The ‘Inside’ Story LOL

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ESPN describes its “How Alabama moved from Nick Saban to Kalen DeBoer in 49 hours” as “the inside story”. That’s Trumpian-like self promoting. Say it enough and maybe some of the knuckleheads will believe it.

This knucklehead is calling bullshit. A close reading of the “inside story” suggests DeBoer was Alabama’s second choice. An “inside story” would establish that fact more definitively.

A much more problematic example of superficial analysis is accepting at face value that DeBoer hit the ground running at the University of Washington after returning from the National Championship game. That while he guessed some programs would be interested in him given his success, he wasn’t thinking about any other job. If that’s true, why did he turn down $9m mid-season, $4.8m more than his $4.2m salary? Rule one, don’t insult the reader’s intelligence.

The most laughable part of the “inside story” is the fact that DeBoer openly admits to texting his players about how he feels about them while on the plane home from the National Championship. Maybe DeBoer just looks 49, maybe he’s really 19?

His texting of feelings fits perfectly with his sprinting out of town immediately after the Alabama offer. The final chapter for the University of Washington players that was left out of the “inside story”.

Pedestrian Safety Versus The Speed Of Traffic

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Pedestrian safety is all about the “built environment”. From “Determining who gets blamed when cars hit pedestrians.”

“’But what we’re seeing in this research is that the built environment is a key factor. People make errors in judgment, but no one deserves to die or get injured for such errors. And they would be less likely to make these choices if there were more pedestrian infrastructure,’ said the director of the Center for Urban and Regional Analysis at Ohio State.

One recommendation from the researchers is to redesign the crash forms completed by police to include information on the built environment around the crash site, such as distance to the nearest pedestrian crossing, to give more context on why pedestrians make certain choices.

The built environment for pedestrians isn’t just a problem in Columbus, according to the researchers. Many cities have similar issues. And the situation in Columbus is improving because of Vision Zero Columbus, a government effort focused on reducing crash-related fatalities and injuries in the city.

But this study shows the importance of a Safe System Approach to designing roadways to minimize the effects of human errors and allow pedestrians, as well as cars, to move safely through the city.

“We don’t have to design the streets the way we do. We can make fundamental design choices that could prioritize safety over the speed of traffic,” Miller said.

Put more simply, the relative frequency of cars crashing into pedestrians based upon the presence of cross walks and related pedestrian infrastructure is fairly predictable. No, that’s not surprising. The larger question, I suppose, is how can citizens get their municipalities to prioritize pedestrian safety over traffic speed?

Very Good Sentence

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The last three-word sentence in this brief excerpt from Joanna Stern’s month-long review of Apple’s Vision Pro.

“Ryan Rzepecki, 44, said his Vision Pro has replaced his TV and laptop for watching movies. 

‘It’s the best media player,’ he said, adding that he and his wife also have different show preferences. Same for Chad Christian, 50, who has been putting on the headset to watch movies while on his Peloton bike.

And yes, everyone I spoke to was a male between the ages of 30 to 50. Vision Bro, indeed.”

It’s 1995

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Said one technology analyst this week on the heels of artificial intelligence chip maker Nvidia’s red hot quarterly results. Meaning just like when the internet caught fire in 1995, Nvidia is igniting a whole new technology whose trajectory requires educated guesses.

Let’s press pause and ponder whether we’re better off now than in the early 90s. Inevitably my privilege contributes to my belief that we are a lot better off. Partially because of convenience. Specifically, we take for granted the time we save on almost a daily basis from internet-based personal tech. Case in point. A friend recently posted a picture of himself on Facebook at the Westminster, CA Department of Motor Vehicles where I got my license 46 years ago and I thought, “Why the heck did he go in person?” because I can’t remember the last time I went to the DMV.*

Granted, not a substantive example of human progress, but I suspect it is the cumulative effect of relatively simple and smallish such examples that translate into an improved quality of life.

More meaningfully, here’s a far-out social media adventure I went on last week after an extended family member posted this gem to the ‘Byrnes Family’ group text.

That’s my oldest bro teaching me the sweet science in Muhammad Ali’s hometown. As I looked at it, my attention drifted to the background and my best friend’s house. Jimmy D and I were in separable from ages 3-9. Heartbroken over the end of our friendship, when we moved from Louisville to Ohio I sobbed in the back seat halfway there.

Where the heck is Jimmy fifty-five years later I wondered? A quick google search turned up his dad’s obituary from 2020 including his and his sister’s places of residence. A few seconds later, I was on Jim’s Instagram page looking at his island home just off the Maryland shore that he and his husband were selling.** Then I watched a video from inside his home art studio where he talked about his process. Another quick search turned up his new location. After scouring his instagram and admiring his big white fluffy dogs, I visited his sister’s Facebook page and saw a picture of Jim and his elderly mom. And then back to the obituary and some remembrances including an amazing picture of a very young Jimmy with his parents and sisters on the back brick patio of his Cardiff Rd home. . . the one in the picture.

A miracle of modernity.

I listen a lot to people on the forefront of large language models and my take-away from their predictions is that this technology will greatly accelerate economic productivity and further save people time to pursue more non-work interests and activities.

Not all boats will rise to the same degree, because they never have, but artificial intelligence will in all likelihood induce a much higher tide. White collar people in particular will work less while enjoying simple and smallish and quite possibly complex and more substantive improvements to their quality of life.

BUT will any of us be happier? One way to get at that is to reflect on whether we’re happier now than in the early 90s. Despite internet-fueled economic growth, there’s lots of evidence that we are not. In fact, some would argue that a large part of the internet’s legacy, especially among the young, is steadily worsening mental health. And a coarsening of civic life.

Another way to approach the question of whether we’ll be happier in a post AI world is to consider whether it will foster stronger interpersonal connections. Will it, I wonder, enable us to enjoy the company of more close friends? I also wonder whether it will enable us to slow if not reverse the environmental degradation that threatens our well-being. And will we, I wonder, experience more art that moves us more often, and in the end, makes us feel more alive. Alive in ways that renewing car tabs on-line and skimming friends’ Instagram pages never will.

In the same space of time, 29 years from now, in 2053, I suspect we won’t be much if any happier than we are right now. I would like to be wrong and still around so that you can recall this post and roast me for not being nearly optimistic enough.

*needed to do an eye test to renew his license

**someone in my fam asked if I knew Jimmy was gay, “LOL,” I said. “We were six, I don’t think I knew what ‘gay’ was.”