Andy's Blog

BART goes up in smoke

After work today, I headed into San Francisco for dinner. Blasting up the 101, I had a decision to make as I approached Milbrae: to park my car and take BART into the city, or drive all the way and deal with the traffic & parking. Today, I flipped the coin in my mind, and chose BART.

Things were mostly okay on the way into the city -- the train left from Milbrae a little later than the published time, but this isn't Japan, so I can't really complain.

On the way home, I had some time to loiter around the 16th Street Mission bart station, and I took this photo of a "No Smoking" sign:

As it turned out, this proved to be prophetic. I was 2nd to last car of a 9 car train bound for Milbrae. I had spent most of the ride diddling with my cell phone, not really paying attention to the train itself. But after we pulled out of the Colma station, bound for the South San Francisco station, I started to smell something odd. Something burning -- it smelled electrical at first, but as the odor grew stronger, it lost that electrical tint. And the train was struggling a bit. We stopped and started several times, before finally pulling into the South San Francisco station.

As we arrived, the acrid smell in the air certainly wasn't decreasing. I was prepared to put up with it, when a fellow passenger pointed out that there was smoke being pumped into the car through the ventilation system.

That was it for me, and I got out of my seat and made for the exit. When I poked my head out of the train, I saw that there was a lot of smoke, coming up from the bottom of the train. I saw someone running from the last car up to the front, to notify the conductor. So, I braced myself against the door, so that it couldn't close (allowing the train to depart), before the conductor was made aware of the situation.

During this time, the smoke continued to pour out from under the last three cars or so. It became clear to me that this train wasn't going anywhere, so I fully exited and made my way up to the front. As I looked back, I could see that the entire station (which is under ground) was filling up with smoke. The conductor told everyone to exit from the train, and I started trying to put some distance in between myself and the smoke.

After a short delay, an announcement was made over the PA telling everyone to exit the station. And so, my confidence in BART lost for the evening coupled with a strong desire to get home, I paid over $20 for a taxi to take me to Milbrae, so that I could get home, safe and sound.

But upon reflection, what is really striking me about this whole little mis-adventure is how quickly everything happened, from the time that I first smelled a bad smell, until I was out of the station, was probably around five minutes. But what is really freaky is that after I was up in the fresh air, I could still feel the smoke in my lungs (and had a bit of a cough). It is amazing to me how quickly smoke inhalation can become a big problem. Next time this happens, I'll be sure to exit not only the train more quickly, but the entire station as well.

-Andy.

Technorati Tags: BART

Switching from Comcast to iTunes?

So, it looks like Apple is finally introducing some new ways to purchase video from the iTunes Video Store: the Multi-Pass and the Season Pass. In theory, if all of my favorite shows were offered on iTunes, I could simply subscribe to the appropriate multi-pass or season pass, and download all of my shows to my Mac using my Internet connection. Then, there would be no need for Comcast, my current cable provider. In theory, this should cost me less money, because instead of paying for cable TV and Internet, I can just buy Internet. But, let's try and figure it out.

My cable bill for regular, non-digital cable is right around $50 a month. For that $50, my MythTV machine is recording 2 current-events style shows (the NBC Nightly News and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart), 4 hour-long dramas, and 5 half-hour sitcoms.

Now, let's do some math. I am paying $600 per year for cable TV, and out of that I am watching 11 shows. So, the cost-per-show per-year comes out to $54. In order for iTunes to be compelling, it needs to beat that number. Apple hasn't announced the pricing for a season pass yet, but we can assume that it will be less than $48 ($2 per episode times 24 episodes). So, things are starting to look pretty good.

Unfortunately, things like the Daily Show are going to be more expensive, because you get a lot more than 24 episodes of that in a year. And in fact, the multi-pass for the Daily Show is $10 per month.

So, my math has to get a little bit more complicated:

9 season-pass shows * $48/season = $432
2 multi-pass shows * $120/year = $240
Total for a year's worth of TV on iTunes = $672

Only $72 more than Comcast. That's not too bad, when you consider that:

• There are no commercials in the video content served through iTunes (for now).
• The shows are all portable -- I can watch them on my PowerBook, or a video iPod.
• I would actually own the shows -- if I had enough local storage, I could save them all, and go back in time and watch whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.
• Things like the NBC Nightly News are already available on the Internet for free, so it might be free on iTunes too.
• A season pass will hopefully cost less than buying each episode individually, which makes the above number look better.
• Not all shows have 24 episodes in a season (i.e. "Battlestar Galactica"), further making the above number look better.

Of course, the negatives are that the quality of the video isn't as good (the resolution is about a quarter the size of regular TV resolution) and the content won't be available until a day after it originally airs on broadcast TV. But I very rarely watch things in realtime anyway, so I don't think that will be too big of a deal for me.

So, I'm going to be watching the pricing for Apple's Season Pass content with interest. If it is really cheap, then I could potentially start saving some real money versus buying cable TV.

-Andy.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Macintosh, DVR, iTunes, Comcast, Video On Demand

"Very Emo" music reviews

One of the (few) upsides to all of the Mario Kart that Kevin and I have been playing is that I have been listening to a lot of music. The in game soundtrack is completely forgetable, and isn't necessary in order to play the game. So, I always configure my receiver to take the video from the GameCube, and the audio from my CD player. Hence, I have been listening to a lot of CDs. I bought some new ones recently, which I'm going to go over now:

• Paramore - "All We Know Is Falling": This band is freakin' great. I know that they are terribly emo. And terribly young. And that I shouldn't like anything by terribly young emo kids making pop records. But damn if I cannot get this record out of my head! I have been listening to this album nearly non-stop since it hit my CD player, as many as 3 times a day. In all of our time spent in front of Mario Kart, this CD has risen to the top of the heap. And even my "resident music critic" agrees. Musically, Paramore plays a much harder brand of rock (ala Fall Out Boy), but driven by strong, passionate, female vocals. Standout tracks include "All We Know", "Here We Go Again", and "My Heart". I very well could be burned out on this CD in a month, but for now, I am enjoying the ride. Highly recommended.

• The Hush Sound - "So Sudden": Another spin on the emo concept -- The Hush Sound has less of a rock edge than Paramore, but brings in more piano and alternating male/female vocals, to good, poppy effect. In fact, the music on "So Sudden" is pure, unadulterated pop. Check out "Weeping Willow", for example -- that song is buyoed by an almost jaunty piano hook, and propelled by your standard angst-ridden lyrics. However, poppiness and cookie-cutter lyrics aside, this band shows a lot of promise. They supposedly have a new album coming out this summer, so I will be quite interested to check it out. This is a solid record, and if you like Fall Out Boy, I definitely recommend checking this band out as well.

• Youth Group - "Skeleton Jar": I got this CD for Christmas from Sara. And while it didn't really take at first, Youth Group has been growing on me, slowly. I would classify this band as perveyors of soft, emo rock much in the style of Death Cab For Cutie. The first track on the album, "Shadowland", is one of the standouts. The lyrics read more like poetry, describing sensations, feelings, and scenes. Things that are conveyed more strongly, thanks to the music.

• Straylight Run - "Prepare To Be Wrong": I have blogged about this band before. Their new EP contains just 6 songs, of which the middle four are actually pretty good. Straylight Run is more music for the emo set - alternating male and female vocals, alternating between ballady piano songs and harder rock songs, their music is a little more adult than the other bands in this round-up. This EP, in particular, sees the band making more of a political statement. Against the war. Injustice. Government control. The standout tracks from the EP are "It Never Gets Easier" (about a disintegrating relationship) and "Hands In The Sky (Big Shot)" (a pessimistic outlook on government power). Taken as a whole, this is an interesting new direction for Straylight Run. I think they are working on a new album, which based upon the strength of this EP -- while imperfect -- is something that I'm going to have to check out.

• Neutral Milk Hotel - "In the Aeroplane over the Sea": This band is really hard to describe. Based upon my praise for The Decemberists, Chris recommended that I check out Neutral Milk Hotel. Well, I did, and I haven't regretted this purchase in the slightest. "In the Aeroplane over the Sea" is a tremendously good album. The music is kindof sparse, and the male vocals are never exactly in tune, and aside from some ramblings about Jesus, I have no idea what any of the songs are about. Yet somehow, it all works. I should warn you, that my "resident music critic" absolutely hates Neutral Milk Hotel. And he doesn't really like The Decemberists either (although I am softening him up on that band). So if you don't like The Decemberists, don't bother with Neutral Milk Hotel. Otherwise, if you're willing to spend sometime getting into something that defies description, I strongly recommend this album.
  

But I have also been going back into my "archive", and pulling out some older discs to listen to. I have spun Ministry (which Kevin and I mocked incessantly), Bad Religion, Massive Attack, Sleater-Kinney (for some reason, I have been listening to "The Hot Rock" a lot), and Rage Against the Machine, Coldplay ("X&Y" may suck, but "Parachutes" is a really good album).

But of course, in preparation for the new album, I have also been listening to lots and lots (and lots and lots and lots) of Tool. I can't wait until May.

-Andy.

Technorati Tags: Straylight Run, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Hush Sound, Paramore, Youth Group, Music

The intersection of Privacy, Commerce, and Advertising

I've been thinking a bit recently about privacy on the Internet. It seems that the new application model these days are applications that run in your browser, and are hosted on some 3rd party server. This model is all the rage these days, and for good reason. There is no software to install or upgrade, you can get at your data from anywhere, and when done properly, it makes collaboration a breeze.

However, nothing is perfect, and there is a problem with this model -- a loss of privacy. In the "bad old days", you could run Microsoft Word as many times as you want, write as many documents as you wanted with it, and nobody could know about what you were doing. Microsoft didn't get notified every time you booted Windows or started Word, so your privacy was ensured. In addition, there were a number of different channels through which you could have procured these pieces of software, which made it hard for the Government to track what you were buying.

With applications hosted on the Internet, however, none of the above is true. Every time you access an online application, the provider knows because you have to login with your pre-established identity. This is so that you can gain access to your, which is segregated from all of the other users of the site. So now, every time you author a document in Writely (for example), there is a log that shows when you logged in, and what you did.

In addition, in order to for you to be able to access your data from any computer, it must be stored on the server too. And currently, there isn't a good way (that I know of) to prevent the application provider from being able to read your data. Most application providers say in their terms of service that the data is "yours". But my data hosted on a corporate server and my data hosted on my own hard drive are two very different things.

In general, there doesn't seem to be any backlash from the user community against this lack of privacy. In fact, people seem to be willing to trade in their privacy in order to reap the benefits that I described above. And sometimes, I am one of those people. But this data appears to be quite valuable, both to the government (illegal wire taps anyone?) and also to advertisers.

And while currently, advertisers are pissed off at all of these Tivo users who are skipping their commercials, they are about to discover the power that advertising on the Internet brings them, in the form of highly-targed ads, with great feedback on ad response. As a result, when advertisers do really start going after the Internet, there is going to be tremendous pressure placed on all of these application providers to sell or otherwise use your private data to the benefit of advertisers.

And this is what I am struggling with currently.

I'm not so sure that I want all of these companies (and the government) knowing all of this detailed data about me. But what's worse, is that my moral compass is having a hard time figuring out what is right and wrong here. I am sure that there are lot of people, who are a whole lot smarter than me, already pondering these sorts of issues. So, the next step for me is to start doing some research, so that I can try to educate my moral compass in order to start making some more informed decisions.

Comments welcome.

-Andy.

My time has been eaten by the Mario Monster

I have been working on two projects lately, which are sucking massive amounts of my time into a giant sucking void. The first project I can't talk about publicly (yet), but unfortunately I can admit to the second -- I have been playing an inordinate amount of "Mario Kart: Double Dash!!" on my GameCube. What started as a minor addiction had a massive flare-up, when Kevin and I started to get seriously competitive on the race times in the high score table.

So, pretty much the entire month of February has been spent with the two of us playing this game, sometimes as much as 3 hours a day (which is a lot when you consider that we still have jobs). Many battles have been won and lost, but currently Kevin is winning the war (that jerk).

I have had other things to do this week, so it looks like I'm finally getting ready to concede defeat (and get my life back), but we'll see what happens this weekend. :)

-Andy.