Sumana

reminder to self

music
nature, gardening
laughing

I've just written some thoughts on my reflections on the ethics of using Whisper, a new speech-recognition tool that derives its power from machine learning. (The post also has some how-to guidance on how to use it, and examples of how I use it.) Might be interesting to folks here.

Bad news about the LastPass password manager: https://blog.lastpass.com/2022/11/notice-of-recent-security-incident/

 We have determined that an unauthorized party, using information obtained in the August 2022 incident, was able to gain access to certain elements of our customers’ information. Our customers’ passwords remain safely encrypted due to LastPass’s Zero Knowledge architecture.

My friend Jacob writes:

 This is your regular reminder that if you're still using LastPass you should, uh, stop that.

It's not just this one incident; they've had a series of terrible incidents & appear to learn nothing. Eg: E2E encryption is littered with bugs and has been broken/bypassed repeatedly. The master key is accessible by the sever. Malicious plugins can exfil your master password. The support forum (phpbb) somehow knows your master password. And more.

This isn't about scorning; LastPass is actively unsafe and people need to not use it.

He and others recommend 1Password (paid, USD $34/yr) -- there are also other recommended alternatives in that thread.

There's an interview meme going around where people ask each other 5 questions. It's usually structured to reproduce through commenters but in this particular case I am just going to answer some questions a pal asked and be a leaf node in the tree.

1. As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

This varied a lot from year to year, but I do remember thinking that "spy" and "national-level political figure" and "journalist" all popped up. Dr. Anna Fels in Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives discusses how early job fantasies often include "fame" as a way of indicating the desire for validation of mastery from others, and I definitely do remember imagining being famous -- and being interrogated by a Senate confirmation committee for something.

2. What did you do for fun in the past that you haven’t had as much time for lately?

Walking long distances with no particular aim in mind. Or walking very long distances with the aim of getting through said long walk, e.g., walking the length of Manhattan or walking the width of England.

3. What’s the worst part about your job?

Being your own boss is the best and the worst part of running your own business, as the saying goes.

4. Tell me about a recent delicious meal you had.

A toasted mini whole wheat bagel with a scrambled egg and mushrooms, and some decaf black tea.

5. What's a meme that delights you, and why?

You know, the Wellerman singalong videos were great. It's awesome to get to listen to people singing well together!

One of my online homes, MetaFilter, is going through a transformation to be more member-governed. It's running a fundraiser. Here's a summary of why MetaFilter's so wonderful and worth sustaining. One way to donate is to bid in the auction, and one thing you can bid on is for me to post scifi/fantasy recommendations!

I'm offering to write MetaFilter posts recommending short speculative fiction stories (all by or about BIPOC people):

1. Fun, comforting, warm, or fluffy stories
2. Stories published this year, eligible for awards nominations
3. Stories by authors whom I adore and recommend at the slightest provocation

And there are a bunch of other gifts and services available - check it out! Bidding closes on Sunday the 13th.

I saw Fire Island and enjoyed it -- it's been a while since I watched a Pride and Prejudice adaptation and this one was charming and cutting. Leonard has never seen nor read P&P, so I got to spot parallels and pause to tell him about them. Leonard once wrote of It Happened One Night that


and there's a similar balancing act to the role of Darcy, or the Darcy-alike in any P&P adaptation.

My household has now watched seasons 1 and 2 of Only Murders in the Building. A fun show! We are Steve Martin fans here and enjoy Columbo and Murder, She Wrote for popcorn-type everyday viewing, and the performances, characters, jokes, and twists keep us engaged. A big Manhattan apartment building sure gives you a lot of opportunities to bring in new characters whenever you like and tangle up the neighbor-web further. This is one of the few shows we like where Leonard is willing to watch, like, 3 episodes in a row instead of stopping after two, so I think it finds a rare mix of humor, suspense, and (usually) manageable intensity/violence.

I'm now caught up on Welcome to Wrexham, perhaps otherwise known as the "waiting for the next season of Ted Lasso" placeholder. I wrote a bit about my mixed reaction on MetaFilter's FanFare, about how I sort of wish it were more of a Ken Burns-style or Jon Bois-style documentary instead of the specific kind of sports documentary/reality TV it is. One thing I didn't mention there but will add here: would the supporters' trust have been nearly as welcoming to these complete outsiders if they had the exact same plans yet were not white? Probably not. (I'm guessing this from the reactions I think I've heard about when rich Chinese or Middle Eastern people buy interests in European sports concerns. But maybe I'm wrong.)

Last year, with a friend, I saw the first few episodes of the old BBC TV version of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. This past weekend I finished that up. I think when I was a kid, reading the books, I found the idea of the restaurant at the end of the universe elegant and silly, but -- as an adult, and watching the TV version -- I grasp better the emotional tone, the desire for a really decadent oblivion. The emcee looks like he's taking a break from Cabaret.

I tried the 2016 Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency adaptation but stopped halfway through the first episode. Gently is so obnoxious and boundary-trampling, and I just have such a low tolerance for bullying that the narrative seems to be fine with. He's way more out-of-line in the show than I remember him being in the book (at least the first time/s we meet him). However, there is a cop played by Richard Schiff (Toby Ziegler from The West Wing) -- he and his partner are fun to watch.

I've also now seen the first episode of Avenue Q, Armando Iannucci's space fiasco comedy. I liked The Thick of It and The Death of Stalin and I think Avenue Q is along the same lines plus gets us new worldbuilding (e.g., the moon is now a giant jail??) so I'm curious to watch more.

I am watching and really enjoying Motherland: Fort Salem, which is currently in its third and final season. I saw the first 5 episodes maybe last year, then started watching the rest, and am already on season 3, episode 4. I didn't time it perfectly, and will thus be waiting for the last few episodes over the next few weeks, but if you are already all caught up then please say so in the comments and maybe we can talk about this show which I have heard very few people talk about! (Thank you, ads in the NYC subway system, and Marina Berlin, for bringing the show to my attention.)

It's a soapy, plotty, pulpy show about military witches, with tantalizing worldbuilding and lots of character moments where people sacrifice or take risks to Make A Stand or Have Each Other's Backs and so on. We follow three new cadets as they form a unit, deal with intrigue and relationships, fight various enemies, etc. I am a sucker for the super idealistic one who Wants To Serve And Protect The Innocent. There's substantial violence and goriness in this show, including the graphic deaths of innocent people, so watch out for that if that'll bother you.

Most of the characters are women; in season 2 we meet a nonbinary character. A queer romantic relationship is one of the most important ones in the show. Several major characters are Black. Most of our main characters are from the US, but we also get some globetrotting and some characters from elsewhere since events quickly take on a global scope -- and one main character is from a sovereign indigenous nation in the North American Midwest.

Now, my nitpicking questions/notes:

( Question for people who have already seen all of season 1 )

( Note for people who have watched through season 2 )
( Question for people who have watched at least up through season 3, episode 3 )

And: has the show, so far, discussed gender transition or shown us any binary trans witches?

This is the music video that always makes me smile, from Kal Ho Naa Ho.

My reading is that vids like "The Programming Saga" by echan are eligible. I'm also of course excited to see more traditional narrative films as part of this year's PyGotham. I was a pathbreaking participant here -- in 2017 and 2018, I cowrote and starred in PyGotham presentations that were full-on plays, and my example was probably an inspiration for their later forays into more systematically encouraging art like this.

In 2019, I founded and co-ran a related initiative: a play festival at the big annual North America Python convention, "The Art of Python" (where "The Programming Saga" premiered). To encourage participants -- especially first-time art makers -- we also created a play creation guide, complete with a list of inspirations and a “play production basics” guide. If you're thinking about making something for The PyGotham Film Festival, maybe these will help.

I'm not involved with PyGotham organizing. I am open to throwing ideas around and helping you develop them if you are interested in proposing something!

Got yesterday's Framed on the first try, having never seen the film in question.

Today: Read a YouTube comment in Russian and translated it into English without needing to look anything up.