1) Our Disney+ subscription ends in less than 2 weeks and everything I really wanted to see has been seen. We're currently watching a Secrets of Whales series done by James Cameron which is excellent stuff, and have been watching scattered other shows in its National Geographic section.

We also started watching Professor T on PBS, but missed the first episode which is now no longer available. A while back we watched two episodes of what I'm assuming is the Belgian series though I could have sworn it was German, and there is also a German series so perhaps I'm not mistaken. But PBS didn't show it (or the French version) so probably not. But I didn't find it that enjoyable so we didn't keep up with it (and perhaps it got paywalled anyway). And now apparently there is also an English series from this year so I guess he's making his way around the EU. But I am finding it more enjoyable -- maybe they're leaning into the humor of it.

When I first heard of Professor T it sounded like the U.S. show Perception, which I enjoyed and was sorry to see end. And it seemed particularly like it in terms of not just its set-up (autistic crime savant teaching at a university) but its supporting characters (former student now a police officer, and imagined relationship with a supportive friend). The English show has more complications with a mother, and a supportive but acerbic assistant, but lacks Perceptions TA and Dean roles, the latter of which was a nice one for LeVar Burton.

2) Speaking of LeVar Burton, how much does it suck that his Jeopardy week is being pre-empted or not shown in many locations due to Olympic coverage?

3) American reporters consider reducing the damage they do. Particularly infuriating was the self-congratulatory reply of why journalists reveal so much personal information about people accused of crimes:

"When the Dutch editor learned how many deeply personal details American reporters routinely publish about those arrested, she gasped at what she saw as cruel and unethical. “Why would you do that to someone?” she asked."

"They believe the public has the right to public information, and police should never be trusted with the power to make undisclosed arrests."

Oh please –- these are the same police they are stenographers for and with whom they colluded in not reporting cases of police violence and corruption for a century. More like they know the fact that crime sells and that many people want info on their neighbors to gossip with so slap those names on there. There's no other value to report on someone accused of a minor crime especially when police laziness and outright deception can often mislead about who's responsible or whether a crime even existed.

4) This is why misinformation spreads so much -- because of a lack of footnotes or links or because no one reads them. I was struck by a stat used early in this article about a boom in individual investing and the desperation it reveals. The article claims "2020 in which more than 10 million Americans opened new brokerage accounts." That seemed like a lot alright, so I checked the link. In that report the number is displayed on the first page. The source? "JMP Securities, email correspondence, March 15, 2021."

That tells me less than nothing. That could be an entirely fictitious number made up by anyone chatting with someone else. Or, given its corporate author, it could be internal numbers about one firm's own stats. Or it could be the result of survey research or confidential numbers shared by different large firms.

I looked up JMP which is an investment banking firm. They didn't have a page with public reports, but I checked their press page going back to January. Sure enough they had discussed the topic with the WSJ on January 4 in a paywalled article. The story focused on Fidelity and gave numbers which mentioned 3.5 million new accounts had been opened there in 2020. That's a lot for a single firm, so it made it seem quite possible that if some other firms saw similar gains the "over 10 million" number might be justified. BUT. The fact that Fidelity saw a lot of new accounts didn't mean these were NEW investors. They could well be people who already had accounts elsewhere, or they could be moving their accounts to Fidelity (as I did with my HSA a few years ago).

In that same article they talk about how Robinhood was seeing millions of new traders. But again, while undoubtedly many of them were new investors, many more could be using the platform as a side account. A lot of people tried new things for the first time last year, but a lot of people also returned to doing things they'd lost time for or interest in before. And people trying to make a quick buck on Robinhood during a time when other gig economy jobs had dropped to nothing -- or else the side hustle became the only source of money -- is a very different story from a huge swath of the American public suddenly turning to long term investing.

The Atlantic article focuses in on that issue, how people are using the stock market as just another form of lottery. But lottery wins sure do seem to exemplify the American culture of big splashy individual luck and easy victories rather than slow communal progress to larger achievements. Plus the "I did it myself" line when in fact virtually none of these investors would be in the market at all if so many investment firms hadn't cut trading fees to zero and, in cases like Robinhood, literally loaned the investment money to customers. But just like any gambling establishment, the house always wins.

That report did use one phrase I think does actually describe the overall 2020 experience: "These trends have been gathering speed for some time, but only recently has their impact become so apparent."

5) Recently took a walk at a nearby sunflower maze, and shared those pics at common_nature