The Paris Olympics

Another Summer Olympiad has come and gone. I have some thoughts.

Did we win or tie? The United States won the most medals overall, with 126. China came in second, with 91. Great Britain, host nation France, and Australia rounded out the top five.

However, the United States is one of the few countries that prefers to tally national Olympics performance by overall medals; the rest of the world seems to prefer a "gold first" tallying system. Under that method, the United States and China are tied as the most successful National Olympic Committees in the XXXIII Olympiad, with 40 medals apiece. 

But even that method has a tie-breaker: the number of silver medals awarded. In that case, the United States still comes out ahead because its athletes won 44 silvers, to China's 27.

Italy had the most "aluminum metals," i.e. fourth-place finishes, with 26. I'd make fun, except that the United States came in second in that category, with 22. I've always felt bad for athletes who just miss the podium. It must almost feel better to come in 5th or 6th, rather than 4th.

Welcome to the medals club! Albania, Cape Verde, Dominica and St. Lucia all won their first-ever medals at these Olympics, the latter two winning golds. The Refugee Olympic Team, which has been competing since 2016, won its first medal as well. 

Botswana and Guatemala have previously medaled but won their first-ever golds in Paris.

Medals per capita. The aforementioned Dominica and St. Lucia leave Paris as the world leaders in the production of gold medals per capita, with one gold medal per 67,400 and 184,100 residents, respectively. For comparison's sake, the United States won one gold for every 8,397,000 residents, while China won one gold for every 35,242,000 residents. 

The most productive nation in overall medals is Grenada, with one medal per 56,300 residents. On the other end of the spectrum is India, which didn't win any gold medals and whose athletes only produced one medal per 235,152,000 residents. There are many reasons as to why the world's most populous nation underperforms in the Olympics.  

They weren't missed. Russia might be a traditional Olympics heavyweight, but that country (and neighboring Belorussia) were completely absent from the 2024 Olympics, both having been banned due to Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. 

Given that Russia's "ban" from the 2020 summer games (as well as the 2022 winter games) following a massive doping scandal was a complete joke, I can't say I was upset at the country's complete absence from this year's games. The IOC should continue to ban Russia from all Olympic contests until at least Vladimir Putin dies.

A handful of Russian and Belorussian athletes were able to compete in Paris as part of an "Individual Neutral Athletes" team.

Want to see how your favorite college performed in the Olympics? There's a table for that. It ranks the number of medals produced per NCAA-participating institution, regardless of whether the student-athletes of a given university competed for the United States or some other nation. Stanford is the clear winner with 39 medals, with Cal and Texas a distant second and third, respectively. 

The University of Houston accounted for two medals, both in the men's 4x100 relay. South Africa's Shaun Maswanganyi, who won silver, and Great Britain's Louie Hinchliffe, who won bronze, both compete on the Cougar track and field team under coach (and Olympic legend) Carl Lewis.

They just keep getting faster. Speaking of Carl Lewis, 40 years ago he won gold in the Men's 100 meter sprint with a time of 9.99 seconds. That wouldn't have even been fast enough to qualify for the final round of the 2024 race. American Noah Lyles broke a 20-year American drought in the event by winning gold with a time of 9.784 - just five one-thousandths of a second ahead of Jamaica's Kishane Thompson - in a finish that even had the announcer fooled.

Unlikely up-and-comer? The South American nation winning the most medals was Brazil, with 20 (and who thought that country would become a gymnastics powerhouse?). The South American country with the second-highest number of medals was... Ecuador. 

Four years ago I joked about Ecuador becoming an Olympic powerhouse after they won three medals in Tokyo. Obviously they've got a ways to go before they reach that level, but the five medals the Ecuadorians won in Paris matches the total number of medals the county has won in all previous Olympics combined. 

An Urban Olympad. I really enjoyed the city-focused format of these games. From the Opening Ceremony featuring a parade of nations along the Seine, to the Olympic flame being located adjacent to the Louvre (rather than in a stadium), to the beach volleyball court located in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, to the bicycle races being held in the city streets, the games' organizers did a great job making all of Paris the backdrop, rather than the fancy, specially-built venues designed to be the centerpieces of previous Olympics. Most of the event venues used for these Olympics were either previously existing or were temporary.

A word on NBC's coverage. If you've read this blog for any length of time you know that I love to trash NBC's Olympics coverage. However, I really don't have a lot to complain about this time around.

For those able to watch it, NBC's daytime coverage was - dare I say it? - actually pretty good. They switched between events as they occurred and provided live look-ins on events being shown on other channels or streaming platforms (and told you where to find them if you wanted to continue watching). Since it was all live there was little in the way of maudlin "human interest" stories and other pointless tidbits that detract from the overall coverage of the games. Sometimes they even covered sports that did not feature American athletes! 

NBC's primetime coverage, on the other hand, was their typical formulaic, over-edited digest that we all love to hate. But even then they finally seems to be getting away from the fiction that their prime-time coverage - which is happening in the wee hours of the morning in Paris - is somehow "live." In an age of streaming services, push notifications and social media, NBC appears to have accepted that the days when a single network can gate keep the entire Olympics are now long gone.

I still think that replacing Bob Costas with Mike Tirico was one of biggest improvements NBC has ever made in regards to their Olympics coverage.  Tirico just needs to brush up on his vexillology before his next Olympics broadcast.

Time lists the twelve most memorable things of the 2024 Olympics, while Yahoo Sports breaks down the biggest events of the games by each day of competition.

Assisi

(This entry has been sitting on my computer, half-finished, for almost two years, so I finally decided to complete it.)

As part of our trip to Italy in November 2022, Corinne and I made a brief trip to Assisi. It is just southeast of Perugia, where we stayed with Corinne's nephew and niece-in-law for Thanksgiving. 

Assisi is religiously significant and is a UNESCO heritage site. Its Sister Cities include other pilgrimage towns, such as Bethlehem and Santiago de Compostela, as well as a city in California that is named after Assisi's most famous resident.

Assisi is like so many other villages in central Italy's Umbria region: founded in ancient times, nestled atop a hillside, full of medieval buildings and picturesque cobblestone streets. Here's a view of the town overlooked by the Rocca Maggiore fortress. 

Another Assisi street scene, featuring a small restaurant. Timelessly charming spaces like these can found in almost any medieval Italian hilltop town.

This is Assisi Cathedral, where Francis worshipped. The church was begun in 1140 and completed by 1253. It is an example of Romanesque architecture.

At the door of Assisi Cathedral is a sculpture of a lion eating a Christian martyr: a not-so-subtle reminder of the struggle of the young Christian church within the pagan Roman Empire.

The interior of Assisi Cathedral, with a statue of St. Francis on the left. Born into a wealthy family, Francis swore off that lifestyle in his twenties and embraced a life of poverty and penance. He founded the Franciscan religious order in 1210 and today is one of the most venerated figures in Christianity.

Another Assisi street scene. I could never get tired of walking these quaint, centuries-old cobblestone streets.

One of Francis's first followers was Claire, who founded a Franciscan religious order for nuns. She was canonized in 1255; construction of the Basilica of St. Claire began two years later. The flying buttresses to the left were added in the 1300s. St. Claire's remains are in the church's crypt.

Assisi overlooks the countryside of Umbria. When we visited in late November it was misty but not particularly cold.

The Piazza del Comune, which is Assisi's central square. The Temple of Minerva on the right was built by the Romans in the 1st century BC; it now houses a church. The adjacent bell tower was built in the 13th century. 

The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, which was begun in 1228, the same year Francis was canonized as a saint. Christian pilgrims come to this church to pay respect to Francis, whose remains are located within the church. 

Another view of the Basilica, which features both Romanesque and Gothic architectural elements.

On our way to the Basilica we stopped at a cafe to use the restroom and get a refreshment. A nun came in, spoke to us in English, and upon discovering we were from the United States offered us a blessing: a charming memory of Assisi we'll always have.

Corinne and I downloaded and listened to a Rick Steves audiotour of Assisi as we walked through the town, which we found very helpful. For more Rick Steves commentary on Assisi, check out this video (beginning at the 13:48 mark).

Beryl and Black Cat

Greetings from the fabulous metropolis of Sulphur, Louisiana*, where Corinne and I are spending a rather impromptu "vacation" on account of the fact that we don't have any power at our home in Houston. After some unbearably sweaty and sleepless nights at home, and with the understanding that Centerpoint would not be restoring our electricity anytime soon, we realized that we needed to decamp to someplace that had internet access and air conditioning. This was the closest place available.

Hurricane Beryl - which was originally expected to make landfall well south of here but continued to track northward in spite of the projections of pretty much every meteorologist - made landfall early Monday morning. The east side of the eyewall roared over us between 8 and 11 am that day, causing our townhome to literally shake in the wind and driving rain.

It was a stressful and exhausting experience, to say the least; I last hunkered down through a hurricane during Ike in 2008 and this was just as agonizing as I remembered, if not more so. I continually worried that a massive wind gust would blow out a window or rip off our roof, in spite of the fact that Beryl was "only" a Category 1. I was very relieved when the worst passed through and the winds began to calm down around noon. We lost power at about 8:30 am Monday morning, but the house itself thankfully does not appear to have sustained any major damage.

As Beryl approached on Sunday, we noticed that Black Cat (his real name is "Orion" but we've always called him "Black Cat" because that's what Kirby called him when he was a toddler) was failing. He was 16 1/2 years old, which is pretty aged for a cat, and I noticed earlier in the week that he was eating less and the limp in his back leg was getting worse. But as of Saturday evening, he seemed to be doing fine, and even contentedly hung out with me in my office as I web-surfed and doom-scrolled on my computer. But by Sunday evening he was clearly not well. He was lying on the floor, weak and barely able to move. 

I could tell he was suffering and wanted to put him out of his misery. Unfortunately, no vets were available on account of the fact that it was Sunday night and the hurricane was approaching; even the 24-hour emergency vet on the Southwest Freeway told me (after being put on hold for fifteen minutes) that they were hopelessly backed-up, with only one vet on staff. So we tried to make him as comfortable as possible as he lay on the floor, his breathing increasingly labored, his body all but immobile. I wrapped him in a towel. He still purred when I pet him and croaked a few weak meows to us; but he refused any food or water I tried to give him. Black Cat hung to life even as the hurricane roared over us, but he finally expired at about 8 pm Monday evening. 

He was annoying and obnoxious, and he loved me unconditionally. I'll miss him. Orion "Black Cat" Gray 2007-2024

Monday night we tried to sleep, in spite of the lack of electricity and the dead cat in the living room. The still, humid air made everything uncomfortable as we lay in our beds in pools of sweat. The sirens, loud trucks and droning generators (from neighbors prescient enough to have bought them) rang in our ears. Maybe we dozed off a bit here and there, but we didn't get anything approaching quality sleep.

On Tuesday we wearily went over to my parents' house to check on them, as they had also lost power. While we were there we buried Black Cat in their front yard. We had always planned to bury Black Cat when he died and plant a tree atop him, as we did with Elektra. However, given the circumstances, the only sapling available for us to plant was a neglected mulberry sitting in a pot in the corner of my parents' yard. It would have to do.

I hope Black Cat's decomposing body causes the sapling to grow into the most beautiful mulberry tree ever. As annoying as he could be, with his incessant meowing and his biting and his constant demanding of food, he deserves to live on in another organism. I'm going to miss his ridiculously loud purr most of all.

Black Cat's final resting place, amidst debris left from the previous day's hurricane.

Tuesday evening Corinne and I were able to seek air-conditioned refuge and recharge our phones at my neighborhood bar, which had regained power, while my parents relocated to our friends' house in Pearland who also had electricity. That night Centerpoint released the first version of their useless power outage tracker: it showed our neighborhood as "partially energized," which is true in that some people around us on different circuits did have electricity. But we still don't, and as of the time of this writing Centerpoint's map still can't tell us when our power will be restored. Tuesday night was, once again, stifling, sweaty and sleepless. Our townhome simply wasn't built to catch a breeze or otherwise provide natural ventilation in case of power failure.

Until a crew comes to replace and reconnect the fuse armatures that are currently hanging down, we won't have power. 

Wednesday morning, as Corinne and I began to pick through our refrigerator and toss yogurt, cheese, mayonnaise and other spoiled perishables into the trash, we exhaustedly began musing about finding a hotel. That afternoon, while again seeking refuge at the neighborhood bar (and watching England punch their ticket to the Euro 2024 final), we got serious about it and began looking for available lodging. But with every Houston-area hotel either booked or unpowered, the only options available were out of town. So we found this place and made our way here - the two-hour trip along I-10 felt like an eternity - last night.

It was the right decision. We got a good, air-conditioned night's sleep last night, I was finally able to get some work done today (my employer gave us emergency leave for the past three days but as of this afternoon the office and its systems were back up and running), we were able to do some laundry, eat our first proper meal in three days, and both of us feel so much better than we did just a day ago. We will return to Houston tomorrow; as of late this afternoon we learned that electricity had been restored to my parents' house so we will have a place to stay tomorrow night regardless of whether our house has power.

I may have a lot more to say about this experience - why the forecasters struggled with Beryl's track, would it have made a difference had I taken Black Cat (whose demise I had been sadly expecting for months) to the vet earlier, why Centerpoint's infrastructure could not withstand a Category 1 hurricane and why their post-hurricane restoration effort has been a complete clusterfuck, whether it even makes sense to continue living in a city as dependent on air conditioning and as prone to climate-related catastrophe as Houston - in a future post. As for now, I'm just happy the unexpectedly brutal week of Beryl and Black Cat is coming to an end.

*I really shouldn't make fun of this place. Every person we've encountered here in Sulphur - from the staff at our hotel to the clerk at the convenience store to the attendant at the laundromat to the waiter at the Waffle House at the intersection of I-10 and LA-27 - has been nothing short of wonderful and empathetic to us.

A cloudy eclipse on the farm

Corinne and I drove up to her aunt's farm near Mexia last weekend, hoping to see the big eclipse. Her farm was the path of totality, meaning that we would get the opportunity to see the sun fully obscured by the moon for three and a half minutes.

Unfortunately, the clouds did not cooperate, and during the three-and-a-half minutes of totality we could only catch glimpses of the sun fully obscured by the moon. These two pictures, from two separate cameras, are the best I could do (and don't compare to the pictures taken by several of my Facebook friends, who had better weather and superior camera equipment): 

I also got a short video of the totality during a break in the clouds. Once again, my iPhone's camera just can't do it justice.

Even though I was only afforded brief views of the totality due to the cloud cover, I nevertheless marveled at the sight of a full solar eclipse. I've never witnessed one before and may never see one again.

Of course, as luck would have it, right after the totality ended the skies began to clear up.

Here are some other interesting pictures I took during the eclipse:

The crescent sun shines through a pinhole in the barn roof shortly before the totality.

The sky during the totality. It was actually darker than this picture suggests.

The crescent sun through the clouds, also shortly before the totality.

I took some pictures of the farm's flora and fauna as well:

Spring is wildflower season, as this field of bluebonnets growing on the side of the farm attests. 

Wildflowers such as winecups and blue-eyed grass were also plentiful, and attracted lots of butterflies.

The bull warily watches me as he protects his herd. Glad that barbed wire is there!

Houston to Guyana, nonstop

This new air connection looks interesting:

United Airlines began offering direct flights from Houston to Guyana Monday as the oil-rich South American nation becomes a key growth area for Houston’s oil industry. 

The nonstop route flies four times a week from Bush Intercontinental Airport into Georgetown, Guyana’s capital. Flights ranged roughly between $1,100 and $1,700 roundtrip as of Monday. 

Guyana has been among the world’s most prolific oil-producing regions since the resource was first discovered there in 2015 by a group led by Spring-based Exxon Mobil. The region accounts for roughly 10% of the 4 million barrels per day that Exxon produces globally. It plans to expand Guyanese production to 1 million barrels per day by the end of the decade. 

Guyana is on the northern coast of South America and is that continent's only English-seaking country. It is, unfortunately, probably best known as the location of Jonestown and its mass suicide in 1978.

The rest of the article goes into the oil discovery and ensuring frictions between rival oil companies as well as territorial threats from neighboring Venezuela and its thug dictator, Nicolás Maduro. However, it also should be mentioned that aside from oil, Guyana is also an emerging tourist destination. Much of the country is covered by undisturbed Amazonian rainforest, giving it one of the highest levels of biodiversity in the world. The country is also home to spectacular landmarks like Kaieteur Falls and Mount Roraima. 

This flight, therefore, is likely to carry an interesting combination of oil workers and eco-tourists.

Simple flying has more.

A heartbreaking end to an amazing season

The 2023-24 season has certainly been an amazing one for the University of Houston mens basketball program. 

The Cougars posted a 32-5 overall record, were undefeated at home, spent the entire season ranked in the top 10 (including three weeks at #1), and won the Big 12 title by two games in their first year in the conference. The team won its third-straight regular-season conference championship, made its sixth straight NCAA tournament appearance*, its fifth straight trip to at least the Sweet Sixteen, and earned its second straight #1 regional seed in the tournament. 

None of this has ever been previously accomplished in the history of Cougar basketball, not even during the halcyon Phi Slama Jama era of the 1980s. 

Unfortunately, what seemed to be a promising run at the program's first national championship ended in catastrophic fashion last Friday night after senior leader Jamal Shead severely sprained his ankle during the Cougars' Sweet Sixteen matchup against Duke and had to sit out most of the game. The Cougars were already hobbled by injuries going into the Big Dance, having several athletes playing with injuries and having completely lost key bench players Terrence Arceneaux and Jojo Tugler earlier in the season. In spite of it all, the Cougars were able to will themselves past a tenacious Texas A&M team to get into the Sweet Sixteen last weekend. However, the loss of All-American Shead and his leadership was just too much for the Cougars to withstand. The Blue Devils took advantage and ended UH's season accordingly.

The injury bug seems to strike the Cougars every year, as Chron's Josh Criswell explains:

Houston played the 2022 NCAA tournament without key guards Marcus Sasser and Tramon Mark, who suffered injuries earlier in the season. The Cougars still made it to the Elite Eight, in part due to Shead's emergence as a sophomore, before falling to Villanova 50-44 in a defensive battle similar to Friday night's loss. Last year, Sasser and Shead played through injuries at the Big Dance, with UH's season ending in the Sweet 16 against Miami.

UH found itself facing adversity in the health department again as March Madness approached this month, with rotation fixtures Terrence Arceneaux and Joseph Tugler sidelined with season-ending injuries. Senior forward J'Wan Roberts hurt his shin during the Big 12 tournament, while veteran backup Ramon Walker Jr. missed the last month of the season with a knee injury, though both were available for the Big Dance.

Short-handed, sure. But with a healthy Shead, who earned first-team All-American honors, Houston was still the No. 2 favorite to win the national championship entering the second weekend of the NCAA tournament. Without him, it was going to be a massive uphill battle.

"It's a little frustrating not being at full-strength at this time of year, when you're supposed to be playing your best basketball—which we still were," sophomore guard Emanuel Sharp said. "It's just tough. You can't really find another Jamal, so not having him in the second half, for the last six minutes of the first half, we needed that. We needed him."

Now UH faithful, having just watched their team be robbed once again by injuries, can only wonder yet again what could have been. 

What must not be lost in the searing disappointment is the fact that the Cougars just completed one of the most memorable and defining seasons in program history, and are currently one of college basketball's elite programs. 

A decade ago, Cougar basketball was irrelevant. There was little local interest in the program and Hofheinz Pavilion was a tomb. Now the refurbished Fertitta Center is packed with UH fans and is one of the toughest venues for opposing schools to play in. In the ten years that Kelvin Sampson has been Houston's head coach, Cougar basketball has experienced a miraculous turnaround, one that once-jaded fans such as myself savor:

Chris Pezman, UH’s vice president for athletics, called the basketball program’s success a “generational” moment.

“I hope people don’t take this for granted. This is such a special time,” Pezman said. “All this generation knows is Houston making deep runs in the NCAA Tournament and being a top-10 team in the country. They only know Fertitta Center one way: an impossible place to play in for visitors and an incredible environment.”

Brad Towns will "always be thankful for everything they did for me as a fan, for this UH basketball community, and for all the lessons and joy they provided along the way." Chris Baldwin laments how things ended for Shead, who will go down as one of the greatest players in program history alongside Elvin Hayes, Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler. The Chronicle's Matt Young says the Cougars are the best program to have never won a national title, while fellow sportswriter Jerome Solomon believes that, for Kelvin Sampson and the Cougars, an NCAA title is an eventual certainty.

I hope he's right. The program and its fans deserve it. 

Alas, Jamal Shead deserved it, too.

*Which would have been seven if not for the COVID-19 pandemic that ended the 2020 season early.

Monarch butterfly update: things are getting worse

Not good news:

The 2023-2024 census of monarch butterfly numbers found one of the smallest annual populations of the insects at the overwintering sites in Central Mexico.

The World Wildlife Fund-Mexico and its partners released the data last Wednesday, which highlighted that the presence of eastern monarch butterflies decreased from 2.2 to 0.9 hectares. According to the news release, this is the second worst year for monarch butterfly sightings with the 2013-2014 census holding the lead with 0.67 hectares. 

“Fewer monarchs hibernating in their traditional forest habitat in Mexico greatly concerns all of us. It’s critical that all communities, governments, non-governmental organizations, scientists and others continue to strengthen our conservation and protection efforts to support the monarch’s unique migration,” said Jorge Rickards, general director of World Wildlife Fund-Mexico in the news release.

This isn’t the first time the foundation found a decline in monarchs, last year’s data showed a 22% decline in the butterfly population, based on the number of acres the insects occupied in Mexico. Factors contributing to these butterflies' decline include herbicide application to U.S. breeding grounds, drought and forest degradation.

Here's the updated overwintering graph from monarchwatch.org. It's pretty grim:

monarchwatch.org     

Back in 2022 I noted that the overwintering monarch population seemed to he holding steady in the 2-3 hectare range for the past several years and expressed hope that it meant things had stabilized. Unfortunately after this past winter that no longer appears to be the case.

According to Monarch Watch founder Chip Taylor, the migratory monarch population is took a big hit from last fall's drought that extended from Oklahoma into central Mexico. This meant fewer flowers and therefore less energy-providing nectar that fuels the insects' migration and sustains them through the winter.

While monarchs are resilient insects, they're going to need more milkweed plants to lay eggs and more nectar plants to feed them in order for their population to recover from this past winter's low. So please plant your gardens accordingly. I also wonder if this news is what finally persuades the US Fish and Wildlife Service to declare the monarch an endangered species. 

Americans don't trust self-driving cars

I've always felt that one of the biggest obstacles to the viability of autonomous vehicles would be public acceptance. To that point, this recent survey finding that 93% of Americans have concerns "about some aspect of self-driving cars" is illuminating:

Safety is the number one consumer fear when it comes to vehicles that drive themselves, with 36% of Americans indicating they do not trust the technology to keep motorists and pedestrians safe on the road.

Technology malfunctions come in a close second, with just over a quarter of consumers indicating they are most worried that autopilot technology will malfunction on the roads.

Reliability, cost, hacking, vehicle lifespan and privacy are also among the worries Americans share, although these issues are not nearly as pressing as fears about how autonomous vehicles will impact road safety.

These safety concerns reflect reality. Although autonomous vehicles are purported to be safer than human-driven vehicles (they don't get drunk, drowsy or distracted, after all), on a per-miles-driven basis they are actually more prone to accidents:

In fact, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that self-driving vehicles are more than twice as likely as traditional vehicles to become involved in auto accidents. According to NHTSA data:

There are 9.1 crashes in driverless vehicles per million vehicle miles driven

There are 4.2 crashes in conventional vehicles per million miles driven

High accident rates have rightly contributed to consumer concerns—and recent recalls of Tesla vehicles have only served to heighten fears.

Tesla—often considered a leader in autonomous driving with nearly two million cars across the U.S.—recently recalled nearly all of its autonomous vehicles.

Tesla’s recall comes after an NHTSA probe revealed nearly 1,000 accidents occurred when autopilot was engaged. It has prompted significant consumer concerns, with 62% of survey respondents indicating they are not confident in Tesla’s technology following the recalls.

It's worth pointing out that the Tesla "autopilot" feature that was the subject of the recall is not intended to be fully self-driving and requires the driver to be attentive and ready to take control of the vehicle at all times. But a lot of Tesla owners were obviously not using it correctly, and a safety advocacy group recently spent money on Super Bowl ads denouncing Tesla and calling for a boycott.

Problems with autonomous vehicles being able to operate safely and effectively are partly why Cruise pulled their self-driving cars off Texas streets last fall, after they caused traffic jams in Austin's West Campus and Houston's Montrose neighborhoods. The antipathy towards the disruption they sometimes cause is probably why a self-driving car in San Francisco was recently set ablaze as well.

Other findings of the survey, which was conducted on 2,000 Americans in January 2024, include:

• More than half (51%) of consumers are somewhat or very unlikely to own or use a self-driving vehicle in the next five years
• 61% of Americans wouldn’t trust a self-driving car with their loved ones or children
• Only 29% of consumers would be willing to pay a premium for a self-driving vehicle

In fact, according to the survey, only 30% of Americans actually are excited about self-driving vehicles in the future. The publishers of the survey conclude that "A widespread shift in public perception will be important if these vehicles are to become a dominant force in the U.S. auto market in the near future."

That's the way I see it, too. A decade ago, proponents of autonomous vehicles told us that the technology would be ubiquitous by now. Today, however, a future of self-driving cars looks further away than ever.

College football's viewership imbalance

This graphic has been making the rounds on X (I will never stop calling it Twitter) over the past couple of weeks, and it is equal parts fascinating and concerning:

Over the past eight college football seasons, fully half of the sport's television viewership has been generated by just 18 teams. And all of those teams, with the exception of Clemson, Notre Dame and Florida State, either are, or as of this fall will be, members of the SEC or Big 10.

There's probably a feedback loop here. Networks figure that college football fans want to see these teams, so they are on TV more often, which means that more people end up watching them, even if only casually. These ratings also include College Football Playoff games as well as regular season and other bowl games, which gives an additional ratings boost to multi-year CFP participants like Alabama, Clemson, Georgia and Ohio State. But the resulting concentration of viewership is still stark.

The next five most-watched schools on this graphic were Texas A&M, Michigan State, Iowa, Oklahoma State, and TCU. In other words, you have to go outside the top 20 before you find any Big 12 schools. It's also interesting that historic powerhouses like Nebraska and Miami are absent, but both schools are a long way away from their dominance in the '80s and '90s (the Cornhuskers currently being on a streak of seven losing seasons in a row). 

I also, sadly, suspect that Houston sits among that bottom 10% on the right side of the graph.

The fact that so much college football viewership (and therefore, television revenue) is concentrated in so few schools, and that those schools mostly belong to two conferences, means that college football finds itself in an extremely unbalanced situation between the "Power Two" (the SEC and the Big 10) and everyone else (the ACC, the Big 12 and the Group of Five conferences). This has significant implications for the sport's future.

In that regard, last Friday's news that the SEC and Big 10 are "creating a joint advisory group of university presidents, chancellors and athletics directors to address the turmoil enveloping the (college football) industry" is raising some eyebrows among college football fans. Could the SEC and Big 10 be preparing to break away and create their own college football league, apart from the NCAA? It would completely change the sport as we know it, and not (in my opinion) for the better.

I love college football, but between this imbalance, the out-of-control transfer portal, and a completely-unregulated NIL system, the sport is simply not sustainable in its current form, and I worry for its future.

Stupid mistakes and shitty utility companies

Right before Thanksgiving, I made a stupid mistake. I was paying bills online through my bank's website, and for some reason I accidentally clicked the wrong button and sent a payment to the wrong company. I don't know why I made such a careless error; perhaps I was in a hurry or distracted (I really don't remember). But the end result is that a $2,700 payment intended for my Chase credit card went to Centerpoint Energy instead.

I didn't notice my stupid mistake until I checked my balance a couple of days later, but I wasn't too concerned. The Centerpoint account I accidentally made the payment to had been closed since I moved out of the house in Bellaire back in the summer of 2017, so I figured that the payment would be kicked back by Centerpoint's computers in a few days. In the meantime, I made a second, correct payment to Chase (I was lucky enough to have the extra money to do so), and waited. 

Days passed. Nothing happened. So I decided to call Centerpoint.

After spending some time navigating through their automated customer service system, and then spending some more time on hold, I was finally connected to a real, live customer service representative named "Claire." I explained to her my predicament; she quickly located my otherwise-closed account and opened a case for me that would be referred to Centerpoint's accounting department. She told me that a refund check would be issued to the address on file for my account (in this case, my parents' house) and it would take seven to ten days. 

Seven to ten days came and went. No check appeared at my parents' house. So I called Centerpoint again.

This time (after I once again navigated through their automated customer service system and spent a few more minutes on hold) I was connected to "Fran." She told me that the case the previous representative made for me was incorrect, and that she would file a correct one. She explained that the erroneous payment would go directly back to my bank and that it would take five to seven business days to process.

Seven business days came and went. No refund appeared in my bank account. So I called Centerpoint for the third time.

This time the service representative I spoke to, "Tiffany," said that the refund request had been ordered by the accounting department, but that it would actually take ten to fifteen days to process (and perhaps even longer, since by now we were approaching Christmas). She suggested I call my bank to see how long it takes them to process refund payments once they're received. (I did, and the bank representative I spoke to said such payments are usually processed within two to four days of initial receipt.)

Christmas came and went. No refund appeared in my bank account. I was becoming frustrated. Would I ever see my money again?

So I called Centerpoint for the fourth time. This time, the service representative I spoke to, Angela, confirmed that the refund had been ordered by the accounting department, but that it actually takes up to thirty business days for it to process, and because of upcoming holidays - New Year's Day and Martin Luther King Jr., Day - it could take even longer. She said that the case was still "open" in their system, meaning that it was still being processed.

The New Year and MLK Day came and went. Still, no refund appeared in my bank account. So I tried to call Centerpoint again. However, due to the freezing weather that was affecting Houston at the time, people were obviously having trouble with their gas and customer hold times were an hour or more. I decided to wait one more week and call again.

When I called Centerpoint for the fifth time, I got Angela again. She told me that the payment had been processed and I needed to call something called "CheckFree" to see where my payment was. She gave me a phone number for the company, but could not give me any sort of tracking or other identification number for the payment. At this point I had completely run out of patience; as politely as I could, I told Angela that this situation was not acceptable. If I did not get my accidental payment refunded soon, I was going to file a complaint with the city, or the Public Utilities Commission, or even speak to an attorney.

As I suspected, the number she gave me to CheckFree (which is apparently an ACH payment processor owned by the financial services company FiServ) was useless. So I began contemplating my next step. Should I start with an email to the City of Houston's public utilities complaint department? Should I copy my district councilmember? Are there attorneys out there that have dealt with these kinds of issues that won't charge me several hundred dollars just to talk to them?

And then, lo and behold, two days after I called Centerpoint for the fifth time (and over 60 days after I originally made the erroneous payment), guess what finally appeared in my bank account? The refund came with an email from my bank stating that the payment had been "refused by the payee," as if it were an automatic action on the part of Centerpoint and not the result of my calling them five separate times over the course of two months.

Apparently, a lot of people have had similar issues with Centerpoint not returning inadvertent payments in a timely manner (see here and here, for example). And if I were an unaccountable utility monopoly like Centerpoint, I'd probably dither in returning accidental payments too. Perhaps the corporation figures that, if they continually give people the runaround by telling them a different story every time they call customer service and slow-walking refund payments in their accounting department, some people will just give up and allow Centerpoint to keep their money.

But I wasn't going to be one of those people. $2,700 is a lot of money, and Centerpoint was not entitled to it. I'm thankful that my financial situation is such that I could go a couple of months without that kind of money in my account. But what about people who made similar mistakes who were not as financially well-off as me? 

Online banking may have made obsolete the hassle of writing out paper checks and mailing them, but it also makes it easier to make a dumb mistake like I did. This was the first time I've ever made such an error. After this experience, I am determined that it will be the last.