Author: Isaac

Categories
economics

Gold

I’ve been listening to some economics lectures made back in the 70’s by Murray Rothbard. Incidentally, iTunes U may be the most underrated aspect of the itunes revolution. There’s over 100,000 lectures from various colleges and universities up there, and they’re all free. You can hear some real heavyweights on there, and from some of the best schools out there.

Anyway, Rothbard was definitely of the “hard money” school of thought. Listening to his lecture on money and banking reminded me of the Monty Python skit that had people living public housing built entirely out of magic. Everything was fine until people stopped believing in it, then it would crumble around them. The fractional reserve banking system would implode overnight if everyone wanted their money tomorrow. Our currency has been, and continues to be, devalued by the government for political reasons. Fiat currency only has value as long as people trust it.

The other thing that has struck me about this lecture is the realization that for most of history, the government did not control money. Sure, they issued it, but the people traded in gold and silver and the value of the money was determined through market forces. It wasn’t until FDR confiscated gold bullion that government fiat money became the only game in town. So many people, and I was one myself, simply can’t grasp the concept of money operating outside of government control. It can be done, it had been for most of history.

Of course, right now, we do trust government money, and we are happy enough with our money in the bank. I can see why some people don’t though. And I think it’s plausible that that trust will erode over time if things continue the way they are now.

I have this sudden urge to buy gold and silver, even though it’s pretty expensive right now….

Categories
culture freedom

Memorial Day

A big thank you to all of you that served and especially the ones that didn’t come back. I have a special place in my heart reserved for the men that fought and died for us and who did not feel they had a choice.A month or so ago, my friend David came to town and we visited the Vietnam memorial and the WWII memorial. There was a stark contrast between those wars, and the willingness of people to serve in them. As I walked along the wall that is the Vietnam memorial, I wondered how many of them were there willingly. Thank God the draft is over. Those of us that grew up after Vietnam are freer than the ones that grew up before or during. Your sacrifice is not forgotten.

 

In addition to remembering the bravery of the soldiers that fought and died for us, we should also remember the additional burden of the ones that were forced into dying for us. Memorial day should be a day to remember bravery, but it should mostly be a remembrance of sacrifice. 

Categories
audio odds and ends

You never know when you’re going to be an idiot

I’m a huge audio geek. I’ve been pouring over amp schematics for years, I’ve listened to more systems than I can remember, and I love reading about all the new tech in audio. I’ve been troubleshooting audio problems for oh, 20 years or so.

I had been mildly disappointed in the audio quality of my iPod touch hooked up to my car’s stereo. It was still better than FM, but there were problems. There were times that I just didn’t have enough gain, I couldn’t turn it up loud enough to get the volume I was looking for. Plus, when I did crank it up, I heard all of the nastiness in my car’s stereo, including engine whine as I accelerated.

Well, imagine my surprise when I hooked it up the other day. I had been demoing it to a customer in the store and had to turn up the volume all the way. Guess what? If you TURN THE VOLUME UP, it gets louder. Sheesh, audio 101. Now there is decent bass response, there is no engine whine, and I can play plenty loud.

 

Moral of the story, even if you’re an expert in something, it doesn’t mean that you won’t overlook the obvious from time to time. I’ll remember this until the next time I catch myself being stupid…

Categories
technology

Networking made easy

I continue to love FIOS. It is stable, and fast. Not all is well internet-wise though. Here’s the layout of the system currently; the main router/wireless interface is downstairs. There are two computers connected to it directly via ethernet. There are three of us sharing the 802.11G wireless. I’m upstairs using the wireless. Normally, things are fine, but more and more I think I’m running out of wireless bandwidth. Last night I tried to download a largish file and had some pretty bad speeds. As it turns out, two of the other guys were streaming over wi-fi too.

I have been thinking about getting a squeezebox (I blogged about that in my post radio reborn) and had assumed that I would use it wirelessly. After doing some reading, I don’t think that’s going to be a good idea. Music would have to go from my computer to the wireless router, and then from that to the squeezebox. With big music files (like FLAC or Apple lossless) and other things from my housemates via wi-fi, I don’t think it would work very well.

But what to do? I had thought that I could just move the router upstairs and connect directly, but they already have two computers hooked up. It doesn’t seem right to make them scramble to do something else. I’m in a rental, so it isn’t like I can run my own cabling in the walls.

There are in fact a couple of newish alternatives! One uses the electrical wiring in the house for networking. You buy two of the devices, one is attached via ethernet to your router and then plugged into an electrical outlet. The other device is plugged into any other outlet in the house. You then run a cable from that to your computer/device you need networked. This method is easy, and really flexible since there are usually plenty of outlets to choose from. There can be some troubles if the outlets aren’t on the same circuit, and interference on the lines could also be a problem.

I’ve decided to go with a MOCA (multimedia over Coax alliance) solution to my problem. This uses existing coax cable to network through the house. The set up is similar to the powerline stuff, but you need to attach it to a coax connection somewhere in the house. Here’s where it gets good for me. It turns out that FIOS is already using MOCA to send info throughout the house. What this means is that I already have the initial device on the line, I just need to add another.

So, from the coax port in my room, I will attach a splitter. One side will go to my set top box for TV, the other side will go to an actiontec router. That will give me 4 ethernet jacks. Not only will I avoid the potential signal dropouts from the squeezebox, but I should get more reliable (and possibly faster) internet as well.

If you’ve been wondering how to network more stuff in your house, this could be your answer. If you’re already on FIOS, half the equipment is already there! I’ll let you know how it goes, I plan on attempting this in 2 or three months.

Categories
politics

My summary of current political thought WRT the public.

Conservatives

 

“If everyone would stop being so stupid and be more like us, everything would be much better. As it is, we better use the government to dictate the way things should be.”

 

Modern day American Liberals

 

“People at large are stupid, greedy, and sometimes even evil. The government is the only way to protect them from themselves and us from them.”

 

Libertarians

 

“People are indeed stupid and greedy to varying amounts. There are even evil people in this world. This is why we need to limit what governments can do so that people can’t use their position to do bad things. With any luck, people interested in power and influence will be less attracted to government positions when there is less power to be wielded.”

 

IMO, it is attitude number two that leads to attitude number one. Power corrupts. I keep hoping that people will eventually realize that no matter how evil someone is, they can only do massive amounts of harm with the government’s blessing. Wait… am I slipping into attitude #1…?

 

 

Categories
music

Lady Gaga

“I have a confession to make. I like Lady Gaga.” That’s what my friend _____ told me today. I had been hearing a bit about her from here and there and had made some Bowie parallels from the critical comments. I wanted to see if she really was the next Bowie and had watched a few of her videos for the first time the night before my friend made their confession.

One thing that I did know about her is that she has a constantly changing “look.” I had seen her when “Poker Face” came out, and then I saw a poster for “Fame Monster” and didn’t realize she was the same person. The videos reinforced this idea, she totally changes several time during the space of a 4 minute song. Hmm, so she has mutable looks, that’s a parallel with Bowie I suppose. The thing is, I didn’t see any personality differences, or even real narratives like Bowie was wont to do.

The thing that really struck me watching those videos (Telephone, Bad Romance, Just Dance, Poker Face) was how little sex appeal she has. She’s the only attractive woman I have ever seen that can wear a bikini like a uniform. She seems to only ever wear extraordinarily form fitting clothes, or next to nothing. She is a good looking woman, and she has quite the figure, but she doesn’t come close to, say, a Karen O (who is far plainer by any criteria) in sex appeal. This is going to sound strange, but Lady Gaga resembles what I would imagine a gay guy would come up with if he wanted to make a “sexy” woman. All of the obvious things are there, but something essential is missing.

If we assume that this is an intentional thing, then there might indeed be some parallels with Bowie, it’s all very “meta.” What does it mean to be a pop female singer? Is she sexy by dint of the uniform that she wears, sings, or dances? Is Lady gaga a character? Does it matter what character she is, if she looks like that must she wear scanty clothing? Bowie explored some of the ideas behind fame, characters in rock, and image as well. Hell, “Fame Monster” sounds like an album he could have made in ’74 or ’75.

I can’t say that I like her music, but I understand why some people would. If she is indeed trying to explore some of this stuff, she has picked the most vapid, least meaningful genre to do it in. Maybe that’s part of the act. I wasn’t really cognisant of what Bowie was up to back in the early 70’s, for all I know the same criticisms were leveled against him. People are giving the label of performance artist to Lady Gaga, I’m willing to wait and see what she has planned before crowning her as the next Bowie. But I won’t write her off either…

Categories
audio technology

Anachronisms

I went into Best Buy today looking for a particular item. They weren’t really helpful, and I couldn’t find what I was looking for, but I did get a chance to wander around a bit. I hadn’t been in one for quite a while. The TVs were, as always, quite impressive. If I actually watched much, I would have bought one straight away.

The LPs surprised me. They didn’t have many, but there they were. I had heard that vinyl had made a comeback, but I had assumed that it was mostly for DJing. They had a Springsteen, GnR, and something else that didn’t really lend itself to mixing. Later o, I also saw about 5 or 6 record players, most with USB outputs.

The oddest things I saw were both from Sony. Did you know that they still make a cassette walkman? It’s 40 bucks! I don’t think I saw any cassette tapes around, but there were the players. I cannot imagine anyone wanting to use a cassette deck these days, mp3 players are around the same price and are oh so much better. Even the LPs included mp3 downloads of the albums. Why cassette?

The other oddity was a 300 Cd changer, it was around $300 if I remember correctly. If this was 1995, it would be the most amazing thing ever, but now? It would be far better, in all respects, to simply rip those 300 cds to your computer and then hook that up to your stereo. Even if you ripped them in a lossless format to preserve the sound quality the cost, the reliability, and the functionality would be far higher with the computer.

The sad thing is that the record players seemed more sensible than the cd players these days, how’s that for irony?

Categories
odds and ends

I’ve been promoted!

Remember that promotion I wanted? Well, I got it today. Thank the Lord, the process is over. I am officially an “Expert” at Apple. I hope to have this job for a long time to come, and they have shown that they want me to stay, what could be better:-) Now I am going to try to concentrate on the job at hand instead of obsessing over the promotion process. Oh, and I might have a few purchases in mind too…

 

I am one happy dude right now!

Categories
technology

Verizon sucks

I’ve never been so frustrated in a company. Usually, bad companies have bad products and bad support. FIOS seems to be the odd combo of a great product and lousy service. I’ve had them for 4 or 5 months now and I’m about done with talking to them. Here’s a letter I sent them, I’m sure it’ll go nowhere…

 

“This is a general complaint letter. I have to say that in my years of dealing with different service providers, Verizon is by far the most incompetent one I have ever dealt with. The service itself has been great, I can’t complain about FIOS, but there have been a slew of problems around it. The hell of it is, none of them should have ever come up. What has happened? Here’s a list:

 

1) The initial service installation was somehow made as a business one despite the fact that option was never offered and never mentioned when I signed up for consumer services online.

 

2) It took almost a  month to get an additional box mailed out to the house. It took 6(!) calls over that time to make anything happen. I was told that the problem stemmed from your inability to cancel a service call.

 

3) When I complained about how long it took to get the box delivered, the guy offered to give me 3 months of free HBO, Cinemax, etc. I flatly told him no since I don’t watch that stuff. Well, lo and behold, he added it anyway and I was then charged for it when that 3 months ran out.

 

4) The latest issue involved my billing. I signed up for auto pay, got both the printed confirmation, and the online one. I logged into my account today to find that it did not use my card and I still owed for last month despite the fact that right below that the website said that I was enrolled in autopay. I called in and was informed that “the customer” had requested the credit card be taken off the account. Needless to say, “this customer” did no such thing.

 

I want to be clear, the FIOS service has been very good, and every person I have talked to has been very nice. Useless, but nice. I thank my lucky stars that nothing has gone wrong, I don’t know if I could deal with the prospect of having to get an actual problem solved when the incidental things, the things that are supposed to be easy have been so maddeningly frustrating. I will continue to use FIOS as long as it stays reliable, but Verizon has most defiantly lost a potential wireless customer. I hope that you can improve your behind the scenes operations, they really are awful.”

 

Isaac Crawford

Categories
audio music technology

Radio reborn!

App Gallery – Welcome to mysqueezebox.com!: “”

I had heard about the Squeezebox from Logitec for years, but I never paid any attention. My loss… Listening to the radio was always fun in the past. Part of it was the thrill of the hunt, cycling through different stations in order to find something that fit my mood was a common pastime. The problem is that FM is a total wasteland now. Even the satellite stations don’t do much for me.

Here’s where the squeezebox comes into play. It is a device that allows you to stream your music collection to a sound system. No big deal, right? An airport express will do the same thing. Ah, but the squeezebox allows you to stream internet radio, even if your computer is off. In addition, it is easy to move it around or add more devices in your house. These can be linked together or operated separately. Logitec makes devices that you would hook to an existing system or stand alone devices much like a table radio.

There are over 20,000 stations by my quick count that you can get on there. In addition, there are services like the BBC, classical music organization, and the live performance archive that you can play on there. Then there are the customizable stations like Pandora, Last, and Slacker. You pick a song or group and they will play songs similar to them.

I love the music on my computer and listen to it all the time but it is nice to be able to get exposed to new music too. I think the squeezebox touch (as well as an app for my iPod touch) will be my next audio purchase. I’ll hook it up to a table radio I own right now and in the future I’ll hook it up to a pair of active speakers via its digital output. Stay tuned, don’t touch that dial! I’ll be back soon with more exciting audio news from Isaac!:-)