In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Let's start with that strange word. I don't believe it was commnon in the language before the 1980s. and certainly by the time I reached aduldhood in the late 1960s, more Freudian terms like "neurotic" were in use. I don't recall the word appearing in Jules Feiffer cartoons of that time, for instance, and his characters were typically riddled with uncertainty and self-doubt (or should have been), anything but the conventional image of a "narcissist". On the other hand, narcissists are at least identifiable in modern literature, maybe most recognizably as Wickham in Pride and Prejudice . though Austen doesn't use the term, which didn't exist. On the other hand, if you search YouTube for "narcissists" now, it's certainly possible to conclude "narcissists" are the dominant problem of our time. Typical subjects are "Understanding the Narcissist: Wny Do They Treat You This Way?"; "10 Signs You're D...

Over the past few days, a consensus has begun to emerge that the Russian attempt to encircle the Ukrainian army in Donbas has stalled. For whatever reason, nobody is using the Clausewitzian term they'd been using around Kyiv, "culimination", but it seems pretty clear from the discussion that Clausewitz would say the Russian attack has culminated without reaching its objective. For instance, the BBC reports, Russian forces are not making "the sort of strategic breakthrough" they have been looking for in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, Justin Bronk - a research fellow from UK security think tank Rusi - tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme. He says Russia continues to gain a few kilometres in some areas but their forces are taking "very heavy losses" and "may be out of momentum". The 1945 site, which I'd linked just the other day for its pessimistic appraisal of Ukraine's chances in Donbas, has changed its tune: When Russ...

Via the UK Independent, Russia’s Admiral Makarov warship has been hit by Ukrainian missiles and burst into flames, according to Ukrainian officials. The frigate would be Russia’s latest high-profile naval loss in a troubled campaign, coming after reports that US intelligence helped Ukraine locate and sink the Russian warship Moskva weeks ago. The Makarov was said to have been sailing close to Snake Island in the Black Sea south of Odesa. Ukrainian presidential adviser Anton Gerashchenko reported on his Telegram page that the Admiral Makarov was hit by a Ukrainian “Neptune” anti-ship missile. He cited Russian sources. According to the UK Daily Mail, Ukraine may have shot another Russian warship overnight with an MP saying one of Putin's state-of-the-art frigates is 'in trouble' in the Black Sea. Oleksiy Goncharenko, head of the council of Odesa which houses Ukraine's largest naval base, identified the vessel on his Telegram channel this morning as the A...

On April 12, I commented on the conventional wisdom of the time that there would be an upcoming battle in Donbas that would be, in one opinion, the "biggest tank battle in Europe since 1943 Battle of Kursk". It would be a "knife fight", a grand contest of maneuver in which the Russians would try to cut off the Ukrainian army in pockets. . . . After their recent defeat in the north, Russia has made some significant changes. . . . . the Russians will have a single command staff to co-ordinate and attempt to achieve a single focused and ostensibly realistic operational objective[.] . . . the force the Russians will amass will be formidable, and with shorter and better established supply lines into Russia they may be able to avoid some of the appalling foul ups which have characterised their war so far. As of mid-April, this decisive battle of maneuver was going to take place "within the next two weeks". It didn't happen. Instead, the daily assessm...

Amid everything else in yesterday's news, my main interest was in finding whether the CDC would extend its rule requiring masks on aircraft and public transportation yet again after the latest extension expired on May 3. Indeed, they did . U.S. health officials on Tuesday restated their recommendation that Americans wear masks on planes, trains and buses, despite a court ruling last month that struck down a national mask mandate on public transportation. Americans age 2 and older should wear a well-fitting masks while on public transportation, including in airports and train stations, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended, citing the current spread of coronavirus and projections of future COVID-19 trends. For months, the Transportation Security Administration had been enforcing a requirement that passengers and workers wear masks. The government had repeatedly extended the mandate, and the latest one had been set to expire May 3. But a federal judge in F...

In yesterday's headlines: Elon Musk Puts Twitter’s $17M-Per-Year ‘Censorship Chief’ on Notice Tech mogul Elon Musk has hinted that he is planning to fire Twitter’s “censorship chief,” who earns $17 million per year at the company. Twitter’s top lawyer Vijaya Gadde is seen as the leading advocate for censoring conservatives at the social media giant. Gadde, who earned $17M last year as Twitter’s top legal counsel, has been put on notice that she is among the highly paid executives who stand to lose their job once Musk completes his takeover of the company. Musk is reportedly planning to slash jobs and reduce executive pay as part of his plan to shake up Twitter. Wikipedia confirms that Gadde is in fact Twitter's "policy, safety lead director and a chief legal officer and general counsel", which suggests she has a much more wide-ranging role than your typical SVP-legal affairs. Farther down, it notes In 2018, Gadde joined Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for meetings in...

Last week I wrote about the unique work culture in Silicon Valley, in which unproductive employees in bloated organizations are nevertheless remarkably entitled. This falls out to some extent everywhere in tech, but it's at its worst up in the San Jose area. I discovered a new manifestation of this phenomenon at Apple, where for the past two years employees have "worked from home" due to COVID, but management is now asking them to return to the office three days a week in something called the Hybrid Working pilot. From my own anecdotal experience as a cutstomer of companies claiming to have been hurt by COVID, the actual impact of lockdowns occurred in the first half of 2020 but gradually abated throughout the rest of the year. Companies that claimed to have had their ability to serve customers badly reduced by early 2021 were using it as an excuse. For Apple to be trying to get back to normal only in mid 2022 suggests that everyone had simply been coasting, not least ...