It's no secret to anyone that knows me: I bloody hate OAuth2. (I specifically say 2 because OAuth was a radically different beast.) I recently had occasion to use the Pocket API. I have very mixed feelings about this service, but I have paid for it before (for quite some time). Now I am trying to use the Kobo integration which syncs articles from Pocket. This seems a much better solution than Send to Kindle which I was previously using. However, to use it in practicality I had to somehow archive 5000+ links which I had imported into it, my ~10 year browser bookmark history.
I tried to use ChatGPT to generate this code, and it got something that looked very close but was in practicality useless. It was faster for me to write the code from scratch than to debug the famous LLM's attempt. So maybe don't retire your keyboard hands just yet, console jockeys.
import requests
from flask import Flask, redirect, session
import pdb
app = Flask(__name__)
app.secret_key = 'nonesuch'
CONSUMER_KEY = 'MYCONSUMERKEY'
REDIRECT_URI = 'http://localhost:5000/callback'
BATCH_SIZE = 1000 # max 5000
@app.route("/test")
def test():
print("foo")
resp = requests.post('https://getpocket.com/v3/oauth/request', json={
'consumer_key': CONSUMER_KEY,
'redirect_uri': REDIRECT_URI,
'state': 'nonesuch',
}, headers={'X-Accept': 'application/json'})
data = resp.json()
request_token = data['code']
session['request_token'] = request_token
uri = f'https://getpocket.com/auth/authorize?request_token={request_token}&redirect_uri={REDIRECT_URI}'
return redirect(uri)
@app.route("/callback")
def callback():
print("using request token", session['request_token'])
resp = requests.post(
'https://getpocket.com/v3/oauth/authorize',
json={
'consumer_key': CONSUMER_KEY,
'code': session['request_token']
},
headers={'X-Accept': 'application/json'}
)
print("Status code for authorize was", resp.status_code)
print(resp.headers)
result = resp.json()
print(result)
access_token = result['access_token']
print("Access token is", access_token)
resp = requests.post(
'https://getpocket.com/v3/get',
json={
'consumer_key': CONSUMER_KEY,
'access_token': access_token,
'state': 'unread',
'sort': 'oldest',
'detailType': 'simple',
'count': BATCH_SIZE,
}
)
x = resp.json()
actions = []
for y in x['list'].keys():
actions.append({'action': 'archive', 'item_id': y})
print("Sending", len(actions), "actions")
resp = requests.post(
'https://getpocket.com/v3/send',
json={
'actions': actions,
'access_token': access_token,
'consumer_key': CONSUMER_KEY
}
)
print(resp.text)
return f"<p>Access token is {access_token}</p>"
I believe it's mandatory to make this an actual web app, hence the use of Flask. I hate OAuth2. The Pocket implementation of OAuth2 is subtly quirky (what a freakin' surprise). Also, this API is pretty strange, it doesn't even make any attempt at being RESTful, though the operation batching is rather nifty. It's rather pleasant that you can work in batches of 1000 items at a time, though. I expected a lower limit. If I cranked the batch size up to 5000 I effectively KO'd the API and started getting 500s.
This script doesn't actually archive everything because it doesn't loop. That's left as an exercise for the reader for now.
Having just read Mourning and Melancholia and the very first page of A&T's book proper, I'll make a crude prediction as to how I perceive their thesis will run:
Pankejeff was "two people in one" in the sense that Mourning and Melancholia describes. The melancholia process results in the loved object being reconsituted in the ego. "Attacks" and self-reproaches that characterize depression are really attacks on a lost object which has been absorbed into the narcissistic ego. Hence Pankejeff's sister Anna, who was literally lost due to her suicide, formed a sexually licentious internal counterpart which Pankejeff simultaneously perceived as being himself. He also reproached this internal dual-self for that licentiousness. There's probably something to be said about Freud's economic perspective on melancholia and mania, and the sudden return of these "investments".
If Pankejeff was repressed outside the consulting room, and then loudly proclaimed his libido inside the consulting room, perhaps this ghost-Anna is activated within him, while normally being repressed. Taking as an axiom the truth of the original seduction, this would fit with some of Freud's observations of his homosexual ambivalence.
Update: This is actually a bit of an understatement of what the theory is. The theory is one of 'incorporation' in a schizophrenic way. Note the particular pick-up of the description by RMB (Ruth Mack Brunswick) of the "small brother" and "preschizophrenic sister".
They make the claim that SP's seduction by the sister is the echo of a previous seduction (abuse, in fact) by the father.
First, the sister claimed to repeat with her younger brother a sexual scene that probably took place earlier between her and the father
The father, who later (unable to live with his grief) killed himself. The "incorporated" version of the sister, Tierka, comes to be filled by his wife, and then comes to be filled by his mother. There is a neat symmetry in this account. Perhaps Therese was always aware that she was Tierka, and her suicide finally confirmed this.
When his wife ended her life in 1938, the Wolf Man .... suffered an attack of depressive agitation worse than any he had ever experienced. ... He roamed the streets frenzied and repeated forlornly the stereotypical question: "Why, tell me why, did she do this to me?" This would be the same outcry of despair as that of Father, shattered by the suicide of his preferred object.
It's fascinating how A&T don't trust the literal truth of the analysis but like detectives use clues to draw out a secret truth. They say that Freud focused on the seduction not due to his theories needing support therein, but because his intuition led to his placing importance there.
He was barred from others and -- incapable of assuimilating them -- he could ohnly put them inside himself, as he had some with his sister. His life was made up of maneuverings to avoid hapless meetings and indiscretions. They were all there in him in order to maintain repression of a contradiction: a death-dealing pleasure. This repression appeared only in two images, each incomplete in its manifest state: first the erogenous image of a woman in the position of a scrubwoman, then the second one, a complement to the first, of a phobia-producing erect wolf.
I've recently finished watching series 2 of "Tunna blå linjen", The Thin Blue Line (not the classic British sitcom). It's fair to say I loved this show. It's a show that bristles with modernity. The pulsating electropop score brings to mind the "sad-boi" scene that we associate with contemporary Swedish music. It's fundamentally a cop show, but not in the same way as something like The Wire is. It's not a searing social critique, but rather it's a focused look into the characters themselves and how they're affected by social issues. Indeed, the first scene has new cop Sara attempting to help a young addict by allowing her to stay at her house, only to have her idealism burst; after that, she's significantly more guarded in her behaviour. The show is full of emotional gut-punches. It steers just clear of being manipulative due to the tasteful filming involved.
From a social perspective, as a "elder millenial", the traditional life-markers of our generation sometimes seem infinitely deferred. It's absolutely fascinating to see the absolutely unresolved nature of the characters. Sara is confused, frantic, wildly drifting and utterly unmoored from any centre of meaning. Magnus is deeply repressed, bitter and moody. Leah is a "broken person" due to utter neglect from her psychotherapist mother, and directly experiences burnout and actual psychosis. Jesse is the most authoritative figure but still we see his struggle with the demands of fatherhood and his own lack of self-control when confronted with temptation during his affair with young recruit Fanny. Khalid is shown in series 2 as a neglectful partner, preoccupied with his social media persona and lacking any real ethical centre. Faye and Danijela's blossoming relationship is tastefully sketched out (lesbian representation is not quite foregrounded but is certainly prominent in the show).
I have to give a special call out to the relationship between Magnus and Sara here. It's rare to see what seems like a realistic portrayal of a workplace relationship here. Though perhaps I misspeak, because it's not so much a workplace relationship as a crush -- and frankly it harms both of them, but at the same time the counterfactual situation is not possible -- it's an unavoidable unfolding. One could imagine a kind of harsh critique of this type of relationship, but that's not what's employed here, nor is it romanticised. Rather, Magnus's love for Sara is unrequited, or more specifically half-requited. Sara cannot make up her mind about Magnus, while Magnus' mind is firmly made up. As a result they relentlessly damage each other. In the workplace, they cannot simply avoid each other, although each one tries, and they're drawn back together over and over again.
We visited Malta 25th March - 4th April. These are a few notes.
We tried to find a good place to go clubbing. From the research I did, a good club if you like the more noncommercial techno is 'Tigullio Club', along with 'Liquid'. But the problem is that the club scene only functions on Fridays and Saturdays, meaning we couldn't experience it directly.
Gozo is insanely gorgeous. Regarding getting to Gozo, the fast ferry from Valetta is now a much better choice than bus to Cirkewwa and means travelling there becomes frankly ridiculously easy. We stayed one night on the island and if I was going back I might choose to stay there for longer.
We visited in the shoulder season. There are a few quirks to this. Off-season means that opening times are often flat wrong. Also, temperature was all over the place. When it rains, the entire country closes down because none of the infrastructure expects it (exaggeration, but from a tourist perspective it seems to be the case.) If you bring a t-shirt and a jumper everywhere you'll likely be fine, you don't need a coat. You don't need gloves anywhere but you might need a hat on overcast days. On the other hand, some days are flat-out sunny and getting down to t-shirt weather for a UK resident.
For the rest of the post I'll restrict myself to giving a few reviews on restaurants and food.
Tipping's expected in restaurants but not in cafes.
Cafe Du Brazil in Birgu. I ate here twice, both times the food was fantastic. The price is good for what you get. An astonishing chicken & parma ham wrap, and a Maltese ftira (Tomato paste, tuna, olives, Maltese broad beans, Maltese peppered cheese, lettuce, tomato. Served with crisps & salad) -- great lunch snack. This is the best place in Birgu in my view, which is why it's crowded nearly all the time.
D'Orsini restaurant in Birgu is good for very cheap food with table service, don't expect anything amazing though.
D-Centre is a restaurant that also rents out rooms, we rented from them and tried the restaurant. Sadly I wasn't too impressed with the food here.
Avoid any of the restaurants on Birgu's waterfront, they are price-gouging tourist traps.
Taste of Vietnam -- As the name suggests, this is a Vietnamese restaurant in Birgu. It's rather mid-tier food-wise but is decent given that it's the only Asian restaurant in the area. Great service but avoid the beer (Bia Saigon) which is overpriced. I had a beef pho-style dish (Bún bò Huế) and it was expensive but justified the price.
Cisk is beer with such a thin body, it tastes like a shandy already. I found the Cisk Chill to be quite acceptable on a hot day; you treat it like a soft drink and not like a beer. Hopleaf is a much better beer which is less widely available.
Sesame Dim Sum, Valetta -- Very overpriced but the vegan noodles were OK. The dim sum is good and I'd recommend it, although they don't have har gow. The portion sizes are quite good.
DATE art cafe, Cospicua -- Great location, a bit pricy. One of the few places with an explicit vegan option. Vegan platter seemed delicious (but not that substantial). I had tuna foccaccia, which was amazing. Great flavours all round and the location makes you feel cool and cosmopolitan.
"Black Eagle" anisette liqueur is available in the airport duty-free lounge on the way back, this is a full-strength liqueur that is not amazing tasting but is remarkably cheap -- it was about €9 for a 70cl bottle. You can drink it like French pastis or ouzo by diluting it.
One great thing about the food in Malta is that everything gets seasoned properly, unlike in the UK where flavourless & bland is the rule.
Recently I have been reading Muriel Gardiner's The Wolf Man and Sigmund Freud. This book tells the story of Sergei Pankejeff in his own words. The "Wolf Man" is one of Freud's most famous case studies. Any student of psychoanalysis knows that there are remarkably few documented case studies in Freud's history. The Wolf Man is one of the most famous and perhaps the most important case study, in that it is among the richest, revealing a lot of the theoretical apparatus that psychoanalysis would depend on. I could not pass up the chance to read the Wolf Man in his own words. Knowing Freud's talent as a weaver and storyteller, would the story reveal fabrications and distortions in Freud's treatment (On the History of an Infantile Neurosis)?
Pankejeff's memoir largely corroborate the raw material of Freud's analysis. The real fascination, however, lies in the story of his tumultuous life, punctuated and buffetted by the geopolitical shocks of the early 20th century which still largely define today's worldview. This is a man born into immense privilege, who searched around the great cities of Europe in a desperate attempt to cure his neurosis. What was his illness? A tendency to melancholia? The actual content of his neurosis is strikingly absent in this memoir. It forms a type of absent centre that the whole document orbits around. In its name he would try every cure known to the fledgling science of psychology, and find them wanting, before encountering psychoanalysis.
The Wolf Man's adult life was immediately defined by tragedy. His sister and confidante, Anna, committed suicide at the age of 22, by consuming poison. The memoir positions her as being unable to come to terms with her feminine role. In her young womanhood, she eschewed all suitors and immersed herself in intellectualism. (This intellectualism calls to mind the type of sublimated pleasure that Freud remarks upon in the later chapters of Beyond the Pleasure Principle.) Later she became uncomfortable with her physical appearance and concerned that she would be unable to marry. A kind of role reversal plays out here: as a child, Sergei envies Anna her dolls, while Anna attempts to try on a masculine role, but is rebuffed by her peers. Her suicide comes out of a kind of suppressed despair, perhaps, and she repents her act on her deathbed, but cannot be saved.
Likewise Pankejeff's father is diagnosed adoitly as a manic depressive. He lives his public life his 'manic' phase, and simply withdraws to German sanatoria for months at a time when the 'depressive' phase comes. Pankejeff however does not find the same relief from his torments in these sanatoria. The relationship between father and son is uncomfortable, calling to mind Adler's notion of 'masculine protest'. His father dies at 49, at the peak of health. His death is not named as a suicide in this volume, but it's drily remarked that he probably took an overdose of his sleeping medicine. An Infantile Neurosis contains material on Pankejeff's "homosexual posture" and how it relates to his father. His father is never grieved for explicitly, rather, Pankejeff transfers his grief onto others and channels it into landscape painting.
Pankejeff eventually embarks on a love affair with Therese, a nurse in a German sanatorium: a "servant", falling into his familiar pattern of attraction which Freud remarks upon. Therese has a "Southern European aspect" which later turns out to be a complete phantasm. Their relationship is stormy, Therese being an archetype of the maddening woman who "drives some men to throw themselves at her feet, and others off the parapets of bridges" (de Maupassant -- who is himself referenced in this volume, along with Lermontov, whose figure looms over it.) Pankejeff eventually makes the "breakthrough to the woman", his greatest victory, in Freud's eyes; their courtship tale defies all modern logics.
After his analysis, seemingly cured, Pankejeff enjoys a life of petty-bourgeois domesticity with Therese for 20 years in the interwar period, working as a functionary at an insurance firm. Until one day he returns home and finds that Therese has gassed herself to death. Pankejeff is 52. Therese has been a troubled woman since their earliest encounter. Her suicide looks premeditated, "a decision made with forethought and reflection", the consequence of unbearable pain: "I am so sick in body and soul". The 20th century marches woefully on: Therese's act coincides with the Nazi occupation of Vienna and a wave of suicides among the Jewish population, though Therese was not herself Jewish. The memoir ends here.
As she was the only stable structure in my changeable life, how could I, now suddenly deprived of her, live on?
Freud's analysis works as a feat of psychic reverse engineering. It proceeds from a hypothesis about the dream's cause (the primal scene), and attempts to illustrate the process by which the manifest content is formed. In the case of the wolf dream, the process goes: Primal scene -> grandfather's story of the wolves -> the Seven Goats fairy tale.
What follows is a discussion of the reality of the primal scene. Freud invokes a set of imaginary critics who counterpose that the memories associated with the primal scene are in fact fabrications or phantasies. Freud claims that these critics retain the name of psychoanalysis while rejecting its profoundest and most disruptive insights. To Freud these critics (Jung and Adler) keep psychoanalysis "in name only", while Freud's theory itself already encompasses the aspects these critics choose to focus on. Specifically Freud visualizes strictly Freudian psychoanalysis as a bidirectional theory of psychic causation. That is, influence flows forward from childhood, rather than flowing exclusively backward as Jung and Adler would have it. Though Freud does not discount a backward causation. It's unclear on the exact meaning of the term primal scene and whether it always indicates an observation of coitus as in the case of the Wolf Man, or whether it simply indicates a childhood experience with the aforementioned power to cause neurosis.
Note that the primal scene is the Urszene, using the German 'ur-' prefix.
Later we encounter some of the Wolf Man's letters. This text gives some insights into Pankeyeff's own attitude to his memoirs, among other things. He has some poignant remarks on aging.
You see my work int he office gives me absolutely no inner satisfaction, not even when I have a great deal to do and when my ability there is appreciated. I inherited this restless spirit from my father, in contrast to my mother, who is more inclined to a contemplative life.
Later he expands further on this
I thinkt that the problem of aging depends very much on the individual. My mother, for instance, that she was happier in old age than in her youth, although she had lost her entire fortune and lived, as an older woman, in poor surroundings and among strangers. Her relatives, to whom she was deeply attached, either remained in Russia or had died. All very unfortunate circumstances. But in her youth she had suffered rather a lot with my father, and with many upleasant events in her family, whereas in age she could live a quiet and contemplative life to which she had always been inclined. So she worked out for herself a philosophy that suited her nature, and she was much more satisfied than in her youth or middle age. After all, in youth one asks more of life than in old age, and must therefore experience many disappointments.
Aside from this he makes several cogent points about his own senescence:
- His libido begins to tail off, but at a very late age -- in his mid-seventies.
- His "aggressive drives" such as they are seem amplified.
- His conflicts remain unattenuated.
- He becomes paranoid about his age-related weaknesses.
- He finds his delights and recreations diminished.
- He finds that psychic symptoms visit themself upon him accompanied by simultaneous physical symptoms (hysterical?)
For many years I have thought that I, through the many hard blows of fate which I have suffered, would at least in age become somewhat more mellow and would acquire some sort of philosophic outlook upon life. I thought that in old age I could at least spend my last years at a distance from the emotional struggles of which I had had so many in my life. But it seems that these are illusions also. I am still far way from the capacity for a contemplative life. Various inner problems pile up before me, which are completely disconcerting.
Gardiner's post script, Diagnostic Impressions, reveals several facts. The contested nature of the account is emphasized even within this volume. Some aspects of Pankejeff's personality come in for criticism.
Just as when a child at camp or boarding school writes home about the bad food or the rain, about this mean boy or that stupid teacher, rather than about all the fun and interesting things to do or to learn, so the Wolf Man ... naturally tresses the negative far more than the positive.
Gardiner disputes some of Brunswick's analysis. Brunswick was later a pioneer of the psychoanalytic treatment of psychotic disorders. Brunswick diagnosed Pankeyeff with paranoia, delusions of grandeur, etc, based on his delusion about his nose. However Brunswick even admitted that the Wolf Man's case was atypically susceptible to analysis. Gardiner seems to moot that Brunswick may have been attempting to fit a square peg into a round hole, because none of Pankeyeff's later behaviour admitted of a psychotic diagnosis. [It should be remembered in mitigation that Brunswick also stressed the extent to which Pankeyeff's behaviour was discontinuous with that described in Freud's paper so she was not unaware of this.]
1998 exoticness...
Back in 2003, Amazon.com had a feature which was called “The Page You Made”. This page would automatically collect every item that you clicked on during a session on the site, and automatically add it to list which it would present to you. It's rather similar to the current feature, Your browsing history, except the latter doesn't seem to expire items. It would also show recommendations.
We want to make it easy for you to find what you're looking for at Amazon.com. The Page You Made and Your Recent History are meant to help you keep track of some of the items you've recently viewed and help you find related items that might be of interest. As you browse through the store, we will bring to your attention items similar to those you are looking at. Since your browsing habits change frequently, Your Recent History changes as well. Your sessions expire after a few days and are not stored on the Amazon.com site. This way we can offer you the most relevant purchase suggestions for your recent shopping sessions on the Page You Made. We also give you the ability to alter Your Recent History, by removing recently viewed products or clearing all items. To add pages to Your Recent History, just visit new items that interest you.
There is no punchline or upshot to this; just recording the existence of such a thing. 20 years later, traces of it on the internet are nearly entirely gone.
In the sales I purchased a large Western Digital external HDD. I don't really
trust hard disks anymore, but all other options are uneconomical or equally
untrustworthy, so it's all I have for now. At least it's guaranteed. Anyway I
face some troubles when backing up. I had to use gdisk to create the GPT
partition instead of parted, for reasons I can't really fathom, but I'll
probably stick with gdisk until further notice now.
After repartitioning the new drive the next task was to consolidate 2
generations worth of backup data onto it. I usually stick with rsync -aPv to
mirror file trees. I copied all the data from both generations into
subdirectories on the same disk. However, it also contains several complete
Linux filesystems with archived copies of /sys, /proc, /run, and other
data that I don't really care about.
rsync -aPv expands to rsync -rlptgoDPv. -D is not really wanted, though;
it's an abbreviation for --devices and --specials, which we don't want.
However, all other options we want. We want to be able to do all operations as
a regular user. Although some files are sensitive, the backups live in a
privileged space, so perhaps we don't care too much about security within the
space itself. In this case we can do chmod -R o+rX /tree. This uses X for
"special execute" which will make directories world-executable while not
affecting the status of the execute bit for files. It will also make everything
world-readable which obviously comes with heavy caveats.
We can add the -u or --update option to the rsync command, this will
overwrite identically named files in the tree with newer versions from the
source. Obviously this does have the potential to lose data, but it may be a
reasonable trade-off to make the filesystem more manageable; YMMV. As we're not
using --delete the target tree will essentially be an accretion of files;
files that get moved will potentially create duplicates. We consider this an OK
trade off relative to the dangers of using --delete.
You can use the --log-file=foo.log option to store all progress to a log file
which you can examine afterward. You'll want to vet the transfer reasonably
carefully to make sure everything completed and you're not deleting potentially
valuable things.
Just finished watching Borgen: Power and Glory and wanted to give a few thoughts on it.
Initially the most surprising thing about Borgen: Power and Glory is how similar it is to the 2010s series. Who's still here? The ubiquitous Søren Malling is back as a slightly rounder Torben Friis, whose story arc was the standout of series 3. Of course Nyborg is back, and looking much the same; Katrine Fønsmark returns with a more harried visage. A new actor plays Magnus, well-cast; Laura shows up as well, sadly only for a couple of brief cameos. Søren Ravn, also one of the highlights of series 3, is back as well. The themes tread familiar ground of power and negotiation in the political and personal sphere.
Of course, the show had to be updated for the 2020s. One notable absence is the open sexism in the newsroom. In the original series, TV1 newsroom cads would frequently assess female anchors candidly on their looks, unopposed by Friis. Not so here: Katrine Fonsmark now heads up TV1. One may find this a pristinely 'woke' appointment on the surface, but the wrinkle lies in her constant conflicts with her staff. Fonsmark, who was an intransigent rebel under Torben Friis's direction becomes, in effect, "the establishment", makes numerous concessions to pragmatism, and is in turn forced to question herself by young staffers. Mie's request for maternity leave echoes Katrine's similar injunction to Friis in Borgen, when she asks for permission to date Kasper. Fonsmark mishandles this, and the situation explodes in her face through social media. The tweets and messages sent by the characters appear on the screen to advance the plot, unlike the original series where these happened mainly by phone. This is only partially successful: it contributes to a pacing problem with the show.
Fonsmark feuds with the West Asian-looking star anchor, Narciza Aydin, who continually breaks agreements with interviewees in order to focus on pressing human rights issues. Fonsmark falls into the role that Friis formerly had with respect to herself, acting as a constraining force on a maverick reporter. However Narciza is presented rather unsympathetically (and don't you think her name is rather on-the-nose?) Fonsmark, on the other hand, seems to handle the situation rather badly, bulldozing through the office and nakedly asserting her authority. One wonders if the writers are pointing out that this, too, has changed, that these tactics no longer works in a modern office environment; whether, put bluntly, these entitled millenials are not respecting the chain-o'-command. Regardless, the viewer feels sorry for Fonsmark, for whom this conflict with Narciza precipitates a small-scale mental breakdown.
The figure of Asger Holm Kierkegaard is an interesting one. He is something of a nebbish, sharply dressed but lacking street-smarts, and somewhat lacking in a certain masculine strength -- witness his fear of flying and perpetual motion sickness. One wonders if he's intended to replace Kasper Juul. Juul was an archetype of toxic masculinity: promiscuous, troubled, emotionally inarticulate, and supremely square-jawed. Asger is few of these things, though arguably he is promiscuous, entering into an affair with the Greenlandic ambassador's wife. I enjoyed this plotline for its workaday nature: the affair was not glamourized, but rather presented as something ignoble, slightly sordid but still rather touching. The plotline with Tanja I largely did not follow, although Malik was a good character; shame that he had to die to progress the storyline.
Nyborg's storyline is good, though the international politics are sometimes inscrutable. The intense coalition politics of Borgen seems to be largely absent here, which makes sense plot-wise given Nyborg's status as foreign minister rather than PM, but I slightly rued its absence nonetheless. Nyborg's moments with Magnus are great fanservice for viewers of the original series. Their arguments and battles seem wholly believable. Nyborg's descent into cynical political manouevring, aided and abetted by Laugesen, also seems realistic, troubling as it is. Laugesen is well used here as the Dark Lord of spin. Magnus always had a troubled relationship with his mother, so the foreshadowing of the original series plays well here.
The show has been reworked to have an overarching plot for the whole series, rather than a "monster of the week" story structure, as the original series had. This mode is certainly de rigeur for a modern prestige TV series. However the show suffers from questionable pacing. The first 30 minutes of every hour-long episode struggles to keep the viewer's attention as it sets up the drama of the final half. There are facts, figures, and dialogue flying around as fast as the eye can see; blink and you could miss a key plot point. This was the biggest issue with the show to me. It would probably benefit from a second watch.
Also known, frustratingly, as "Spot It".
These last two links are problems that are not identical to the Dobble-generation problem, but are related to it.
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