those who haven't already read it in this blog, that it actually took Jordan Peterson for me to finally learn what postmodernism is and that I am a postmodernist, even though I'm about a year older than Jordan Peterson.

It takes what it takes, whatever it is.

It's a Great Big G-Shock World

Someone who reviews various brands of watches including Casio mentioned, in a recent review of a G-Shock, a change which had been made in the watch. He said that he had urged this change in an earlier review. And he concluded that Casio were paying attention to his reviews and that this change in the watch was because of him. 

 

This is one of many people who review G-Shocks as a full- or part-time job, part-time in his case. How many people? I have no idea, but it seems the number must be pretty huge. There are those like this fellow, who write blogs or present vlogs about watches, including G-Shocks and others. Some review G-Shocks and other electronic devices. Some are runners and review the G-Shocks made for runners. Some are divers and review the G-Shocks made for divers. Some are hikers, some are hunters, some write columns for men's magazines, etc, etc. 

But even if we exclude all of the above and concentrate only on those who concentrate entirely on G-Shocks, and only those who do it full-time and have much larger audiences than this guy, there are so many blogs and vlogs that I couldn't begin to even skim all of the new posts from all of them. 

And that's counting only the reviews in English. And without having gone the slightest bit out of my way to find non-English blog and vlog posts about G-Shocks, in just 3 months' time, the Great Algorithm has shown me posts in Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Thai and Spanish. 

And looking at things from Casio's point of view, I see no reason to assume that the English-speaking market is the most important one to them.  It might be number 3, after Japanese and Chinese. And besides the significant languages of Casio's exports already named, let us not forget Hindi, Arabic, Russian and Portugese in markets which must be pretty huge. Before we get to who knows how many smaller markets. (Not me, is who. I tried hard to find out. This time I failed. Sorry. But surely a lot.)

And the fascination of G-Shocks, which would lead quite naturally to the impulse to blog or vlog about them, does seem to be quite universal. 

My points? That it seems to me that the reviewer mentioned above has no way of knowing that he was the only one who thought of this particular improvement; that, given that probably more than 10 million G-Shocks are sold per year and given the high degree of involvement on the part of G-Shock owners, it seems unlikely that no-one would've independently had the same idea; and that Casio could've gotten the idea from all sorts of sources other than this reviewer. 

In fact, Casio might not have gotten the idea from ANY blogger or vlogger. They do have employees working on things such as improvements to existing products. Presumably as least some of those employees do things other than reading blogs and watching vlogs, hoping to come across good suggestions.

In short, I think this guy is being silly. If I happened to know him personally, and he said in my presence that Casio were reading his blog and taking design suggestions from him, I would quickly excuse myself and run away as fast as I could, hoping to be out of earshot before bursting into laughter. Because I don't want to be mean. 

If I did want to be mean, I would still run away, and not come back until I had calmed down, and then gesture for the guy to step aside with me, and mutter into his ear, "What you're doing here, coming up with improvements which Casio puts into place on G-Shocks? That's a job description. You're a design consultant. Do you have any idea how much money Casio makes with G-Shocks? And they're using you as an unpaid design consultant? It's not right, buddy. They should be paying you a salary. It's only right, what with you being a significant cog in the machine now. What I would do is, I would contact Casio -- no. I would hire an attorney and have him get in touch with Casio, and demand that you get a fair slice. It's only right."

It's a good thing I'm not mean. 

Stop Calling it a Mustang

Overall, automotive journalists, new-car reviewers, are not shy about telling us when they think that something is crap. It's not like the world of watches, where if you give a product a negative review you won't get any more products to review. This applies to everything from an overall negative reaction to a car, to having some some little niggling dislike of the position of a cupholder, to thinking that the name of a car is silly. Car reviewers tend not to hold back.

However, for some reason, automotive journalists all over the world have been pulling muscles. That's how hard they've been bending over backwards to try to convince us that this

 

is a Mustang.

It reminds me of that meme that was popular a while ago: "Iz nice thnx but iz not mah buckit." I'm sure it's a perfectly wonderful SUV. But please stop calling it a Mustang. I think what Ford should do is just call it the Mach-E. Drop the "Mustang" part out of the name. Then when they FINALLY get around to making an electric coupe, they can call THAT the electric Mustang, and we can all just move on and forget about that embarrassing short episode when Ford called the Mach-E the "Mustang Mach-E." Except for historians of automotive weird facts. I'm not even a Mustang fan or a muscle car fan, my dream car is a Chevy Bolt (EV not EUV), and even I can see as plain as day that calling THIS a Mustang is pure Bizzaro-World. 

In conclusion: stop calling it a Mustang. 

Sincerely yours, 

stop calling it a Mustang. #stopcallingitamustang

Rainbow IP G-Shocks

I've written many posts on this blog about watches, and up until now I've always insisted that watches have not served any practical purpose for several decades now, because other devices take care of all of the things we used to need watches for. Watches have become art, according to Oscar Wilde's definition:

"All art is quite useless."

But then, back in March, I started to learn about G-Shocks, the very popular line of quartz watches made by the Japanese corporation Casio. G-Shocks can do so many things that I've started to wonder whether they can realistically be regarded as mere beautiful and useless works of art. 

Ironically, what first aroused my interest in G-shocks was seeing photos and video of a limited edition watch, the GM-110RB-2A, also known as the "Rainbow,"

which is definitely intended to be understood as a thing of exceptional beauty, among other things. 

But besides being beautiful, it is also a GM-110 G-Shock, which means that it has a wide range of functions including world time, several alarms, several timers, several stopwatches and a push-button background light. 

"Rainbow" refers to the way that the IP, the ion plating, on the cover and bezel of the watch blends from one color into another. There are two other limited edition G-Shocks which, like the GM-110RB-1A, were released in 2020, feature rainbow IP very prominently, and which I consider to be especially beautiful: the GWF-A1000BRT-1A, also known as the "Borneo Rainbow Toad,"

and the MTG-B1000VL-4A,

 

also known as the "Volcanic Lightning."

The GWF-A1000BRT-1A was made in recognition of the Borneo rainbow toad, a species which had been believed to have gone extinct a century ago, until it was recently found to be still alive. The colors and patterns imitate the colors and bumps found on the toad. The "Volcanic Lighning" is meant to convey some of the intensity of thinderstorms caused by volcanos. The distinctive translucent red strap imitates the appearance of molten lava. 

The "Rainbow" actually belongs to one of the simpler and lower-priced versions of the G-Shock. The "Borneo Rainbow Toad" and the "Volcanic Lightning" are high-end models, and in addition to all of the functions mentioned above which the "Rainbow" can perform, each also feature solar charging, atomic time, Bluetooth, and a long list of other functions which I won't pretend I understand yet. The "Rainbow" was released with an MSRP of $280, and the "Borneo Rainbow Toad" and the "Volcanic Lightning" each had an MSRP of $1,100, which put them among the very highest-priced G-Shocks. 

Today, those MSRP's are primarily of historical interest, as all three watches are on sale at much higher prices. The "Rainbow" doesn't seem to be available from well-known, reputable dealers at all anymore. I wonder whether this might be because the well-known dealers have waiting lists of close friends and good customers who have already agreed on a purchase price if and when the dealer acquires a "Rainbow." That would explain why we in the general public never see it on sale from those dealers. 

So: what got me interested in G-Shocks was beauty. I love the way these limited editions look, with the rainbow IP and the other bold colors. 

But once I got interested in G-Shocks, I began to learn about all of the practical things they can do: in addition to everything listed above, various models can also measure how many steps you take, your heart rate and blood pressure, the atmospheric temperature and barometric pressure and altitude, your depth underwater, the tides, and many, many other things. 

And the more I study G-Shocks, the more I appreciate that not only special limited editions like these ones are beautiful. It's clear that Casio concentrates very hard on aesthetics right alongside function. 

So my previous notions about the uselessness of watches are being challenged, at least in the case of a few very highly-functional watches like these, and their somewhat less-colorful siblings, the non-limited-edition G-Shocks. 

The $2,000 dollars which you might have to pay today for a "Borneo Rainbow Toad" or a "Volcanic Lightning" is less than the cost of ANY new watch from many of the luxury brands. $2,000 seems like a lot compared to the $50 and less you'd pay for some other G-Shocks. But it's less than the cost of any new Rolex or Omega. Something to think about. Some G-Shock fans regard a 4-figure MSRP as just shocking and wrong, let alone paying above MSRP for a limited edition. 

Another thing which is discussed is whether special edition G-Shocks like these should be worn in everyday life and exposed to being scratched and smudged and the other things which everyday life does. I feel very strongly about this: I think it is very sad when beautiful things like this are locked away and never enjoyed, for fear of scratches and dust and so forth. Others seem to feel just as strongly that it's a shame when a collector's item is scratched because its owner didn't treat it like a museum piece. 

I'm open to discussion. My mind changes sometimes. Look at me right now, writing about quartz watches. That represents a huge change in my mind. Three months ago I didn't really know about G-Shocks and didn't care.

Who Keeps Screwing Up the EV Experience?

The average daily commute in Murrka is under 30 miles. It's probably more in Canada and less in Europe.

The documentary movie Who Killed the Electric Car? released in 2006, tells the strange tale of the EV1, an electric car made by General Motors, leased  -- never sold -- from 1996 to 1999, then recalled and destroyed.

 

The subject of range anxiety -- the awful fear on the part of the driver of an electric vehicle that his machine will run out of juice at any moment and leave him stranded in the middle of high-speed Interstate traffic in the middle of a rainy night -- came up in Who Killed the Electric Car? but in a very different way than we're used to hearing about it today. Today, any EV with less than 200 miles of range per charge is judged by most reviewers to be very deficient, and those with 400 miles or more are received with great joy, even though great range is thus far only attained with a great quantity of batteries, meaning great weight and great expense. A few reviewers see through the hype about range and understand that most people will get by just fine with a range of 150 miles or less, and that most EV buyers are being sold a bunch of unnecessary batteries. Just as, traditionally, car buyers are sold huge engines which they never begin to need.

General Motors advertised a range of 70 to 90 miles for the EV1. Leasees reported a practical range of 50 or 60 miles. But none of the customers were complaining, or waiting until a newer model with longer range came out. On the contrary, demand for the EV1 far outstripped supply, the leasees were delighted with it, they wanted to buy the vehicles, they protested when the cars were recalled. Early on in the movie Ed Begley mocks the idea that the EV1 didn't go far enough on a charge, saying that it met the needs of "only about 90% or so of all drivers."

70 to 90 miles advertised range, 50 to 60 reported practical range.

It was GM who suggested that drivers of the EV1 were unsatisfied with its range. The earliest use of the phrase "range anxiety" I have been able to find is by a GM executive in Who Killed the Electric Car? claiming that EV1 drivers suffered from it, and that this was a major reason why the car was recalled. He referred to it as "so-called range anxiety," as if he himself had not invented the term with the intent of inserting the concept into consumers' minds. Some of the guys from Detroit are pretty slick.

There's also a scene in the movie where two former EV1 drivers talk about how big corporations will keep telling you things until you start to believe that they must be true. Such as that you want a nice big SUV.

Surely you've noticed how many car and SUV and truck commercials show vehicles driving through the western US desert and on highways twisting through California mountains, and say to the viewers, C'mon -- you know you want to get one of these and drive the tires off of it, drive it all day long every day. Until those of us who don't live out West forget that we don't, and those who would rather not drive all day every day start to believe that we would.

And now in 2021, here come a whole great big bunch of brand-new great-big all-electric SUV's with great big long ranges deriving from literal tons of batteries per vehicle. And you want one of those $90,000, 3-ton electric SUV's that can go way over 300 miles on a charge, don't you? You need one of those, because you're an Arizona rancher -- even if you're not. You need to drive 500 miles a day in a huge pickup through the frozen Yukon, to feed the mighty moose! You don't, of course, but you see so many of those damn commercials telling you what a rugged outdoorsman you are that it sort of feels as if you do. You must feed the majestic moose! If not you, who?!

It's sort of nice to see the President test-driving an electric prototype. Sort of. It'd be really nice to see him in an electric compact car and not just in an electric F-150.

Caitlyn Jenner and the Homeless

Early in May, Caitlyn Jenner caused an uproar by saying -- in a prime-time interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, for crying out loud, not in an inadvertantly-overheard private conversation, as any Republican might be expected to have done -- that California had a homelessness problem, which was epitomized by a friend of hers, who used to keep his private jet in the hangar right across from Caitlyn's hangar in Malibu, from which she was speaking to Sean. 

Caitlyn saw her friend packing up his hangar. She told Sean that he said, "I’m moving to Sedona, Arizona. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t walk down the streets and see the homeless."

Her initial comment about homeless people made it clear that she was concerned about the way that rich people sometimes have their whole day spoiled by having to look at homeless people, and that she didn't care at all about the suffering of those who live and die on the street. Now she's trying hard to pivot to make it seem like she actually cares about homeless people, but besides being a tone-deaf, unfeeling moron, she's also in the wrong party for that. 

For example, she claims that her proposal to de-regulate construction in California will help the homeless. Does she imagine that the newly-unfettered construction contractors will immediately turn to the homeless for the additional labor they need, thus allowing the homeless to bootstrap themselves into roofs over their heads?

Or maybe she thinks that the contractors will build an abundance of homeless shelters, first thing, just as soon as they're no longer required to install those pesky solar panels?

Shoulda stuck to sports, Caitlyn! Oh, wait, you screwed that up too, didn't you?  You see, Caitlyn, who became world-famous by winning the 1976 Olympic men's decathlon as Bruce Jenner, supports Republican efforts to ban transgender girls from participating in girls' sports. Now of course, there's nothing surprising about some Republican politicians supporting such bans. It's consistent with their overall policy of making life as difficult as possible for LGBTQ people. 

But when a transgender Republican woman running for Governor of California says the quiet part loud here, like she did with the homeless, it's not just bad for her. Caitlyn is making the general Republican attitude of ****-you-this-is-about-me a little bit more clear and plain to see than is good for Republicans who are trying to get elected.

Overall, I would guess, Democrats have to be much happier about Caitlyn's campaign than Republicans.

CNBC and Fossil Watches

A recent CNBC piece looked at the recent struggles of the watch brand Fossil. They skyrocketed to success in the 1980's with cheap disposable watches disguised as quality products, and in the last few years their revenues and stock prices have been plummeting.

Fossil watches (and the other watch brands Fossil manufactures such as MVMT and Michael Kors) are crap -- disposable crap made for a couple of dollars per piece and sold for $50 and up. That MIGHT be relevant to their recent struggles. 

 

Maybe Timex, championed in this ridiculous CNBC segment as a return of affordable quality, can be considered something other than garbage, but only when compared to something like Fossil, or like the mechanical watches Timex made up until 1981. In the whole piece, there was no mention of:

-- Seiko mechanical watches. CNBC mentioned that Seiko introduced quartz watches in the 1960's, but not that they are known, from before the 1960's to the present day, for offering good value for mechanical watches.

-- The many small independent brands who are competing for the low-priced end of Seiko's market share ($50 to $200 or so), as Seiko prices go a bit upscale.

 

 

-- G-Shock, quartz watches made by the Japanese corporation Casio. Most G-Shocks cost under $100, a few really fancy ones cost low four figures. 

 

The CNBC piece attributed much of Fossil's trouble to the Apple watch. There have been over 100 million Apple watches sold. There have also been over 100 million G-Shocks sold. True, G-Shock has had longer to do it, they started in 1983, but they're a force in this market.

What Seiko, many smaller brands looking to take over for Seiko in the market for inexpensive ($50-$200) mechanicals, and G-Shock all have in common is that they offer QUALITY products, and good VALUE for the money.

But you know what? I don't watch a lot of CNBC. I'm criticizing them for running a story about the watch industry without knowing much about watches, but maybe I'm the one who's being naive here, when I insinuate that things like quality products and reasonable prices are relevant in the financial news.

It Looks as if I Can't Stop Writing About Trump Just Yet

Believe me, I'd really like to. Believe me, I completely understand those of you who never want to read another word about him. But he hasn't gone away yet. From strong hints that he would run for President again in 2024, Trump has shifted, according to accounts so numerous and similar that it has become impossible to dismiss them, to the belief that he will be reinstated as President in August 2021.

Charles CW Cooke's National Review article ends by describing him, on the issue of his reinstatement, as "so unmoored from the real world that it is hard to know where to begin in attempting to explain him."

I agree. My only issue here is, this describes him in general, not just on this issue, and for a long time -- since long before 2015 -- not just recently, as Cooke seems to believe. The GOP has been following "a world-historical buffoon," as James Carville so beautifully put it.

The problem is not that Trump is a moron. There have always been lots of morons, and the world deals with them, keeps them safe and away from sharp objects and so forth. The problem with this moron is that he's got millions of dedicated followers. You'd think that more Republicans would know better. You'd think that more of the ones who know better would have the guts to stand up to him. 

 

I've got to stop over-estimating Republicans.