Tag: the New York Times

My Trashy Story

Every week, on Friday, our trash goes to the curb. Every other week it’s supposed to be accompanied by recycling. It doesn’t work that way in our household.

Whether it’s our distance from the curb or the amount of recycled newspapers we have (we subscribe to both the New Haven Register or New York Times) or maybe all the boxes we get because of online shopping, going to the curb bi-weekly doesn’t work. So all of this recyclable material piles up in the garage. A few times a year we stuff it into the SUV and I drive it to the transfer station.

Transfer station, what a lovely phrase. It’s so much more genteel than town dump.

I drove up to the transfer station this morning only to find the new policy – no newspapers. I had an SUV full of recyclables, and of course, the supermarket bags of newspapers were on top!

I unloaded the 20 or so bags of newspapers to get to the cardboard and other material underneath. At this point the transfer station folks took pity on me and found a place… a transfer station loophole if you will… that allowed me to drop the papers off. From now on it’s newspapers to the street, I suppose.

I want to be a good citizen, but it is increasingly difficult to follow the rules. In fact, it would be much easier to hide the newspapers and cardboard and bottles with our weekly trash. I’m sure a lot of people do just that. It also always strikes me as a little ironic that the two most talked about recycled products are made from sand (glass) or grow on trees (paper).

I know this is supposed to be good for the environment, and I’m for that. But, is it really? Is this just a feel good exercise with no payoff… or negative payoff?

From “Recycling Is Garbage” – New York Times Magazine, June 30, 1996:

Every time a sanitation department crew picks up a load of bottles and cans from the curb, New York City loses money. The recycling program consumes resources. It requires extra administrators and a continual public relations campaign explaining what to do with dozens of different products — recycle milk jugs but not milk cartons, index cards but not construction paper. (Most New Yorkers still don’t know the rules.) It requires enforcement agents to inspect garbage and issue tickets. Most of all, it requires extra collection crews and trucks. Collecting a ton of recyclable items is three times more expensive than collecting a ton of garbage because the crews pick up less material at each stop. For every ton of glass, plastic and metal that the truck delivers to a private recycler, the city currently spends $200 more than it would spend to bury the material in a landfill.

I don’t know what to think. I want to do what’s right, but I am really not sure. Until I know otherwise, I will follow the rules.

In the meantime, part of our recycling life at home will have to change. Newspapers to the curb. I can hardly wait for the first really big rain on a Thursday night.

Continue reading “My Trashy Story”

More ChoicePoint

They’re back. It seems that the information flowing from ChoicePoint has been limited, parsed and maybe not totally revealing.

ChoicePoint has said repeatedly it learned of the breach in October, but delayed disclosing it because it said California authorities had asked it to keep quiet to protect the fraud investigation. It said in a detailed explanation Friday that it first learned of the possibility of fraud on Sept. 27. A similar breach involving 7,000 to 10,000 ChoicePoint records occurred in 2002.

MSNBC had been out in front on this story. Today their website only carried an AP article. In case you’re interested in reading more, here’s a link to the New York Times coverage and an excellent article on how this was uncovered from the Washington Post.

There also seems to be some discrepancy over when they were allowed to tell consumers. Though ChoicePoint waited until February, the authorities say it could have been done much sooner.

More Of The Firesign Theater Now Makes Sense

In the late 60s, one of my favorite pastimes was listening to albums from the Firesign Theater. I’m not sure how to explain them… nor if it’s possible.

My Cousin Michael just told me he tried to play one of their albums for his wife, Melissa. She took to them the way most woman become Three Stooges fans. It was painful.

Sometimes their routines were peppered with what I thought was nonsense words. For instance, from “How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All?”

DC: It wasn’t always like that . . .

JOE: No. First they had to come from towns with strange names like . . .

EDDIE: Smegma!

Dc: Spasmodic!

EDDIE: Frog!

JOE: And the far-flung Isles of Langerhans.

I had not thought of the far-flung Isles of Langerhans for twenty years… maybe more. And then, it all came rushing back at me, like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist.

Sorry – that’s their line, from Nick Danger.

From the New York Times:

Dr. Paul E. Lacy, a pathologist who was known as the father of islet cell transplants, an experimental treatment for Type 1 diabetes, died Tuesday in Zanesville, Ohio. He was 81.

The cause was pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic lung disease, said his son Paul E. Lacy Jr.

Dr. Lacy was among the first scientists to observe how beta cells, which reside in the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas, make insulin.

You’re kidding! I can’t believe they worked pathology into their albums. These guys were good.

A Quick Glance At The Future

I went out to dinner last night with Noah Finz. He’s our sports director at the station, a very nice and smart guy, but a technophobe.

We got to talking about where technology is going, especially as it concerns communications. I was surprised at how interested he was… or how well he feigned interest.

With that in mind, I thought I’d write a little about where I see things going. Please remember, the past has taught us it’s really tough to accurately predict the future. This is even tougher than weather prediction because this part of the future will not replicate past events. And, remember these predictions are coming from someone who loves technology. I’m trying to hold back my bias.

To me, the key to the future is not in speedier processors nor more memory and storage, though certainly those things will enter the picture. The big deal is bandwidth. It is the 500 pound gorilla in the room.

Bandwidth limitations is why you ‘only’ receive 150 TV channels. Bandwidth bottlenecks are why your computer often waits while it is plucking data off websites or the Real player takes so much time caching those first few seconds of video before it starts to play.

With enough bandwidth, television can become a one to one medium – unlimited video on demand. Any show or any video source can be run when you want it. Desperate Housewives Tuesday at 8:41 AM. Why Not?

Already, even if you’re not in their home market, you can still watch your favorite baseball team play, because nearly all the games are available over the Internet. CPTV, here in Connecticut, sells a package of UCONN women’s basketball games for out-of-towners with high speed Internet access.

The radically changes the paradigm of commercial television. Without a mass audience watching the same commercial at the same time, television begins to lose its unique sales appeal. There will have to be another way to pay for this.

It could be commercials, maybe a subscription, or maybe both. We’re not limited by what we’ve seen in the past. Sending video as a digital stream rather than analog allows for the integration of other info.

This ability to receive the programming you want, when you want it, will turn television into a narrowcast medium rather than its current broadcast model. There is a demand for shows on knitting or cars or computers or… well you get the idea. Those sharply targeted programs&#185 will steal audience from today’s broadcasts.

In the pre-cable days there were a lot of shows that, today, look like they were ‘going through the motions’ to fill the time. I’m afraid we’ll look back at what’s on TV now in the same way, as soon as the floodgates open in this new communications world.

The days of high production cost TV production are limited. Gresham’s economic laws will be seen affecting TV. We’re already seeing some of that as networks run more ‘cheaper to produce’ reality shows and re-run more of primetime TV.

Is there a long term viable business model for shot-on-film hour long dramas? I’m not sure.

Today, local television stations serve two general purposes. They produce and distribute local programming, like news, and they act as a distribution channel for nationally networked and syndicated shows. With video on demand, I can’t see why these program producers will need local stations.

Local stations will be forced to be local stations. Those who don’t will be marginalized out of profitability. This has happened in radio over the last 40 years.

That doesn’t mean the economic model of local TV is gone. It just means stations will have to better understand how to produce more content for local consumption. I also think they’ll have to shift their focus from producing programming to fill their air time to being producers of programming for anyone who will distribute it.

Today’s TV stations will have to turn out video streams the way Chinese companies, like Twinhead, turn out laptops. The majority of Twinhead’s products are produced for others with other people’s brands on them. You might be using one now, with no way to tell. Twinhead’s expertise is production… as is today’s TV stations.

A newspaper in Wilmington, DE is already producing video webcasts of local news. The New York Times is expanding their multimedia content online. I think, in the mature model, newspapers will provide the news and a company with video production expertise will package it for them.

All this is happening and we haven’t even hit our stride as far as bandwidth is concerned. My cable modem at home now brings in data nearly three times as fast as it did a year or two ago. It’s getting to the point where it will soon become faster than my home network can handle!

The price of this bandwidth will do nothing but fall for the foreseeable future. There are many factors at work here.

First, there is the onrush of technology which promises to deliver bandwidth wirelessly. That should add another level of competition for the cable and legacy phone companies.

Next, there is a vast network of ‘dark’ fiber – glass lines that have loads of capacity but have never been used. My guess is, the intercity capacity of unlit fiber is a multiple of what’s currently in use.

The people who really need to be worried are the incumbent wireline phone companies. More bandwidth is their enemy. Already they are facing competition from broadband VOIP companies like Vonage, with cable companies jumping in.

When there are wireless access ‘clouds’ of connectivity over most areas, portable VOIP phones will trump cellular and wired phone networks with cheap and probably unmetered, flat rate, phone service.

It is a very exciting, very different world of telecommunications that’s right around the corner.

&#185 – I am having trouble using the word program here because it describes something that might not be. When content becomes very narrow and the viewer becomes very focused on its content, the formality of a ‘program’ may vanish altogether.

Michael Ross

Here in Connecticut we are going through the painful process that accompanies the first state execution about 40 years. The prisoner is Michael Ross, a man so despicable, whose crimes are so heinous, it’s tough for death penalty advocates or opponents to use him in their arguments.

He has asked that his execution go forward.

Whether this execution, or any execution, is right or wrong will be left for another day. I don’t know, and my gut feeling says there are better places to debate the issue&#185.

What has become astoundingly clear is the cost in time and human effort to bring this to a conclusion. Ross has received stays, all of which have been vacated. In the meantime, each successive question becomes a life and death question and demands a coterie of lawyers, judges and staff.

All the major issues involved in this case have been settled. All the hearings and considerations now concentrate on issues apart from his actual crimes. This morning another technicality has delayed the execution until, at least, Monday evening.

From the New York Times:

One of Mr. Ross’s lawyers, T. R. Paulding, said early this morning that “a question has been raised about a conflict of interest about my continued representation of Michael Ross. I feel it is imperative to address this before his execution can proceed.”

If that seems cryptic, it is. Attorney Paulding didn’t explain what the actual conflict was.

I have heard how expensive it is to execute a prisoner, and now I better understand why. In order to cross every ‘t’ and dot every ‘i’ the process becomes laborious. In some cases, it seems as if the minutiae has trumped the larger points.

In 1977, Gary Gilmore, condemned to die before Utah’s firing squad, attempted suicide. He was nursed to health before he was shot and killed. It’s all quite strange.

Here in Connecticut, I am sad because I feel so ambivalent toward Michael Ross. Instead of an opinion on whether he should live or die, I have concern because of how the system works… or maybe doesn’t work.

&#185 – For that reason, open comment will not be allowed on this entry. I invite you to email me if this entry hits a responsive chord – but it will be an email we two share alone.

Tsunami Damage Photos

DigitalGlobe has posted some amazing before and after images from their hi-resolution Quickbird satellite.

I have taken two and created the before and after animation you see of Banda Aceh, which is in Indonesia. Click here for a larger view.

DigitalGlobe has done an excellent job of analyzing the imagery (which, after all is what they do for a living). It’s worth taking a look.

The New York times has also published a chronology of the events which is quite well done.

A Night For Numbers

I’m in a very mathematic mood – if such a thing is possible. I got home late after Monday Night Football, sat down and played some poker online. I haven’t written about poker too much lately. Maybe that’s because of how poorly I’ve been doing for nearly two months.

Some of it is bad luck, but the majority is bad play. I see the trend, which is too much aggression on marginally winning hands. If you go all in four times and win only three, you’re gone. I have to be more conservative in that way. Keep my neck off the chopping block.

I have moved down in stakes and reined myself in. So far I’ve done OK against lesser competition. We’re still up since August 2003, but much of our winnings have been squandered by me.

I have to maintain discipline. I can’t play on tilt. Bluffing is a good plot technique in a novel, but a losing strategy in real life poker.

Like I said, I was really into numbers tonight. There was poker and before that my new found infatuation with the ridiculous traffic this site had on Monday. With more traditional, higher ranked sites now on the Ashlee Simpson story, I’ll soon be relegated to the third and fourth page in the Google results and my traffic will tail off.

My final numbers play was looking at the latest election polls. It is too late to look at the popular vote. Analyzing raw numbers is a fool’s game since it isn’t how we elect a president anyway.

I looked at state by state polls on the three sites I’ve grown to enjoy for this: The New York Times, Slate&#185, and my new discovery RealClearPolitics.com.

I love thumbing through the charts and maps on each of the sites and reading their analysis. This is definitely like predicting the weather… actually predicting a snowstorm. I say that because predicting snow is inherently difficult. There are parameters that interact with each other and the data is never as complete or as well initialized as you’d like.

The wild card in this election is voter turnout. Most of the major polling companies limit their surveys to likely voters, and they are qualified based on historical criteria. It seems to me, and this is gut not science, that the turnout for this election will be higher than historical norms. That would mean there will be more voters than the surveys take into account. Will those additional voters vote the same way as the likely voters surveyed?

If the election does draw a heavy turnout, will lines or delays at the polls send people home without casting a ballot? Will those people correspond proportionally to the survey results?

I don’t know. But, it stands to reason, the more unknown variables that are thrown in, the less likely it is that the election will be accurately called.

Just as each individual forecast has a separate degree of difficulty, so too do elections. This one is incredibly tough to call, but is fascinating to look at piece-by-piece. And, unfortunately, just because I have lots of pieces to look at doesn’t mean I will understand any more.

&#185 – Last week I wrote about Slate’s state-by-state polls showing Kerry ahead. Tonight that is reversed with President Bush leading 276 to 262.

My DVR – It’s Not TiVo

I read an article about DVRs, Digital Video Recorders, in the New York Times this weekend. Like most of the New York radio and television stations and the major news networks, I get many of my best ideas from the Times. Unlike them, I admit it.

The article, like so many on this subject, talked about how DVRs are. I have one and I do enjoy it. Unfortunately, I am nowhere near the TV nirvana experienced by the writers I’ve read.

The concept behind TiVo, Replay TV and the others is pretty simple. Record everything on a hard drive instead of tape, and use computer technology to make it easier, yet more powerful than an old school VCR.

The problem is, all DVRs are not created equal. I think mine, A Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000 that I rent from Comcast&#185, is somewhere near the bottom. This is not the device people are clamoring for, though it is marketed in the same way.

I often hear about how TiVo will ‘learn’ about what you watch and then record programs based on your likes. This SA box doesn’t do that. It is the featured I would most like to see.

The menu system within this DVR is disjointed, non-intuitive and difficult to learn. I have programmed recordings based on time, but I couldn’t tell you how… and would have to hit a bunch of dead ends before I did it again.

Recording scheduled programs is easier, but still not simple. The program guide is two clicks of two separate buttons away. Why? Isn’t this the most used feature? It should be directly accessible.

Working back ward through the guide is nearly impossible. Going backward in time through midnight just doesn’t work.

The guide itself is sorely lacking. Movies and programs on some channels don’t show. Channels that I don’t subscribe to do show, adding an extra layer I have to move through before setting the recorder. The text information describing the programs is sparse.

In using the video-on-demand features, the same function on different menus uses a different keystroke! That violates one of the most basic rules of user interface design.

Possibly the most frustrating problem is the propensity of the 8000 to accept a key press from the remote control, but do nothing for a few seconds. Most likely during that time you have decided the machine didn’t get the first press and have pressed again. Now you have screwed up whatever you were attempting.

If Comcast or Scientific Atlanta asked, I’d tell them. I did once send a note to SA, using a form on their website. I never received a reply.

&#185 – As part of my retirement account I have Comcast stock. So, I am not a disinterested party here. However, since I’m talking down their product, you can see that hasn’t affected me.

Stranger Than Fiction – Much Stranger

I got a call from my friend Farrell earlier this evening. “Do you still have today’s Times?” he asked.

He was calling from Washington, but I knew he wasn’t talking about the Washington Times. The New York Times was his concern and I still had my copy at home.

“Look at Page A6.”

So tonight, when I got home, I did just that. It was a typical inside page in the Times main section. Fully 75% of the page was ads. The lower half was a sedate graph touting the ratings for NBC’s coverage of the Democratic National Convention. It was that ad Farrell was referring to.

A first glance it looks perfectly normal… but read each word carefully.

I can’t believe this got by everyone at NBC and the Times!


Why Do I Do It?

I called my friend Paul this afternoon. We spoke for a while and then, he asked me why? Why do I write this blog?

Damn. Good question. I’m not sure why.

As has been pointed out by other friends, most blogs are boring. And, even as a blogger, I don’t read other blogs.

A story in the New York Times Sunday Magazine said the average blog was written by someone my daughter’s age, who quickly lost interest. A 53 year old blogger is beyond unusual.

When I try and intellectualize the blog, I realize I like getting my point across. At the same time, I’m frustrated that I have to stifle myself. There’s a lot about my family and workplace and politics, that I don’t write. I am jealous of those unencumbered by the necessary obligations of gainful employment.

Boy, would I like to write about politics right now.

I attempt to post something here every day. I haven’t been 100% successful, but I’m close. There are times when I’ve written, but really didn’t have much (or anything to say). The discipline of writing every day is a good thing. So, I force myself.

I now know a little too much about my own writing. It is very difficult to write a lot without developing a distinctive style. Style sounds like a good thing in the abstract, until you understand there’s a predictability in distinctive style. There are catch phrases and techniques that I overuse – even though I try not to. I’d like to be different every day. But, by definition, I am me every day.

I take great pleasure in revising and rewriting my prose. This might be the greatest gift of modern computing – the easy ability to revisit what you’ve just written.

I remember the first time I saw a word processor, “Electric Pencil” for the TRS-80 Model I. It was installed on a computer with no printer, but I still sat in slack jawed amazement as the first word wrapped to the next line. It only took a few seconds to understood the power that was being unleashed.

More than once, since I’ve been blogging, someone has suggested I write a book. Here I’m doing paragraphs at a time. A book is pages and pages and pages. And, the more you write, the more organizational skills (not a strong point for me) come into play.

For the time being, it’s fun to write and then be read by the few hundred of you who pass by here every day. Considering how I dreaded writing as a student, it is remarkable that, today, I find writing so satisfying

Two Friends in the Times – And They Didn’t Shoot Anyone!

The New York Times did a wonderful profile of a friend of mine, Jon Wolfert. Jon is to radio jingles as Janet Jackson is to wardrobe malfunction. What makes it even cooler is the gratuitous mention of our mutual friend, Peter Mokover.

Jon is responsible for some of my favorite jingles – including a few he did for me. I am responsible for sneaking him into the Kennedy Space Center to watch John Glenn’s launch.

I’ve attached the article to the link below.

Continue reading “Two Friends in the Times – And They Didn’t Shoot Anyone!”

Times Square

I was browsing through the New York Times website when I stumbled upon their selection of multimedia files. These are so well hidden, it’s a shame.

I looked down the list and one particular entry struck me as interesting. The title is: “Times Square: Then and Now.” It is written and narrated by James Traub of The Times who has written a book on the history of the area.

This is one of those things you listen to and then say, “Oh – that’s why we have the Internet.” It is an excellent use of still photos and great writing, tied together with Macromedia Flash.

Note: NY Times content requires free registration

Gene Klavan

When I was growing up, my parents (mostly my dad) listened to WNEW. To me it represented what adult life was about. It was sophisticated and upwardly mobile. The stars of that era of popular music hung out at WNEW and socialized with the disk jockeys.

It was a Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Jack Jones, Steve & Eydie kind of place.

The morning show was Klavan and Finch. Gene Klavan was the comic and Dee Finch his straight man. This past week Gene Klavan died at 79.

I was speaking to my dad tonight, looking for the right moment to tell him about Klavan, when he told me.

I stopped for a minute. Is it right to tell a 78 year old about the death of a 79 year old? And then I asked him.

I didn’t want to pry, but I wondered how my dad looked at death. I think (and he reads this so he’ll tell me if I’m wrong) that he just sees it as a part of life. Where he lives, in Florida, he is surrounded by it.

His life now is the best it’s ever been. He and my mom are incredibly active – much more so than ever before. He says, 78 is an age he never imagined, much less consciously thought of.

I see my parents living forever. But they are so much better at dealing with reality than I am.

Continue reading “Gene Klavan”

Bad Movie – What Were They Thinking?

Steffie wanted to go to the mall, and we didn’t want her to drive there, so Helaine and I spent the evening at the movies. Last week we had thought about going, but there was nothing that interested us. This week there’s the new Jim Carrey movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

I can’t remember a movie I have enjoyed less – not recently, certainly.

Forget the plot for a moment (because, even if I wanted to, I don’t think I have figured out what the plot is). In a love story, and this is a love story, the characters should be … lovable. Clementine, as played by Kate Winslet, is someone I avoid at all costs in real life. An alcoholic who is psychotic, flighty, cruel and manipulative. Need I go on?

Carrey spends the entire movie fighting his good sense, staying smitten with her. Why? He dumps an unseen live-in-girlfriend for her. Why?

I don’t know. And, with this movie squarely in past tense, I don’t care.

The movie is ‘cut’ in a very edgy style and past and present are tantalizingly juxtaposed. But technique is not enough to support a film. There is no meat on this turkey.

To me, this is the strangest revelation. As much as I disliked this movie, I continue to like Jim Carrey more and more. He, as Kate Winslet, played a character who never enticed me to know him more. Yet there is something charming about him which jumps off the screen. There is a special ‘it’ which some people have which allow them to light up a screen and overshadow those around them Jim Carrey has such a presence. But his character gives him little to work with, and left me cold.

As I was looking for some detail to put into this entry, I stopped by the movie’s website. There was a quote from Karyn James of the New York Times. That was strange because the film was reviewed in the Times by Elvis Mitchell. I wonder how far out of context the quote was taken?

I have often wondered if there’s a point of no return in the movie making process. Past that point, when the movie’s true quality is revealed, it’s too late to stop the production. Now, Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood and the others will go and promote it.

We went to see this at the Showcase Cinemas in Orange. To add insult to injury, it seemed like the theater wasn’t heated at all. The concrete floor was incredibly cold, and as the movie wore on, I did everything I could to keep my feet up.

Other than that, it was great.

A Good Cell Choice?

Contracting for cellular service was one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever made. There are no really good choices, just a series of compromises. Everyone is offering something different. It’s nearly impossible to comparison shop. Each company has different coverage. None of the companies make full, easily understood disclosures of their coverage or limitations.

In many ways I’m reminded of the airline industry. They’ve made life so miserable for customers that, by and large, airlines are reviled. Meanwhile, the major carriers have made so many cuts that their one unique selling point against the low cost carriers – full service – no longer exists.

Back to the phones (airlines are too easy a target).

This morning, right under the masthead, The New York Times reported Vodaphone as the likely purchaser of AT&T Wireless. Bzzzzzzzzz – wrong. The ink had hardly dried on page one by the time it was announced that Cingular was buying AT&T Wireless.

Call me selfish, but this is wonderful news for me. My only real (current) complaint about Cingular is their coverage at home. AT&T, on the other hand, has a compatible tower within spitting distance of my house. So, I can only hope that the two networks are quickly combined and the green light on my phone starts blinking.

This is too easy. I’m missing something, I just know it.