rc blog

Farewell Github, Hello Ghost

2022-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

Moving day

Please check out my new site at https://netrc-ghost-1.fly.dev (yes, working on better URL).

Dead Eyes

2021-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

Odd recommendation: Dead Eyes podcast. I think this started with a reddit post but I’ve gotten lost on a rabbit-trail. Apparently, way back in 2000 when Tom Hanks was casting Band of Brothers, erstwhile actor Connor Ratliff got the job of a an aide to then-Captain Dick Winters – except that the day after the audition, the story goes, Hanks himself suddenly decided to go with another actor saying Ratliff had “dead eyes”.

Quick cut to many years later and Ratliff still hasn’t come to terms with this. He’s had some minor successes and moved between small roles in movies and tv and especially stand-up and improv. But to deal with the now decades old humiliation, he started a podcast to dive deep into the “Band of Brothers” universe to try and understand what happened a long time ago.

While trying to decide if this might be worth a valuable hour of my evening, I then find that Ratliff also does a hilarious George Lucas impression and for six or so years has put on The George Lucas Talk Show (and wikipedia entry).

OK, for me that means I need to listen to “Dead Eyes”. There’s been two seasons of the show (about 10 eps per) and rather than start at the beginning, I try just the last episode, #20 The Big Zielinksi which tries to discover the real story of who that aide to Dick Winter was, Private John S. Zielinski. Helping him on this is Band of Brothers writer/producer Erik Jendresen. Turns out the episode is more than a little fascinating, with its own rabbit-trails and twists, and by the end quite touching.

If you give the show a shot, you’ll see how odd it is that this isn’t a youtube show as they talk about various photographs a good deal - including the famous shot of Winter and Easy Company friends at Hitler’s Eagles Nest : John Zielinski may be the soldier kneeling on lower left

Will have to check out other episodes with guest like acting friends Jon Hamm, Seth Rogan, Ron Livingston, Judd Apatow, Elijah Wood, etc.

The Red Tent

2021-09-27T00:00:00+00:00

Watched Amundsen (2019) on AmazonPrime - good standard biopic with just a bit of confusing flashback timelines. Fun, old-fashioned special effects and fine Ennio Morricone score. As always, the real-life story (at least according to Wikipedia) is much more convoluted, involved, and obsessive. But the interesting part of the wikipedia page is that in list of other media, it mentions The Red Tent(1969) movie, an Italo-Russian financed picture starring Peter Finch as Italian engineer/explorer Umberto Nobile and Sean Connery as Amundsen! Never heard of it, how could I have missed a 2-1/2 hour Connery picture? And yet, lo and behold, available to stream.

Nice, old-fashioned, big picture mess of a movie. Finch is dependably stern as Nobile but Connery is really in only 10 minutes of it. It does cover the dirigible crash in the Arctic that caused Amundsen to attempt a search mission, from which he never returned. Mostly plays out in the Arctic as the explorers try to survive and the amateur rescuers make a hash of things. (N.B. the title, though it makes literal sense once you see it, has absolutely no dramatic bearing on the story; and certainly nothing to do with the story of Jacob’s daughter ).

Also, FWIW, the 2019 Amundsen biopic shows the bitterness the Norwegian explorer felt after Robert Scott’s doomed South Pole expedition somehow turned in to national glory for England. Not a doctor, but I tend to trust the theory that scurvy was Scott’s downfall: see https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm, only partially debunked by https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23734365/

Random Home Monitor News

2020-12-05T00:00:00+00:00

Price vs Resolution vs Time

My first home computer monitor was a 13” black and white RCA TV which needed a special radio-frequency modulator card to get connected to my Digial Group Z-80-based system. It showed 24 lines of 80 ASCII characters. It cost $90. Of course, it also could get over-the-air TV signals, very useful for watching Johnny Carson late at night.

About two decades later, I splurged on the state-of-the-art Silicon Graphics 1600SW, the first wide-screen flat panel display. It had a stunningly sharp, pixel-perfect display, compared the more common CRT displays, and cost $2,000 !!.

This past week, I bought a monitor for my notebook travel computer (since I’m rarely travelling for work anymore). It’s a random Amazon purchase, a curved-screen Samsung 24” FHD display. And it cost just over $100.

Recent Reviews

2020-12-03T00:00:00+00:00

(note… 👍👍 must see… 👍 recommended… 👎 skip it… if there’s no indication, meh, take it or leave it)
using Reelgood to confirm where to watch

Misc Fiction

👍 The Flight Attendant (HBO Max) - just started watching; quirky, murder mystery starring Kaley Cuoco, a.k.a. Penny from The Big Bang Theory. Recycled plot points, but so far moving along fast and bouyed by good cast.

👍 Wolf of Snow Hollow (rent on Prime video) - another quirky, absurdist story, this one following a small town cop trying not to believe there’s a werewolf prowling around. With a final, nice appearance by the late Robert Forster.

👍 The Queens Gambit (Netflix) - very nice (too pretty?) drama of orphaned girl finding her way in the world as an up-and-coming chess grandmaster. Fun period kitsch and off-kilter characters. A decent amount of fairly accurate chess maneuvering.

7500 (Prime Video)- not too much here; basically just watching the pilot (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) during an attempted high-jacking. Good news, reasonably deft and over quickly enough - Bad news, never develops any siginificant emotional response in JG-L or us.

Prospect (Netflix) - very atmospheric low-budget sci-fi with father/daughter prospectors trying to figure out how to strike the big find on random planet. Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian) balances out the slow drama nicely, though the whole thing goes on too long.

Unhinged (for rental) - Best thing about this is that it makes no apologies for its choices nor does it drag on with twists and sub-plots. For that it should get a thumbs-up, but seriously, no particular reason to watch this. Great fat-suit worn by Russell Crowe who wisely underplays the ‘unhinged’ anger.

Raised by Wolves (HBO Max) - ok Ridley Scott produced random sci-fi. First episode was fine, second episode began with backstory (I think) about how the original planet (earth?) was overtaken by bad guys (robots?). Didn’t care to watch anymore.

👎 Hunters (Prime Video) - typical ‘graphic novel’ style and sensibility about nazi hunters in New York City. Perhaps should have been crazier. Not even Al Pacino makes it worthwhile.

Tales from the Loop (Prime Video) - Just couldn’t sit through first episode; no idea what its all about.

World War II-ish

👍 The 12th Man (Netflix) - true WW2 story of failed commando operation that leaves our hero struggling to survive across frozen ground of northern Norway. Slow, quiet, scenic production. From the intro credits “The most incredible events in this story are the ones that actually took place”. And see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Baalsrud

👍 Within The Whirlwind (Prime Video) - realistic drama of life under Stalin - arbitrary accusations and swift injustice followed by the struggle to survive Siberian gulag. Based on true story that’s a bit more complicated than presented here ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgenia_Ginzburg ).

👍 Life & Fate (Prime Video) - Wow. Ambitious but relentlessly depressing Russian series about Stalingrad and the crushing reality of the Soviet system. Interesting back-story on the book and author; the series takes it time showing characters and their voice-over thoughts, which mostly works, but you do have to pay attention to sub-titles. If the plot synopsis is right (i’m only half-way through now) this should get ever more and more depressing and fatalistic.

The Liberator (Netflix) - should be interesting animated WWII graphic-novel, but couldn’t get past first scenes. If they’re going to rotoscope animation over real actors, frankly, I’d rather watch the real actors. As much as I’d like to support innovative story-telling, I’ll pass.

Castles In The Sky - nice and simple slice of biopic concerning Robert Watson-Watt and team working out of radar in Britain just pre-war-WWII. Hits all the tropes of the genre, and of course elides the truth and makes the men appear much less capable in engineering/science than they must have been. And inevitably skips over the enormous amount of work to turn the device into a functioning military and bureaucratic process to actually get the RAF fighter planes in the sky at the right time and place.

Rommel - Good biopic of last several months of Erwin Rommel’s life showing the infighting and incompetence of the Nazi high-comamnd while preparing for the invasion of France. A nice book-end to Valkyrie.

Mr. Jones - qualified thumbs-up - not sure if the dour/slow mood is worth sitting through. But on the other hand, major kudos to this exposé of the Holodomor coverup by various Western news organizations.

Other Historical

👍 Barbarians (Netflix) - decent historical drama of the true story of Arminius, germanic hostage turned Roman Equite turned traitor to Rome and victor of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. So far, just one season; probably all I’ll need to watch. Endorsed by Ancient Times blov !

Radioactive (Prime Video) - ok gauzy biopic with a couple decent science scenes of Madame and Pierre Curie’s discovery of radioactivity. Loses the thumbs-up for heavy-handed cross-cutting to scenes from WWII and medicine demonstrating the evils and good of the nuclear age.

👍👍 The Good Lord Bird (Showtime) - best thing seen in this list, great performances, quirky (there’s that word again), and anchored with Ethan Hawke as out-of-this-world John Brown. Close enough to the truth to pass. Doubly interesting as I recently visited Harper’s Ferry, which is a beautiful, historic riverfront town.

Valley of Tears (HBO Max) - Israeli series following tank crews and others during the Yom Kippur War in the Golan Heights in 1973. Due to the bad dubbing in to English and the rather frantic state of the characters most of the time this doesn’t quite pass muster, but I’ll slog through to the end.

Making of Psycho (Prime Video I think) - very simple old-school documentary with cast and crew from the Hitchcock classic. Interesting to hear from the writer how much free rein he got from Hitch; many plot points and angles were his invention. And, obligatory Star Wars mention - a music cue from Bernard Hermann’s score was used in rough-cut of A New Hope (just before Ben/Han/etc pop their heads up from smuggling spaces in the Falcon). John Williams loved it and re-scored it in his own way.

Django (Prime Video) - Amazing performance by Reda Kateb in this biopic of Django Reinhardt during Nazi takeover of Paris. Unfortunately bogs down a bit as Django gets to small town France trying to escape to Switzerland and finds fellow Roma caravan struggling to survive. Fantastic excepts of Django’s music - ends with a version of his lost “Mass”, Messe Gitane

Managing Afs Redux

2020-07-22T00:00:00+00:00

Everything old is new again….

You may know that decades ago I worked on AFS – the Andrew File System – while at the Center for Information Technology Integration office at The University of Michigan. I later introduced AFS to Morgan Stanley and thereafter wrote “Managing AFS” the book for Prentice-Hall, published in 1998.

I recently was able to get a ‘reversion of rights’ to the book and have now put the text up at https://netrc.github.io/ManagingAFS/ . All of the original source, etc, is at https://github.com/netrc/ManagingAFS .

Grandads Cars

2020-07-20T00:00:00+00:00

Grandad’s Cars

There’s a guy on twitter who will identify olde-type autos in family photos, so I asked him for some help. The first picture is of my Grandad and Grandma in rumble seat somewhere in Florida (Miami?):

And here’s a picture of my Grandad’s four brothers and three cars. Not sure who belonged to what car or who was the odd-man out, but turns out there’s a little history about the gas companies seen in the background. Possibly had some odd connection to the fact that Grandad worked for Sun Oil Company back then (Sunoco now!):

Recent Films

2019-12-27T00:00:00+00:00

(n.b. a couple Skywalker spoilers below)

Ford v Ferrari

Some of the most fun I’ve had at the movies in a long time, a long time. Bigger than life and action packed, the story of how Ford and Carrol Shelby took on Ferrari at the 1966 Le Mans is terrific. Affecting performances all around, with Christian Bale once again just taking over the movie. As always, lots of quibbles about the actual story (see below) but still more fun than expected. And if I’m not mistaken, a lot of the race highlights show great closeups of the drivers in perfect Speed Racer grimaces.

The 24-Hour War

On Netflix, this documentary on the Ford Vs. Ferrari story is much more subdued than the film but earnestly presented. Fleshes out many of the other minor characters seen in the film and also gives credit where it is due to Ford Motor Co. itself - no Shelby didn’t build the car all by himself. More importantly, it gives the backstory to Shelby and gives much more insight into the legendary driver/builder (Matt Damon’s Shelby is much more polished and business-like than reality).

Midway

An astonishingly complete story of the first act of the naval battles of World War II. Including a brief prologue in Tokyo from the late ’30s, this covers the strategy and tactics of the main battles from Pearl Harbor, the Doolittle Raid, to Coral Sea, and the Battle of Miday – a period of just over 6 months. Amazing how the film honors each of those events and how they were connected. A great example: The film deftly shows how the U.S. submarine Nautilus was used in Midway, how the Japanese navy tried to depth charge bomb it, how the last Japanese ship had to steam full-speed back to their fleet, and how that ship’s course helped guide U.S. pilots to the remaining Japanese aircraft carriers.

Unlike many other films, there’s no awkwardness when showing wives and family at home nor any contrived love story; the stars of the film are the main combatants, pilots, seamen, code-breakers, and ships. And the actors are uniformly good: Woody Harrelson as Nimitz, Dennis Quade as Halsey, Aaron Eckhart (though too tall!) as Doolittle, and Patrick Wilson as the brilliant intelligence office Layton.

The Rise of Skywalker

Great end to the latest trilogy. Not sure what the fuss is all about. If the problem is that there’s too much stuff going on - at the end of the day that’s a good thing. Too much fan service? Thank the maker. Too many convenient non-plot-twists? Just enjoy the ride. It is what it is. Frankly, if Return of the Jedi didn’t ruin the series with just-another-death-star, then the prequels helped shape the story in to one long saga about the Emporer’s rise and his weapons program, so then wrapping all this up with a scene on the destroyed Death Star and Palpatine’s machinations (in more ways than one), is just fine.

Even better, the new cast is still great (And Richard Grant’s Admiral Pryde is fantastic) and effects and music are as good as ever. Only quibbles are how little screen time C-3PO and R2D2 got overall and, as I’ve said, the decision not to have a fanfare of some sort before the iconic “A long time ago….” title card.

And how did they convince John Williams to having a cameo? His time is far too valuable!

The Irishman

Like discovering a new symphony by Beethoven, we’ve got another Scorcese/DeNiro/Pesci mob movie, this time with Pacino (and Ray Ramano too!). Beautiful and sedate in tone – and requiring a couple nights to digest – this putative story of the rise of the gangster Frank Sheerhan and the rift between the mob and the truckers union is told in a not-entirely clear patchwork of flashbacks. At the end, there’s not a great deal we learn about Sheerhan, no particular motivation or even his response to unfolding events. It’s all a bit too flat. But getting to see, e.g. Pesci rise to a new level of acting ability is more than worth it.

The noted “de-aging” CGI is fine, but to be frank not too helpful in figuring out in what timeframe the scenes are supposed to be.

(BTW, as a native of Birmingham, Michigan, went to Machus Red Fox restaurant plenty of times; it’s not set in some isolated tree-lined road but off a strip mall at Telegraph and Maple. Saw lots of movies at the Maple Cinemas around the corner.)

The Two Popes

Actually, the proper title is “The One Pope” as the film is resolutely in Pope Francis’ camp and tells its story of the priest/cardinals experiences in Argentina. Hopkins’ Pope Benedict is just a bundle of ill-manners, closed-mindedness, and approaching disability; Francis is endearing and of the people. One of those films that’s eventually very affecting, until you find out that it’s entirely, utterly fictional.

Drinking In Euroland

2018-11-18T00:00:00+00:00

Have to start by saying Europe, I’m a big fan. Tremendous culture, etc.

But outside of the big cities (and even at many places in the big city) they just don’t run bars the way we do in the U.S. of A. – correctly.

Two stories, of Scotch and Martinis…

First - In a bar in Nancy, France; it’s busy so we’re upstairs. Buddy asks for a beer, I ask for a Clan Campbell scotch and hold out 4 fingers as I say, “Quatre deciliters”. Now that brand is a mediocre blended whisky but I have to drink it for obvious reasons and also it almost always comes in a nice glass with the name printed on it. And I have to say 4 deciliters as that is the standard double pour, which if you know me is a minimum. The waitress replies, “I don’t speak English”, and that sounds odd as she says it with almost no accent; meanwhile my French isn’t so bad that “Quatre deciliters” can’t be understood in context. I continue holding up my 4 fingers and she leaves.

She comes back with friend’s beer, 4 individual scotches, and the bill. I can understand why someone would misinterpret my four finger indication, but it’s the rare waitress who would so blithely go through with delivering on this. Long story short, yes, I took that as a challenge and was victorious. Which, again, if you know me, isn’t too much of a stretch.

Best part is at the end, when we’re left alone for a 40 minutes with never a return visit from anyone. Don’t they want to sell more merchandise? Why no upsell? And/or, how about checking in on the guy who ordered 4 whiskies? Sadly, this is normal behavior in Euroland. (And no, it not spelled ‘behaviour’). She’s left the bill, so I and friend just leave and look for her on the main floor at the register. A different guy waiter is there and I hand him the bill, at which point he becomes flustered and tries to explain the practical impossibility of someone paying for a bar bill without the original waitress present.

Being a Yankee, I just place more than enough pieces of Euro-paper in his hand and walk out.

Second - there is a strange conspiracy across Europe against the one true Martini cocktail. If you go in to a bar, especially a relatively modern version, there will be a cocktail menu with Long Island Ice Tea, Mojito, Daiquiri, Mai Tai, Cosmopolitan. Point being they’ve heard of dozens of cocktails and a are happy to serve and overcharge for them.

So for example in Dunkirk, I order a Martini. A European waiter will then ask dry or sweet — See, they don’t know what a “Martini” is, all they know is the Martini brand vermouth which comes dry (white) or sweet (red).

Now I don’t mind at all that they prefer their local Martini brand over the cocktail - but the thing is they don’t even know that such a thing as a “Martini” cocktail exists which is strange considering the enormous effort they’ve gone to to copy (steal) all the other cocktail recipes Americans have invented for the past 30 years. And extra-strange given the Bond movies that have hawked Vodka martinis for at least that long.

But I’m more than happy to have fun at a bar and let them know what needs to be done to make a Gin Martini – hey, put in a bunch of Gin, and then a splash of dry vermouth, chill over ice, serve, and thanks! Instead what I get is Gin, dry vermouth, and ice chunks with pieces of lemon and lime wedges. And served with a small bottle of sparkling tonic water as if that will make things better.

I can only presume that the Martini brand corporation in Europe has put out some sort of cone of silence across the bartending culture - they not only feign complete ignorance of the Martini cocktail but actively go out of their way to sabotage it even when given specific instructions on what to do.

Slainte

First Man

2018-10-16T00:00:00+00:00

This great (fictional) story of Neil Armstrong’s journey to the moon only suffers from the same failures of expectation as the great Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. Dunkirk is a cinematic masterpiece of mood, photography, and editing, never intended to be a history lesson – and immediately criticized for not explaining history, e.g. for not including Churchill or Parliament or Germans. Correct but beside the point of the director.

So, First Man is the story of the world’s most famous man working through his most private grief. As such, the film has some of the best at home family snapshots, seemingly improvised and looking like super-8 home movies. Interspersed, of course, with NASA and the Apollo teams milestone-by-milestone dangerous march to the Moon.

Ironically, so focused is the film on keeping Armstrong’s inner story at the core of the film, that we don’t actually understand much about the man himself. Besides being a great pilot and a taciturn nerd, we don’t ever see where he came from or what else motivated the man. The film opens with a near disastrous X-15 flight, saved only by the quick-thinking of the pilot. We’re immersed in the viscera of ’50s-‘60s exploration - barely adequate safety, lack of understanding of Mach-flight aerodynamics and more. All with expert creaking and booming sound design and claustrophobic camera shaking putting you inside the cockpit (this film should be seen on a big screen with surround sound).

Not that I’m ever asked, but I’d have done two things different: Start the film with the teenage Armstrong’s first solo flight in the flat farmland of Wapakoneta, Ohio; show him fully in command and let an ear-to-ear grin break out. That gives us a sense of the determination, spirit, and skill in Neil’s background. Then cut to the frightening X-15 cockpit story.

And: Ever since The Right Stuff (which this film is a more than worthy successor and perfect double feature) the in-cockpit jerky point-of-view shot is mandatory. But I would hope that one reason these guys had The Right Stuff was that even in the midst of the shaking and stress they could still read the instrument panel (though god knows how). Why not in the middle of the shaking just a couple of blink-length extreme-close-ups of steady eyes and altitude/airspeed dials to show their skills?

Gemini VIII Capsule - Armstrong Air and Space Museum, Wapakoneta OH

All that said, mere details to discuss compared to the fun and majesty of the film, culminating in a great sequence at last on the Moon’s surface. There’s a great Searchers doorway shot as Aldrin and Armstrong opens the LM hatch and the camera pushes through to a beautiful vista of “magnificent desolation”. As mentioned, the so-called controversy of the film is beside the point as instead of basking in the explorer’s conquest or scientific experiments, we spend some quiet minutes with Neil as he comes to peace with himself.

(Again, sorry for my editing here - we do know that he brought a piece of cloth fabric from the original 1903 Wright Flyer to the moon as a token of history but also as a native Ohioan; wouldn’t that have been an equally affecting additional personal touch to show? (Actual opening shot would then have to be ‘Dayton, 1940’ with a young boy Neil visiting theWright Flyer exhibition))

That emotional moment to end the film explains the choices made by director and screenwriter. It’s a great choice – but there are so many stories to tell about this, one of the greatest achievements of mankind.