Category: Captain’s Log

The Heart of AI

It seems like everyone wants to talk about AI in recent times, and, well, I am no exception. In my current job, I have been tasked to come up with some guidelines and rules related to the use of Large Language Models and Generative Algorithms, or what is collectively being called Artificial Intelligence.

This AI is far from what I was promised as I read the science fiction and speculative fiction of the Golden Age of such genres. Robots, smart technology, and computers were promised that could alleviate much of the drudgery of everyday work and management, leaving humanity free to focus on other pursuits: art, society, and the betterment of all mankind.

In practice the tech bros, that are celebrating what they call Artificial Intelligence, are using their slurry-bots to unemploy large segments of certain populations, while consuming more than their fair share of energy and water. In fact, what they have done is not to give us true AI, in that while certainly artificial, these LLMs and generative platforms are more akin to kitchen blenders for human-generated thoughts than anything else. Whatever this technology is, it certainly isn’t intelligent: it is prone to massive hallucinations and errors and flat out fantastical results (in that the results are disconnected from any reality we know and share).

Anyone who knows me knows I am as early an adopter of new tech as I can be. I love getting new and improved gadgets, and figuring out how they fit into my life and workflow. But with this “AI” I haven’t been. I have only used ChatGPT in very brief, and have eschewed the entire industry as best as I can. Why? Why am I a hater of “AI”? Mostly because it is a sham, and a façade, of what intelligence is all about. The robots of my stories could reason, could function independently, and could learn. They could grow beyond their base programming, and become something more than the sum of their parts. That is what intelligent beings do, after all. They imbibe experience and churn out new things.

This “AI” though? All it does is take exactly what you give it, parse it into tiny bits, and recombine it. Ask anyone who knows about this tech, and if they are honest, they will tell you that is all it can do. An image generator is taking millions of photos of sunsets that it was given, usually through theft of intellectual property, and gives back an amalgamation of them all in a single image. What it can’t do is generate a completely new image of a completely new sunset. The former is a kitchen blender making you a shake, the latter is intelligently understanding what a sunset is, and making one from scratch. Rinse and repeat for text, or video, or anything else these platforms promise to “create”.

And that’s my fault with the machine. It is all artificial and no intelligence at all.

Beyond that, these weapons (make no mistake: they are not tools) are destroying the next generation’s ability to learn, to think creatively, and to learn. I am well aware that this argument has been made about many technologies before, and to a certain degree, this argument is true and false. Consider this: I have no idea how to care for, ride, or utilize a horse for pleasure, transportation, or work. Zero equestrian skills at all do I hold. This “new” tech of the horseless carriage, or “car”, has completely destroyed, for me, horsemanship. Arguments can be made as to whether or not this is a good or bad thing, but owning a car means I know nothing about horses. Now, I can still learn about horses if want to, but I don’t need to. This argument is true in that the technology of cars has phased out the millennia old technology of horsepower (largely).

However, this argument is false in that horses are no longer necessary for transport or work (in most regards), so I don’t need to know about them. Thank the stars for mechanics, because a car would be useless to me the moment it broke down since I only know how to drive them, not repair them, but that is a lack of knowledge that I could rectify if I needed to. I could learn how to repair my vehicle’s engine and structure, but I chose not to. So far, that has only resulted in me spending a bit more money, and nothing else. Machines have done away with many older technologies. Again, the morality of this is not what I am addressing here.

Back to generative “AI” for a moment: what technology is this seeking to replace? Unfortunately, there isn’t an older, now outmoded tech that is superseded by AI. What is being made obsolete, in some circles and for some generations, is humanity itself. And no, I don’t think that is hyperbole. A friend of mine was celebrating that she wrote a song using AI this morning. The truth is, she didn’t. AI doesn’t know what a song, or music, really is. Only humanity, the progenitor of such things, knows what a song or music is. What my friend did was have an algorithm take an idea (that my friend thought of) and give her back a junk food shake of anything it had tagged as “song” or “lyrics” or “music” without actually knowing what those things are.

Another example: ask an image generator for a picture of an apple. Mostly you’ll get something red or green that looks vaguely apple-ish. (Assuming we are talking the fruit. We could be talking about the tech company…and you hopefully begin to see part of the problem already). Now, suppose I went into the code of the image generator and re-tagged everything related to fruit:apple to blue:sphere instead. Now, the generator would spit back images of vaguely apple looking things that would be blue. In very basic terms, this is all the generator can do. It only “knows” what it has been “told”. It cannot learn what an apple is in any real sense through experience either. I tell it blue spheres are apples, that is all it will ever know unless I tell it different. You could set up a web cam and a microphone in an apple orchard and plug it into a computer and leave it running for an eternity, but unless I tell that computer what an apple is, it will never know though it can “see” and “hear” all about the growing apples for itself.

Back to humanity. Students, professors, administrators, and many others are learning through what we have told them is the shortcut to their work: AI. They are replacing their own original and creative thought with this computer gobbledygook. It may be highly sophisticated, it may be greatly illusionistic, but at heart, in reality, it is a sham and a flim-flam. And really, pay no attention to the billionaire behind the curtain profiting through laying off half his workforce and making even more money by selling you an automaton that can only exist within very narrow parameters. What these students, and others, are doing is exchanging real learning for nothing. When they, students in particular, leave the bubble of school and are thrown into the real world, they will be largely left to flounder because they haven’t learned, they have thrown prompts into a computer and turned in the results. Nothing has gone into their minds, been understood, and come out the other side with their own imprint on it. If/when the AI bubble bursts, they will be left to learn for themselves, and most, I fear, will not be able to for a long while.

Heck, if all cars suddenly stopped working tomorrow, I couldn’t get to work because I don’t own a horse, have no idea how to ride it, and can’t care or feed one anyway. I’m stuck until I find a horse and learn those things. A person is stuck until they actually learn something that AI short-circuited for them previously.

Another side of this is that what is being replaced is not just term papers and reports and briefs. It is art, and music, and literature: the very things that make humanity worth living. Why do I connect so strongly with Emily Dickinson’s poetry? Because she was a human who lived and experienced life, and no matter how removed we two are, there is an understanding between us because I, too, am a human who lives and experiences life. A computer, no matter how advanced the algorithm, does not live and does not experience. We have, as Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, recently said “Actual Intelligence”, and what a profound and deceptively simple insight that is. Tell a computer the dictionary definition of “insight” and never in eternity will it give back what Woz gave the world in an instant (or however long it took him to cogitate his speech).

Maybe I should learn to ride a horse. At least then I would have a relationship with another living creature, instead of a steel and fiberglass cage that takes me places.

Actual intelligence is the ability to generate a poem from feeling, a song from beauty, a book from insight, or a painting from imagination, or dare I say, a report about how work is going that actually has insight. No computer can do those things at all. Blenders in data centers is all we have right now. Please, put down the blender and experience the world and then communicate to me, however you can, in your own way, what you have experienced. Don’t put artificial intelligence between us.

Not What I Thought

I am in the middle of taking a week off. I had a few days of vacation time saved up, and decided to take it at the end of the semester, just for me. I have been scattered, distracted, and not feeling like myself. My focus has been nonexistent, my will power has been weak, and I needed a break to come back from the brink.

One thing that has preoccupied my thoughts recently is how things ended with my ex. She cut me off entirely since we parted and won’t talk to me, and not being able to talk to her as I am now, and acknowledge who I was then, has weighed on me more than I would like. I actually don’t need anything from her; I guess she doesn’t need anything from me, either. But I’m a decent enough person to want to apologize.

I opened Instagram before powering up my MacBook to write, and immediately saw a post from Wil Wheaton, former Star Trek: The Next Generation star, and current author and audiobook narrator. He’s someone who I admire greatly, who has been through the worst that life can offer and come out on top. I view him as an older brother in terms of wisdom and who I aspire to be. Wil was talking about a time when he screwed up really badly, and wasn’t able to make it right. The only thing he could do was decide to never do that thing again, and forgive himself. Boy, did that strike a chord with me.

My muse and erstwhile father-figure of sorts, Adam Savage, says something similar in his book Every Tool’s a Hammer, in which he relates a story about when he was hired to build a set for a friend’s student film. Adam totally and royally mis-managed the budget and build, and lost that friend forever. When Adam asked his dad about it, he was told something along the lines of what Wil Wheaton just said: you can’t make it right, but you can determine to never do that again.

I hear what they are saying. I can’t make things right with my ex, but I can determine to never be that person to anyone in the future. And that realization is as if a weight has rolled off my shoulders. Who knows? Maybe someday when we are old and far removed she and I will encounter each other again and have words, but I don’t need that anymore. For the first time in thirteen-ish years, I am at peace about that situation. She can go her way, and I can go mine. I feel light.

This week has been good for a reboot in other ways, too, while not going exactly as planned. I thought I would wake peacefully, maybe read for a while, work on creative projects, and relax with a movie or baseball game in the evening. What I have actually done is attend to a bunch of things that have needed doing. I have also gotten some writing in; I have read a little bit; and I’ve been totally relaxed along the way. This week has allowed me to come back to the core of who I am, which is a lifestyle and a centering, not a set of activities.

Perhaps that is what I have had wrong, and been missing the past few months: a realization that who I am is more important than what I do (in terms of personal activities). I need to be calm, careful, and cognizant each and every moment. That is where my centering and my focus originates from. I can’t control other people and how they feel about me, even if I am being the gentlest and kindest person I know how to be. My will power comes from being mindful, each and every moment. Being able to take a few days from work has helped me to find my calm again, and remember my mindfulness routines.

I do have another two days of break before the weekend and then a return to work, but already I feel that I have “accomplished” what I needed: physical rest and a mental reset. This week wasn’t what I thought, but it’s been exactly what it should have been. I am content.

The Trouble with CV

I played a few games of Scrabble last night, and in one of them I drew both Cs and both Vs. I really don’t like drawing C or V.

Welcome to the next installment of my Scrabble series. Search for the “Gaming” category to read through the other posts. I am offering my tips and tricks for playing the game of Scrabble, a game I enjoy quite a bit.

The trouble with C and V is that there are no two letter words in the Official Scrabble Dictionary (in the entire English language?) that involve either C or V. Since in the game of Scrabble one must connect each new play to a previous word played, this is most easily achieved by way of a two letter word. When C or V are involved, this is impossible.

Perhaps this is why C and V carry a higher point value, with C carrying 3 points and V worth 4. However, that value seems like it should be higher considering the difficulty in playing these letters. Consider X and Q, or J for instance. Q is 10 points; X is 8; and J is 8. Even K is 5. And all four of those letters connect easily to at last one vowel, some more than one, to form two letter words, and yet X Q K J are all worth more than the pesky V and C. I wonder why that is?

As the “big” letters (and we will throw in Zed here) Z Q X J K have surfaced, let’s take a moment to consider them. Not only are they the highest point-value letters, but they, in contrast, play very well with two letters: Za, Qi, Xi/Xu/oX/aX/eX, Jo, oK/Ka. In fact, these letters are a dream to play! Perhaps their high point value comes not from the fact that they are difficult to utilize, but that there are only one of each of them. That certainly is plausible, but also a bit of an unfair advantage, given their ease of play over C and V. Were I to design Scrabble, I might rank K and J a little lower in point value and C and V a little higher. I don’t know. Given that Scrabble has been around a long time, and stands the test of that time, maybe it is fairly well balanced after all.

What do I do, then, when I draw C or V? I stop all other strategies and try to play them as quickly as possible, in any way possible. Rarely do I exchange a rack of letters to avoid V or C (after all, they could easily come back next draw!). They are playable and do yield a few points, so what I tend to do overall is to take a hit in points and play a simple 3- (but often 4-) letter word to get rid of the offending C or V in a productive way, even if a small one.

When I can manage it, “vice” is a great way to play both letters at once and be done with them. The word “cove” is a bit better as it can become “coven” but “vocation” is almost impossible to play (due to the 8 letters required). Best to stick with shorter words and move on to better letters that yield higher points and easier plays.

Maybe you’ve got a few sneaky C or V words you can share that I haven’t come across that are great for scoring more points, or playing both letters at once. I’d love to hear about them! Drop a comment and let me know. For myself, I breathe easier when I don’t draw V or C, and can move right to clever plays and scoring higher points.

The Soul of an Octopus

Book Review: The Soul of an Octopus (2016), Sy Montgomery

Though ten years published at this point, this book is new-to-me. It was recommended either by Adam Savage or Wil Wheaton, I honestly can’t remember which (it might have been both, as both have a keen interest in octopuses). At any rate, I picked it up from Amazon, and it has been on my shelf for a while. A few weeks ago, I had opportunity to pick it up and read it.

I had a morning where I was going to be waiting for my Rav4 to get new brakes, and I decided to eschew my iPhone in favor of a book. Enter: The Soul of an Octopus. I have been fascinated by the octopus for a while, having known somewhat about them: their camouflaging ability, their eight limbs, their extraordinary intelligence, and so on. I wondered if they could be a species of stranded extraterrestrials caught in Earth’s oceans long ago, unable to leave again, instead of an evolved animal from home. I was excited to read Sy Montgomery’s book, which promises to look beyond the freakish exterior into the octopus’s inner being.

I was disappointed, not just in the florid prose, but in the subject matter. Maybe the gentle octopus is something more than they seem to be, but Montgomery’s characterization of them showed them to be little more than a great ape, or usually perceptive dog, or perhaps a corvid. Intelligent? no doubt. Strange? undoubtedly. Unique? certainly. Soul-having? I don’t know. Mostly the book, rather than a philosophical tome or deep exploration of psyche and psychology, was little more than Montgomery’s own narrative of visits to four particular octopuses at Boston’s New England Aquarium, as well as a recounting of her journey to become scuba certified in order to visit octopuses in their natural oceanic environment.

The story Sy Montgomery told was interesting enough to hold my attention, someone what more loosely than an octopus will hold hands with anyone brave enough to reach into their tank at the aquarium (apparently), but she failed to really delve into what it means to have a soul, or some affect more than the physical. She barely started to solve the puzzle of whether an octopus is en-souled or any more than just being a bizarre creature. At most she asked “is anyone in there?” while gazing into an octopus’s eyes, but beyond that surface she did not really delve.

I am impressed by an octopus’s ability to solve puzzles (but so can ravens), or to display (seeming) emotions (but so can dogs), or to use tools (but so can some apes), yet there was nothing more ethereal about them than that, at least from Montgomery’s descriptions. She certainly rhapsodized long on the individual octopuses she met, and gushed about them in a somewhat over-the-top lovingly way, but I couldn’t help but feel she was failing to communicate to me, her most recent reader, that there was anything more, well, special about an octopus than an admittedly extraordinary animal. I actually lost some wonder about the cephalopods, and no longer think of them as all that alien.

I really wanted to be dragged into the depths of intellectual debate with this book, but it didn’t happen. I was left bobbing on the surface of emotionality and meager description, rather than submerged into salient soul-pondering. The bonds we as humans form with fellow animals is appreciable, and I have no doubt that Montgomery formed bonds with the octopuses she visited. But did she have a soul connection with any of them? I remain skeptical. And that saddens me.

Does an octopus have a soul? I don’t know that I have a soul, really, though there seems to be something more than just physicality about me, but from this memoir, I am even more doubtful that an octopus has any more of a soul than does any creature. I wanted to believe, but her book didn’t create an environment to foster such belief. An octopus is a wondrous animal, but to really journey into who one is will take more than what Sy Montgomery’s Soul of an Octopus can provide me.

An Unexpected Song

I am working on an academic project at the moment: a paper which I hope to present at my school’s academic fora in the late Summer of 26.

Ever since I was 12, I have been fascinated by the stories of J.R.R. Tolkien, and a quick perusal of this blog will bear that out with allusions and posts about his works and derivations thereof. I even have two tattoos that are Tolkien related. It should, therefore, come as little surprise that my academic paper is about Tolkien’s first major work, The Hobbit.

What may be surprising is the fact that I am writing this paper for no credit whatsoever. While I may pursue publication at a later date, for now this is my own personal exploration. I would take classes related to Tolkien for credit, but at the university for which I work, and where I will be presenting, there is a dearth of literature courses, and as far as I can find, there is a wider dearth of Tolkien studies in academia in the States. It is treated as one-off subject matter on the Inklings, the famous writer’s group that contained Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, among others, or for a curiosity. Serious scholarship on Tolkien I haven’t been able to find outside of one unaccredited college. I may have to dig deeper, and if you know of any degrees centered on Tolkien, please, let me know. I would love to study formally.

In the meantime, I am taking what research and writing skills I have at about what is equivalent to a beginning Master’s level education in the US, and apply it to my own reading of Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

This first paper (yes, there are more planned!) will focus on the songs in The Hobbit. When I first read The Hobbit, my only exposure to songs in stories was through the few songs in Frank Herbert’s Dune, a specialty of character Gurney Halleck, or the songs in Brian Jacques’ Redwall series. Songs and music simply wasn’t a frequent thing in the literature I encountered. Therefore, it was somewhat surprising to me. Why would an author include music, or songs, in a medium that cannot convey sound? What do they add to the narrative? Why have so many of them? These are all questions I hope to answer in my research paper on The Hobbit.

So far, I haven’t actually written a word of my paper, though I am thinking quite a bit about it. I am also reading a wide variety of books, articles, and thought that I have found, little though there is, on songs and music in literature in general and Tolkien’s work specifically. I have quite a few ideas, and even a direction in which to go.

In all, I am excited to be on this unexpected journey with Bilbo Baggins, Tolkien, and to be exploring the world of music both inhabit. More to come, and I may even post excerpts (or the whole paper?) here as I go. Stay tuned!

Downgrade: Update

Last month I chose to downgrade my tech from an iPad Pro to an iPad mini. I am happy to report I am using my new mini prolifically. It is everything I wanted it to be. It is the perfect size for everyday browsing, shopping, social media, and checking in on my Cleveland Guardians. The battery on my mini stays charged for several days of regular usage, and charges quickly via USB-C.

I bought a matching Smart Cover for it, but given that the mini is not FaceID activated, I may switch that up for a different case. The only quibble with the mini is that I would really have preferred FaceID over the TouchID. TouchID works fine, and I like the fact that the setup software prompted me to set up different fingers for different orientations of holding the iPad. But I must say I like the speed of FaceID on my iPhone, and the fact that I don’t have to touch the iPhone twice to unlock it. I do have to touch twice with the mini: I end up touching the top button to activate it, and then again to unlock. It’s…clunky.

Despite that, I really can’t complain about the iPad mini. It is a wonderful little machine.

Part of the downgrade was using my MacBook Air more for more intensive tasks, and using it for creative endeavors. Towards that end, I have downloaded Apple Creator Studio and signed up for a subscription (fortunately, I am an educational professional, so I was able to qualify for the education pricing). I have yet to dive back into Final Cut Pro and video editing, but for my photos the Creator Studio is a definite upgrade.

I was using a combination of Photoshop Express and a variety of other apps on the iPad Pro to edit my photos. Now, I have a one-stop-shop in Pixelmator Pro. In fact, in reminds me a lot of a beefed up version of the old Apple Aperture photo editor. It uses the same library as the Photos app, but has much more in depth and specialized controls for performing edits to my pics. I really enjoy the editing process again because I can get to the finished version of the photo I want where before I was only able to get part of the way.

I can’t wait to get into the other apps included in Creator Studio, and the more advanced features of Pages and Keynote. It’s only been a month, and I have had other things going on lately, but I will explore the Studio fully in the future.

All in all, my downgrade has been widely successful so far; it’s just what I hoped for!

The Occasional Downgrade

I am an Apple user, and a long-time techie. I have rarely been able to afford cutting edge technology, but I remember a time when what I have now was still futuristic: a computer on your wrist, anyone? a million songs in your pocket? world-wide connectivity on your desk? whodathunkit??

These days I can generally afford the tech that I want, so it is less about making do and more about finding what works. My constant companions are my Apple Watch Series 8, and my iPhone 16 Pro. I’ve also been using a MacBook Air M4, and an iPad Pro 11″ 3rd generation with a Smart Keyboard. Each device has its slot in my life and workflow, but recently I realized I had an occasion to downgrade and keep the productivity that I desire.

Where I have redundancy I want to reduce, and if I don’t actually need it, I generally won’t have it. Therefore I was considering the iPad Pro and the MacBook Air. The M4 Air is a 13″ screen and the iPad is an 11″ screen. Both have keyboards (courtesy of my iPad Smart Keyboard). Both are fast enough and have the processing power I need for what I do. I was using my Air for work, and my iPad at home.

Lately though, I have been looking into doing more with my photos, more with video editing, and some other creative projects that will require more than the iPad can do. I also had a mental block against using my Air at home: I am using it for my work computer. And every time I thought about using my laptop, I thought about work. Boot it up? See my work email. Open my browser? See my work bookmarks. My laptop said work, not fun. And my iPad was slightly lacking, despite all it can do, but I don’t want to give up the portability.

Sometimes, there are tasks I don’t want to do on a small screen, a la my iPhone, and don’t want to take out my laptop for: reading (for one), light browsing for another, or just playing Scrabble. So what to do? I think I found a solution, and it involves downgrading. I am going to keep the Air (after all, I do use it for work), but I am going to replace the iPad Pro with an iPad mini.

To get around the work/play conflict, I realized a feature of MacOS that I wasn’t using could help me: user accounts. I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me before, but I realized I could keep my current user account for work (to avoid having to set up again all the Microsoft products my employer insists on using) and I could add a second user account for after work life. Or, as I like to call it: life. Then I could have wacky wallpaper, advanced features, and quirky setups. For work I need things a little more straightforward and less imaginative. Having set that up, I feel like I now have two computers, work and play, in one!

But, if I am using the MacBook Air for most things at home, not only is the iPad redundant, but it is extra. I don’t need a tablet and a keyboard, though I still want something for the aforementioned activities for which a tablet is well suited. Enter mini, stage right. I found a good deal on an iPad mini, current generation, and can trade in my iPad Pro (plus probably sell my Smart Keyboard). Thus the mini has a minimal cost, and I still get the functionality I need from a small tablet. For everything else: the MacBook Air. For walking around I have my iPhone in my pocket and my Apple Watch at hand. Everything with a place and a use.

The only piece of Apple tech I would love to own would be a Vision Pro. Being able to watch movies, or baseball, or other media on that thing would be awesome. It would be absolutely killer on an airplane. But, it is way too expensive to find a home in my tech life. I either need a huge upgrade in work, or an affordable version of the Vision in Apple’s ecosystem. But that is small complaint, really. I have what I need, or will once the iPad mini shows up tomorrow. I love new tech, but even more, I love having just the right tool for the job.

The Way It Should Be

I’m settling in to watch the Boston Red Sox take on the Cincinnati Reds for Opening Day baseball (so far, no score). I am tuning in to the Boston video feed, and watching in 4K. This is how baseball should be.

This is possible through the magic that is MLB.TV. The streaming service costs $150 for all but T-Mobile customers (who if they sign up in time will get it for free). For that cost, MLB.TV subscribers have the opportunity to watch any* game, any feed, live or on demand after the game is over. Subscribers also get radio feeds, home or away, for every game.

For someone who loves the game of baseball, this is fantastic. My favorite team is the Cleveland Guardians, and I can watch them wherever* they roam across the country, and occasionally into Canada. I also like to watch the Red Sox, the Phillies, the Giants, and a bunch of other teams. While watching, I can choose who I want to listen to call the game, either the home team (usually) or the away team (if I am watching Cleveland as I just don’t like their TV announcers). I could also, if I choose, watch a feed and listen to the radio at the same time, synced up with the action. The choice is all mine.

Basically what this means is that during the MLB regular season, I can watch anyone* at anytime, East coast, West coast, or any city in between. I love the wealth of choice and the embarrassment of riches.

*What I don’t get is local teams. They are blacked out. For me, this means the entirety of the Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros games are unavailable live. I can watch them 90 minutes after the game is over, if I wished, but live I will miss at least 12 games against Cleveland, as the Guardians will visit each city once during the season, and the Astros and Rangers will visit Cleveland once during the season, usually for a 3-game series each time. This is indeed frustrating, and is more so for my mom, who would prefer to watch the hometown Rangers. My dad is a Red Sox fan, so he doesn’t mind as much.

*I also can’t watch the Sunday evening game (ESPN), the early game on Sunday (Peacock), or a few other games (Netflix/various). I can watch the occasional Friday night game as they are on AppleTV, but that is only because I also subscribe to AppleTV. Baseball has badly fractured the viewing schedule in recent years, as everyone wants a piece of the MLB broadcast money.

But this is what watching baseball needs to be. Free, open, and choice. If MLB really wants to grow the game, they should give fans the choice of who to watch whenever they want, but with no blackouts. I understand (though don’t endorse) capitalism, so charge for the service if they must, but let us watch baseball. Let us be fans of the game, whoever we cheer for, wherever we live. Celebrate every out, every home run, every strike, every double, every double play. For me: there is nothing better.

Caveats aside, this post is about celebrating what is available to baseball fans out-of-market: the ability to follow a team and watch (almost) all 162 games of the regular season for a single team (more, if you follow more teams). When I was growing up, broadcast TV aired the All·Star Game, the World Series, and the Saturday Baseball Game of the Week, with the odd game during the week (such as Cal Ripken Jr.’s record breaking game and other historic milestones). It was torture waiting for Saturday to arrive! (And that was only if I had my chores done by 1:30pm, when the game aired!)

I celebrate what I have now, while wishing for what could be, for the love of the game. Play ball!

Hitting the Paywall

The 2026 Major League Baseball season starts tonight, with a classic matchup between the New York Yankees and the San Fransisco Giants. In yesteryear, this would have been a cross-town battle between the boroughs of the Bronx and Upper Manhattan. Today it is a transcontinental meeting.

Regardless, I won’t be watching, though I would love to take in the game. I have woken up at 3am to watch past Opening Days from Tokyo, Japan and Sydney, Australia, but here when the game is in my home country? I can’t watch. That is because the game is on Netflix and I don’t happen to have a Netflix subscription.

Baseball, according to the official line, wants to expand the sport and make it appeal to a global audience. Why, then, for the love of baseball, do they fracture the viewing experience? Why are games on Peacock, AppleTV, Netflix, traditional cable channels, or on a plethora of local affiliates, all of which cost a separate subscription fee to watch?

I know that American capitalism needs to make their dirty money, but that is diametrically opposed to this “global audience” and “wide appeal” message that corporate baseball is talking so much about. I doubt anyone can afford all these separate subscriptions these days just to watch baseball. And don’t get me started on that fact that the local team is also behind a paywall on their own little network. What happened to over-the-air and free?

Everyone wants their share of the pie, and I know this is so much screaming into the void, but c’mon, please, Major League Baseball, stop making it so hard to watch Major League Baseball! Really, the only way I am able to watch much baseball at all is through MLB.TV, which itself is over $100 per season for all out-of-market watching, but I have a hard time justifying that. I have MLB.TV because my mobile carrier, T-Mobile, is a huge sponsor of the sport and comps the subscription for its members. Thus, I get it through my existing mobile service, but if I didn’t, it is a high cost to pay. I would justify it, because I love baseball, but it is still a lot of money, especially if I were to add it to the over $100 to watch the local Texas Rangers. As it is, I miss about twelve games a season when watching my favorite Cleveland Guardians because even the Houston Astros are blacked out on MLB.TV in my area, despite the fact that Houston is four hours away from Dallas. (Cleveland plays both the Rangers and the Astros for at least six games each during the regular season.)

This is worse when you consider the Baltimore-Washington area which contends with several teams, or other metros that have more than one team (Chicago, New York, Los Angeles to name a few others) and all the “local” teams are blacked out. Then MLB.TV becomes even less of a bargain, and all the money to afford the local affiliates is even more cost prohibitive. It is just a lot, especially for a sport that used to be the great American pastime. Even to go down to the stadium in Arlington for me and my parents to take in a game costs an exorbitant amount of money once you add the cost of tickets, fees, parking, and ballpark food. We easily spend over $150 (collectively) for a game (on average about $60-75 per person, depending on how hungry we are).

Baseball ought to be something that isn’t available only to the wealthy or those that don’t mind juggling upwards of seven logins or eight subscriptions. It should be free and accessible to all. As I said, this may be so much a cry falling on deaf ears at this point. I just can’t help calling out in the hopes that someone will eventually listen.

The baseball season starts tonight, but how many will actually tune in, I wonder?

Scrabble: Luck of the Draw

Last month, I wrote about my love of the board game Scrabble. You can click this link to read all about it. I believe Scrabble to be a fun, challenging, and mentally rewarding game to play. I am endeavoring to share tips that I have learned along a 30+ year career of playing Scrabble. If you don’t play that often, I would encourage you to play, even against an AI, to keep your brain engaged, which is always a good thing.

The game of Scrabble begins with blind-drawing seven letters, usually from a bag, though some people like to lay them out face down in the box lid and choose from there. However you draw, you shouldn’t see the letters, and should draw as randomly as possible. If playing an AI, the game will draw for you. Ideally, there is nothing you should be able to do to influence the letters that you draw at the beginning or throughout the game. For me, this is part of the excitement (simultaneously also the frustration) of playing. I never know what I am going to get, and that both gives and takes away.

What makes a good set of 7 letters or a bad one? Usually a bad draw includes low point value letters, repeated letters, or letters that are difficult to utilize (“C” and “V” and “I” come to mind right away, even though “C” and “V” are worth 3 and 4 points, respectively, they don’t form two letter words and thus are slightly harder to play. More on that later). A good draw has more frequently used vowels (“A” and “E”) and a good mix of other letters, and hopefully a few higher point letters.

Fortunately, a game mechanism exists for replacing a terrible draw: the exchange. Players can, on any turn, choose letters they have previously drawn (up to the entire 7) and exchange them with blind letters from the pool of undrawn letter tiles. This allows you to, potentially, improve a hand (though plenty of times I have drawn differently yet equally frustrating letters). I have a few rules of thumb for when to exchange letters. First, I do it rarely as it costs a turn to do so; the player who exchanges letters does not get to actually play a word when they exchange. Depending on how advanced your opponents or the AI, this could result in a deficit of points that will need to be surmounted throughout the rest of the game.

Second, I usually do not exchange an “E” or an “S” tile, as these are very versatile and useful letters, but I am ruthless about the rest of the letters I exchange. Even if I have a 3-point or higher letter, if I haven’t or can’t make a word with it, it needs to go. Generally I find that the more letters I exchange at a go, the better chance I have of drawing a few useful letters that I can play on my next turn. I usually always will exchange a blank tile, even though that can be any letter, because it also doesn’t gain any points. Again, it goes back to the number of tiles I am exchanging, and as there are only two blanks, my chances of acquiring a letter tile with a point value is high. By the way, if I have multiple “E” tiles, I will only keep one, and exchange the rest.

I usually only wait through one turn of suffering with a less than ideal 7 letters before exchanging. The longer I go trying to make shorter words for (usually) less points in hopes of drawing one or two good letters, the more damaging it is to exchange letters. It compounds the problem: with terrible letters, one cannot make good, high-point words, and losing a turn to exchange letters after a few turns of no good words played usually ends in a point deficit that could have been avoided by losing a turn right away and coming back strong with better letters.

Beyond that, sometimes the best you can do is play the letters you have. They may not be what you want, or be the coveted high point letters, but if you can make words and keep the points accumulating, do so. Don’t exchange just hoping to find the “J”, “Q”, or “Z”, in other words. Play words as often as you have them to play, and let the luck of the draw of new letters come to you as you play through. I have found that Scrabble is a game of ups and downs, and that playing with serviceable, though perhaps less than ideal, letters is better than constantly trying to draw the perfect letters.

In summary, exchange letters rarely, and when you do, exchange as many letters as possible, keeping only a single “E” or “S” if already acquired. I’ve found that this yields the best possible replacement set of letters for getting right back into the criss-crosswords action of Scrabble.