confusion

A few months ago Netflix released a show, Green Eggs and Ham, based on the Dr. Seuss classic.

In the first episode there is a scene where one of the protagonists walks through a big office full of “bean counters and pencil pushers.” The room is filled with characters at desks literally counting beans, one at a time, or pushing pencils across a desk, one at a time. It’s a funny sight, if a bit predictable, but after watching it I felt that it was a lazy joke but there was something else about it I couldn’t put my finger on.

Describing it the next day to a colleague it came to me: the problem was that pencil pushers and bean counters is simply not Seussian! Seussian is defined as:

Seussian

Relating to or characteristic of the Dr. Seuss series of children’s books, especially in being whimsical or fantastical.“

(definition from: The Oxford English Dictionary [lexico.com])

Emphasis mine.

Dr. Seuss wrote about people who make thneeds or sneeches with and without stars on their bellies. About wacky Wednesday’s and fights over which side you should butter your bread on. He wrote about wockets in pockets and a fox who wears socks while rhyming. I just don’t feel like he would fill an office with bean counters and pencil pusher —at least not by those names, beans and pencils are too mundane for Dr. Seuss.

Bean counters and pencil pushers called to my mind a different authorial adjective —Kafkaesque.

Kafkaesque

Characteristic or reminiscent of the oppressive or nightmarish qualities of Franz Kafka’s fictional world.

(definition from: The Oxford English Dictionary [lexico.com])

But that’s not right. The bean counters and pencil pushers are not nightmarish or oppressive (at least not in the show, I’ve met some that are in real life!) I thought of kafkaesque as more “absurdity of modern life.” But the dictionary disagrees. Maybe pencil pushers and bean counters would be more Roald Dahl, not Wonka but the world outside the factory gates? I’m not sure. I even looked up The Myth of Sisyphus [wikipedia.org] which is about the absurdity of life in the modern world, but it resulted in a bit of circular reasoning as “The essay contains an appendix titled “Hope and the Absurd in the work of Franz Kafka”. And “[Camus] maintains that Kafka fails as an absurd writer because his work retains a glimmer of hope.” So maybe pencil pushers and bean counters are kafkaesque after all. It’s all so confusing. But the central premise stands: they are not seussian.

Dr. Seuss used his wacky worlds to write about many real world problems: deforestation, racism, the nuclear arms race… [buzzfeed.com] but I don’t remember any about pointless jobs. Pointless jobs, or bullshit jobs [wikipedia.org] are plague on society that has been around since before Dr. Seuss, and I expect will continue for many years to come… but that theory is a topic for another day.

There was an eclipse today in Singapore. Unlike the last one [confusion.cc] this was an annular eclipse, so at maximum there was a “ring of fire” (aka an annulus, hence the name.)

Unfortunately some clouds rolled in just before maximum and so the eclipse was partially, and sometimes totally obscured. Still I managed to get some dramatic shots, as in a scene from Game or Thrones or The Witcher.

After cleanup I have about 90 photos [flickr.com], some taken with the 200 millimeter lens and some with a 500 mm with a 2x extension tube, so 1000 mm. The ring of fire above was taken with the 200 mm. The one below, taken just after second contact, as the moon begins to move off of the disc of the sun, shows a small dot of light at the bottom, disconnected from the rest of the crescent of the sun. Proof that the moon is not a smooth sphere. Cool. Super cool!

For all the reasons to hate Facebook, there are some times when it is an amazing tool. I am currently in Amsterdam for holiday and the other morning while I was scrolling through Facebook I happened upon a post from an old colleague who lives in Moscow. Coincidentally he was in Amsterdam for a few days of work. So we managed to meet up for drinks and dinner after a decade. This is one of the best reasons to keep Facebook. I suck at keeping in touch with friends who live overseas, but I do stalk a significant number of them on Facebook. It’s a double edged sword because I don’t interact with them but I do feel like I’m still in touch with them. So, as dangerous as Facebook is if you are a bit picky about your friends post significant things and things like travel to your friends it can yield some serendipitous moments.

Facebook isn’t alone. I am writing this while waiting for another ex-colleague who lives in Amsterdam that I have kept up with, off-and-on, via a WhatsApp group. But even my WhatsApp groups are mostly random, far between posting of funny things or rankings and not real contact. Oh well.

The moral of this story should be “I should be a better friend”. But I prefer: post enough of your life to Facebook so others, who you have selectively chosen —never post to the open internet, remember the internet does not forget— can stalk you.

Vice has a story about how the fragmentation of the streaming video market is driving people back to piracy to get their fix. It focuses a lot on the cost of having all the streaming services —welcome back to the cable era— but it has less to say about a major issue with streaming services: different launch dates and offerings by country.

As a Star Wars fan in Singapore my only option to watch The Mandalorian before the internet shoves terabytes of spoilers in front of my eyes is to pirate it. There is no official launch date for Disney+ in Singapore yet. What the fuck house house of mouse? I understand the level of technical complexity to rolling out global services on this scale. Netflix only conquered the world a few years ago but it suffered for many years from VPN leakage. And Hulu and other streaming services still don’t have global offerings. Maybe a VPN will work for D+?

A major part of the issue with most streaming services is how content has always been distributed. It complicated but in general studios make a show and its purchased (before or after being made) by a distributor who, well, distributes it. In the old days it was distributed physically, with rolls of film shipped around. Back in high school the older brother of a friend was the manager of a local theater and the amount of money they spent to rent the reels of film for a new movie was crazy. I understand why the popcorn and coke is so expensive, I suspect that even with digital distribution the cost didn’t go down… just more profit.

Under this physical distribution model it took a lot of layers of middlemen to get content around the world. And contracts were put in place. As new distribution technology and new touch points with consumers emerged the same model was used. So someone could own the broadcast rights to a move and someone else the digital distribution and someone else the physical distribution (DVDs). And of course exclusivity of a popular title meant more money. Back when music streaming and download was the big battleground another friend was in charge of the Nokia “comes with music” product where Nokia bundled a year of streaming with your phone. He had a small army of lawyers working for most of a year to get the required rights contracts in place, just for Singapore!

Now Disney is the owner of it’s own content, and the distributor via Disney+. So why can’t I watch The Mandalorian in Singapore?