Stored Up In The Attic

I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.  A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it.  Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic.  He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order.  It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent.  Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before.  It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.
—     Sherlock Holmes
From:  “A Study in Scarlet“
Written by:  Arthur Conan Doyle
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On This Day In:
2023	Finding Richness
2022	Enduring Success
2021	Dealing With Trumpism, Racism and Fascism In America
	Just Wondering (Runaway)
2020	And So Must Good Government
2019	Are You Done Watching?
2018	Spineless Capitulation By The Democrats
	Woe Is Me…
2017	Sincerely Yours
2016	Only Good To Say
2015	A Series Of Temporary Conditions
2014	Gaps
2013	Duty
2012	Cost Not Price
	Superheroes
2011	The Simple Normalcy Of Everyday Life – “Squirrel!”

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Word Games

In the mid-00s, I got hooked on the numbers game “Sudoku”.  A colleague was playing it at work and I asked her what it was she was doing.  She explained it was a “numbers” game which you could print out and do on break or while waiting for something (Dr. / Dentist apmt, DMV).  I printed out a couple and I was hooked.  Sometime later, I found the game as an app on my Kindle and was even deeper down the rabbit hole…
In late 2017, I retired and started going on Facebook regularly.  I was contacted by someone I knew back in grammar school days and we “friend”-ed each other.  Several of his posts were comments about how much he was enjoying playing “Wordle”.  I never heard of it, so I Googled it and tried playing…
It was “fun” enough, but I didn’t see why it was so addictive.  I would go along for 5 or 10 days and then error out.  I also didn’t realize that if you skipped a day  – or played on a different system (PC vs tablet vs Kindle), “you” didn’t get credited with your win that day.  In fact, although you simply didn’t play, your count was reset to zero (as if you failed in your guesses).  It’s almost needless to say, but I had multiple times when I got the “correct” answer only to find the next day, I didn’t receive “credit” for my win.
So, using the same hardware was the first thing I “figured out”.  I then decided there had to be a “system” to winning.  I settled on using three unique words which contained all of the vowels(“a”, “e”, “i”, “o”, “u” and “y”) and a good chunk of the consonants (again, trying to keep them unique).
To make a longer story shorter, I quickly shot up into the 80% and then 90% bracket.  From there, it takes a LOT more correct days to improve your percentage correct.
When I last posted about this, I was at 96% and 125 correct answers (days).  Well, I just went up to 97% and, as you can see, I’m at 217 (days).
To tell the truth, it’s now getting all a bit boring…  Even with my OCD, I’m finding it a bit of a drag to continue.  Which means I’ll probably get one wrong, miss a day – or even stop completely.  Either way, I think it’ll drop me back to 96% (or lower), and it’s really not worth the time / effort to work it back up to 97%.
A little over a year ago, a different Facebook friend was posting about “Quordle”, how she’d finally won a game and how much fun it was to play.  And, of course, I had to look into it…
It turns out Quordle is Wordle, but with four words to guess each day and nine tries (instead of 6 tries to get one 5-letter word).
Is it “more” difficult?  Yes, a little bit.  Is it “more” fun?  Not really.  Why?  Because I’m OCD and I “normally” don’t like “trick” games.
How is this a “trick” game?  Every now and then they throw up a word with four common letters and the first letter being the critical different consonant letter.  If you happen to hit the consonant as one of the other words, you can win – more or less easily.  If you don’t, you can end up with more options than you have remaining guesses.  (See:  “bunny”, “sunny”, “funny”)
A third game which I’ve recently begun playing is “Connections”.  Here you have 16 words and your task is to sort them into four groups of four words – with “something” in common. …And you have four chances to guess the correct “connection”.
I think of this game as the SAT game of “societal” common knowledge.  In the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), if you can eliminate one of the multiple-guess answers, you can greatly increase your chance of getting credit for the question / answer.  Random guess:  25% correct.  Eliminate the “obvious” incorrect response and guess:  33% correct.  Eliminate a second “almost” as obvious incorrect response and guess:  50%.   Of course, if you know (or can workout) the correct answer: 100%.
I find this (“Connections”) an “amusing” game, more than a test of skill / knowledge.  There is a significant amount of recency and cultural bias in this game.  How many of us know four names of women’s professional soccer or basketball teams?  Men’s hockey teams?  Items associated with Wonder Woman’s costume?  Actors with common (shared) first or last names?  Groups of things (a “murder” of crows or a “hand” of bananas)?
At any rate, I get a few correct each week and a few wrong (more often than not).  Since I have no investment in the game or answers, I find the ultimate answers amusing / interesting, but – more often than not – I also don’t care if I get them right or wrong and forget the “connection” almost as soon as I close the browser tab.
It (my reaction to the game) reminds me of the combination saying(s) of Sherlock Homes and Einstein:  “Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before.  It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.” and “Never memorize something that you can look up.”
Note:  my method of solving Wordle and Quordle does not work on the “advanced” level wherein you can only use “new” words which have the correct letters in them and / or in the correct location from words previously guessed.
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On This Day In:
2023	Near The Heart Of The World
	NFL This Weekend: Six Games In Three Days!
2022	Limited Knowledge And No Control
2021	Gifts
	Look Inside Your Heart (Higher Love)
2020	A Strength Of Science
2019	A Higher Standard
	Make Two Calls
2018	Irreplaceable Sparks
2017	Saving For April 15th
2016	First Wish
2015	Tracing Shadows
2014	One Thing
2013	More Is Less
2012	The Screw-Up Gene

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A Series Of Observations

Today’s TV series review is for the seven season / 151 episodes / 115 hours total viewing time, drama / crime-police / mystery series: “The Mentalist“.  The show stars Simon Baker as Patrick Jane (the Mentalist) and Robin Tunney as Agent Teresa Lisbon (his long suffering boss / side-kick”Watson”).  There are three other “main” supporting characters:  Kimball Cho (played by Tim Kang), Wayne Rigsby (played by Owain Yeoman) and Grace Van Pelt (played by Amanda Righetti).  The series originally aired between 2008 and 2015.  I viewed / “streamed” the series over several weeks in 3-to-4 episode chunks.  Some spoilers follow, so if you are intending to watch this series, do so before continuing this review…
The basic premise is that a “reformed” con-man / fake psychic (Jane) assists law enforcement (the California Bureau of Investigation [CBI]) with solving crimes (mostly murders).  Because the CBI is a state law enforcement unit, the crime is generally on California state property or CBI involvement is “requested” by someone with sufficient political influence to warrant the notice of the CA State Attorney General.  Sometimes this aspect is a REAL stretch…  and then has to be narratively explained away by dialogue.
The main character – Jane – has highly developed observational skill, exceptional memory skill and high intelligence which combined with his years as a con-man / magician / fake psychic allow him to “solve” each case in intuitive (sometimes illegal) ways – much to the discomfort of the supporting cast (professional law enforcement officers).  Jane becomes involved with CBI after recovering from a nervous breakdown following the brutal murder of his wife and daughter by a serial killer (“Red John”).  Red John’s modus operandi is “generally” a rape, disembowelment and then throat slitting of his (mostly female) victims.  Red John is a cult leader type criminal, generally following the “Dr. Moriarty” character type from the Sherlock Holmes genre.  Lisbon is Watson to Jane’s Sherlock.
The series has two over-arching series themes:  the developing romantic relationship between Jane and Lisbon and the developing friendship(s) between Jane and the rest of the law enforcement supporting characters.  Within this there are also three main seasonal story arcs:  seasons one through three are single episode murder mysteries developing the two main arcs.  Seasons four, five and half of season six are devoted to both episodic crimes and the hunt for Red John.  Red John is revealed (and killed) and then the last half a season six and all of season seven is Jane assisting in various FBI cases.  Season seven is an abbreviated season of only twelve episodes.  All of the other seasons are twenty-one plus episodes. Most of the series is based in Sacramento.  Post-Red John, the series moves from CBI to FBI and is then based from Austin, Texas.
So, is this series any good?  Has it stood the test of time?  How is the acting?  Is the show realistic for leadership, psychology or law enforcement?  And, finally, is it worth investing 115 hours of your life?  In order:  yes, mostly, poor to excellent, more often than not, so-so, “I sure hope not”, and yes.
More specifically, overall, this is a VERY good series.  It is as predictable as any police procedural:  crime, investigation, resolution.  It is mostly predictable for character development – but at a surprisingly / interesting slow pace and then – bang – your in rapids, and then – back to slow pace.  The series ends “happily” from a romantic perspective it is well rapped up – the two main couples wed.  So, bottom line, the good-guys win and live happily-ever-after.
Test of time / acting / theme portrayals:  As a police procedural – I hope not.  As a romantic drama, yes.  As a “Sherlock Holmes” genre, so-so.  In practically every episode, some person’s rights are either ignored or aggressively violated.  This is morally acceptable because the team is putting very bad people (mostly men) behind bars (or killing them).  No matter how honorable the character starts in their role, they are always corrupted by Jane and the concept of acting for “the greater good”.  On the romantic side, a big part of every drama is how long can you maintain the sexual tension between the main characters.  Although obvious from the first episode, both main relationship arcs are well developed.  As a super-sleuth / Holmes procedure series, the show has problems, but it (the show) still works because of the believability of the actors in their slowly developed / multi-layered character portrayals.  The portrayals of most of the bad-guys are mostly flat and one dimensional, but there are notable exceptions.  As the series progresses most of the other (non-super-genius) characters say:  “This is what Jane would (would not) have us do…”  For me personally, I found the various depictions of leadership styles / personalities to be one of the most interesting aspects of the series.  The whole gamut of leadership from criminal to sainted is represented and the strengths and weaknesses of the various styles is examined, critiqued and accepted or rejected.
Investment:  I feel there has been an on-going transformation in home entertainment happening over the course of my lifetime.  The progress is roughly equivalent to that of written literature.  In writing we have daily comics, short stories and comic books, short-moderate-long books (texts and novels), books series and encyclopedias.  In TV, the corresponding genre would be animated / cartoon shorts (multiple stories in a half-hour show), episodic stories (half-hour to hour long shows), movie length (90 minutes to mini-series [sub-30 hours of total viewing time]), and seasonal arcs (episodic, but with 3-5 minutes devoted to long-term character / story development), and then generational shows / series.  I consider “generational” series to be any series over 15 years / seasons – so, most day-time soap operas and multi-series franchises (“I Love Lucy“, “The Simpsons“, “StarTrek“, “Law & Order“, “NCIS“, etc).  I (personally) do NOT consider game shows to be “generational” series, even though many have gone well beyond 20 seasons, because they are normally not re-watched after the initial viewing.  Although, there is now some give on this characteristic, too, as you can “watch” some of the prior episodes (on TV-history channels).  The point of the “re-run” (though) is to view the contestants (famous personalities from yesteryear) and not viewing the contests, themselves.  At any rate, I would put a seven seasons series in the “War & Peace” – lengthy story grouping, but not in the generational level group.
Final recommendation:  This is a moderate to strong recommendation for an initial viewing (see caution later), a low to moderate for re-viewing in its entirety and a strong to highly for individual episodes (if you develop a favorite character or mini-story arc during your initial viewing).  For me, 100-plus hours is almost certainly too long to spend re-watching the entire series. I purchased my “series-bundle copy” on steep discount ($30 as I recall), at which price this a bargain for entertainment value – even if only viewed once – $.25 per hour or $.20 per episode.  One note of caution:  there is the occasional swear word used at least once per season and there are repeated scenes of victims injuries (almost one per episode), so this is not appropriate for viewers under 12 years of age.
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On This Day In:
2022	And Longer To Stay That Way
	A General Guideline For Voting In The 2022 Mid-Terms
	A Series Of Observations
2021	Press On
	Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This (Love Yourself)
2020	AMA
	Still Shiny (Sunshine On My Shoulders)
2019	Things That Go Bump In The Night
	Hoping I’m Careful
2018	I Must Be Truly Wise
2017	My Sensei
2016	The Worst Sin
2015	Rules Of Thumb
2014	A Prayer
	Orange October (IX) – Giants Lose Game 2 In Bullpen Collapse
2013	Complacent Reality
2012	Two-minute Sex
	Just Staring, Why?
2011	A World Of Difference

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Two Geniuses

Today’s reviews are for a pair of biographical movies about two geniuses.  The men are Srinivasa Ramanujan and Alan Turing.  Technically, both are mathematicians, but Turing is more remembered for his work with computers.  The two movies are titled:  “The Man Who Knew Infinity” (2015) about Ramanujan, and “The Imitation Game” (2014) about Turing.
“The Man Who Knew Infinity” (2015)  —  movie review
This movie stars Dev Patel as Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan and Jeremy Irons as his British mentor (collaborator) G. H. Hardy.  Basically, a poor, self-taught mathematician moves to Trinity College at Cambridge after mailing some of his work to a world famous mathematics professor (Hardy).  The two collaborate (and publish), but the movie is basically about their personal relationship and not about their maths.  The movie is beautifully shot in both India and England and I was moved by the depictions of both environments:  brightly colored poverty contrasted with muted earth-toned (relative) wealth.  A second major plot contrast is Hardy’s atheism vs Ramanujan’s devout Hindu faith.   Ramanujan tells Hardy that his math comes from the lips of his god.  Hardy can only struggle to understand divine inspiration.  In the end, Hardy accepts that his friend believes it is true even if he cannot share that belief.
Final recommendation:  highly recommended and I look forward to reading the book (of the same title) the movie is based on.
“The Imitation Game” (2014)   —  movie review
This movie stars  Benedict Cumberbatch (aka Sherlock Holmes / Doctor Strange) as Alan Turing and  Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke who was Turing’s fiancé briefly.  Turing was a homosexual and at that time, being gay was considered a serious crime in England.  Both Turing and Clarke were mathematicians who became cryptologists.  They famously developed a computer which was used to break the Nazi Enigma cypher.   This movie describes this invention and Turing’s subsequent suicide.   As a personal note: I consider Turing to be one of the seminal figures in computer science and in artificial intelligence.  The “test” for general purpose artificial intelligence is named “The Turing Test” and based on one of his papers.
Turing and Clarke worked closely together and are reported to have actually been very close friends although I’ve seen Turing portrayed as almost autistic in dealing with social settings, so I’m not sure how accurate the descriptions or the portrayals have been.  In any case, Turing proposed marriage to Clarke and then later withdrew and admitted to being gay.  The movie purports to Clarke being indifferent to Turing’s sexuality as she is contented with having a relationship with a friend and an intellectual equal.
The “surprise” hack at the end of the movie is the realization that the Nazi messages all end the same and this can be used as a key to reduce the number of variations the computer needs to evaluate.  Whether this is what actually happened or not, I don’t know, but it did make for a plausible ending!  Final recommendation:  highly recommended!
While I enjoyed both movies I would rate “Infinity” slightly higher than “Imitation“.  I’m not really sure why, but I’ve already re-watched “Infinity” twice and I’m just getting around to my second viewing of “Imitation“.  But, again, both highly recommended…
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On This Day In:
2023	The Dissent We Witness
2022	End The Filibuster
2021	Be Creative, Question Assumptions
	By No Means (King Of The Road)
2020	I’ll Eat To That (Gemütlichkeit)
	To The Front
2019	#ContinueToResist
	Except Willful Ignorance And Prideful Stupidity
2018	More Executive Time For #DumbDonald
2017	Watched The Inauguration
	Two Geniuses
2016	Come Dance And Laugh With Me
2015	Looks Good To Me
2014	Desire For The Sea
2013	The Fierce Urgency Of NOW
	Happy Inauguration Day!
2012	One Path
	Sorrow And Joy
	The Seven Year View
2011	Emergent Practicality

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