Nothing on the tele

It's really interesting not having extended cable. I get about 25 channels. Of those 25 channels, 1 is a tv guide, 3 are shopping, 2 are public access, 2 are C-Span, 1 is TeleMundo, 1 is some weird christian religious channel. That leaves me with 15 channels of progamming to choose from. Of those fifteen channels, there are 2 of each of the major broadcast channels - one from Madison, one from Rockford; so those 8 are really only 4 channels. That leaves me with ABC, CBS, NBC, WB, UPN, WGN, and PBS. And I can tell you, after about 3 months of this great experiment, that broadcast television is some of the worst progamming in the universe. In fact, we watch only a few things: football, CSI (only CSI: Miami because there is really nothing better on - David Caruso is an idiot and the show is poorly written and directed - but more on that later), Charmed (Erin's "guilty pleasure"), Gilmore Girls (yeah, I said it, you gotta problem with it?), Law and Order (only the original), and PBS. That's what 5 shows?

To be honest, there are few other shows that we'll watch if there is absolutely nothing else on and we just don't feel like reading: Commander-in-Chief (Geena Davis is pretty decent, the husband character is a whiny bitch, the kids aren't really that believable, but Donald Sutherland is one of those evil characters you just love to root for), the new Criminal Minds (that show has gotten considerably better since its first episode; thankfully the cast is excellent which more than makes up for the crappy writing and dialogue and the over-use of special effects), Without A Trace (it's getting a little tiresome though), and Ghost Whisperer (sometimes on a Friday night you just get desperate; it is a ridiculous show, but desperate times call for desperate measures). Oh and Everyone Hates Chris - a good goddamn show. Anyway.

So, of those shows, most are on CBS, football is on Fox, a few from the WB, one is ABC, and one is NBC. And I can tell you that without a doubt we (I) have watched more PBS than any of those shows. Newshour is the best news on tv; bar none. Our local PBS station, during their pledge drive, ran a show about this dude out in the middle of freaking Alaska; utterly captivating to watch this guy make a log cabin with his bare hands and tools that he made himself. Nova's had some good stuff lately. They ran some show about some dude who has way too much money and free time who goes on these weird adventures to the middle of nowhere to hunt for orchids; his goal was to find a brand new orchid species he could name after his grandmother - he succeeded but the species he found was pretty weak. They've also show Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder and last weekend was a new Sherlock Holmes.

That's not to mention Austin City Limits, which is probably the best show featuring music found on TV. Check out their upcoming broadcast schedule for 2006: Ryan Adams in January, then in March starts an ubelievable run of Polyphonic Spree/Ozomatli, Wilco/Bright Eyes, Modest Mouse/Guided By Voices, Flaming Lips/The Shins, Trey Anastasio, Jack Johnson, Allison Krause, Etta Freaking James, Ben Folds, The Killers/Spoon, and Franz Ferdinand. I mean come on. Makes me wish I had TiVo with DVD-R functionality.

Anyway. I can say without a doubt in my mind that PBS has the best programming on TV.

In any event, the whole point of the post (I'll bet you wondering when I'd get to it!) - Last night we watched this show hosted by Alan Alda called Scientific American Frontiers. They ran a program on hydrogen as an alternative fuel. Now, it was my pre-conceived notion about this subject that we, as a society, were far from this being a viable option. The conventional wisdom is that hydrogen is dangerous (not true, or at least no more dangerous than conventional gas), that it is expensive (while probably true in true volume measures, not as an efficiency measure; in other words 2 gal of hydrogen is more expensive than 2 gal of petrol, but it is considerably more efficient, so less is needed to do the same amount of work), and that it was hard to get it moved around to stations (turns out you can manufacture it on site, so there is no need to move it!).

There is this ridiculously talented dude in Michigan who appears to have shit figured out. He's an inventor. He makes materials that do really cool things like soak up hydrogen so it can be used in solid, rather than gas form. He also made solar cells that are light and extra-ordinarily efficient; they can be physically damaged and still work, in fact they work even while it is raining. Anyway, watching this show made me mad. I can hear the chorus now: "Why did it make you mad?" Well, it made me mad, because it seems that this dude has it figured out. And if he can figure it out, why can't anyone else figure it out and, more importantly, why aren't we using his shit!?!?! They didn't go into how much his stuff costs to manufacture. But that seems like quibbling to me. If we know how to make it, and this dude can make it with a relatively meager staff of a few people and some elbow-grease, it would seem that the manufacturing minds over at, hmmm, Ford or Chevy, or Dodge, or Toyota, or Honda, or BP, or Exxon, or Phillips, or Sony, or any of the other companies that have figured out how to reduce manufacturing costs of a cd player to under $20/unit, could all put some thought into how to manufacture these things and distribute them so that we don't have to rely on the oil cartel to feed our cars.

In the over 100 years that automobiles have been in existence, they still rely on essentially the same technology that they used when they were first invented: the internal combustion engine. They still use gasoline. They still are horribly inefficient. They are still spewing hundreds, and thousands, and millions of pounds of carbon dioxide into the air. They make cities like Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Seoul unlivable in the summer months.

It seems to me that it would be a relatively simple process to just start putting hydrogen engines into cars. The biggest problem, and I really don't think it would be that big of a problem, is getting hydrogen to gas stations. Will it take some work? Sure. Will it take some money? Sure. Is it sustainable? yep. Is it better for the environment? Yeah. And we introduce products all the time that can't afforded by the lower class (hell, even the upper-middle class). But eventually those products come down in price. Take the DVD player for example: when they first came out they were thousands of dollars; a little over a year ago I bought one for under $90. My point is, there is a demand and a need for the technology. OK, it's too expensive to manufacture in mass quantities sufficient for someone like me to buy it. I can understand that, but make them and sell them to people who can afford them. I guarantee you that if you put a hydrogen engine in a Hummer, someone will buy the damn thing. You want to know why? Because someone will always buy one.

The bigger problems is hydrogen stations. I'll admit, that's a problem way beyond the scope of this blog; I am not smart enough to figure it out. But there are people who are.

I think is the biggest reason to do it is to reduce reliance on Middle East oil. As a country we don't produce anywhere near the amount the amount of oil we use. The simple fact is that if we wish to keep cheap supplies of oil for our country, we can't rely on the whims and bargaining table with OPEC. We have to have the wells for ourselves. So, we have to do things like invade countries that pose a threat to our oil supply and install governments that are more sympathetic so that we can continue to get the oil. Is it a tragedy? Sure, but wars have been started for less. Even more disturbingly it's an endless cycle. Because once Iraq is stabilized and oil prices start to normalize again, OPEC will get greedy and start restricting output to increase prices. Then we'll have to have invade someone else in order to get more oil. Uzbekistan, US calling Uzbekistan. They're a corrupt country that no one knows anything about - and they produce oil. We can invade them for cheap oil. Bonus points because they are next to Afghanistan and have a history of violence against Muslims, so we can invade them and show that we care about religious tolerance in the region. Anyway, my point is that we always need more oil and we'll always have to get it from someone else. And as long as we need to rely on someone else, the someone else can always bend us over; and we can either bend over and take it, or we can do what we always do - kick their ass.

Perhaps I'm overstating the case for hydrogen. Maybe there's something better. The fact is, someone needs to come up with a solution. The pity is that politics will keep it from ever being implemented. But that's another story for another day.

Kicking (and being laughed at)

ESPN article about Mike Vanderjagt with commentary by Mark Schlereth

Maybe it's because I used to play soccer that I feel a bit sad when kickers are denigrated. I don't get it. Really, I don't. They seem to be everyone's favorite whipping-boy until someone needs one to win a game for them. Sort of like lawyers. Everyone wants to laugh and make jokes until they need one. Then they want the one that's just like the one they joke about.

What I find particularly amusing about Schlereth's commentary is his complete recidivism into the comfortable clothing of the football stereotype. And without any shame. "Mike shouldn't walk around pretending that he plays football. Don't intimate to me that you can get out there and bash heads with an opponent like we can." Doesn't play football? Last I checked he wears a uniform. Puts on pads. Puts on a helmet. Gets a check from the Indianapolis Colts every week. In fact, he probably plays football better than Schlereth ever did. And maybe that's why Mark's mad. Vanderjagt is a good kicker. Possibly a great kicker. His salary is probably twice what Schlereth ever made as a guard. And what does that make the offensive lineman who snaps the ball to the kicker? Go ahead Mark, call your compatriot a pussy, I dare you.

And you know what? He may not be able to go out and "bash heads with an opponent" like Mark can, but neither can Peyton Manning and I don't see Schlereth calling Manning a pussy. In fact, every year kickers lead the league and their teams in scoring. Go ahead and tell the Buffalo Bills that the kicker is useless; they lost a Super Bowl because they didn't have one. It's guys like Mark that go out every week and "bash heads" in the trenches. But when the game's on the line with 3 seconds left and the team down by one, who is the focus of attention? Not Mark Schlereth.

Look at a team like the Bears. They've scored, what? 9 touchdowns all season? They've had games (see the Packers game) where they had 4 field goals and won. The kicker's not a "real" football player, eh? So, that's not a "real win" because it wasn't won by a "real" football player?

Football, perhaps more than any other sport is truly a team sport. Look at a team like the Patriots, few standouts, but everyone contributes, including the backups. Including the kicker. They're all out there trying to add one more to the "W" column. The fact is that Vanderjagt wants to win just as badly as Mark Schlereth, or anyone else on his team. There's no reason the kicker can't be a team leader - hell he probably already is the team leader in points scored.

While we're on the subject of football:
The Bears are 9 and 4. All of their losses have come to AFC North teams. They have lost no games in the NFC this year. Weird. Not sure if Kyle Orton will play on Sunday or not. My guess is that he will, but what do I know? If the Bears are going to kick the Rex Grossman tires this year, Atlanta's as good a time as any to do it. It's indoors, so it won't be cold and miserable. A pristine field on which to take the Rex-mobile out for a ride. Of course it's also fake grass. So Grossman will probably be injured with career-threatening turf toe or something and Orton will be back in by half-time anyway. The Bears finally got some decent play out of their Wide Receivers, but the running game seems to have gone to shit. Either than or Ron Turner has gone to shit. It's too early to tell at this point, but I'm not really sure why when it was 10 degrees and snowing the Bears were throwing like they had Joe Montana and Jerry Rice on the field.

Meanwhile, the Vikings, inexplicably, are at 8-5. How the hell did that happen?

The Browns played Cinci surprisingly close! In fact, CBS out in my neck of the woods switched from the Colts trashing to the Browns/Bengals game in the 4th Quarter. It looks like Charlie Frye is the real deal. With a healthy Braylon Edwards and Kellon Winslow, Jr. next year, and with Ruben Droughns in the backfield, the Browns are just one or two players away from being a wild card team.

Movie Magic

I've seen quite a few (for me anyways) movies lately. Here's a quick run-down:

Walk the Line - Simply good. It was a good way to kill an afternoon. Is it the greatest movie of all time? No. Is it the worst? Not by a long shot. Surprisingly, I though Reese Witherspoon was excellent as June Carter Cash; I'm not generally a Reese Witherspoon fan. Joaquin Phoenix was acceptable as JR Cash. I believed him. No, my problems with the movie, such that they were, were primarily with the formulaicness of the whole thing. I had the feeling while watching the movie that I'd seen this whole thing before. I had. It was called Ray (another movie that I thought was over-hyped). I didn't get the feeling at the end of the movie that I really knew Johnny Cash any better than I did before the movie. Another review I had read suggested that after watching the movie, they wondered why they hadn't made the film about June instead, she seemed much more interesting. I would agree with that. It's not that I don't think Johnny Cash is interesting. He is. But you wouldn't know it from this movie. I guess my beef is this: the movie was about Johnny Cash falling in love with June Carter Cash. A fine premise I suppose. But I wanted to see some insight behind his music and there wasn't very much of that. In fact, I would have loved to have seen much more about June writing "Ring of Fire." But we are just treated to a few snippets of her putting it together. Anyway. I make it sound worse than it is. I liked it. It could have been much, much more interesting.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - I'm obsessed. I've seen every installment on opening weekend (a few of them on opening night - although it now occurs to me that I didn't see it on opening weekend this time around - we were going to go see it right after Walk the Line, but when we went into the theater it was CRAMMED so we waited until the next weekend) and I applaud Erin for humoring me (she hasn't read any of the books). It was a good movie. It was my favorite of the books. The only nit to pick is that I remember the Quiddich World Cup being a much bigger part of the first part of the story and there was surprisingly little time devoted to it. I understand why it was cut - the movie is already 2.5 hours long, and the WC didn't really add much to the story; but it was a really fun part of the story nonetheless.

Kinsey - finally got around to seeing it. In fact, I subscribed to NetFlix ($9.99/mo that I can actually afford since I got rid of cable and internet at home) just so I could finally rent it. Anyway. I liked it. His study was interesting and I thought the director/writers did a good job of showing how such an endeavor will inevitably be corrupted by those who can't/don't desire to keep their hands to themselves or their own spouses. My biggest gripe is that the director couldn't seem to figure out a style that he liked and wanted to stick with. At times it looked like a modern movie (which it is), but at others it adopted a faux-50s-newsreel type feel, and other times it adopted the style and language of a play. The director should have stuck with one, any one of them would have been an interesting way to portray this movie; but to jump around just left me shaking my head.

Hotel Rwanda - sort of like Requium For A Dream - I really liked the movie, but I'm not sure I could sit through it again. I felt beaten down afterwards.

Finding Neverland - after Hotel Rwanda we were like "let's watch something fun and uplifting." Ummm...this movie, not really the direction to go for that. While it was most definitely fun in parts, the end of the movie is a bit of a downer. Johnny Depp was fantastic (as usual) but I was left wondering how, after a brief glimpse of JM Barrie's childhood and the ongoing story of his marriage, how exactly he managed to maintain this child-like outlook on life. Of course, there's nothing like precocious, intelligent, essentially good eight-year-olds to bring out the child in even the hardest of hearts; but I'm not sure that's really the answer here because the effect almost seemed the opposite - that Barrie brought out the child in them rather than vice versa. Anyway, again I really liked it.

So, the next few movies on the list are: Motorcycle Diaries, Love Actually, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Good Girl, The Fearless Freaks, Some Like It Hot, Lolita (Kubrik's version), and Frida.

CDs of interest lately:

Camper Van Beethoven: Camper Van Beethoven, New Roman Times
Spoon: Gimme Fiction
Modest Moust - New Lonesome Crowded West
Sigur Ros - ( ), Takk

It's Copyright Law Week Apparantly

On Wednesday the House Committee on Energy and Commerce held hearings on "Fair Use: Its Effect on Consumers and Industry."

Here's some particularly lovely snippets from this hearing:
Paul Aiken, of the Author's Guild: "The public domain's a fine thing, but it is, and always has been, merely a nice by-product of the copyright system."

James DeLong, IPCentral.info Progress and Freedom Foundation (PFF is a non-profit 'think tank' funded by these fine IP Rights holders; to think that their 'research' would be unbiased seems highly dubious at best): "In sum, fair use is a doctrine that has outlived much of its usefulness."
---- (note: Google is one of their supporters, I can't fathom that Google would approve of this statement!!)

Both of these statements show flagrant disregard for the public policy underlying the grants of intellectual property rights in the United States. In the US intellectual property is, as I said, granted, it is not a right inherent to mere creation (if you want that, move to Europe). We, our Founding Fathers, created the grant of intellectual property as an incentive for people to create. We want to encourage people to write novels, so we grant them a copyright in the work they created as an incentive for the creation. The terms and limits of the grant are, in theory, a bargain; for your creation and the betterment and advancement of science we will allow you to control the copying and distribution of your work for x number of years.

Right there we run into the problem with Mr. Aiken's astonishingly ignorant statement that the public domain is a byproduct of the copyright system. First of all, the public domain existed long before the copyright system did. Second, our very principles of copyright are to encourage the creation of works to enhance the public domain. Without the public domain, in the US, there would be no copyright system. We want to encourage people to invent things and disclose the inventions to others so that they can be used for the advancement of technology, so well tolerate temporary monopolies as a sacrifice and incentive for the creation. The argument being that without the granted rights monopoly, there will be no financial reward for creation because as soon as the thing is created, it can be duplicated and leveraged by others for their financial gain, and thus I would have no incentive to invest my own time and effort and intellectual captial into a project that someone else is going to financially benefit from. So, to encourage the expenditure of time, effort and intellectual capital we (the people of the US) grant to the inventor (or the author) a temporary monopoly on distribution, copying (and some other rights granted by the patent laws) so that the author/inventor can have time to reap the benefit of his work. After that temporary monopoly is over, the work falls into the public domain and is free for everyone's use, which is the very reason were incentivizing the creation in the first place!

This is actually one place where I depart from the 'economic theory' school of law (to which I am normally a staunch believer, and which you will notice is 100% entrenched over at the PFF). Economic theory says, the rights should be granted to whomever is able to most use them efficiently; if someone else can use them more efficiently, they can purchase the rights. Therefore, we should not have any limits on the rights (temporal or otherwise). If someone wants to utilize the technology or work, they can license it from the rights-holder; basic principles of supply and demand will dictate the price-point for that license - if there is little demand for the work, the price to license will be low, but if the demand for the work is high, the right-holder should benefit from that work's sustained popularity (this is the argument Disney uses).

But here's the catch. Under our theory of intellectual property - if we hadn't "tolerated" the grant of the monopoly in the first place, the work would have never been created. Now, of course, you can argue that "of course it would have been created, authors don't write because it is economically efficient, they write because they need a creative outlet for their ideas." But that's not really the point; the point is the Constitution provides that "The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." It's very text mandates the existence of the public domain and limitations on the works, all in the name of generating more Writings and Discoveries for the greater good of our society to be available for use by all. In fact, the original "limited Times" were quite limited - Authors got 20 years (renewable for another 20 years) and patent holders got 10 years (I think). A far cry from the life+70 and 20 years, respectively, they get now.

The Times are limited because we want works to fall into the public domain. We want works to be available for use by others to build upon. We want the technology in patents disclosed so that others may analyze and improve upon the inventions. Soon, our country's long line of technological superiority will be over-taken by those with less restrictive rights regimes - by countries where "everything" is in the public domain. We call those countries "pirate nations" now, but in a few years we will be paying the price for our greedy ways.

I haven't even addressed the "fair use" quote; but this is getting long, so I will cut it short like this: it seems to me that if we place temporal limitations on the monopoly in the name of "progress" that if the granted rights get in the way of "progress" or impose into areas protected by copyright or patent laws (for example, neither grants the rights-holder the right to control use) that we should sacrifice the right to the monopoly before we sacrifice the (fair) use of the Writings or Discoveries. So, when we talk about "fair use" we talk about those uses for Writings and Discoveries that, while technically infringements, we allow because either: 1) it is too difficult to monitor (e.g., private, at-home copying); 2) it is so minimal that we, as a society, don't think the rights holder should complain (e.g., book reviews, etc.); 3) it would infringe our other, more important rights (e.g., first amendment right to parody, or commentary, etc.; right to freedom of religion, etc.). These are things that "fair use" protects and I would argue that all of these are still pretty "useful."

Something New and Exciting In The World Of Music

I like it when people think "out of the box" so to speak (thanks to the most excellent TechDirt for calling this to my attention - even though I disagree with Carlo's analysis). What's funny is that it really isn't all that "out of the box." It's more like thinking about music in terms of science or, more specifically, chemistry, or physics (or even I suppose, biology, or genetics) - hmmmm...I guess that pretty much covers all of science - so yeah, think about music in terms of analyzing science. Break down the product into its component parts.

When you buy a CD, you are buying a copyrighted work. Actually you are buying a number of copyrighted works (songs - each of which has multiple copyrighted elements, the music and the lyrics) bundled together into a copyrighted work (a compilation that is a separate copyright) and packaged with some copyrighted artwork on front (and probably on the back and inside the booklet, too). The law traditionally thinks of copyright in terms of "bundles of rights." A "copyright" gives the author the exclusive right to do a number of things for a number of years (life of the author plus 70 years, or 120 years if an anonymous work - or something very similar to that, in any event). The author is given the right to control among other things, copying and distributing. (note: copyright does not cover the right to control "use" that's a right you freely give up when you buy a file from iTunes or some other place that sells DRM'd files; just one way that industry practice and norms are changing substantive laws without all the hassles of actually legislating the changes and putting it up for public opinion. But I digress.)

The proposal linked separates out these component parts and lets you purchase the rights you want. Instead of purchasing a .aac file of Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" you can just purchase various component parts for "Hollaback Girl" and you can get them in any file type you want. Want the right to distribute, you can buy that; want the right to make copies, you can buy that; want the right to play on your internet radio station, you can buy that; just want the karaoke (non lyrics) version, you can just buy the rights to the music and not buy the rights to the lyrics; want to buy the album art, they're yours for the paying, what type and how big do you want them. If you lose the file, no problem, you own the rights, just go download the filetype you want. In theory it's fantastic idea - pricing at its best - you can buy what you want and only what you want - the more rights you want, the more you pay, but you can get them.

Business-to-business transactions work like this all the time; a business will pay more or less for more or less contractual protection. Presumably consumer transactions don't work like this because of the high transaction costs involved. However, if there is a central rights aggregation and retail center, the transaction costs can be spread out over the entirety of the offerings making the per-piece transaction costs pretty low.

The devil is in the detail, so to speak, and the biggest problems aren't theoretical, but rather practical implementation problems with keeping each component part distinct and preventing tampering such that the consumer can pay for the lowest cost right and still reap the higher reward. The first practical problem I can think of is actually more concerned with the rights that the consumer purchases, what do you do when the copyright term expires?? Contrary to the music industry's (or movie industry's, or Disney's) wishes, copyright is not infinite - it does end. Of course, this is fairly easy to account for because the copyright duration calculation is fairly heuristic and just entering the 'date of authorship' and the type of author (work-for-hire, individual, anonymous, etc.) would make the calculation simple.

More importantly though, how do you discern regular copying (me making a copy for Brian) from backups that are legally protected by the Copyright Act? Of course, the initial argument is: what do you need the backup for? If you lose the file, you own the rights in perpetuity, just go download it again. But there you run into another problem. How do tell if a person has 'lost' the file, or just transferred it to someone else against the terms of the agreement? One answer is hardware authentication - every piece of electronics you own can be 'registered' with your own personal id (perhaps a swipe of your driver's license, or other state or [enter diabolical laugh here] national id) and when you buy the file, you enter your personal id and it will only play on devices that are authenticated with your own personal id; if you buy "copying" or "distribution" rights, you would swipe your own id and the id of the person to whom you are transferring and it will only play on devices registered to that person.

Actually, not a bad idea now that I think of it, except for the obvious "privacy" issues that may be implicated. The hardware registration process would have to be fairly rigorous - though maybe not, because the hardware will only work with files that are registered to you anyway. Hardware registration could work in a whole slew of areas - computer security, home security, cell phone (or even "regular" phone) usage. In some instances the hardware would be 'locked' so that someone who steals the device can't just swipe their own id - maybe a two step process that requires two swipes (one for each person's card in the transaction) to transfer title to physical item.

Well, this got kind of far afield. But, the point I suppose is that I'm not sure we, as a society, are quite there yet in terms of implementing micro-rights-management that would be truly useful instead of just crippling. And, unfortunately, I don't really trust the record companies with it. In fact I'm not really sure who I would trust to implement it properly. I, honestly, think it would be good idea. But, as with anything that involves firmware/software, it would be easily hacked and thus would be rendered impotent anyway.

Yeah, Yeah, I know ...

... you shouldn't make fun of cancer victims. But goddamn this is one of the funniest/coolest things I've seen in a while. Unfortunately it will make trademarking my iTits a little more difficult; especially if she starts a whole line of "tits" wear. First its TitBits, then TitHolster, then TitBits Plus (new and improved and more comfortable). The next thing you know, she's put two and two together, and come up with iTits and TitTunes. My mindshare for the tit race is slipping.

Maybe we could form a joint venture; I can supply the intellectual property and know how and she can provide the manufacturing labor. I mean, if you're already putting a fake one there anyway, you might as well have one that's functional as well as looks good. Women like to store things in their tits, we could manufacture a TitFolio with a pouch to store cash and keys. Women store kerchiefs in their tits, we could make TitShew, a disposable tissue holder (and renewable - haha, we could lock in our customers with 'specially designed tissue holders' that would only hold the tissues we manufacture!). The iTits would be a natural extension of these developments. In fact, you could have a whole line of Tit electronics - iTits, TitCell, TitBerry, and WiTitFi (a personal wifi receiver with bluetooth that connects to Verizon's nationwide broadband network).

Back to the lab...

I should patent this idea or something ...

I linked to this as website of the day.

Erin and I were having a bit of spirited discussion about this with all of the requisite "Tune in Tokyo" jokes. But it occurred to me that such devices could revolutionize the strip club as we know it. Just follow with me and save comments until the end.

Imagine this: You enter a strip club in New York or Chicago. Because of the smoking ban, the air is clear and highly oxygenated. The lights are dim, the place is packed with 'gentlemen' crowded around two or three stages each with 3 or 4 girls, all in various stages of de-robement. And, except for the sound of the men's cat-calls and general conversation, the only music to be heard is the soft sounds of a jazz and blues playing over the speakers. You wander to the bar, eyeing the 'wares' and order a drink (a scotch naturally - hey, do I know my readers, or what?) You spot a fine young woman dancing on a stage in the back. You see on her arm the following markings: 103.3. You pull out your Creative Zen, put in your ear bud headphones and tune the FM Radio to that station. The sound of drum and bass comes thumping through your headset and you realize that this girl is dancing to the music coming through your headset. In fact, every girl has a different number on her, and you can tune each of them in and they are all dancing to whatever music they have programmed in to their iTits. One is drum and bass, another gangsta rap, another j-pop, another break-beat, another metal; each one has a customized playlist. After the second song of her three song set you hear a brief pause in the music, then you hear: "Hi, this is Desire. If you like what you see, you may also like Amber, she's on after the next song on stage 2. For an extra $30 I can get her for you and we can make your wildest dreams come true together." Then the music comes back on and she resumes dancing.

It would be a whole new way of looking at strip clubs. And, there would be a whole new revenue within the strip club for advertising through various girls. Just think: you spot a fine blonde swede and between songs you get ads for "Heineken." Or, girls could advertise on other girls. The possibilities are endless, and the audience is guaranteed. Of course the club would get their take. The girls would make more money, the advertisers can target their ads to specific types of guys (come on, we all know the dude who likes the skanky white trash chick, and we all know he drinks PBR and we can probably assume that he would be interested in an ad for handcuffs from "Joe's Pleasure Palace.")

The girls can play whatever music they like; the guys can listen to whatever music they like, and the club can maintain a relaxing atmosphere. No more shouting over music to be heard by the person next to you. The possibilities are endless ...

Death of a Chicago Institution

I found out today that my favorite show on NPR is no longer broadcasting. The show "Odyssey" hosted by Gretchen Helfrich (intelligence is damn sexy) went off the air on September 30, 2005. Which is rather unfortunate. The format of the show was a round-table discussion of just about anything you can imagine. The show would usually feature 2 or 3 experts (usually college professors because they have nothing better to do anyway) and Ms. Helfrich. The first 30 - 45 minutes was a panel discussion on the topic. The last 15-30 minutes was a call-in period.

What I loved about the show was its topics and its discussion leader. Ms. Helfrich always asked really insightful questions that gave the speaker plenty of opportunity to talk. But she was also a good moderator, keeping the discussion centered on the topic and preventing the speakers from talking over each other. The topics were fascinating. For example, consider the last month they broadcast, hell just look at the last WEEK they broadcast: important movies, internal migration, curiosity, identity and the human face, "the social geography of death." Really, really interesting topics that take the subjects and put them within global, national, and local context. While the show is based out of Chicago, Ms. Helfrich keeps the show from being Chicago-centric.

Anyway. Congratulations on a fantastic 8 year run. Here's a link to their entire archives available online to listen for free. Enjoy!

Two Interesting Stories About The First Amendment

First up, Walmart turns a kid in for a picture he took that shows a magazine picture of George Bush with a red pin through its head. Next to the photo the kid's hand is a thumbs down. Walmart called the Secret Service on him. OK, arguably Wal-Mart has a point here - they don't know who took the picture - and it is a federal crime to threaten death on the President. While their reaction seems a little outrageous, it is, arguably, justifiable. Still, makes you think for a second.

However, this one, is not as forgivable. Woman wears a t-shirt with the pictures of George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleeza Rice, with the caption "Meet the Fuckers." Fellow passengers complain. Southwest asks her to cover it up. On the trip over she puts hubbie's sweater over it while she sleeps. While sleeping the sweater falls off. Passengers complain again. She was told by Southwest if she gets off the flight they will refund her ticket. She gets off the flight (at a connecting airport). Southwest refuses to refund her money.

Make up your own minds. Obviously there is no "First Amendment" violations. Though as a "common carrier" Southwest may have some First Amendment obligations (common carriers - transportation providers, hotels, etc. - are held to higher standards than regular private corporations). But generally the Bill of Rights only apply to governmental entities. So, private corporations are free to kick you out and do what they like for any reason, so long as: a) it doesn't violate the terms of your contract with them, and b) it's not racially discriminatory. While my usual reaction to something like this would be to boycott Southwest for being bastards (I already boycott Wal-Mart for a whole slew of reasons), I can't really afford to not fly Southwest. However, I will say, that this action on their part will make a significant contribution towards any decision I make regarding flying them in the future. So, what should Southwest have done? Nothing. Told the other passengers to deal with it. I find Ashlee Simpson offensive; so, can I have a 12 year old girl kicked off the flight for having a t-shirt with Ashlee Simpson on it?

More on the Lost Trailers

Let's take a trip in the way back machine. Link to Original Lost Trailers Website. On the right you will find a link to one MP3, a little bit down on the left you will see a link that says : The Lost Trailers believe in providing free music downloads for our songs. You can click that for more MP3s. Of course, this statement has proven to be full of shit. They believe in providing free music downloads until their record label tells them that they aren't allowed to believe in such things anymore.

You can also go here for more MP3s.

This is their Journal from the first show that Brian and I witnessed. A phenomenal opening set for Virginia Coalition. They played maybe 5 or 6 songs and just tore the House of Blues up. VACO was a huge disappointment after that.

This is the Journal for the second show of theirs I saw at the Park West. It was a co-headlining deal with Llama (who??). The set was "blazin" though the fans were a little lackadaisical. Nonetheless, it was a reminder of how great this band can be.

And then, after seeing them open for Pat "Fucking" Green (TEXAS!!! WOO!!), they signed with Universal. After that they played a set at Schuba's which was far better than the crowd deserved. And then a set at the Abbey Pub was the last we in Chicago have seen of them. After that show we were talking to the band and they wondered why we, meaning the fans in the Chicago, didn't do more for them and get them on the radio. But I think they've answered their own question: or at least have always known the answer. If they want to be supported in Chicago you need to do one of two things (for a band like the Trailers): 1) basically set up shop in the city and live there for about 6 months, playing every place in the town that will have you - if you do that, the people will love you for the rest of your life (see Uncle Tupelo); 2) sign with Bloodshot Records. This is a city of loyalty. If you are loyal to the city, it will be loyal right back; if you treat the city as another stop on your way to Texas, or New York, or Boston, they may hold the door open for you on your way out (but only if you're any good).

They've gone from this to this. Congrats guys. It's interesting to watch a band grow up. I saw these guys shortly after they formed and they were eager to get out and play their music and experiment and try new things with their music and mix genres and styles and have fun. The last time I saw them, they were contentious with the crowd (flipping off a patron who had the nerve not to stand up for their show in front of a 1/4 full bar), their album, while good, was poorly mixed (see prior posts), and they have ignored the United States North of the Mason Dixon line. Now, their next album is going to be on the same record label as Kenny F-ing Chesney. They have been consumed by the Nashville Music Industry. I don't know if that's what they've wanted from day one, but I will say, that I expected more from them. I wish them all the luck in the world, and should they ever deign to grace the windy city (or, God Forbid, Madison, WI or Rockford, IL) with their presence I'll be the first to buy tickets.

Racism in Film

An insightful, and extraordinarily well-written and researched (not to mention long!), article that discusses racism in film. Link
---And related Song of the South Website

Brought to you from the most excellent Cartoon Brew blog.

The Lost Trailers

I had sent this as email to a few people I know, but I think this is as good a place for it as any.

I'm a dork. We all know that, so there's no point in the hiding the fact. In any event, I'm on a mailing list for The Lost Trailers. I received an email just today advising me that The Lost Trailers have changed records labels. They are still with RCA, the same record company, but they have been moved to a different label. They are now on BNA Records. Of course, you're all saying "what the hell is BNA Records?" And my answer is ... are you ready for the obvious? It is un-f-ing-believable how predictable the music industry can be. The "Nashville" music industry is even worse than your average bear though. They have taken what started as a roots-rock band like The Lost Trailers, had them tour exclusively in Texas and most of the South. They teamed them up on a tour with Pat F-ing Green. Released a record that sounded (production-wise) like every freaking country album in existence (that is: compressed to all hell, removing any amount dynamic range that ever existed in those songs). And now, they have put them on the same f-ing record label as the Ubiquitous Kenny F-ing Chesney.

I don't like Kenny F-ing Chesney. His music is terrible. I have never seen the man live. Yet, he hounds me. Everywhere I freaking turn, there's Kenny Chesney. Log on to a music discussion group. Kenny Chesney. Hear about tours in Rockford. Kenny Chesney. Television concert to raise money for the Hurricane Victims. Kenny Chesney. Renee Zelleweger. Kenny Chesney. I feel like John Malkovich. Chesney. Chesney. Chesney. For the love of God when will people realize that no one give two rats asses about Kenny Freaking Chesney?!??? And now this. The Lost Trailers. Ruined by Kenny F-ing Chesney. He'll probably appear on their freaking record or something. And then tour the Midwest (for the first time in 2 years I might add) opening for Kenny F-ing Chesney.

When I last saw the Trailers they were lamenting the fact that no one was showing up for their shows in Chicago. You want to know why???? PAT GREEN AND KENNY F-ING CHESNEY THAT'S WHY YOU FREAKING TWITS!

Bastard.

By the way; if you're interested in hearing the Trailers before they were ruined, I'll try to post some MP3s or something at some point. If you go to their website they have some CDs there, none of which are their true releases before "Welcome to the Woods" (their first major label album). Prior to "Welcome to the Woods," they had an EP that they distributed at their shows for free. Then they had Passport - 18 tracks, some of which are contained on the "Story of the New Age Cowboy" album - but most importantly contained the original renditions of "Dougherty County" and "Averly Jane" (perhaps the worst victim of the aforementioned compression). Their second independent album was "Rock Band." It was "bigger" than the first - meaning it had the guitars more upfront and it was louder. It tried to capture their live sound, but suffered from the same compression problems - every song sounded exactly the same, even though each of them had more dynamic range when played live. Both Rock Band and Welcome to the Woods sounded flat. Both Stokes and Rider have great voices, but Stokes comes off sounding like Kenny Freaking Chesney and Rider sounds like the lead singer of Foreigner. Anyway. Crap production. A common problem in recent music history. Everything is produced so that it sounds OK coming out of a 1987 Chevy S-10 speaker - and 87 S-10s were not exactly known for their great sound systems. As a result, it sounds like shit when played on a system of any quality - rather than sounding like shit on a shitty system.

OK. I'm done.

A Busy Day...

Sorry to get caught up in stupidity: SG Not Contacted by FBI. In any event take the following post as a general claim against the waste of resources in tracking down porn depicting actions between two consenting adults and those who wish to view consenting adults taking baths in blood-like liquid and/or being tied up and/or whipped.

We went down to this bridge. It had some graffiti on it. It was supposed to say "I Love Satan." It said "I Love Satin."And that's some STUPID SHIT. - Scott H. Biram

For those familiar with the SuicideGirls site (see link above), this should be seen for the ridiculous shit that it is. For those not familiar with the site, there couldn't be a more "harmless" site; to target this one seems not only like a waste of time, but a waste of resources.

I'm all for cracking down on porn. But it seems like it would be more prudent to go after the beastiality sites (see below for an interesting discussion starter) and the kiddie porn and the midget wrestling porn and, hell, porn featuring ugly women - ALL should be higher priority than SuicideGirls. Anyway.

Topic Starter for Boring Dinner Parties (by the way, I've actually had this discussion - the participants shall remain nameless, but we never really arrived at a conclusive decision): Do you think that producers of beastiality porn have specialties? In other words does Producer (or Director) A only do horse porn? Director B will only work with goats? Does a particular horse get more business than others because it is known for being gentle on the girls? For that matter, are horses bred for porn or does the director just find a horse that an owner will let him use for porn purposes? Do human bestiality porn stars have limits "I'll only do dogs, but not horses"? What is the decision criteria for that decision? Geez, it seems that every question just raises more questions.

Trusting Consumers

Another Shot At the Broadcast Flag

O'Reilly Op-Ed Piece on Google Library

The broadcast flag. AAC. DMCA. RIAA. Clickwrap. eBooks.

Everywhere I look lately there's more evidence that content producers don't trust the consumers. Of course, it's not like we're really trustworthy people. But, that's not really the point. Movie studios, record companies, and publishers are all pushing to restrict the ways in which you can use their content. If you want to buy a cd, they will make sure you can't rip it to your hard drive. If you want to buy a movie, ditto. If you want to download a song, they want to make sure you only buy a proprietary file type that will play on their player (and their player only supports proprietary file types). If you buy software, they want to make sure you don't know how it works (you might create a competing product!). If you buy an eBook they want to make sure you can only read it on an approved monitor.

Meanwhile, the consumer is left in cold. If I don't want to buy the proprietary player, I'm limited in the music I can purchase. Before buying a monitor I have to consider whether I'll be able to watch the movies I have or the books I've downloaded. If I download software I have to have faith that the developer will create patches to fix it (because it will inevitably be broken) or will update it (because it will inevitably be obsolete). Gone are the days when I can go and buy any music playing device I like and know that I can play any music that is released in that medium. The days are numbered that I can buy any monitor on the market and know it will work with my computer. Christ, even the days that I can buy a TIVO and know it will record the shows I want and keep them until I actually get around to watching them are rapidly dwindling.

The publishing industry is trying to prevent Google from creating a world-wide library catalog to be indexed by its search engine so that someone that searches for "George Washington" might just turn up a wonderful novel by a 3-time Pulitzer Prize Winner ("1776") that they may be interested in reading, or even buying. Or a student who searches for "Milton Friedman" for an economics class will be presented with all of his books that just might be of interest.

Each of these are examples of distrust of the general public. They don't trust the public because they are afraid that, well, I'm not really sure WHAT they are afraid of. They are afraid that if they don't protect the content we will share the content with everyone in the universe. That if I buy the new Arcade Fire songs that I may really like them and want to send them to my friend and that he won't subsequently purchase them. Of course, it's not that their DRM actually PREVENTS this, it merely makes it a bigger pain in the ass. (I can burn the AAC files to a CD, and then rip the CD to an unencumbered format) But, more precisely, and of more moment, is the fact that I become encumbered in the ways in which I can use the files I've purchased for MY OWN USES. Apple's files can only be used on 7 devices or burned only 10 times (down from 10, which they changed without asking first, thanks a lot Apple). So, hopefully, you don't run out of devices. Ever. And hope that they don't unilaterally decide to reduce it 5, or 3.

The "Broadcast Flag" and TIVO's little experiment is even worse. It would flag a TV Show as "broadcast" so that it cannot be redistributed over the web or saved to a hard-drive; or only saved for a certain amount of time. Sort of like if someone said "you can tape our show on your fancy VHS device, but after 10 days we're going to come in and take your VHS tape, so I hope you didn't go on vacation for 11 days."

The Copyright Act doesn't prevent you from reverse engineering software (it may prevent you from making a "copy" but not from reverse engineering). But that agreement that you clicked "I Agree" to does. In fact, under the Copyright Act, as interpreted by the courts there is often a "fair use exception" that allows reverse engineering. Not if you clicked "I Agree" though. That's breach of contract. You didn't actually BUY that software, you are only licensing it from the developer. And even that's a misnomer. I "true license" grants the licensee rights to do something they are otherwise not allowed to do. "I grant a license to you to come on to my property." In this case, the "license" prevents you from doing something you are otherwise allowed to do! Talk about co-opting a word! More precisely your use of that software is subject to a contract; in exchange for your money and your agreement to abide by the limited terms of that contract you are permitted to use the software.

In any event. It's not that we are losing these rights that makes me so perturbed. It's the underhanded way that they come about. The MPAA knows that no one actually WANTS the Broadcast Flag, so they stick it in obscure legislation that is sure to be passed. The RIAA knows that everyone hates DRM on the files, but it refuses to license to anyone that doesn't encode their files. The publishing industry knows that there is massive support for Google's book project, but is upset that someone else thought of it first. These organizations get it in their collective heads that they want something done, so they go out and buy Senators (Joe Biden, Orrin Hatch, etc.) to do it for them. 10 times out of 10 the general public is unaware that their Senator is being so underhanded (we don't tend to think about intellectual property decisions when we vote) - they just know that the new technology is more limiting than the old technology.
Look, the publishing industry thought photocopiers were going to mean an end to the publishing industry via rampant piracy - it didn't happen. The record industry though analog tapes would mean the end via rampant piracy - they didn't. The MPAA thought VHS would spell the end of the movie industry via rampant piracy - it didn't. Did some people infringe? Sure. That's more or less a way of life. But, each of these industries, once they figured out how to use the technology, flourished with each of these inventions. Instead of specialized legislation carving out individual niches in the Copyright Law or, more invasively, social norms, perhaps these industries should learn how to utilize the technology to provide content in an easy-to-use manner that people are actually willing to pay for.

Rather than closed standards (broadcast flags, DRM'd music, DRM'd eBooks, etc.), if the content providers produced with open standards everyone would be better off. Make files that everyone can use and everyone will be more likely to use them. Not everyone owns an iPod; Apple is therefore limited in the number of files it can sell on iTunes because only those that have an iPod can take advantage of it. And, there are folks like me out there, who - no matter how "cool" the iPod is - will never own an Apple product (pretentious fuckwits with terrible customer service). On the other hand, if they sold an open format and competed with ease of use, or price, or selection, I may be more tempted to buy from them. Hell, I don't even mind DRM as AN OPTION. I may be willing to pay less for something that I'm not completely free to use. But, I'd like the option of paying for something that I can do whatever I god-damn please with.

Man, talk about rambling. Hopefully, you get my point.

Football is BORING...yeah. I said it.

OK, I don't really believe football (the American kind, not the European kind) is that boring. (Perhaps some other day I will officially put in my vote for European Football as the superior sport, but until that day, I will limit this discussion to American Football) However, I AM really tired of hearing that Baseball is SOOOOOOO Boring by football Fans who are either ignorant of baseball, or really just don't know what they're talking about it. The most cited reason that Baseball is so boring is that there isn't any action: that football is ALL ABOUT the action. There are 22 players on the field running and slamming into each other, blah, blah, blah. In baseball everyone stands around until the pitcher throws something the batter feels like putting in play and then someone runs down the ball and we do it all over again. Ignoring the fact that the description is horribly simplistic of the skill and strategy involved in baseball I offer the following incontrovertible facts about the amount of standing around doing nothing in a typical quarter of NFL football:

(first, as a bit of a description, I was at the Colts/Browns game on Sunday Sept. 25, 2005)
Quarter: 2nd
Quarter Length: 15 minutes (extrapolated game: 60 minutes)
Actual Time: 47 minutes (extrapolated game: 3 hours, 8 minutes)
Amount of Time Actually Played: 4 minutes 2 seconds (or: about 1 minute of football for every 10 minutes of standing around doing nothing) (extrapolated: 16 minutes, 8 seconds) - and to answer the inevitable question: yes, I actually timed it with a stopwatch starting from when the ball was snapped to when the player was tackled or the play stopped.
Scoring: Browns - 3 points; Colts - 3 points

So, for a typical football game (there's nothing in this quarter, other than the low-ish score, to indicate that it was an aberation) that last a little over 3 hours, the players are standing around doing not much anything for 2 hours and 44 minutes. You could play most baseball games just during the time that no one is doing anything for a football game.

An Outsider In San Francisco

I recently went on a week-long vacation to San Francisco/Napa/Sacramento/Tahoe. These are just some observations.

McAfee Coliseum needs to be re-renamed back to Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Seriously. Why did anyone waste their money naming that piece of garbage. As far as toilet-bowl-stadiums go, I liked it the best of the ones I've been in (Pittsburgh, Cinci, Atlanta), but that's not really saying much. Mount Davis in the outfield is a joke - it's a standing testament to the jackass that Al Davis is. Having said that, it's really funny. The basic issue is this: Davis wants a new stadium and he doesn't want to pay for it - he wants the city/county to pay for it because he's already saddled with a crappy stadium. So, to force the city's hand he built an addition on to the stadium that is so huge and so far away from ANYTHING it that would never possibly be filled. The result is that Raiders games never sell out and therefore they are never shown on TV (local blackout rules apply). Davis figures that if the citizens complain loud enough on his behalf he'll get his new (smaller capacity) stadium. Of course, this is all incredibly stupid because no one would ever pay advertising money for a game that is never shown on TV. But it's Ok - because the NFL shares its revenue, Davis is sure to turn a tidy profit every year - his actions are subtracting from the general revenue pile of the league - which they don't mind because new stadiums are good for business. Anyway - it's all very amusing. And, by the way, the A's won the game we attended by scoring 5 runs in the bottom of the 9th. Luckily the Indians had also won that day.

Igor Medvedev's work is astonishing. Randomly walked into this gallery because the paintings were so vibrant and alive with color. If only I had a few grand to blow on paintings.

Bimbo's 365 is a pretty cool music venue. It looks like an old 30s or 40s club from the outside (and it looks like it hasn't been touched since the 30s or 40s!) and inside it ... well, it still looks like an old 30s or 40s jazz club - lounge seats in the back, nice open space up front. It reminds me a bit of the Park West in Chicago, except smaller and more velvety.

Someone once told me that Napa Valley was like an adult DisneyWorld (there's even a train to take you around to the different stops!) And I would say that's a pretty apt description. With some exception (see below) the local establishments exist to take your money from you in the most efficient manner possible. The food is EXPENSIVE (do not go to the restaurants, you will only be ripped off by passable food at silly prices) but not really good enough for the price (two glasses of wine, one grilled tuna sandwich, one pulled pork sandwich, plus tip = $53!?!???! Seriously, What The Fuck!?) There is a Dean and Delucca grocery store on the North end of "the strip" on 29 - just go and get some bread, some cheese, maybe some lunch meat or pasta salad and go to one of patios/verandas/terraces at one of the smaller wineries and enjoy a couple glasses (or bottles) of wine. You will make it out with less money invested and a CONSIDERABLY better meal. Other lessons learned - go to the smaller vineyards (I suggest Regguchi) or the smaller wineries (such as Franciscan - not 'small' but certainly not Mondavi or even "Stag's Leap" - one of these days I'll post on why that whole mess should have been avoided by just finding "Stags Leap" [note that one has an apostrophe and the other doesn't] to be an infringing trademark [I don't really care who's infringing who - one is infringing the other and the existence of an apostrophe is NOT a valid basis of differentiation when the two are FUCKING DIRECTLY NEXT TO EACH OTHER]). Finally, one other lesson learned - we stayed in Davis, CA - just outside of Sacramento and took the "back" way, through the Mountains in to "the strip" - it was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than putting up with the bullshit traffic on 29. Oh. One more thing. Avoid taking a left if at all possible.

I could live in Davis, CA.

Sacramento was pretty disappointing. We saw (and photographed) Governor Arnold (even from across the street the dude looked like he could kill me with his pinky).

I REALLY want to go back to Lake Tahoe/Olympic Valley in the winter when I can actually snowboard there.

It is far easier to get around San Francisco on foot/bus/train/metro than it is to pay $22-28 a FUCKING DAY to park (and then walk around on foot). Yerba Buena Gardens (or whatever the fuck they're called) are a fucking waste of fucking time. They should just be renamed "Sony's Backyard." Honestly - nothing there that isn't in your backyard and it's about the same size. The City Hall is damn impressive - in fact it's much cooler than the STATE CAPITOL in Sacramento. Golden Gate park is much bigger than it looks - and September is NOT the time to visit the gardens there. We saw just about everything Chinatown had to offer and I have determined, in my non-objective, professional opinion, that it is indeed the cat's pajamas (or was it the bee's knees?). We ate at House of Nanking on Kearny (thanks Sarah!) and it was most excellent - just tell the server person what type of meat you want for an entree (we specified chicken) and give her a second meat (we specified beef) and see what they bring you. We had the Nanking Chicken (most excellent) and some spicy beef appetizer/small meal thingy; every table looked like they had something different. Good stuff.

Pier 39 is a waste of time (unless you are looking for a "San Francisco" coffee mug or magnet). But Pier 41 (Alcatraz) was damn nifty. I wish we had more time to spend at Alcatraz. We only spent about an hour on the island, but I easily could have spent at least another 2 to 3 there. SBC Park was nice enough, but it's honestly not as nice as I expected. The outside is fairly bland and boxy. The inside was good looking, but the sight lines looked out into the bay. And water just isn't that interesting. Even worse, the prices there were ridiculous. $4.25 for a 20 oz soda! $8.50 for nachos (though they were the best ballpark nachos I've had - and I've had a lot of ballpark nachos - they barely beat out Miami's nachos and they are slightly above Milwaukee's Nacho Helmet. For a more detailed analysis of ballpark nachos ask me in person or I'll dig up the website address when I get a chance to point you at the comparison John and I have done). Additionally, the ballpark was windy. Really windy. And in September it ain't really that warm there, either. We had a beer at "The 21st Amendment" near the stadium before the game and it seemed like a great place to have a beer before (or after) a game.

Oh. And Dennis. Seriously, not a problem about the club. It looked nice from the outside though. We were asleep within 20 minutes of getting back to our hotel! I'll take the raincheck, though. Look me up when you find yourself contemplating coming out to Chicago. And let me know how that 30th goes in Colorado in Feb.

Economic Impact of the New Orleans Disaster

A Topical Story from the Washington Post

It occurred to me this morning (I'm slower than the average bear) that there are impacts to the greater US economy outside of the obvious. First, the obvious - New Orleans doesn't, and won't for many months, exist. For all intents and purposes the city is dead in the water (excuse the pun). Any business that once flowed from and/or to there has now stopped and must find an alternate route.

But, just to take ONE example, New Orleans was a shipping hub. The ships will need to find a new place to dock. This may sound easy, but N.O. already had the employees and infrastructure in place to handle such a volume; whatever city gets that motherload will struggle to keep up with demand, requiring more employment of a fairly specific skill that may not exist in that community in the requisite numbers. This could have two impacts: first, some other city will find the employees and the shipping business will expand, causing the city to expand, and some city will reap great rewards; the other impact is that the city will struggle, the shippers will cast about looking for other docks that CAN handle their business, or they will find alternative, and cheaper (because now you have dock-search costs, plus extra labor costs for the extra days it days it takes, etc.) alternatives to move their wares from point A to point B - most likely plane or train or truck (all of which require lots of gasoline). In any event, once the shippers settle on a method, the city of N.O., once it is back up and running, may never get that business back. And even if they could, there is a high likelihood that the dock workers never moved back from Houston. And this is just a partial impact of ONE industry.

Which brings me to my second point. The outflux of people from N.O. While some of them may move back, many of them will not. Since none of them have jobs right now, the unemployment in Houston has just shot through the (Astrodome) roof. Indeed, unemployment all over the South will be at all-time highs. The most significantly impacted will be the lower and lower-middle-classes - those who couldn't afford to move somewhere else or get relocated to a different headquarters. Conservatively, there are 50,000-100,000 additional people out of work, mostly in Houston, but spread all over the South - where are they going to get jobs?

In any event, over the next few months we will begin to see the true impact to the US economy - and it probably will not be good.

Why I'm a Materialist

Now, first off, let me just be clear: the kind of materialism I'm talking about doesn't have anything to do with money. Rather, the materialism I adhere to is in contrast to dualism, and is a claim about what kinds of stuff there are in the world. Dualism is the stand that there are two kinds of stuff: usually physical stuff on the one hand, and spiritual or mental stuff on the other. I reject this position, and think that there is only one kind of stuff: material or physical stuff ("materialism" is also known as "physicalism," with maybe some slight differences in connotation, depending on who you talk to). One of the important reasons I reject any kind of dualism is because of an argument based on the unintelligibility of interaction between two fundamentally distinct substances.

Basically, the argument is that if there is some kind of spirit-stuff that is fundamentally distinct from physical stuff, then there doesn't seem to be any way for the two substances to interact. It's not just that we haven't yet found the right theory, but that it doesn't seem possible for there to be a right theory. The reason is that there doesn't seem to be any way for the two kinds of stuff to causally interact. Just think about it: spirit-stuff is claimed to be fundamentally non-physical. So, it must not have physical properties, like mass or size or color, and cannot be acted upon by any of the physical forces. If the spirit (or mind) cannot causally interact with the brain, then the mind is left as an impotent rider on the brain: willing your hand to raise cannot cause your hand to raise.

This, of course, seems crazy. I mean, we raise our hands all the damn time. One way to go with this is to bring in God. For instance, we could posit that God (or whatever all-powerful supernatural force you prefer) set up the world such that, though there isn't any causal interaction between the mental and physical, things were arranged at the beginning so they would always correspond. There is a problem with this: it destroys any possibility of free will and responsibility for one's actions. In other words, this "solution" undermines the foundation of moral theory. If what you think and, more importantly, what you choose, doesn't actually cause your body to act, then "you" (your mind/spirit) cannot be held responsible for actions your body takes: it quite literally wasn't you that did it!

Another possiblity is to say that every time you make a choice, it is God that steps in and makes it happen in the physical world. That is, there isn't any causal interaction directly between the mental and physical, but each interaction is really a kind of little miracle. First off, I'm hesitant to just go with "it's a miracle!" before we've even tried to give an account. But second, and I think perhaps even more importantly, this kind of answer seems to shackle God to the whims of each and every human being on this planet. In order for us to have free will, God MUST step in each time we will anything at all. S(he) has no choice! This also has the unpleasant corollary that God is in a real sense directly responsible for each and every terrible thing any human being has ever done.

So, I'm very hesitant to attempt to "fix" dualism by bringing in God. Without God, there doesn't seem to be any possibility of interaction between spirit-stuff and physical stuff. Therefore, I'm left with materialism. Though I am the first to admit we do not yet have a physical account that explains mind, there has been progress. If we can give a physical account of mind, then we can have a mind that really causes our actions, and so we have a shot at retaining free will and personal responsibility (not to mention just having a coherent theory!).

And that's why I'm a materialist.

Corporate (and Personal) Social Responsibility

Milton Friedman's Initial Article from the NYTimes
Becker's Post
Posner's Post
Posner's Response

The above are just a few links on what those much smarter than me think about the subject. A note: all of them are generally conservative and most take a very practical efficiency-theory approach to the subject (at least those linked to, others who hold similar opinions hold them for other reasons, but the efficiency-theory is, in my experience, the most logical reason for the opinion these folks hold). All of them conclude that it is not appropriate for corporations to intentionally engage in un-profitable charitable activity (is it possible for charitable activity to be profitable? I guess that's kind of the point of this post though, eh?).

Anyway. I don't know what the answer is. But I think those who espouse what is generally labeled "corporate social responsibility" have a personal belief that charitable activity (beyond mere donation) is a generally good thing. Handing money over to a charity is fine, but personally, I think it's a waste of money. Even the best charities use over half of the donation for purposes other than funding the activity of the charitable organization (paying salaries, etc.) I believe that donation of time (or tangible things more useful than money, like computers) is much more useful. Having that as a background, now on to the discussion.

If I donate my time to a charity, my firm doesn't really see any benefit out of that directly. And, to the extent I do anything for the charity during work hours, it takes away from the profitability of my firm. However, if I work for the charity long enough, or put in good enough work, or have some interesting, or particularly novel idea there may be a position on the board of directors for the charity. This ultimately is a useful networking opportunity with all of the attendant benefits that are typically associated with networking. Moreover, to the extent that my services for the organization are concomitant with the activities of my firm (or corporation), my work acts as an advertisement for the company - showing others that my firm is good at x service that I am providing. To the extent that this gets advertised (I use the word "advertised" in a very loose sense, beyond the strict "newspaper"-type advertising) me and/or my firm/company see benefits. So, for this reason alone, it would be incumbent on corporations to encourage their workers to perform charitable activity outside of the workplace and in their free time - it's free advertising.

As for proper corporate donation, I think it can be useful. Look, for instance, at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (okay, not donations by Microsoft proper, but close enough). Most of the donations from the foundation to charitable organizations are not just money, but also computers. This provides enormous benefit to the organizations that they are given to (especially the children's organizations who can never get enough computers). It has the side-benefit that all of the computers are loaded with Microsoft Windows and other Microsoft products. The users get accustomed to using the Microsoft (and have the goodwill of having been a beneficiary of the charitable donation) and they buy and use Microsoft products at home and tell their friends and family how great Microsoft is. In this respect, there is direct and indirect benefit to the charitable giving.

I'll concede that straight charitable cash donation is generally a money-losing investment (especially if you give it to United Way). However, there are many ways to make charitable donations, such as giving of time and services and tangible goods, that are can be profitable, or at least not as much of a sink.

The reason I wrote this post is because most firms like mine "strongly encourage" community participation and charitable work because of the massive goodwill and attendant network opportunities presented by that activity. In light of the strong disfavor by those whom I typically regard as extraordinarily intelligent and well-reasoned folks, I felt that I needed some sort of justification for this demand by my firm. This is what I've come up with.

The Aristocrats

Seriously, one of the funniest things I have ever witnessed.

The Aristocrats (IMDB)
South Park's telling of "the joke"

That's it for today.

Music

Arcade Fire: Funeral
I can't stop listening to it. Really. Every time I finish listening to it, I'm like "I'll put on something else now" (see below) and I'll get 75% through that disc and put the Arcade Fire back on. The disc, front to back, is unbelievable. I've described it to others as "Interpol" doing "Talking Heads" covers. But I'm not sure that's entirely accurate, but it gets you sort of close (assuming you know who Interpol and the Talking Heads are). Anyway. They really only sound like the Talking Heads (a popular, though not entirely accurate, point of comparison) because of the lead-singer's lyrical phrasing which can be similar to David Byrne. But man, these guys heap on the instruments, something like 10 or 11 different instruments were used in the recording of this album, and on some songs it sounds like every one made the cut. Anyway, phenomenal album.

Th' Legendary Shack Shakers: Cockadoodledon't
Scott H. Biram: Dirty Ol' One Man Band
Both of these albums sound like hellfire and brimstone brought to you from a rusted-out Ford pick-up careening down a back-country dirt road spewing beer cans and buckshot. I've actually had the pleasure of witnessing the Shack Shakers in concert twice and these dudes just don't stop. The lead singer is a hella fine harmonica player and the guitarist can just flat-out rip. To call these preachers "country" though would be to give modern country too much credit. Likewise, Biram's songs take on a life of their own. Give the guy credit, for not really being a strong lyricist or even a particularly deft songwriter the songs manage to compel you to listen to them and laugh and raise hell. Rooted in southern blues, his songs are foot stomping sendups to John Lee Hooker, Lynard Skynard and Gospel music all at once. Never have I heard such profane music so soul-inspiring.

Le Tigre: This Island
Electrelane: Axes
I recently went to this concert in Chicago. As a bit of a disclaimer, I'll add that my cousin is in Le Tigre. But, nonetheless, I had picked up their album a few months ago and I have been amazed. There's no easy way to describe it other than electro-feminist-dance-punk. In a live setting they are a sight to behold; despite the band's complaints about the crowd in Chicago the night I saw them. Firstly, the fact that any of them actually play an instrument seems to be besides the point; in fact, many of the songs ran entirely from tape and the three girls just sang over top of it. But, while that may sound like a cheap way out, it leaves them free to use the music as a rally cry to inspire the multitudes. Throughout the night the band encouraged and challenged the audience (mostly female, mostly gay/lesbian) to stand up for their rights, to be proud of themselves, to resist oppression in all its forms, to speak out against George W. Bush, and to dance (almost in that order). This band has it figured out; by that I mean, they have managed to take very serious messages and convey them in a very serious way without sounding preachy or mean-spirited and without lyrical clumsiness of their contemporaries.
Electrelane, on the other hand, was there for one reason: to bring the rock. Holy cow, I have never heard four girls sound so huge. They came out and about knocked the audience out of their shoes from the first chord. The music is mostly instrumental, but when the keyboardist/part-time-second-guitartist sings, her voice is almost angelic. They have perfected the fast-faster-slow-fast-faster song structure and use it on almost every song. But, oddly, it never gets old. They use the song structure to create soundscapes and grooves that hit you in the gut (literally, if you were to see them live! the bass and drums are HUGE).

Oh, I'd remiss if I didn't mention these as well because they are damn cool:
Buddy Rich: Best of the Pacific Years - even if you don't like jazz Buddy will blow your socks off.
Jamie Cullum: Twentysomething - described as a male Norah Jones, I think this is true only in that he will be responsible for resurrecting the "male crooner" from the dead grip of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra and will take the baton from Tony Bennett.

Anyway. Just a few bands that are pretty cool.

How Dumb Can They Be?

Palmeiro tests positive for Stanozolol.
What is Stanozolol? (pictures) Or, more precisely for athletes ("the third most abused substance among athletes") And "athletes" discuss "Stanozol" (warning high humor content - these dudes are apparently serious)

Basic rundown: Palmeiro testifies before Congress "I did not use steroid." Fast forward a few months. Palmeiro tests positive for a banned substance that turns out to be a hardcore anabolic steroid and then gives a lame excuse that "I didn't know that's what it was." First of all, from the descriptions of this drug (anabolic steroid, usually stacked with other testosterone products) that is simply not a feasible excuse. He had to have known. And moreover, there's no way he "just started" using this stuff since his testimony at Congress.

The whole steroid issue in baseball is a shame. And it puts in the forefront the reasons why steroids are ruining baseball, and indeed every sport (cycling, running, football, basketball, hockey, etc.). It's cheating. Plain and simple. The athlete went outside of the bounds of the game to give himself an edge over other participants. However you want to define it (cheat), it is cheating. It's the same as hiding an ace up your sleeve or stealing Monopoly money from the bank when no-one is looking. In fact it's worse because neither of those activities will shrink your testicles or make you more pre-disposed to aggression.

But what's the solution? Identifying substances is a wild goose chase. In fact it's more like chasing an invisible wild goose. The drug manufacturers are constantly tweaking the drugs to be less and less identifiable. And everyone's body is so different that it is impossible to set hard limits on bodily reference statistics (white-cell counts, hemoglobin counts, oxygen levels, etc.) It seems that every time sports catches one drug, another is developed to circumvent the testing mechanism. To me it seems the only logical place to end the problem is at the source (rather than with the users) - make the drugs Federally restricted drugs and the manufacture, sale, or importation of them illegal. First of all its easier to track the manufacturers because they need to be licensed and its harder to set up a manufacturing facility without someone noticing. Importing can be stopped at the borders. Treat anabolic steroids as illicit (prescription) drugs - much like cocaine derivatives used in medical practice. Unless you are a federally licensed doctor or facility you cannot be in possession or distribute said drug. Period.

Honestly, these drugs serve no purpose other than to cheat. Well, that's not entirely true, they do serve a purpose; but those practicing the proper purpose should have no problem obtaining said proposed licenses. But for most of the use these drugs get, they serve no proper purpose other than to cheat. They are a danger to the person consumming them and they are a danger to the integrity of sports. Of course, a mention of kids here would serve the rhetoric well, but I think it's horseshit to blame pro athletes for the problems of kids - except for the fact that these kids see the pros and know that if they want to compete with the pros they will have to take steroids, etc. as well.

Finally, there's an issue of "what is a steroid" or a "performance enhancing substance?" Protein is the basic building block of muscle, but steak is not a performance enhancing substance. In some respects "aspirin" is a performance-enhancing drug or "caffeine." So, where do you draw the line? What makes Stanozolol morally different from eating raw eggs before (or immediately after) working-out? I don't know the answer to that, by the way. But it's a question that has to be answered before these drugs can be put on any sort of federal banned-substance list.

The hunt for the perfect office chair

So as I begin to write this, I lean back in my Ikea office chair, and nearly fall flat on my back. This has been the case for months now. So, why haven't I already remedied the problem? The short answer:

Grad school.

The life of the student is rich, but the wallet of the student is slim. But, as has happened every year so far (though past performance is no guarantee of future success, or something like that), my birthday has come around giving me an excuse to splurge on a chair that doesn't consistently hurt my ass if I sit in it for more than ten minutes, and that doesn't attempt to dump me on the floor if I swivel too quickly or, God forbid, lean back (lean back.. yeah lean back...).

Which brings me, finally, to the real point here: the interweb is cool.

Now, you might ask, how exactly was I brought to this point? Well, before I go out to the local big box office retailer to blindly drop my birthday money on some crappy chair that will fall apart almost as quickly as my valiant though poorly constructed Swedish-made torture device, I navigated the aformentioned interweb to this wonderful search engine, Google. From there I branched off to several office chair buyer's guides and some reviews (though surprisingly few for office chairs) on epinions. My searches revealed several absolutely glowing reviews for the Herman Miller Aero chair. Unfortunately, it's like $600 bucks: too dear even on my birthday I'm afraid. But apparently you can adjust this thing to the point where it actually grasps your butt in a firm yet supple embrace every time you sit down.

So here's the thing: the internet makes me a better consumer. I now can walk into the big box office retailer (who I hear through the grapevine is currently having a big office furniture sale... Yes!!) having some idea what to look for. I want a chair that meets or exceeds ANSI/BIFMA standards; that has forward seat tilt, that has a cushion made of memory foam; and so on.

Aside: who the hell thinks of a name that gets you the acronym "BIFMA"? Sounds like the punchline to a bad joke.

I culled this information in the space of a bout half an hour, the results of hundreds or thousands of people's opinions and experiences. While any single piece of information may be misleading (there are some baaaad people out there), the ability to crosscheck across multiple sites leaves me with a good idea of which chairs are good and what to look for. I really never make a major purchase anymore without first having done some lookin' on the old interweb first.

And you know what?

I am rarely disappointed anymore with the things that I buy.

Branding (not cows, but products)

Wired Article about Branding
Comment by Trademarks and Technology Blog

One of my favorite topics. So, sorry if this drags out. There are two basic points I want to make about these two articles and here are the quotes that I wish to discuss: "Americans have become less loyal" (from wired) and "If consumers don't actually have 'goodwill' towards a brand, in the sense of driving consumer behavior towards brands, then perhaps we run the risk of overweighting goodwill in our legal analysis" from Mr. Goldman's blog.

I think it is generally true that Americans have become less loyal. I think that is a good thing. No longer are Americans wow-ed by a manufacturer's primateur. They demand the product sell itself rather than rely on the manufacturer's name alone in making a purchasing decision. As both articles point out, this is made possible by the plethora (cornucopia, if you will) of information about products on the web. The most well known, of course, being epinions.com but almost every retail site has consumer reviews of products in some form or another (see amazon.com, buy.com, mysimon.com, fatwallet.com, etc.) Mr. Goldman seems to think there is too much information available. In the land of retail consumerism I fail to see how this is possible. If you know what product you want it's pretty easy to go to Google or Amazon's A9 site and instantly retrieve information about any product you can dream of. This is not a bad thing. In the past consumers were afraid of new products because they were unknown quantities, if your friends/family had never heard of it, it was hard to compare against products that nobody had any complaints about. For this reason, it was difficult to break into oligopolistic markets; particular ones where the big names had been around for a long time and advertised heavily. This was true even if the product was superior - history is rife with superior products squeezed out of a market by bigger names with bigger ad budgets. A few factors have contributed to the general reversal of this problem: more cable channels (to sub-divide interests and provide more advertising time at a lower relative cost); the internet (low-cost advertising, low-cost customer service mechanisms, product reviews and ratings); increased competition in the delivery channels (there are more package carriers now, rates are lower, and it is generally easier to get product from point A to point B) These three factors alone have contributed to the large influx of individual producers who can distribute from their garage rather than try to get into a big-box retailer; in fact the individuals can be sold in the same channels (amazon.com, ebay, etc.) as the big-box retailers. All of these together have eroded the need by consumers to rely on brands as an indicator of quality.

That is not to say that branding no longer serves a purpose as the Wired article suggests. Mr. Goldman is correct that branding provides an important product-distinction fuction - it is still necessary to brand so that consumers can differentiate product A from product B consistently. Moreover, Mr. Goldman suggests that "goodwill" may be out the door if consumers are willing to jump from product to product. He views "goodwill" as "brand loyalty" and I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. I believe it's not entirely accurate because I disagree with the Mr. Goldman's assessment of the primary function of brands and trademarks. No doubt branding is changing, and companies are moving from a paradigm of product-quality to a paradigm of lifestyle-association. Now, instead of spreading one brand across multiple demographics we are starting to see the same (or very similar) products, with multiple brands (and perhaps with tweaked options) depending the targeted demographic. In trademark-law terms, I think it will begin to manifest itself in tradedress terms rather than strictly trademark terms. Niche marketing is beginning to take hold and I think we'll see more of it before we start to see less of it. To this end the brand becomes part of the product itself rather than a designation of the product. Consumers begin to see the product (which is virtually identical to competing products) differentiation as the brand and accept that across the product category quality will be approximately equal. In this way, the brands that pay more to advertise will be able to continue to charge a premium on the brand because there is a certain "cool" factor attached, rather than any assumption of quality. People are seeing off-brands not as of "inferior quality" but rather as "not as cool" and that is an important distinction because it allows competitors into the market if they brand themselves as a "stripped down" version of the product or if they market themselves as "uber-chic." So, producers are playing not with our perceptions of quality but rather our perceptions of ourselves and Americans' desires to differentiate themselves. So, people are no longer "Sony" people because they believe Sony has superior products, but rather because they like the consistent styling that Sony uses on their products and want to project that style to others. In this way, the brand now encompasses much more than the name "Sony" but it also encompasses the "brushed steel" look and the "steel and white" coloring. Look at Apple, they've virtually hypnotized an entire nation with the color white. So, while the brand as an indicator of quality is rapidly disappearing, it is being replaced by brand as an indicator of self; and this designation one could argue would engender even greater "goodwill" because people are more loyal to themselves than they have ever been to quality.