The dog days of summer bring up nostalgic memories of summers past...
Issue 5 - Dog Days View online
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The online home of Dr Implausible
Memories of the rocky mountains

Northbound on the Kananaskis Trail

(taken in Alberta in August 2024, B&W film, from the author's collection).

Table of contents

  • Multi-Melting: Deadpool & Wolverine, Alien: Romulus
  • M72
  • Current Reading:
    • Alpha Flight
    • ROM
  • From the Implausi.blog: The Nostalgia Curve
  • Recent Reading
    • Romer, Endogenous Technological Change
    • Saul, On Equilibrium
  • Looking Forward
Multi-melting
M72

Commonwealth Stadium, Edmonton, AB, August 25th, 2024.

Night 2 of the M72 tour

There is something to the pleasure of a summertime music festival.  And if there isn't one happening, then perhaps you need to bring one along with you.  As Metallica is nearing the end of its world tour in support of 2023's 72 Seasons album (see below), they stopped in Edmonton, Alberta for the weekend, and brought the whole show with them.

And it was an amazing experience.

In contrast to some other recent stadium shows I had seen, Metallica felt like it was everywhere in Edmonton.  From the pop-up store, to the bars and restaurants, to the stuffed local hotels, there were signs and signifiers everywhere during the weekend.  It felt like an event, like someplace you had to be.

This was the fifth time I had seen them in concert (previous tours were for Master of Puppets, And Justice For All, the Black album, and Death Magnetic), and the first time I had travelled to see them, and seen them outdoors.  They put on a fantastic stage show, and the setlist was solid.  The show tweaked some nostalgia buttons for me, but I watched it with someone seeing them for the first time, and they were amazed by the entire experience.

Metallica (2023) 72 Seasons [Album]. Blackened Recordings.

Metallica's 11th album finds the band in a similar position to other acts with similar lengthy careers: how do you put out new music that is creatively interesting, while still maintaining the style and songwriting that is core to the sound of the band? Every band experiences this somewhat, some lean into it, like AC/DC, and some find creative outlets in other avenues, like side projects and other media.

Metallica manages this tension well on 72 Seasons, echoing earlier riffs and themes in ways that pique a long-time fans nostalgia, if not quite reaching the heights of the past successes.  If you're a young fan and this is your first Metallica album, 72 Seasons has you covered, with a wide range of the songs that the band has done before.  If you're an older fan, you might be somewhat less enthused.  The production on the album is great, but finds itself with a few too may album tracks and fillers.  The songs are spiralling long too, and perhaps Metallica is left to their own proclivities too much.  A guiding hand could trim much of the cruft and provide a tighter final product.

Current Reading
Alpha Flight
Alpha Flight
This beefy tome (clocking in at over 3kg) is the definitive collection of 1980s Canadian superhero comic icons Alpha Flight, throughout their appearances in the X-Men and related titles. The full-colour omnibus was released in 2023, and covers all the John Byrne related work, as well as a few others. I find it fantastic, if a bit unwieldy. I have most of the originals, in various states, bagged and in long boxes, but having them here accessible and readable at a go is treat. Plus, at 3 kilos, I can get my reps in.
Rom: Spaceknight
Slightly less beefy than the Alpha Flight volume, this Omnibus from 2023 collects the first 29 issues of the ROM comic book from the early 1980s. Originally started as a toy tie-in, ROM became more integrated with the larger backstory of the Marvel Universe, and presented an outsiders take of the goings on therein. I never had the ROM toy as a child; I had to make do with the stories. But I read those until they were in tatters. Great seeing this collected again.
Rom: Spaceknight

Taken together, these two omnibuses (omnibii?) represent a significant chunk of my pre-teen comic book reading.  (Add in some Micronauts, X-Men, Sgt Rock, and Conan, and I think I'd be close to the full collection). They both hit the nostalgia button pretty hard for me.

They opportunity to grab both of these at a significantly reduced price came about in August (independently, but within the same week).  Seems we were on a theme.  I think the price was a big part of it: it's okay to hit the nostalgia "buy now" button, but don't pay through the nose for it.

On the Implausi.blog: The Nostalgia Curve
Recent Reads

"Endogenous Technical Change" (Romer, 1990)

JStor Link to article here

One of those key texts in the field of economics, particularly those studying innovation. I was reminded of it during the course of a recent conversation, and the mention of it in Kurz's The Market Power of Technology (2023), which we talked about in the 1st issue of the newsletter back in April 2024

It's a really insightful text, though the language is heavily layered with academic economic terminology. Endogenous in this case refers to people working within the market system, rather than those outside of it, for instance.

Romer outlines three premises: tech change lies at the heart of growth; tech change rise from intentional actions by people responding to the market; and that new processes can be replicated for almost no cost.  We can see a lot of tie-ins with the changes that have taken place with the digitalization of everything that has occurred in the 21st century, but Romer was writing in 1990 and the context was on "instructions" for the production of new goods.

Then some math happens.

To sum up Romer's take: a country with more human capital will experience faster growth.  There's ways to accelerate this past natural levels - Romer suggests that free trade can help - but the systems in place that allows for people to participate in this technological change can boost this too.  Funding research can be more beneficial than subsidizing the accumulation of physical capital.

We'll come back to this soon.

On Equilibrium (Saul, 2001)

In the late 90s and early 2000s I found myself reading voraciously and trying to learn lots.  This was before I returned to academia and pursued some advanced degrees.  As I was generally skeptical of most things I saw, I came across John Ralston Saul's The Doubter's Companion (1994), an acerbic take on a number of elements that structure our society.  It's not a book to be read front to back, but rather one to be sampled, diving in and out on a given topic as interest or need allows. I really took to the format.

On Equilibrium is companion piece to The Doubter's Companion. It covers much the same material, but with a structure, six overarching themes (common sense, ethics, imagination, intuition, memory, and reason) that allow humanity to act as "responsible individuals".  I appreciate the breadth and range of both books, covering a wide variety of topics in an erudite fashion, and allowing for exploration and learning.

There is definitely an underlying current here, as these is with all Saul's work, I've come to find.  I returned to this work as I was looking for material on nostalgia.  We covered some of this in the blog posts linked above; there will be more on this soon.

And after 23 years, still recommended as a read.

Looking forward

September brings fall, changes in the season, colors, and schedules.  The summer has been surprising, and I've got a couple rolls of film out for development still, so let's see what we find.

Planned episodes for the podcast include:

  • a deeper dive into Soylent Culture
  • revisiting the state of AI a year after our "Reflections" episode
  • and some thoughts on our roads

And I'm sure some books are on the way.  As for the newsletter, you may have noticed that we sorted out how to include more of the content from the blog within the newsletter. See you soon.

Dr. Implausible

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