dynamic thinking

miscellaneous

2005-12-08T22:38:00.000-05:00

Bringing Order to Chaos: My Music Collection

2005-11-12T12:12:00.000-05:00

An iPod is a wonderful thing.

And while only a few short years ago, I would have made an effort to say mp3 player rather than iPod in my previous statement, that changed once I became equiped with my 4 gig iPod Mini. My enjoyment is derived from far more than the mere hardware, which is simplistic and ideal in its own right, but rather the complementing iTunes suite. Arguably, it is the most important software to affect the digital music revolution. Well-- that's stiffing Protools, Reason, and Mixmeister-- my beloved dj program of choice --but I assume you get the point.

I've been posting about online music (my apple customer service experience, thoughts on online music services, demographic podcasting fact, thoughts on the mp3j movement, dabblings in podcasting, etc.) but have failed to discuss my obsession of smart playlists, one of the greatest features of iTunes. Its true benefit is the way it brings the beauty and brilliance of database management to the common Joe who probably doesn't give two shits about efficient data management and warehousing. Ah, well. Leave it to the total geeks --like apparently me. I digress.

Smart Playlists provide an easy filtering medium that improves your music organization through a simple process to sort, manage, and update your music library. I've stolen some ideas posted on smartplaylists.com, which no doubt has great ideas, but as a whole, the website is a pain to navigate.

Consider this versatility: an iPod performs great as a physical locker for all your music. You can sort by songtitle, artist, album, genre, playlist, etc. That's great, but let's say your music library dwarfs the capacity of your iPod. You can pull songs on and off the iPod manually, but what fun is that?
Imagine a web of interweaving smart playlists that produce an array of mix playlists that will dynamically change. Generally, I have seven types of playlists that are synched to my iPod Mini. Below is a description for each type, some examples, and a quick how-to.

With the exception of the Manual Selection Lists, all smart playlists are modified so that they only include songs that have not been played in the last __ days. I tend to flop between 2 weeks and 3 weeks. I find I vary based on the genre because of the varying number of available songs for each category. Additionally, I only include songs that are unrated, or have four or five stars.

I determine a song's rating based on the following scale:

One Star: Delete. I don't need it either because it's a duplicate or the audio is distorted. Every one or two weeks I query my one-star songs and remove them from my computer.

Two Stars: Annoying and I don't want to hear it unless I have to. For example, I tend to lump interludes, skits, intros, outros, and live rants into this category. I don't delete them because maybe one day I'll want to hear Wyclef's The Carnival with all of those courtroom skits ("That's pure beeeesheeeeeet!").

Three Stars: Decent song that wouldn't make me change the radio station if it came on. This category includes OK songs on a good album, anything by the Dixie Chicks that I'm archiving for Christina, and much, much more.

Four Stars: Good songs that just aren't great. If I hear it five times in a row while waiting for the check, I would still think it's a decent song.

Five Stars: Best of the Best. Play it over and over and I'll still be happy to hum it a month from now. Alternatively, the CD it's on would have occupied my car disc changer for a full year back when that's I how I would gauge my music.

Now to the different smart playlists:

Genre-Specific Heavy Rotation Lists:
My first step to music organization was maniacally updating every song's information (artist, title, album, genre, year, etc.). For genres, I developed a naming convention that connected allowed a tiered community for songs
of each genre down to as narrow of a subgenre as you desire. The most obsessed I got was Blues Classic Mississippi Delta. As you can see the secret is all in the order of your names. Moving from most general to most specific:

Genre (blues, e.g.) --> subgenre (classic, e.g.)--> Regional Affiliation (Mississippi Delta, e.g.)

Other Examples of such naming: alt rock 80s, alt rock classic, alt rock pop, alt rock, Jazz Swing, Jazz Modern, Jazz French, Jazz Electronic, Jazz Dixieland, Jazz Cuban, Jazz Brazilian, Electronic dnb, Electronic House, Electronic House French, Electronic House Disco, Electronic Lounge, Electronic Trance, Electronic, Hiphop East, Hiphop Dertysouf, Hiphop West, Hiphop, Funksoulbrother, Reggae Dancehall, Reggae; I assume you get the idea.

Even more obsessed, you can make a distinction between those songs that are more Jazz than Electronic than it is Electronic more than Jazz. Or vice versa. I see the contrast in Jazzanova versus a remixed Blue Note collection by a modern house dj.

Example: Alt Rock Rotation (Genre|contains|Alt Rock; MyRating|Range|4-5; Limit to 25 songs; and Selected by Most Recently Played).

Most Often Played Song Lists
These playlists provide a quick reference for my favorite songs. Ratings alone don't help, particularly when half of your rated songs are five stars. Therefore, I measure favorites by how often I've actually listened to the songs. Further, I've broken the lists up into manageable pieces. These I have in mind are: Top 40, Top 41-120, Top 121-200, and Top 201-500.

Examples: Top 40 (Playcount|>|0; MyRating|not|1,2,3; Genre|notcontain|podcast, audiobook, unclassifiable; Limit|40; Selectedby|Most Often Played). Top 41-120 (Playcount|>|0; MyRating|not|1,2,3; Playlist|not|Top 40; Limit|80; Selectedby|Most Often Played). The latter list pulls the most often played songs that meet the criteria but must ignore the top 40 songs, leaving 41-120.

Theme-Based Lists
These started by simply employing the comment field in selected songs Info by right-clicking on the track. For all the songs that meet the criteria you're using, select them all, right-click, Get Info, and enter a descriptive keyword that will be used for this them. Use the comment field in a smart playlist filter.

Example: El Caribe (Comment|contains|El Caribe; Last Played|notlast|14 days; MyRating|not|1,2,3; Limit|60 songs) . El Caribe is for Caribbean, Reggae, Latin Jazz, etc.

***NOTE be sure to keep in mind whether you want to use the contains or is modifier when filtering the comment field. I have several songs that are included numerous themes cataloged by this method. This allows me to pull the songs into different theme lists.***

Maintenance Lists
These work behind the scenes because sometime you can't include all filters simulatenously. At the top of the Edit Smart Playlist window, you can either match all or any of the included criteria. For instance, a first playlist, will include any tracks that are in X, Y, or Z playlists. Unselecting the limit of songs allows this playlist to serve as a dumping ground for any that meet your criteria. A higher tiered list will manipulate that set of songs. (see below)

Example: =BPMDanceParty (Playlist|is|BPM116-120, BPM116-120, BPM121-123, BPM122-14, BPM123-125, BPM126-130; Unselect Limit)

Tiered-Maintenance Lists
Tiers arrive once all of the filters can't be run at the same time. A second playlist will include only tracks from the first playlist that haven't been played in __ days, have MyRating=__, etc. You can't include these filters in the first because you chose the include as any, not all. The resulting list would include some songs that haven't been played in __ days, some that have MyRating=__days, and so on.

Example: *BPMDanceParty (Playlist|is|=BPMDanceParty; MyRating|not|1,2,3; LastPlayed|not|last14days; Limit|60songs; Select Random).

Manual Selection Lists
Old School playlists, of the drag and drop school. I keep a few around because sometimes I don't want to leave it up to my system to choose my music for me. Really, there is only one I employ: Songs to Hear. I drag and I know I may want to hear on my drive somewhere. The idea of this is to have somewhere for songs that I may want to hear repeatedly within the Last __ days (Aside from the Top 40 lists).

Fresh Mix List
This playlist was what started this obsession. Not amused by Apple's attempt at shuffle, I stole an idea from smartplaylists.com that first introduced me to using tiers. See this post on smartplaylists.com for an excellent description of what to do.

MonitoringTraffic by Cellphone Use

2005-11-12T07:32:00.000-05:00

Some states including Maryland and Virginia are beginning to monitor traffic by tracking cell phone signals and mapping them against road grids. Very practical approach to take, which is refreshing in light of revenue-hungry localities such as DC who see correlations between driving and cell phone use and issue an outright ban to reign in the revenues.

State officials say the systems will monitor large clusters of phones, not individual phones, and the benefits could be substantial. By providing a constantly updated picture of traffic flow across thousands of miles of highways, they argue, cellphone tracking can help transportation agencies spot congestion and divert drivers by issuing alerts by radio or on electronic road signs.

Next month, Maryland, with the help of the University of Baltimore, plans to begin tests for a cellular tracking system in the Baltimore area. Virginia also plans to test a system around the Norfolk beltway. Similar technology is already in use outside the United States, including in London, Antwerp, Belgium, and Tel Aviv.

"The potential is incredible," said Phil Tarnoff, director of the Center for Advanced Transportation Technology at the University of Maryland. He said the monitoring technology could drivers by issuing alerts by radio or on electronic road signs.

Host Your Own Podcast For Free! (I am)

2005-10-20T10:47:00.000-05:00

My Podcast

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For more than five years, I’ve used software to mix mp3s into continuous mixes that I would burn onto CDs that I played in my car and distributed to friends. My mixes got me through many, many hours of pizza deliveries during the ghetto college years of my life. For awhile, I was averaging a mix every week. But admittedly, that was during college when free time was easily managed. Having joined the workforce, time is not so cheap. As a result, my mixes have become less frequent, maybe every three or four weeks.

Stepping back, I can now count more than 100 mixes that are scattered across my desktop and laptop at home, not including those I’ve archived on CD. All in all, I probably have accumulated 150 mixes.

For 2005, my personal New Year’s resolution was to eliminate my dependency on CDs as a media format. They’re wasteful, easily lost, a pain to organize, easily scratched, and lacking in storage capacity. Analog is so last century. Upon my full-on love affair with iTunes + my iPod mini (just say NO! to the Nano), I have realized it makes the most sense to format mixes into podcasts. The mystery was how to host those podcasts for free.

Enter: podomatic. You can have up to 250mb in mp3s for the public to hear and download all for free! I’m in love.

Screw the iPod Nano

2005-09-27T11:05:00.000-05:00

I'm with this guy 110%. Sure, the flash memory is cool. But at what cost? The smaller nano is more fragile, has a shorter battery, fewer options/abilities, and none of the user suggestions apple has compiled.

I've been assuming apple was smart and was merely delaying the flash mini for a later date, but only recently realized that was me thinking they had a better business model. Stupid, stupid, stupid company! Rather, they kill the mini as it's fastest selling iPod, and instead opt to redirect consumer demands they way they have unsuccesfully done in the past.

The most requested features I heard among the Mac web and the AppleXnet audience concerning the iPod mini included higher storage capacities, a color screen, a removable battery, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, and more battery life. No one was suggesting they wanted a flash-based player over a hard drive one, and no one was complaining about the iPod mini being too wide or too heavy.

In comparison to the iPod mini, the iPod nano made the battery even harder to get at, lowered its battery life, removed the "remote connector," ditched FireWire support, weakened the device making it much more fragile, and features a scrollwheel inconsistent with that rest of the iPod lineup. I've spent the past several weeks scratching my head trying to figure out why Apple did all this, and after pondering long and hard I still can't think of a reasonable answer. The iPod nano is beyond reason from a user standpoint. Apple seems to be riding purely on hype, cool, and the "iPod" brand, because the iPod nano does not offer a single user-requested feature, in fact Apple removed features and lowered capacities.

Would a black iPod mini with an 8GB or 10GB 1-inch hard drive, 20+ hours of battery life, 3rd party device capability, a user-removable battery (similar to what's found on every mobile phone ever made), and a color screen really have been too much to ask for?

My prediction: a smart company takes advantage of this foolishness, copies the mini and improves it in all the ways described above, and unseats apple as the mp3 player king. Once again, Apple proves it may know how to design and present a pretty toy to the public, but it sure as hell doesn't know what to do beyond that.

Great Customer Service Supporting a Great Product

2005-09-18T21:07:00.000-05:00

Working in the consulting field of Customer Relationship Management, I can't help but notice when a company does something better than I expect, and applaude their service. Recently, my beloved iPod mini has been acting up and three days ago, the screen just stopped working. I was very concerned having had plenty of fancy electronic toys crap out on me in the past. In fact, my past experiences braced me for the worst. To Apple's credit, the worst as I expected never happened.

This morning I logged onto the website for my local apple store at Tysons Corner and placed myself in their intuitive queue for support from their supposed genius bar. It just seemed to easy. My appointment would be for 3:05. I drove over to the store, and walked in the store right at 2:45. This gave me enough time to wander the aisles of their foreign hardware and fiddle with the new iPod Nano.

Nice design, and I love the flash memory, but I wouldn't be able to justify the extra expense for a 2 gig mp3 player. When it's time to upgrade Christina's lifestyle, I am still leaning towards a twin iPod mini for her, however I hope for the new flash drive, which will go for the same price as the Nano.

Just as I was fiddling with the JBL subwoofer and tweeters that resemble a school of jellyfish, I heard a genius call my name: Jameson? Jameson Penn? I checked the clock to my left: 2:55 -- 10 minutes before my assigned appointment time. I was quite impressed with their ability to get ahead of schedule. Well done.

I sidle up to the Genius Bar and take out my injured iPod mini. My personal genius looks too hip for his own good, with his mod-style hair, black pants and black shirt, and wide-ruled rhinestone belt. How very Apple. He reads off my summary I entered on the website and I explain I have tried the soft and hard resets, full battery charge, and still no luck. He asks if my iPod software has been updated. I say the most recent version I had was from February of this year, which leads him to grin as though he has quickly solved my problem. His optimism leads to my smile, as I say, that easy?

He plugs in my iPod, updates the software and... nothing. He sighs. Never good when the genius sighs. He quickly punches the keys on his keyboard, turns to me and says: "I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that your iPod is faulty. I see no reason for the failure. I mean, it doesn't look as though it has been dropped (it hadn't). That leads me to the good news. You'll be getting a new iPod. Let me go check our stock."

He jets off, leaving me stunned. In a matter of five minutes, they have admitted that the product may be faulty, resolved the issue, and are about to set me off on my way. At this point, the only thing for me to do is sign a form acknowledging the faulty product, and head on home. Not bad.

Don't get me wrong: I will never be one of the switch stories. But as an avid free marketeer and active consumer, I look to highlight great experiences I have with businesses. There's no way that I will ever join the odd cult of Apple but I will certainly take advantage of their innovatively intuitive products and, now, their seamless customer service. Well done, Apple. Well done.

Why Are Music Services So Stupid?

2005-09-06T22:06:00.000-05:00

The Long Tail is hitting on something very near and dear to my heart: music. The particular question he is asking is:

Why are the current generation of music services so dumb?

Recommendations, playlists and even detailed genre-level organization (which Rhapsody does best) are great, but they're not enough. I want to reorder the world of music my own way, and my way is different from the next guy's way. In the movie world this is easy, because we've got IMDB, which demonstrates what extensive cross-linking of every pertinent fact, from each cast and crew member to all the companies involved, can offer. So why don't we have the same for music?

I completely agree. I've been dabbling with a very basic user-created fields within itunes, which compliment the smart playlists I have setup. In a very limited way, I have links between songs, albums, artists, using groupings and the comments field (as keywords). These aid the ease of use for my complex network of smart playlists, but oh, the places we could go!

The Long Tail mentions Discogs and Upto11, which I have not played with but will definitely check out.

(One of these days I'll go into detail about how I have exploited smart playlists from within itunes, as influenced by smartplaylists.com. But that is a story for another day.)

Living in Your ATM

2005-08-28T17:15:00.000-05:00

Common sense dictates that if something seems too good to be true, than it probably is. As home equity increases, more and more people are taking this to mean that they've struck it rich.

Suddenly, a no-interest, no money down "investment" in a fabulously over-priced condo, townhome, or single-family home is perceived as a golden opportunity for the homeowner. Refinancing that mortage will further draw down equity (if there even is any), but the homeowner walks away richer, at least in the short-term. While this may seem like something you've seen on a late-night "get-rich-quick" pyramid scheme infomercial, that's probably because it has been. In reality, money has not been created for the homeowner, but rather squeezed from their future.

On a macroeconomic scale, think of the consequences of inflation, where the government devalues the dollars held by consumers. In the short-term, everyone holding those dollars feels richer because of the sudden inflow; however in the long-term, inflation leads to the decline in the dollar's stored economic value. The same can be said for all of this "easy money" that is flooding the pockets of homeowners.

It is my opinion that low interest rates and the (artificially) sustained high demand for consumer goods is masking the drastic effects of our general homeowner binge. The Fed will typically raise interest rates to slow growth that may be leading to economic overdrive.

Further compounding the complexity of the situation we currently find ourselves is the fact that people feel richer, unemployment continues at an all-time low rate, and interest rates are still far below historical levels. I can't help but be afraid we are on our way to experiencing our own 10 years+ recession that Japan only recently emerged from.

Indeed, a cautious, if not scary indication of what may come if we don't reign in our consumption and giddy allergies to true equity.

The Graying Entrepreneurial Movement

2005-08-28T16:52:00.000-05:00

Unpublished government data show that the number of Americans 55 and older categorized as self-employed in non-agricultural industries has increased 22 percent from 2,136,000 in May, 2000 to 2,598,000 as of May, 2005. These senior entrepreneurs now represent nearly 27 percent of all self-employed workers, which is second only to 45- to 54-year-olds who make up more than 27 percent of the self-employed.
[...]
While self-employment was expanding among those 55 and up, it was falling for almost every other age group. The biggest group of self-employed workers in 2000 was the 35- to 44-year-old cohort, which numbered 2,703,000. Their numbers have fallen 10 percent to 2,422,000. Self-employment has also dropped, by about two percent, among 25- to 34-year-olds.

Americans are retiring earlier than ever before and are now taking up second or third careers in their later years. This is an interesting development, given that the entrepreneurial spirit is typically identified in youthful and risky investments.

Web Sudoku

2005-08-28T16:44:00.000-05:00

Web Sudoku is simple to understand but difficult to figure out.

The puzzle is most frequently a 9×9 grid made up of 3×3 subgrids (called "regions"). Some cells already contain numbers, known as "givens". The goal is to fill in the empty cells, one number in each, so that each column, row, and region contains the numbers 1–9 exactly once. Each number in the solution therefore occurs only once in each of three "directions", hence the "single numbers" implied by the puzzle's name.

Valuing Conceptual Learning Over Short-Term Application

2005-08-28T16:28:00.000-05:00

Interesting:

Edward D. Lazowska, a professor at the University of Washington, points to students like Mr. Michelson as computer science success stories. The real value of the discipline, Mr. Lazowska said, is less in acquiring a skill with technology tools - the usual definition of computer literacy - than in teaching students to manage complexity; to navigate and assess information; to master modeling and abstraction; and to think analytically in terms of algorithms, or step-by-step procedures.

Even within the dynamic field of computer science, merely knowing the tools and competently applying them is not enough. Over time, necessary tools and demands will change, leaving an incumbent employee or student offering little or no added value to the company when the goal posts (or game itself) change. As a result, the employer or instructor is wise to encourage an overall conceptual understanding rather than short-term application.

A competent worker can adjust as needed, apply the necessary tools from one program or system to the next generation.

Fact of the Day: Podcasting

2005-08-21T01:20:00.000-05:00

So you think that it's the youth that is driving the podcasting revolution. You'd be wrong.

A survey of over 8,000 American consumers by pollsters CLX has revealed that podcasting is most popular with those over 45, with 21 per cent of those questioned listening to podcasts. This compares to just 13 per cent of 15 to 24-year olds.

Order From Chaos Via RSS

2005-08-21T01:18:00.000-05:00

RSS comes to the corporation.

The Play Ethic

2005-08-21T00:54:00.000-05:00

I really want to read this book, The Play Ethic: Manifesto for a Different Way of Living, when it becomes available in the US. There is no originality in declaring a certain unique trait in Generation Y's development in a world of play. By no means should play be interpreted in a negative light. Following the rhetoric of Steven Johnson (Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today's Pop Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter), play is imagination which is creativity which is desperately needed in corporate America, IMHO.

IBM is one of a few big names who have openly embraced blogging by their employees. Such play is not the typical websurfing that has been despised by employers ever since the addition of the internet to the workplace. Whether we are speaking from the perspective of the lurker or the blogger, this is an interactive and stimulating activity that provokes thought that certainly has externality effects for the employer.

This is not to say that there are not abusers out there who blog and browse at the expense of their employer's hard earned dollar. However, I'm confident that there were plenty of employees wasting time far before the advent of the push-button publishing revolution.

But I digress: kudos to the company that discovers how to harness the creativity of its employees from encouraging play in and out of the workplace. May the games begin!

Meetings Matter

2005-08-21T00:32:00.000-05:00

While the amount of time spent in meetings is baffling (according to mcnellisco.com, executives spend 23 hours per week in meetings), consider that approximately 10 hours is spent preparing for every one of those hours. It would seem that improving the productivity of meetings should be top priority.

From Jerry McNellis:

Even worse than the statistics on meetings is the data about projects. There are many studies about the dismal rate of success for projects. One that I use a lot comes from the Standish Group which tracks information technology projects. There findings are that 23% of the projects were outright failures, 49% were over budget or didn’t meet the deliverables and 28% were deemed successes. 94% of all projects are restarted and average $2.22 spent for every dollar budgeted.

The results for all projects in general are probably pretty similar. And the question is "Why?" Why is the success rate for projects so low? And, why do meetings tend to be so ineffective? The real issue is an organization’s thinking system. Meetings and projects are simply a reflection of the ability of an organization to think collaboratively. We spend very little time improving this ability and almost no effort measuring it.

If the greatest benefit of meetings is the resulting collaborative thinking, then the objective should be to enhance the structure. This may seem counterintuitive, but many people have different communication styles. While extroverts may thrive under a loose discussion-based format, introverts will likely hunker down and not contribute to the collective.

Oftentimes, meetings are initiated to relay information that could better be dispensed in other ways, be it an email, memo, or in a report. However, many are caught up in having meetings for the sake of having meetings; admittedly, I experienced this more in the public sector than now. This leads to an important rule: always have a clear objective for a meeting before it is called. Non-purpose meetings waste time at best and sidetrack essential resources at worst.

Search Everywhere

2005-08-21T00:17:00.000-05:00

John Battelle has done great work exploring the concept of search and not only what it means to us today, but what search will do for us in the future. Moving towards a digital world, it becomes increasingly easy to be overwhelmed by excessive information (content), whether we are talking about the generic search engine, our music collection, television, or even our photograph collections.

More and more of our world is becoming digitized. Embracing such a trend allows for our lives to become far more orderly, given that there is a way to organize, catalog, and store information in methodical if not logical ways.

From Battelle's book, The Search:

What is TiVo, after all, but a search interface for television? ITunes? Search for music. That box of photographs under your bed and the pile of CDs teetering next to your stereo? Analog artifacts, awaiting their digital rebirth. How might you find that photo of you and your lover on the beach in Greece from fifteen years ago? Either you scan it in, or you lose it to the moldering embrace of analog obscurity. But your children will have no such problems; their photographs are already entirely digital and searchable—complete with metadata tagged right in (date, time, and soon, context).

But let’s not stop our digital fantasy train yet. It may sound farfetched, but in the future, your luggage will be searchable. Within two decades, nearly everything of value to someone will be tagged with tiny computing devices, devices capable of saying, upon radiowave-based query, “I’m here, right here, and here’s what I’ve been doing while you were away.” Instead of the ubiquitous bar codes airport officials now slap onto your luggage, there’ll simply be an RFID (radio frequency ID) chip. Lost your luggage? I don’t think so. Not when you can Google your Louis Vuitton in real time.

Think about that—Google your dog, your kid, your purse, your cell phone, your car. (Do you have an E-ZPass or OnStar yet? You will.) The list quickly stretches toward the infinite. Anywhere there might be a chip, there can and most likely will be search. But for perfect search to happen, search needs to be everywhere, attached to everything.

Future Tense

2005-08-21T00:10:00.000-05:00

Corante has a new blog, Future Tense, focusing on the intersection of new technology/trends and the modern work place. When I first started with IBM,
the first trend that struck me was the wide-spread use of hotelling. Future Tense does a great job of taking such examples and further exploring what the impact and effects will be on the office.

If you have a moment, check it out.

How To Cancel AOL

2005-07-28T15:43:00.000-05:00

Tips from the experts.

Call 800 827-6364. Say: “Cancellation.” You’ll need answer to your security question. Voice recognition not bad.

Then a live attendant. They ask why you’re cancelling the service. Just repeat: I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it. Don’t be any more specific, or they’ll go off into a tree.

Then they’ll ask, are you planning to go on highspeed? Do you want high-speed?

No. No. No. No thank you. No thank you. Just repeat. You’ll have to do this about five times. Amazing. Like talking to an automated attendant who can’t understand what you’re saying.

Don’t explain anything, or it just takes longer.

Justifying Irrational Exuberance

2005-07-28T14:35:00.000-05:00

As though consumers needed another excuse to go further in debt--! A morgtage lender in Florida, Texas and Arizona is offering a free Tivo to anyone who signs up for a line of home equity before November.

Chris Ward, Compass' senior VP of consumer and home equity lending, says Compass was looking for ways to tap into the latest tech toys. "Everybody is trying to find the new toaster, so to speak," he says. Focus groups indicated a high-premium gift could influence where consumers choose to do business so long as fees, rates and closing costs were competitive, Ward says.

Luddite of the Day: George Martin

2005-07-28T14:14:00.000-05:00

George Martin, producer of some great Beatles albums (Revolver, Sgt Peppers Longely Hearts Club Band, et al), is uncomfortable with idea of amateur music:

"With iPods, mini-recorders and all the new technology, people can lie in their bath and make a rock record."

Hmm.

In Ralph's Words

2005-07-18T14:44:00.000-05:00

Few people on this earth have more directly influenced my thinking and motivations than Christina's father, Ralph A. Rohweder. He was a delight to engage (or be engaged by, as the case may be), an inspiration to many, and a provoker of thought to even more. What better way to memorialize the second anniversary of his passing than by focusing on his ideas we have gained rather than the loss that we have experienced.

Indeed, Ralph's words and thoughts will live forever, so long as there exists unharnessed individualism and the desire to affect change among us. To preach of individuality and truth is one thing; to live it is another.

To Ralph and all whom embrace his genius:

Expectations and Fulfillment
The quality of life is determined in attitudes associated with two words -- optimism and cynicism. If, in your early life, you find it possible to achieve things that make you proud of yourself, you will become an enthusiastic leader of beneficial endeavors. If, on the other hand, your early experiences are discouraging, it is likely that you will come to see your world as hostile and embittering.

One of the most brilliant intellectual talents of my acquaintance is also a damned fool. His cynical motto for life is: "You’ve got to get them before they get you." Of course, he has built a private world of dangerous enemies. His cynicism is now realistic. He cannot trust anyone. He is under constant stress. His power to accomplish anything is severely limited.

It takes optimistic hope to make anyone want to do useful things. Optimists are the almost only achievers in life.

***

Economics: The Core Science of Civilization

Human behavior is not all that different from the behavior of plants and the animals we designate as inferior. Life at all levels involves choices of what to do next. A tree orients its leaves to collect maximum solar energy. It sends its roots where water and minerals are sufficient. Animals, with a wider perimeter for action, have more options for action.

Human beings, being able to be aware of possible later consequences, have more complicated choices to make. Nevertheless, most human action is selected in the light of immediate consequences.

People with superior ability to think choose their action paths with intelligent speculations about consequences affecting more people. They also try to anticipate consequences in future times.

Ability to look beyond one’s own instant needs and desires and beyond the next minutes or hours or days results in the superior performance of some families, ethnic groups organizations and nations. At the same time individuals and groups with the intellectual power to be motivated by broader concerns can be victimized by primitives who concentrate on what can be gained right now.

It is a fact that stealing can result in gains with less effort than producing. It is a fact that deception and force give power to the primitives of the world. And primitives have controlled and made miserable the lives of nearly all of the persons who have lived on this Earth.

Civilization is escape from control by primitives. It is fulfillment of the human potential for life above the savagery of the lower animal world.

***

The Underside of Idealism

Most of the killing in the world is done by “good” people.

Can you think of a form of murder more horrible than burning alive at the stake apostate Christians by church leaders? Perhaps the stoning to death of deviant Muslims is as cruel.

All of the large-scale killers in history have been champions of some sort of “righteousness.” Communism promised almost heaven on Earth with government strong enough to force correct behavior. Communism is, after all, total government; and government is an apparatus for compelling conformity. In the Soviet Union at least 24,000,000 were killed to enforce orthodoxy. In Communist China somewhere between 30 and 60 million were slaughtered.

The National Socialist (Nazi) regime in Germany exterminated about 6,000,000 Jews, Gypsies and gentile political opponents. The purpose was to revive a nation reduced to the poverty of a third world country by adversaries. Eliminating opposing groups was deemed necessary for rebuilding a successful nation. Adolph Hitler appeared to many Germans to be an inspiring champion of pride, teamwork and accomplishment.

Passionate environmentalists have brought about the deaths of more than 12 million - - mostly children - - in Africa. Banning production and use of the insecticide DDT has allowed Malaria and other insect-carried disease organisms, such as the West Nile Virus, to flourish. DDT is harmless to higher animals when used correctly.

Radical environmentalists find other ways to hurt people. Some put metal spikes in trees so that loggers are likely to be killed or injured when their chain saws fling the spikes out of the wood. Environmental extremists promote deadly forest fires by preventing removal of overgrowth. They also block construction of access roads so that firefighters cannot function efficiently.

Genetically improved food crops are demonized by health faddists posing as guardians of health. They doom millions to malnutrition and many to starvation.

Much of the world’s food supply is eaten by insects and germs. Less destructive for sterilization than chemicals, boiling or baking is ionizing radiation. Fanatics have prevented widespread use of this most advanced food preservation technology.

Fewer murders, rapes and other violent crimes occur when there is widespread ownership of guns by law-abiding citizens and when there is firm enforcement of the more than 20,000 existing gun laws against criminals.

Criminals prefer helpless victims. Anti-gun crusaders work to give criminals the upper hand. This is why the highest serious crime rates are in the cities that disarm law abiding citizens. New York City and Washington, D.C. are shameful examples.

Gmail Users Developing Ad Blindness; How to Resolve

2005-07-08T19:26:00.000-05:00

Google has a big problem on its hands: Gmail users are developing ad blindness. Ad blindness results when people get accustomed to ads and stop noticing them. Ad blindness is not a problem for search engines, as people are searching for information and very often text ads constitute relevant information. Gmail ads can be relevant as well, but they have a much lesser probability of being so. Consequently, people have a lot less incentive to read them, and eventually learn to ignore them without conscious effort.
[...]
Google can offer all sorts of additional Gmail account enhancements in exchange for Google Points. For instance, Google could offer Bayesian spam filtering for 150 Google Points. Bayesian filtering is somewhat expensive to implement as it requires the storage of account specific filter data. Google will be offering the feature to its best customers so the additional expense will be acceptable. Google could have done something similar with POP access, and probably still can as Gmail is still in Beta. The idea of distributing Google Points in addition to quota chunks seems redundant. Why not simply distribute Google Points, and let people purchase quotas if they so choose? The problem here is that Google Points will need to be accumulated before they can be exchanged for account enhancements. Consequently, there will not be any instant gratification associated with them. The instant gratification of immediately available additional storage is essential to keeping users interested in any such scheme.

Interesting.

Lateral Thinking

2005-07-02T23:41:00.000-05:00

Mark Up and Up and Up
Which commonly consumed commodity has the greatest mark-up in price from the cost of raw material to the price paid by the consumer? WHAT is it?

HINT 1: It is not gasoline, cocaine, CDs, truffles, or pearls.
HINT 2: It is a food; it is cooked; and it is a popular snack.

***

Money Maker
A man walked into a store and bought some candy. He and the clerk did not know each other. He paid with a $20 bill and received $21 in change. WHY?

HINT 1: There was no wrong-doing or criminal activity.
HINT 2: The clerk gave the correct change.
HINT 3: The man was on vacation.

ANSWERS
Mark Up and Up and Up: Popcorn. There is a 5,000% mark-up in the cinema.
Money Maker: An American on vacation in Canada paid with US$20 and given CA$21 in change.

Freakier Than Steven Levitt

2005-07-02T11:19:00.000-05:00

The regular wsj series, Econoblog, has it's most recent edition available. This blog-formatted discussion tends to be an economic debate between two opposing bloggers. However, this week's offering is a dialogue between two GMU econ profs, Bryan Caplan and Alex Tabarrok concerning just how freaky they are, a la Freakonomics.

While their discussion hits upon plenty of interesting areas just begging for extended analysis, here is one that struck me as the most unique:

Rental Cars Pricing
While rental car companies advertise low rates, the actual cost is always much higher, once taxes and hidden fees such as added insurance and gas fill-ups are taken into account. Entrepreneurial thinking would have you believe this is a ripe opportunity for a competitor to break out of the mold and run with a marketing approach similar to: "We Have No Hidden Fees, Unlike Our Competitors!" So why doesn't this occur?

A paper written by Xavier Gabaix and David Laibson suggests that there are generally two types of consumers: the smart and the naive. Profit margins are made by luring naive consumers to the party and having them eat as many added costs as possible. Sophisticated consumers don't want to buy at cost, and they don't need to so long as their naive counterparts are there to subsidize them.

Consider the opposing sales strategy applied by CarMax, a large used/new car dealer. CarMax advertises haggle-free prices fixed at or marginally lower than MSRP. This is not an attractive deal for sophisticated car buyers who do not see an even trade in the haggle-free approach, which is essentially surrendering your buyer's right to negotiate for an arbitrary price, that you are expected to believe is a deal. Don't get me wrong: haggle-free has its place, it just happens to not be an across-the-board deal as such vendors would have you believe.

Fitness in the New Century

2005-06-28T21:02:00.000-05:00

Recently Fairfax County opened its first Recreation Center (Cub Run RECenter) in more than 15 years, and fortunately, it is located right in my neighborhood. Really, it's no surprise given that the Sully District is the fastest growing region in the County, between the growth in population as well as home assessment values. However, as a renter, that translates into nothing more than frustration and higher rent. But now I have a new RECenter so all is well.

While the RECenter is state-of-the-art in every way a public facility can be, I have found the greatest benefit to be the fitness gym. Situated in a wide open, well-ventilated room are plenty of weight machines outfitted with the the FitLinxx service, or what I consider to be the future of fitness for overweight and lazy Americans. From the FitLinxx website:

FitLinxx is a computerized system that attaches directly to existing fitness equipment, adding an extraordinary “intelligent” dimension to the workout experience for the first time. FitLinxx “learns” users' programs, “coaches” them individually through their workout for better form, safety and confidence during every exercise, and “tracks” their progress over time.
[...]
Behind the scenes, all the exercise machines are networked into a central database, providing exercisers and staff access to a wealth of information on individual progress and a unique set of motivational tools. The system can be accessed on workout-floor kiosks, at the staff computer station, or anytime/anywhere on the web.

As a high school athlete, I was very familiar with weight training but never experienced any enjoyment from it. By using FitLinxx,fitness has tapped into the gamer in me. My disinterest in working out was likely due to the lack of realized goals you experience. Sure, your sweat and effort is rewarded by a healthier body, but let's face it: such a mid-to-long-term goal is rarely enough of an incentive for most of us. What FitLinxx does is infuse short-term goals to keep your focus. Before you realize, the short-term goals add up to a long term goal of being in a much healthier position.

If you complete your set within the computer's target range, you are greeted with blips and bleeps that cheer you on by letting you know how far you've gone. When you are finished with the machine, the LCD screen tells you what is the next machine in your workout.

We're currently looking at a culture where various industries are taking cues from one of the most successful ones out there: the gaming industry. Now, movies and televison shows are looking and feeling more like video games than what they were, say, ten or fifteen years ago.

As Steven Johnson discussed in his book, Everything Bad is Good for You, interactivity is the essence of the media's evolution, where static platforms (sit-coms, box-office movies, etc.) are finding they must either adapt or wither away. After using the FitLinxx system for more than a month now, I strongly believe that Johnson's thesis goes well beyond pop culture and the entertainment industry. If this is any indication, the whole world has something to learn from interactive products that exist in our world.

In the mean time, I'll take advantage of my local gym's great offerings and be well on my way to being in better shape than I have experienced in quite some time.

Freakonomics on Assymetric Information

2005-06-13T08:16:00.000-05:00

Freakonomics
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
[pg. 70]

If you were to assume that many experts use their information to your detriment, you'd be right. Experts depend on the fact that you don't have the information they do. Or that you are so bufuddled by the complexity of their operation that you wouldn't know what to do with the information if you had it...Armed with information, experts can exert a gigantic, if unspoken, leverage: fear.

How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter

2005-06-12T23:40:00.000-05:00

Everything Bad is Good For You
Steven Johnson

FOR DECADES, we’ve worked under the [false] assumption that mass culture follows a steadily declining path toward lowest-common-denominator standards…THE DIRTY little secret of gaming is how much time you spend not having fun. When you put the game down and move back into the real world, you may find yourself mentally working through the problem you’ve been wrestling with…If this is MINDLESS ESCAPISM, it’s a strangely masochistic.

***

Because I enjoyed this book, I’ll start with the negatives: The idea behind this book could have been condensed into a book either half its size or at least an abstract fit for an Atlantic Monthly; and very strong observations and cultural inferences made but driven into the reader’s head through repetition.

Now the positives: I found the author’s ideas to be insightful and a refreshing offering to the debate. This book supported many prior thoughts and conversations that I have had with my wife and coworkers over cultural trends. The visual depiction of the Sleeper Curve was great reinforcement for the idea. Before VCRs, television shows were designed to serve an instantaneous purpose. If you missed a show or want to see it again, reruns didn’t happen for six months and syndication wasn’t for another five years.

With the dawn of cheaper DVDs and growing in-demand consumer electronics, the opportunity was ripe for shows to change focus from one hour story arch to one capable of stretching across many seasons and intertwine with other subplots.

On Modernizing the FBI

2005-06-09T14:46:00.000-05:00

[T]he Virtual Case File system suffered from having to adapt to the FBI's dramatic post-9/11 mission change, which called upon the bureau to focus on preventing terrorism as much as fighting more conventional crimes. Yet the technology also fell victim to much more workaday problems, including a shuffling of FBI CIOs and project managers, ever-changing project requirements, and an insistence on building the system from the ground up as a customized application. The result was a $170 million bust that the bureau tested briefly, then put on the shelf indefinitely.

***

When it comes to completing an objective, I have found that it is sometimes best to take action before the planning phase has been completed. Of course, this depends on the complexity of the project as well as the parties involved. But in many cases it is easier to alter or undo something than to never have an idea leave the ground.

From what I have read about the FBI’s general practice, it does not surprise me that such an ambitious project as the Virtual Case File System experienced the outcome it did. Admittedly, it is an unfair expectation to demand that the FBI not allow ever-changing requirements on projects such as the now-defunct Virtual Case File. However, it is how those changes are integrated and consequently applied to the on-going project that makes the difference.

I’m sure that politics play a large role in how the FBI operates, particularly on the IT management level, as evidenced by the constant game of musical chairs they seem to play. But isn’t anyone running a calculator as the costs of scrapping various projects for new ones are ticking off?

The question remains: what motivated the decision-makers to opt for a new costly system rather than fix the replacement for the previous legacy system (RIP, Automated Case Management System)? Given that the FBI’s IT budget has grown from $3.3b in FY01 to $5.1b in FY05, it is safe to say it’s not penny-pinching.

Under the new management of CIO Zalmai Azmi, the FBI is seeking to consolidate IT spending which will shore up additional funds during an already-booming time for Federal IT spending.

Soon after being appointed acting CIO in December 2003, Azmi called for an inventory of the bureau's IT assets and created a master list of applications, networks, databases, and other key IT components. "We found that one of the reasons we have the stovepipes was because different technology was being developed by different agencies within the bureau," Azmi says.

***

By compiling a consolidated list of IT assets, the FBI has a golden opportunity to get its mission accomplished. However, I wonder what has taken so long to do something so obvious?

Automation Killed the Radio Star

2005-06-06T14:40:00.000-05:00

Ultimately, we can expect digital DJs to use file analysis combined with metadata, perhaps with more information like song lyrics and personal listening patterns. But even at this primitive stage of robo-DJ'ing, the results can be amazing.

Yes, I know that my enjoyment comes largely because the universe of songs I'm working from are all self-selected favorites, and I also know that very special transitions seem more significant because I notice them more than the more common, unremarkable segues. Yet surprisingly often, I get the same satori-esque chills that I did in the days when FM DJs were the oracles of the air.

***

For a little more than 5 years, I've been playing desktop DJ using various computer programs that have run the gamut of the utterly worthless and clunky to the smooth and intuitive. MixMeister, the program I have latched onto for the better part of four and a half years, is by far the best and most versatile pieces of software for which I've become acquainted.

MixMeister gives its users the ability to create and alter mixes based on various factors such as beats per minute (BPM), allowing professional sounding mixes using essentially amateurish tools.

At my peak, I (aka dj connor) was creating a full-length mix cd (80 minutes) nearly every one or two weeks. Admittedly, this was during my college days when time allowed such endeavors. As I have grown up and joined the workforce, I can't possibly devote as much time as before to my home-dj hobby.

I am pleased to see less time-consuming alternatives coming to market, as seen here. While I will never regard MoodLogic or MusicMagicMaker as complete substitutes to my digital dj-ing, it's satisfying to know that I can cater my music on the fly. And with my present position as an ipod-owner, a disc-less world is forever closer.

Into the Fire Dell Goes

2005-06-03T21:49:00.000-05:00

Horrified Dell executives scrambled this week to undo a public relations nightmare that erupted after one of its salesmen equated buying IBM/Lenovo PCs with support for China's communist government.

A Chinese paper published emails from a US Dell salesman identified only as "Chris" which contained unusual tactics meant to sway IBM customers from buying Lenovo hardware. After the emails were printed, Dell China apologized to Lenovo and said it would enforce disciplinary action against "Chris". Dell can little afford bad press in a high-growth market where it has struggled to outsell local rivals.

***

Perhaps it was just a cold-calling shmoozer attempting to strike at the protectionist fears in his dear clients; however, as Dell is gearing up to take on Lenovo in its own domestic market, it surely doesn't need such press.

Welcome to My World

2005-06-03T21:08:00.000-05:00

Greetings!

It's been awhile since I've posted anything and I figured it would be best to get back into the swing of things with a bit of a change. I would like to use this blog to bring attention to ideas, news, etc. that I find of interest.

In the future, you can expect posts pertaining to the following:

Free-market economics
Government's intrusion in the lives of individuals and corporations
Public choice theory
Technological change and its impact on various industries
Business services consulting
Globalization debate and developmental economics
Intellectual impact of video games
Technology's convergence with pop culture

I do hope you enjoy reading my thoughts as much as I enjoy sharing them.