The Grand Tour: Lochdown

 The Grand Tour gang recently released an episode filmed during the pandemic where they were driving through Scotland trying to determine why American cars never became popular in Britain. A year or two ago they discontinued having seasons of episodes and instead decided to release periodic specials. I have been fine with this decision because their longer special episodes have historically been their more enjoyable shows, and I've seen Captain Slow drive slowly and Jeremy Clarkson do power slides more than enough times.

Two things about this episode stood out to me. First, and briefly, was Scotland. Not counting the continuous rain, the country looked absolutely stunning. From the rural areas to Edinburgh, the landscape was picturesque and with the castles and architecture looked like a land forgotten by time.

The second thing that stood out to me was the cars. They picked a Cadillac Coupe de Ville, a Buick Riviera, and a Lincoln Continental, all from the 1970s. The cars were absolutely massive, both in length and weight. They had huge engines - V8 and several liters in size - with a shockingly low amount of horse power. I grew up with General Motors cars from the 90s, many of which were crap, so I have a biased view on most American cars (with the understanding that they've improved a lot and they do make some really cool cars). I got a kick out of the scene where Clarkson's door literally ripped into two pieces, one that fell off the car and the other that was stuck closed. I also got a kick out the scene where May's caravan was flooded with water, knocking him down when he opened the door. On the other end of the spectrum, these cars featured power windows and auto climate control, which was impressive for a car that old to have that technology.

In the end, in typical Grand Tour/Top Gear fashion, I'm not sure they completely answered the question they set out to answer. I think the final conclusion was that most American cars were obnoxiously large, and while some cool cars were made, they either never made it to Britain or owning one made such a statement that most people didn't bother. Despite the lack of clear answer, arriving at the muddy conclusion was enjoyable as always.

2021 SI Swimsuit Issue

 

The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue has nostalgia value to me, so I still check it out every year. Up until the past couple of years, the issue had been released in February. Then they decided to release it in May, which happened for exactly one year. This year and last year, May came and went without the issue being released. Presumably Covid had something to do with this. At some random point in the summer the issue was released, making it somewhat of a guessing game as to when it would be available. Personally, I was fine with the familiarity of having a February release. Maybe I don't like change?

Another change they've made more recently is having multiple models on the cover. Not simultaneously, but actually having different covers. I'm not a huge fan of this change either. Who was on the cover was always an important aspect of this issue. Having multiple covers de-values the cover shot, in my opinion. This is the 3rd year in a row they've had multiple covers, and have had multiple covers every year since 2016 except for one. 

This year's issue wasn't overly memorable, much like last year's issue. They were at various locations throughout the United States, but to me all of the locations looked the same. Also, they featured a lot of social media stars and I don't know that I care for that either. I understand what they are trying to accomplish by pointing out great work some of the non-models are doing, but let's not overthink this issue. To be fair, they have featured non-models in the past. Beyonce was on the cover one year, as an example. The highlights for me were Olivia Culpo (above) & Haley Kalil (below). Both have been in the issue a few times at this point, and are becoming my new favorite regulars (now that all of my old favorites have moved on, like Marissa Miller). There were a couple of rookies that stood out as well. They had social media backgrounds, so we will see if they appear in subsequent issues.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch

 

The Bad Batch begins as Order 66 is being executed. While in battle, the clone troopers turn against their Jedi leaders, while the members of the Bad Batch are confused as to what is going on. All of the members except for one: Crosshair. Crosshair joins the rest of the clone troopers in attacking the Jedi. After allowing Padawan Caleb (Kanan Jarrus from Rebels) to survive, the Batch return to their home base of Kamino. With Order 66 executed, the Clone Wars come to an abrupt end. Back on Kamino, the Batch discover how quickly the galaxy has changed. The Galactic Empire has already infiltrated Kamino, taking over the headquarters of the clone factory. The Empire is suspicious of the Batch's subordination of Order 66, and sends them on a mission to see how well they follow orders. The Batch fail their mission, choosing not to execute women and children affiliated with members of Saw Gerrera's missionary group, sending them on the run from the Empire. As they exit Kamino, they are joined by a young girl named Omega, who is also a clone.

The Bad Batch are a group of genetically imperfect clone troopers. Also known as Clone Force 99, they are maverick clone troopers, following their own orders and generally working separately from the Jedi or any military leader. The Bad Batch is not a show that I would consider essential Star Wars watching. They had a 3 or 4 episode story arc in the Clone Wars animated series, but otherwise most viewers are unlikely familiar with the group. Also, since the main protagonist is a group of people instead of one person, main character development is mostly absent (aside from Omega). However, that is not to say the show is bad. I will buy anything Dave Filloni is selling when it comes to Star Wars. The art and visualization on the show is spectacular. It also shows how quickly the Empire take over after the Clone Wars end, which to me has been the most interesting part of the show. For the first several episodes, the show wanders a bit as the Batch are now lost without having battles to fight or a home to go to. It is difficult to know the actual objectives of the show. However, as Omega's character develops and it becomes clear that she is valuable to the Kaminoans for her genetic material (she is a pure clone of Jango Fett, just like Boba), the Batch have a very clear objective: protect Omega.

As the show progresses through season 1, a bit of a repetitive theme occurs: The Batch are forced to take jobs in order to make ends meet. Most of the jobs are high risk, and opportunities present to the Batch to help people who are in need. Most of the Batch don't want to take additional risk, but with minimal arm twisting by Omega, the group reluctantly decides to help, even if the reward isn't really worth the risk. This presentation of the plot got a bit tiresome as the season went on. 

Overall, I enjoyed The Bad Batch, despite never becoming attached to any of the individual characters or really to the group. While nothing hugely important seemed to happen, the most interesting part of the show to me was the storytelling on how quickly the Empire was able to take over the galaxy after the Clone Wars. This is similar to the book Catalyst. Visually, the show looked great. As season 1 ends, we witness the Empire destroy the clone research facility on Kamino, with the Batch barely surviving the attack. We are left with the cliff hanger that the Empire now has Nala Se working for them, a story that will for sure be further developed in season 2. 

Star Wars: Catalyst

 

Catalyst is a prequel to the Star Wars movie Rogue One. It takes place as the Clone Wars ends and the Empire gains control of the galaxy. Galen Erso is a brilliant scientist specializing in energy and research around Kyber crystals. His longtime friend Orson Krennic has joined the Empire as an engineer and director of the Advanced Weapons Research division of the Empire. The Empire is in the beginning stages of building the Death Star. A weapon of that size requires tremendous technology in terms of energy generation and storage, a task that only Galen Erso is capable of achieving. The trouble is that Galen wants nothing to do with the Empire. Orson uses his friendship with Galen to manipulate him into doing the research on Kyber crystals to generate the power for the weapon, telling him the research will be used to power cities and planets.

Krennic handles his relationship with Galen very delicately, not being too pushy in his desire to have Galen develop the weapon. Galen gradually goes from resistant to open to the idea to agreeing to do the research. The book spends quite a lot of time on this process. The trouble I have with this is that we all know how this ends - Galen does the research and the Death Star is built - so spending 100 pages on the process seemed a bit much, though the writing was good.

There are a few minor plot twists along the way. Lyra, Galen's wife, is suspicious of Orson and Galen's research from the beginning. Orson knows that keeping Lyra happy is key to Galen's success, so he sends her on a mission to search for Kyber crystals which turns out to backfire as she discovers planets essentially destroyed by the Empire in the process of mining materials to build the Death Star. There is frequent tension between Galen and Lyra as their opinions differ regarding Orson's intentions. Additionally, Orson uses a smuggler pilot named Has Obitt as a pawn in his schemes to manipulate Galen and Lyra, and later to manipulate Moff Tarkin. Obitt and freedom fighter Saw Gerrera were involved in a rebellion and Obitt was captured by Moff Tarkin. Obitt agreed to spy on Orson for Tarkin in exchange for his freedom. However, instead he arranged the rescue of Galen and his family with the help of Saw. 

My favorite part of this book is its description of the galaxy immediately after the Clone Wars end. Despite all of the Star Wars movies, books, and shows, there has not been a lot of attention to this part of the timeline. It's fascinating how quickly the Empire exerts its power over the galaxy, and how ruthless they are in doing so. Interestingly, the show The Bad Batch also takes place in the same era, so we get to see some of this visually as well in that show. More on The Bad Batch in an upcoming post.

Time Machine - Part 2

 

I've been aware of Time Machine for quite some time, but never used it for two reasons. The first reason is because it required an additional hard drive that I didn't want to pay for. The second, and larger reason, is because using it would eliminate my control over what was going on with the backups. Interestingly, this is a selling point of using the software. I have a touch of digital OCD, and like to know what is being backed up and when. However, after the copying errors I received in May exploited the vulnerability in my once monthly start from scratch backup scheme, I knew it was time to ease up a bit on my control and allow for some help in the form of software. Enter Time Machine.

For the first issue regarding needing an additional hard drive, it's a good thing hard drives these days are large and cheap. I originally had 6 terabyte of online storage - 2 terabyte for OS and apps, and 4 terabyte for files. I had an additional 4 terabyte offline that was used for backup purposes. Time Machine makes hourly backups, so I knew I would need a hard drive at least as big as my current drive if not larger. I read that utilizing a drive 1.5 to 2 times as large as your current drive was appropriate. I was able to get a massive 10 terabyte drive for just a few hundred bucks. This expanded my total online storage to 16 terabyte, 10 of which is reserved for Time Machine. This should be adequate space to make backups as we move forward.

Time Machine couldn't be easier to setup and use. When you plug a hard drive into the computer, most of the time the OS asks if you want to use it for Time Machine. If not, going to the Time Machine section in Settings will accomplish the same thing. Time Machine keeps hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for all previous months. Once the disc becomes full, it erases the oldest backups. Obviously, there is no way that I could keep such a meticulous backup schedule. The best part about Time Machine is that it is able to perform these backups completely in the background. I went ahead and added the Time Machine icon to the task bar. Its symbol changes when Time Machine is performing a backup. Otherwise, I would have no idea the software is doing anything. 

Regarding my second issue with Time Machine and control, I got around this with a compromise. Time Machine's hard drive is plugged in constantly so that it can perform its frequent backups. However, I still have my mirrored drive that remains offline except for once per month when I erase that version and copy my current hard drive for a backup. This allows me to keep a mostly up-to-date version of my system offline incase of electricity surges, theft, etc. 

Having Time Machine's frequent backups available completely eases my mind in terms of data loss, and should eliminate the major vulnerability that is present when I erase my offline drive to make a fresh backup. Knowing that I can go back into time to retrieve files or versions of files that existed every day for the past month or every week for as many months as the drive can store is a fantastic feature that my offline mirrored backup approach cannot replicate. Of course, I will only truly be able to see how well it works if I have a hard drive failure or a bugged file that needs to be replaced. Hopefully I never have to use it, but knowing it is there just in case makes me less anxious about failures. 

Automator & Alfred

 

I'm a big fan of automated workflows. In fact, I've made a mini-career of optimizing workflows. With that being said, it should't be surprising that I love Automator, a workflow optimization program that comes with MacOS and gets very little attention. Tucked in the depths of the Launchpad in the "Other" folder with other MacOS staples like Grapher, it is a program that is very easy to overlook. Additionally, I can't recall ever reading an article or seeing a headline on any of the tech sites I follow on Twitter discussing Automator. It essentially gets no attention. Despite this, it has become one of my favorite Apple programs.

What can Automator do? Improve and speed up any workflow, especially if it is repetitive. It comes with numerous actions that it can perform, such as accessing websites and adjusting the volume. I have a workflow to start work, which opens Outlook and other work websites as well as launching the Calendar app. When checking my paystub, I have an Automator workflow which launches my bank websites as well as my work site which has my paystub and the Numbers app where I record my financial data. I built an Automator workflow where you can right click on a heic file and convert it to jpeg, which is useful since Apple's heic file format doesn't always play nicely with picture websites. These are just a few examples, but essentially any workflow that you do can be accomplished using Automator. If your workflow doesn't exist within Automator's numerous actions, you can use scripting code as well.

This brings up two points. One, how to build in Automator, and two, how to access the workflows. Building is mostly intuitive, though if you are trying to accomplish a complicated workflow, especially one that uses scripting code, you can usually find examples to mimic through Google searching. I access most of my Automator workflows using Alfred, and I wouldn't be complete in my workflow assessment if I didn't mention Alfred. Alfred is a productivity app for MacOS, which allows for program launches through hot keys, as well as web searching and workflow optimization, among other things. Unlike Automator, Alfred is a well publicized Mac app and in my opinion is a must-have for Mac users. Double tapping the command key opens up Alfred's search bar, and typing "fi" and pressing space launches my finances workflow which I mentioned above. It is that simple. Alfred can even optimize workflows itself, but you have to pay for the more advanced features. Regardless, even the free features that Alfred utilizes are fantastic, and are a great way to launch Automator workflows, as well as accomplish numerous MacOS tasks with its built-in features.

Standardized Tests

 Doctors are some of the most tested professionals in the workforce, especially when it comes to standardized tests. If I remember correctly, I took the MCAT test while in college to get into medical school, followed by three rounds of national boards during medical school, followed by specialty standardized board tests in residency, followed by my specialty board test at the end of residency to become "board certified" when graduating from residency. They really want to make sure we know what we're doing when we graduate from med school and residency, which makes sense given the nature of the work that we do.

After graduating residency and passing my board certification test, I was determined to be board certified in my specialty for the arbitrary duration of 8 years. During that time period, I had to maintain 150 continuing education hours every 3 years but there were no additional standardized tests. During the first 3-4 years in practice following residency, I felt up to date on medical topics in my specialty, relying on my knowledge from residency. However, as time progressed and medical knowledge evolved, I needed to rely on continuing education in its various forms more often. This is a normal phenomenon and the reason why continuing education requirements exists. Medical knowledge evolves rapidly, and as practitioners settle into their style of practicing medicine, it makes it easier to fall behind the education curve. I have no issue with maintaining education to stay up to date on the newest guidelines and recommendations (though surprisingly there are some drawbacks to this which I may explain in a separate post). However, a funny thing occurs at the end of that random 8 year time period where you are board certified: you have to take another certification test.

When I was in medical school and residency, I was at the peak of my educational career. This is no longer the case. Turns out, a lot can change in 8 years. Back then, I was a full time student who did little of anything except study. Now, I have a career, a house, a family with two kids, etc. There's a lot going on. While I have kept up to date through conferences and reading, I haven't taken a standardized test with any meaningful result since the last time I certified my boards 8 years ago. Needless to say, I was a bit nervous about the test.

I started dreading this test a couple of years ago. I didn't think about it a lot, but it would periodically enter my mind as we approached the end of the 8 year period. It doesn't help that despite the number of standardized tests that I've taken, I'm pretty average at it, which adds to the anxiety. I didn't want to cram, so I started studying in January. This gave me five months to prepare. With my busy schedule of things to worry about, I decided to approach studying with a slow but steady cadence. I wasn't going to be able to dedicate hours of study time per week. Instead, I studied for 15-20 minutes daily in the months leading up to the test. This slow pace also prevented me from getting burned out studying. I decided to study by doing test questions. This allowed me to get into the habit of taking tests again, while forcing me to read about subjects I'd likely avoid if I were picking the content myself.

When test day came, I felt prepared. I had been studying and preparing for months, what else could I do? I took the test at home with a proctor watching me on camera. Overall I liked this because it allowed me to be in the comfort of my own home (there were a few oddities to this, however). The test was 4 hours long, consisting of 200 questions, which is half as many as my previous tests. When the test was over, I did not feel good about it. I was not confident at all. I had to wait two months to get my result. The entire two months I was worried about needing to take it again, mostly because I didn't know what I could do differently to prepare. After two months of worrying about my result, I finally found out that I passed, taking a huge monkey off my shoulders. 

I'm bringing all of this up, because I think the idea of this standardized test is ridiculous. Once you've gone through everything that is required to practice medicine, and once you've been practicing medicine for nearly a decade and have a career and family and everything else going on that comes with life, it seems a bit ridiculous to potentially put someone's career in jeopardy over 200 random questions answered on a random Thursday. Thankfully, a lot of specialty boards are moving away from this standardized test and if I understand this correctly, I won't have to worry about taking such a large test with such large ramifications in the future. The education will be more frequent but in smaller chunks, which is honestly a better way to learn. In fact, I believe my class was the last class to have to take the recertification exam. Starting next year, certification requirements are changing and no longer require taking a huge standardized test. Lucky me for missing this by one year.