Tales from the jar side: From Google to Slidev, the Psychologically Disturbed Song Cycle, more Junie vs Claude Code, and the usual toots and skeets
What's the best way to save your Dad Jokes? In a Dad-abase (rimshot)
Welcome, fellow jarheads, to Tales from the jar side, the Kousen IT newsletter, for the week of June 8 - 15, 2025. This week I taught a training course on Integrating AI into Java on the O’Reilly Learning Platform.
Google Slides to PowerPoint to Slidev
For years, my slides have been the weakest part of my training materials. They’re okay, I guess, but not great, certainly when compared to those generated by other speakers with my experience. At least I don’t create what my friend Neal Ford refers to as Bullet-Riddles Corpses, one of the anti-patterns he cites in his book Presentation Patterns, coauthored with Nate Schutta and Matthew McCullough.
Still, I decided I’d like to have an AI tool at least help me update my slides, and for that I need a format that LLMs can read and write. That led me to Slidev, which lets you write your slides in Markdown format and the convert them into presentations, pdfs, or whatever else you need.
My problem is that I have years of talks stored as Google Slides, and I had no idea how to convert them to the new format. In previous years I wouldn’t worry about it, but hey, now I’ve got Claude Code. I figured it could probably help.
As it happens, you can’t get there from here.
Google Slides is not easy to access programmatically. You can, however, save a slide presentation in another format, like PDF, PowerPoint, and various image types.
As it happens, a good Python library already exists for converting PPTX (PowerPoint) files into Slidev-flavored Markdown. Given all that, I worked with Claude Code so that after I exported my slides as PowerPoint, my script would convert them to Slidev slide shows. It’s not perfect, but it’s surprisingly good.
In case you’d like to try it out, the code is at this GitHub repository. Let me know what you think.
The Psychologically Disturbed Song List
My wife and I gave a concert a few years ago and during the preparation it occurred to me that there were many songs that represented various psychological issues really well. During a break between songs I put together several as a Psychologically Disturbed Song Cycle, mostly as a gag.
This week, however, we lost Brian Wilson, whose life personified psychological trauma combined with musical genius. As an unusual tribute, I thought it might be interesting to revisit that list again.
These are in no particular order, and of course, trigger warnings abound practically by definition.
And I Love You So: the depression / suicidal tendencies anthem. Written by Don McLean (who definitely had issues), but a big hit for Perry Como, of all people.
And I love you so
The people ask me how
How I’ve lived ‘til now
I tell them, I don’t know
Not a good sign.
(later … chorus)
Yes, I know how lonely life can be
The shadows follow me [see below]
And the night won’t set me free
But I won’t let the evening get me down
Now that you’re around me
Again red flags. What if you happen to not be around? Like, if you decided you were busy with your friends some evening, what happens then?
(I do like the Babylon 5 reference to the Shadows, however, decades before that series was even written.)
(later…)
The book of life is brief
And once a page is read
All of life is dead
That is my belief
Yup, time to move on. This is not going to end well, and you don’t want to be around when it goes bad.
God Only Knows: the borderline theme song, by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. Constantly alternates between “go away” and “come here”:
I may not always love you [go away]
But long as there are stars above you
You never need to doubt it
I’ll make you so sure about it [come here]
(next verse)
If you should ever leave me
Well, life would still go on, believe me [go away]
The world could show nothing to me
So what good would living do me? [come here, sort of]God only knows when I’ll get into therapy.
Issued as the B-side of Wouldn’t It Be Nice, which is a pretty huge contrast. Paul McCartney once called it his favorite song of all time. Pretty ironic, I’d say, given how much Paul’s career rests on upbeat, happy songs and ballads.
Creep, by Radiohead: Their debut single, in fact. Supposedly after legal action they had to give co-writing credits to the composers of The Air That I Breathe, but personally I don’t hear it.
At first, it seems like the singer has some self-awareness (“I’m a creep / I’m a loser / What the hell am I doing here? / I don’t belong here”), but I can’t tell if he’s actually surprised that she’s “run, run, running out that door.” Seems like a completely rational decision on her part.
On the Street Where You Live: the stalker anthem, sung by a minor character in My Fair Lady.
The second verse says it all:
People stop and stare
They don’t bother me
For there’s nowhere else on Earth
That I would rather be(As long as I keep far enough away
I avoid violating the restraining order)
Every Breath You Take, by the Police: Another stalker anthem, but at least this one is in a minor key. So successful it supposedly generates between a quarter and a third of Sting’s music publishing income.
I remember seeing an interview with Sting where he told a story about a woman who said they used this song at her wedding. All he could do was shake his head and say, “Good luck.”
Carmen, the entire opera: Stalker anthems have been around as long as there has been music. Honestly, I can’t even watch the opera Carmen, knowing that Don José is so awful. As a quick summary:
He becomes obsessed with Carmen, who clearly isn't interested
He abandons his duty, career, and social connections to pursue her
He becomes increasingly controlling and possessive
When she tries to leave, he escalates to threats
Finally, he kills her rather than accept her autonomy
(Dude, she’s just not that into you. Get over it.)
An entire world of yikes no matter how catchy the Habenera and the Toreador Song are. Probably best to avoid opera in this list, however, given how ugly some of those plots get.
Without You, from Badfinger, but a big hit for both Harry Nilsson and (much later) Mariah Carey: Badfinger’s story is filled with tragedy (their original manager stole all their money, and two of the band members eventually committed suicide). This should have supported them forever, even from covers, but nope.
The chorus goes right up to the edge between romantic and creepy:
I can’t live
If living is without you
I can’t live
I can’t give anymore
You get the idea. Even if that’s true, you don’t want to say it that way, at least not if you expect her to hang around afterwards. That’s way too much pressure to put on anybody.
(I Always Feel Like) Somebody’s Watching Me
Is it paranoia if they really are out to get you? The bizarre video for that song suggests they aren’t really. On the other hand, having Michael Jackson singing the chorus is more evidence in favor of being messed up, given that MJ’s issues had issues.
Norwegian Wood (maybe), I’m a Loser (probably), and Run For Your Life (definitely), all by John Lennon of the Beatles.
John Lennon had anger issues, but whether Norwegian Wood is troubling or not depends on whether you believe he burned down her house after she left (“So I lit a fire / Isn’t it good Norwegian wood?”). Personally, I don’t think so, but Paul claims otherwise.
I’m a Loser may just be relatively normal angst from a man in his early 20s, but it goes a little too far. On the other hand, Run For Your Life is disturbing on lots of levels.
You better run for your life if you can, little girl
Hide your head in the sand, little girl
If I catch you with another man, that’s the end
Little girl
Whoa. Charles Manson should have gone with that one rather than Helter Skelter.
I think that’s enough. If you have any favorites that belong in this list, let me know.
Let’s Play Two
Ernie Banks, the legendary Cubs Hall of Famer, used to say of double-headers that baseball was so much fun, “let’s play two.” A couple weeks ago, I did a live stream with Anton Arhipov of JetBrains comparing the AI agents Claude Code and JetBrains Junie.
The live stream went well, but I wasn’t entirely happy with it. I felt I dominated too much of the conversation, and spent most of the time on Claude Code and not enough on Junie. I therefore asked him if he’d be willing to try again.
This Monday, we’re going to do it again in a second live stream, entitled Agent Wars II: The Wrath of Junie. This time we’re going to look at an MCP application and each create a fork from the repository, let the agents try to perform the same actions on it, and compare the results.
It’s going to be fun. If you happen to be around Monday afternoon, please drop by and say hi.
Toots and Skeets
Parade vs No Kings
From what I gathered, the parade was a sad, poorly attended affair. The No Kings protests, however, attracted millions of people all over the country.
As a wise woman said,
Let’s move on.
Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money
Spaceballs was typical of the later Mel Brooks movies, in that it only hit on about one out of three jokes, but the ones it hit on were really funny. As in:
(while Dark Helmet is playing with his dolls / action figures) Oh, oh, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! Leave me alone! Yet, I find your helmet strangely attractive.
Dark Helmet: What’s the matter, Colonel Sandurz? Chicken?
Yogurt: Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs-the T-shirt, Spaceballs-the Coloring Book, Spaceballs-the Lunch box, Spaceballs-the Breakfast Cereal, Spaceballs-the Flame Thrower. The kids love that one.
Barf: I’m a mawg, half man, half dog. I’m my own best friend.
Will the newly announced sequel be any good? Who knows? That post is a good sign (“After 40 years, we asked, ‘what do the fans want?’ But instead, we’re making this movie.”)
Apparently, Bill Pullman’s real son, Lewis, will play Lone Star’s son Starburst. That sounds promising.
With the sequel Spinal Tap II: The End Continues coming out this Fall, it’s shaping up to be a wild year for movies.
Father’s Day
A daemon thread runs in the background and exits when the main thread does, assuming no other threads are running. I don’t think I like the implications, so let’s go with demon spawn instead.
Inspired
What a great idea. I wish I’d thought of it.
Keeping with that idea
Sigh. Dad jokes everywhere this week, presumably in honor of Father’s Day.
Paranoia
Clever, and works with the Psychological Song List above.
Irony
That’s a good point.
And finally:
We’re waiting
Have a great week, everybody. :)
Last week:
Integrating AI into Java, on the O’Reilly Learning Platform.
This week:
Junie vs Claude Code, round 2