Life imitates art?

I wonder if these local boys got the idea from Omar?

Smart Finns

I've been a pretty happy investor in Nokia for a long time. I was worried last year when the iPhone made such a big splash, but those Finns are smart. The purchase of Trolltech is incredibly obvious in hindsight. In a single move, they put another nail in the coffin of Moto and open a solid front on Google and Apple. Maybe I should double down on NOK?

54

The Wire #54 was on last night. It was an interesting episode, but was really setting up the story threads rather than resolving much. Most of this one was about the resignation of Burrell. He gets bribed by City Council President Campbell to not trash Daniels on the way out and agrees to shut up in exchange for a cushy job.

Also on the political front, we see Clay Davis getting hammered in front of a grand jury. He takes the 5th and looks extremely guilty. Someone tipped the press off and TV reporters are awaiting him when he comes out. Much to the chagrin of The Sun staff, they have nobody there (they are really missing the experienced reporters that are being bought out to save staffing costs). Clay is toast (or pottery).

The fabricated serial killer story is going a little haywire now with Lester fashioning some fake teeth to put a bite mark on the "victims". I still can't figure out how they are going to play that one. They are on the lookout for bodies that will fit in with the pattern and have enlisted the help of an old friend of Lester's to bring them to them before calling anyone else. The Sun story didn't move too much this week but it looks like they will loop it into the serial killer story next week.

The scene with McNulty and Beadie offers a bit of closure on that relationship - he's back to his old self and she isn't going to put up with it any more. He's a scumbag and that's just the way I like him.

Omar is back and he is pissed. He is looking for information on who betrayed Butchie and smacks Slim Charles around to see if Prop Joe had anything to do with it. He is working with some of Butchie's crew and we will see some fireworks soon.

The violence perpetrated by Marlo's crew is absolutely off the charts. They off Prop Joe after Marlo establishes a connect with the Greeks. Another drug dealer gets whacked because he spoke up against Cheese at a co-op meeting. By now it is pretty obvious that Cheese is going to die soon, but it is up in the air whether he will be killed by Marlo or Omar.

I also saw (in the Sun, of all places) that the number of viewers for The Wire has fallen off from last season. It's too bad, because it really is compelling. I don't watch any other shows (just some sports here and there). I'll miss it when it is gone.

Don't just vote. Win!

Meg Whitman is the perfect person to run California. With money tight from the real-estate implosion, she can auction off services to the highest bidder. You can bid on a class for your kindergartner. If someone is breaking into your house, click the Buy It Now button to get instance police response (and if you are in LA, you get the bonus of watching the perps get a severe beating!)

Running Inside

I'm training for the Knoxville Marathon right now. I follow a training plan called First to Finish that works well for me because it varies the workouts and mixes in cross-training. I don't think it makes me faster, but it sure minimizes injury. I've had one significant injury in the last 3 marathons I've trained for and that was because I stepped on a grape stem in our kitchen that went into my foot, got infected and kept me from running for a few weeks.

One thing I have noticed in the past few years, as I've entered in my upper-30's, is that my body just won't take running in the cold. It used to I love to run in the cold. I actually looked forward to winter because I can run faster in the cold. My PR for a 10 miler (which isn't impressive) was done on a 20 degree day.

Now, if I run outside for more than an hour in temperatures below 45 degrees, I have about a 50/50 chance of coming down with a sinus infection. A couple of years ago, I was constantly battling sinus infections and just went from one to another. I tried to blame my son for them but when I stopped running outside in the winter, they seem to have gotten much better.

One thing about running inside on a treadmill is that it is deadly boring. I usually combat this by watching an NFL game while I run. They last about 3 hours, which is plenty long enough and if one game is a wash, there is usually another interesting game on. In this inter-playoff week before the Super Bowl, I had to watch bowling. I was actually sort of hoping for a heart attack so I could stop running. I'm going to look at the bright side: I finished my 14 miles and now I know who the all time leader in bowling victories on TV is. Sweet.

Maybe Next Year

Almost 3 years ago, I bought an Archos Gmini 400 mp3 and video player and it is still going strong. This review on Engadget is quaint (all the theoretical discussion of the to-be-announced video iPod) and it is amazing how far portable music (multimedia?) players have come in three years. You can read my original review here when it seemed almost revolutionary to have your entire music collection on a portable player.

I probably won't replace it until I can get a phone that will store all of my music. That is really the holy grail for me - one device with all communications and music. I've got a T-Mobile Dash (AKA HTC Excalibur) which is fine for phone calls and email but can only store 2GB of music. Not nearly enough to avoid having to reload it every week. Maybe next year...

Requiem for the CD

I read the following in The Economist last week:

IN 2006 EMI, the world's fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free. “That was the moment we realised the game was completely up,” says a person who was there.

If teenagers aren't buying music on CD, who is? The rest of the article describes the dismal sales (physical sales down 19% in 2007) and vicious circle that has gripped the music industry as it is currently constituted. Even paid music downloads aren't growing enough in revenue terms to keep them afloat.

One idea that was described sounds very interesting: "Comes with Music" phones that allow you to download as much music as you want to your phone and PC and keep it even when you switch phones. The record labels would get a cut of the price of the phone. This sounds appealing, but I don't think I would pay more than $50 for it.

I guess this is what you get when you sue your best customers. Way to go RIAA!

You can read the whole article here if you have a subscription.

Need this in the 'Noke

I spent $2.15 yesterday for a Venti coffee and then I read that Starbucks is offering $1 coffee with free refills in Seattle. Starbucks isn't the best coffee, but at a buck a fix, I mean cup, bring it on!

Sometimes I really miss Seattle.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

UPDATE: After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I tried turning off services in the control panel. Turns out, it was the Cisco VPN service that I use to connect to a customer site. This service was conflicting with the Microsoft VPN service. They used to work together (I've had it installed since March of last year), but maybe the customer changed something on the configuration. The fix is to turn off the Cisco VPN service when I want to use the Microsoft VPN.

I've got the strangest thing going on with my laptop. I use a VPN to connect to the servers I manage in Stamford, CT and I'm getting Error 721. Basically, this means that the system is not responding. Usually, the cause of this kind of error is some kind of firewall between the VPN client and the server that is blocking the response from the server. Easy-peasy.

I double-check the settings on my ZyXEL router and they look fine. Resetting the router doesn't help. Next, I move on to the local firewall. I turn off the firewall in Windows Live OneCare (which has worked well to help me keep my systems patched and backed up) and try again. No dice. Thinking it has something to do with my Internet connection (maybe Cox is blocking GRE traffic? UPDATE: Would you call that a Cox block?), I try my T-Mobile Internet Connection card which definitely worked the week of Jan 7th. Nope.

Since this used to work, I'm wracking my brain to figure out what changed. Just for a laugh, I try the PPTP configuration I set up on my old Puppy Laptop. It connects right away.

It has to be some kind of local configuration my XP system. But what? I don't think I've changed anything in the past two weeks that was network related. GRRRRR.

53

The Wire episode 53 aired last night. I was watching the Giants win the NFC title game (very entertaining game), so I missed the initial showing, but I watched it after the game was over On Demand (TV timeshifting - will America ever be the same?)

Episode 53 has many different threads and the season is starting to get more interesting. This episode features a continuation of the McNulty serial murder fabrication effort. The irony is that he gets people to buy into the idea of a serial murder preying on vagrants but nobody cares. Since he did it to get attention and resources to go after real murderers (Marlo), his efforts seem wasted. Towards the end of the episode, there is a funny scene where Bunk brings in Lester to get McNulty to stop fabricating a serial killer and Lester instead gives McNulty some advice about how to make people notice (give the killer a story). Bunk isn't buying any of this and it'll be interesting to see where it all ends up (does McNulty get dismissed from the force to end the show?)

Meanwhile, Marlo is trying to double-cross the co-op by getting a direct connect to the Greek. When he presents his money to Vondas, it is rejected because it is street money. So, Marlo goes to Prop Joe to get some laundered money. Unwitting of Marlo's plan, Prop Joe helps him out on this and helps his set up an offshore account to hide his ill gotten gains. This is an interesting observation about the underclass: they have no idea what banks are all about. I suppose if you never had a bank account (and neither did your parents), it would seem kind of mysterious. Marlo wants to actually see his money and makes a trip to the Antilles to check it out.

Marlo is still going after Omar hard and raises his offer of information on his people to $50K. Prop Joe wants no part of that, but Cheese is willing to help out. He tips Chris to Butchie and he and Snoop go and tourture and murder him. Butchie hangs tough, but Chris and Snoop leave one survivor to make sure that Omar knows what happened so he will come back to Baltimore and seek revenge. I have a feeling that Marlo and crew will regret swatting that beehive.

At City Hall, the effort to replace Commissioner Burrell grinds on. To keep the thread about The Sun going, a story is leaked about Daniels being a potential replacement. This elicits no reaction from the powers that be in the city, so it looks like we will have a new Commissioner before the season is over (or will we? What kind of dirt does Burrell have on Daniels?) The wheels of justice are still grinding along and the grand jury is interviewing people about Clay Davis' corruption. He looks to be cooked and everyone is abandoning him to his fate.

I mention The Sun thread last because it is not very thrilling. It doesn't really detract and is used well to support the other plot lines, but it isn't very interesting by itself. They have layoffs, misprioritized editorial standards (a triple murder doesn't rate) and over-ambitious reporters who are ruining journalistic integrity. Ho-hum.

My favorite sub-plot is the war between Omar and Marlo. Omar was retired and out of the game entirely. Marlo has the hubris to take on Omar and you have the feeling he will get his. However, one great thing about The Wire is that the "good" guys don't always win. For all we know, Omar could get off a bus on Fayette and North Avenue and get shot. We have to wait and see.

Back in the Saddle

I had a flight from Greensboro to LaGuardia yesterday afternoon. The weather was getting dicey in North Carolina and after my last experience, I really didn't want to deal with that. In the preflight chat, the pilot warned of some bumps up to LGA and encroaching weather, which sounded ominously familiar.

In the event, the flight was perfectly smooth and (remarkably) on time. If every trip was that smooth, it would actually be fun.

Who is taking the Chargers to win?

UPDATE: The Patriots won. I guess my black swan went south for the winter.


One of my new years resolutions this year was to try to figure out ways to take advantage of black swans. A black swan is "a large-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations" that is described in The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (which an interesting read and well worth the time).

One of the premises behind the black swans theory is that people under-estimate the real chances of rare events occuring - they think tomorrow is going to be pretty much like today. In financial markets, this means that the price of wildly out of the money options should be low relative to the rewards.

I was doing an experiment on this in the area of sports betting in an option format last week by observing the price of betting on the underdog in the NFL playoffs this past weekend. Turns out, you would have been able to make a bunch of money by betting heavily on the underdogs. So, is the lesson that I should go for the underdogs this weekend?

At the price right now, you would bet $13 to win $87 $100 if you pick the underdog Chargers to win. I don't know, but that price seems about right. I'm going to sit this one out, but it seems to me if you had the guts and the capital, that wouldn't be a bad bet.

52

Episode 52 of The Wire was on last night. I'm not sure of the newspaper angle being pursued in this season - I kind of like it, but I haven't warmed up to the characters yet. There is the hard boiled city desk editor, the suits and the (overly) ambitious reporter. So far, none of them has caught my attention like McNulty, Omar, Bunk or Bubbles. I guess we will have to see how well it goes.

Anyway, the story last night was mostly about how broke the police in Baltimore are (morally as well as financially?) and the toll that it is taking on their work. Of course, politics aren't helping either with the Feds and state not helping out because they are on the opposite side of the aisle from Mayor Carcetti (is he supposed to be Martin O'Malley?) Dropping an investigation of 22 homicides when they are pretty close to being able to pin them on Chris and Snoop is pretty tragic. Now Marlo and his crew are going to be "dropping some bodies" big time.

I like that McNulty is drinking and chasing skirts again. He was boring when he was happy. He seems a little darker now though and the crime scene hijinks he was pulling last night was pretty crazy. It'll be interesting to see where all this leads.

The side story with Bubbles is kind of dull. He is in recovery and feeling pretty bad about accidentally killing Sherrod. Ho-hum. Why is his sponsor sweating him on it?

Overall, not a bad episode but not one of the best. We need more Omar.

Thousands (insecurely) Standing Around

In addition to the sham security provided by the TSA for air travelers, they provide a nicely insecure system for filing complaints. You would think a organization with "security" in the name would have basic Internet security. I'm so glad they get $4.7 billion dollars of our money per annum.

Yellow Ledbetter

I know this is old, but my wife reminded me of it the other day. Icee.

Non-routine landing

Last night, I was coming home from San Antonio on Delta via Cincinnati. Not a great day to fly with all of the weird weather in the mid west, but decent enough. I'm not usually a nervous flyer, but I was a bit on edge for whatever reason (too much coffee? too little?).

The flight from San Antonio to Cincinnati was pretty normal - some bumps at the end, but not as bad as I had thought it might be. So far, so good. The flight from Cincinnati to Roanoke was ready to go pretty much on time and the weather seemed to be lifting a bit. The pilot was honest in his pre-flight chat that the ride was going to be bumpy over to Roanoke (I always appreciate the honesty). The climb out was just the normal chop you get when it is raining and the flight was fairly smooth. So far, so good.

It was heavy overcast in Roanoke and the decent seemed to be taking a long time. When we finally got close enough to see the ground (felt like 100 feet but was probably around 1000), instead of continuing on down, we pulled up hard. I guess the approach was off and, like everyone, I'd certainly rather get the landing right.

So, we circled back around to try again. The cabin was very quiet and you could feel the stress level increasing (really, really quiet with everyone kind of looking straight ahead). I was trying to look at the bright side - the only other times I've had that happen, it felt like you were in a clothes dryer on tumble, at least this was smooth air.

The second approach seemed to take a long time. When we could finally see the ground, it seemed like we were going really fast. I suppose that is just because you usually have time to get used to the speed as you approach the ground. With the limited visibility, we saw all the lights at once and it was disorienting. Then, after being below the ceiling for 10 seconds, we hung a hard left. Definitely not what you want to feel when you know the runway is a mile away and coming at you at 150 mph. But, to his credit, the pilot straightened it out and in another few seconds and we had a smooth landing.

Intellectually, I know that air travel is very safe and it is hard for me to tell how dangerous this actually was but the non-routine landings sure scare me.

He's right

Davenetics has it just right when he outlines the case for John McCain as the Republican nominee for POTUS. I think the match-up that would be the most fun is Obama vs. McCain. I like Mr. Obama quite a bit, but Mr. McCain has a lot of gravitas and credibility.

Does The Wire work on the streets?

Freakonmics has a post on the street cred of The Wire. It seems pretty believable to me, but I'm sure there are some concessions made to make it more interesting to a TV audience.

No proof

I'm not against mathemtatical rigour, but I like this idea from Joel. A BFA in programming sounds a lot more appropriate for most real-world programmers than learning about big-O notation. Anyway, it sounds like more fun.

Is it all that?

Passing through the Atlanta airport this morning, i noticed a huge line in the A terminal on the way to my gate. Was it a big 767 boarding queue? No. It was the line for Starbucks. I should have taken a picture.

Good puppy

I had an old Dell Inspiron 3500 sitting around in the basement collecting dust. Since my kids have been using my wife's computer, I figured having another system around would be a good thing.

Since the Inspiron is pretty dated (1999?), running Windows XP would have been a challenge. So, I decided to go the Linux route. I have some experience with Linux, but I'm not an expert by any stretch. So, this was as much a test of what was easy to get going as anything else.

I was looking for something I could download, install and get running before the end of the weekend. So, I downloaded two very small Linuxes that are designed for running from CD or USB memory and tried them.

The first was Damn Small Linux (DSL). It booted up quickly and looked very nice, but I could not figure out how to make the old Netgear MA521 wireless network adapter to work.

So, I tried Puppy. It also booted up quickly. I spent a few hours getting used to it and got the wireless adapter to work without too much hassle. The big challenge was the sound card. Dell used to use some pretty strange sound cards back in the day and getting this one to work took some doing.

After all of that, I've got a spare system that is adequate for web surfing and general light use. Best of all, the price was right - free.

I'm not dead yet

It looks like the CD is dying quicker than I would have thought: down 14% in 2007. I subscribe to eMusic which is pretty good but it doesn't have everything, so I've recently started using Amazon's digital download here and there. Since they don't have DRM on their files, I have no problem paying $0.89 for a song here and there.

I will occassionally buy a used CD from eBay or something to fill back catalog (mostly stuff I've lost along the way and miss), but I can't remember the last time I bought a CD retail. Maybe I'll revise that first sentence: the CD isn't dying nearly as quickly as I would think.

Not the same as it ever was

Wired has an interesting piece about the music business by David Byrne. He breaks down the basic current models available to artists and outlines the pros and cons of each. What I found most interesting was the image on the first page. That is a pretty dramatic change in music delivery over the past 6 years.

On a more personal who-cares kind of note: David Byrne's parents used to live in my village when I was growing up.

try it

I saw Glassbooth on Wired and gave it a try. I put in my preferences and came out matching up most closely with Barack Obama. I guess that means it worked since I would vote for him over all of the other candidates if the election were held today.

End of a era

Charles Petzold is not going to write any more programming books. Like many people, I learned to program Windows from his seminal Programming Windows book. It still sits on my shelf today between The C Programming Language and Design Patterns.

The data certainly shows that programming book market is declining. However, I always thought this mostly impacted authors like myself who had tiny niche books that have been basically outmoded by information available on the Internet. I guess it is impacting the big boys as well. I wish Mr. Petzold good luck on his new endeavors!

Kid-safe email

Despite rumors of its demise, email is a ubiquitous way of communicating these days. However, there are some signficant issues when it comes to allowing children access to email. The most obvious one to anyone with an email account is spam (anyone need some Viagra?) Beyond the unsolicited email, there is also a need for parental supervision of communications. You need to be able to monitor all of your child's email exchanges to make sure that inappropriate content is excluded. The existing free mail services (Hotmail, Gmail, etc.) don't really address the specific needs for a child's email account.

It seems like this could be solved with an email client that can be locked down by parents. I looked around the Internet and didn't really find anything that matched up. Maybe a Thunderbird add-in? If you really wanted to limit the access to a computer that the parents have control over, a locked down client makes sense. However, all of the kid-safe email was based on a Web delivery model which has other advantages (can write an email from school or grandma's house).

To solve this problem for our 8 year-old daughter, we got her an account with Zoobuh last week. So far, she loves having her own account and I feel comfortable with the level of control. At her age, we restrict communications to just those in here contact list and control the contents of that list. I'll report back on our experience with this service in a couple of months.

wifi woes

UPDATE: I got the new power supply today and it works. So, now it is just a matter of finding the time to put the ZyXEL back in service and return the Netgear (which seems to have started working better for some reason).

A year or so ago, I bought a ZyXEL X-550 router to replace an ancient router that I'd been using for years (remember Xircom anyone?) The X-550 is an excellent router with great range and a host of useful features. I was really glad I bought it.

However, in December 2007, it died. So I went to the local Staples and bought a Netgear WGR614 off the shelf. My wife was starting to suffer Internet withdrawal (not pretty) and I had bought this same model for my in-laws cabin a few months back and it seems to work fine there. However, at our house, with 2-3 computers connected and a larger area, it was worthless. It takes forever to establish a connection and even then there is a good chance you will not get a functional IP address. I upgraded the firmware and tried all of my geek tricks (different security models, transmission types, etc.) but it is still pretty lame.

Turns out, there is a history of power supply problems with the X-550 and ZyXEL allows you to order a replacement power supply free of charge with a minimum of hassle. I ordered it this morning and will put the X-550 back in service as soon as the PS gets here. I appreciate the good customer service, but the product quality is pretty poor. Plus, you have to wonder how many times a company in a competitive area like SOHO network equipment can do something like that and stay in business.

I'm pretty tech savvy and this frustrated me greatly and cost me a lot of time and some money (I guess I can return the Netgear if I have the receipt somewhere). Why can't these companies get it right?