Tsaiberspace

This story is about a hand-me-down Dell Inspiron 4000 laptop with the following antique components: P3-500MHz CPU, 256 MB RAM, 9GB hard drive, and an add-on Linksys WPC11 802.11b wireless card. It was pretty sweet when first purchased by my younger brother circa 2000, but now it probably won’t meet the minimum requirements for lots of charities. I don’t necessarily enjoy always using slow old hardware — of course I would love to have shiny new hardware — but I really can’t just turn away a stray.

The other user of this laptop has a history of destroying my old electronics. In this case, it is a bad habit of always fully opening the laptop screen, over my repeated protests that this would weaken the hinges. Well, two months ago or so, my prophecies of doom and gloom came true — the hinges gave up their ability to support the weight of the screen. Unless the screen was at a perfect 90° position of unstable equilibrium, it would gradually fall open or fall closed. After my admonishments of I-told-you-so, her protests of “but the screen shouldn’t wear out like that!” went unheard by me and the laptop.

After one particularly-infuriating incident of laptop-screen-is-falling-down, I was all set to exercise my long-awaited-excuse to buy a sweet new laptop. But curiosity got the better of me, and I found this link: Repairing a Loose Dell Laptop Display (huge “thank-you” to Geoff Kuenning). Five minutes and two turns of a tiny eyeglass-screwdriver later, this laptop feels like new again.

Nothing comes for free:

• The screws are covered by little rubber bumpers that need to be pried out; prying them out weakens the adhesive used to hold them in there. Someday the bumpers will fall out and won’t stick back in.
• The act of reseating the screws will slightly strip the screwhead and/or screw seat. Someday the screw will not want to reseat itself.

I am pleased to report that MythTV commercial detection has been working very well for the past month or so. It works just about perfectly for first-run network prime-time broadcasts, and works OK for some syndicated content.

During the summer, a lot of crappy movies get broadcast on syndication, and I watch a lot of them. These are characterized by an over-abundance of TV logos (logos often persist through commercial breaks) and an under-abundance of blank frames (broadcast often resumes with neither blank frame nor broadcast logo, what I refer to in the above-linked-to article as “scene changes”).

I just need to implement a good scene-change detector for this last case of commercial-detection failure, and I should be good. It will also bring my new commercial detection engine up to feature parity with the “old” one, making it ready to merge back into the mainline MythTV code.

Automatically skipping commercials is nice for the most part, but it makes me realize that we often need commercial breaks as an excuse to get up and use the bathroom, clear the coffee table, get something to drink, etc. Having to hit the “pause” button to take these breaks (and then slightly rewinding upon resumption) somehow seems like more work than simply waiting for a normal break and doing things during the break. Now if only MythTV could somehow detect bladder fullness or coffee-table clutteredness and automatically pause, and then automatically un-pause when I’m back in the couch …

Since I’ve been watching way too many commercials in an attempt to automatically skip them, I may as well share some interesting tidbits of results from my research:

• A good, highly-rated prime-time show like Law & Order is approximately 35% advertising and 65% show.
• A slightly-less good, still-highly-rated prime-time show like any of the CSI shows is approximately 30% advertising and 70% show.
• A crappy guilty-pleasure prime-time show like “The Unit” is approximately 25% advertising 75% show (more like 65% show and 10% last-week’s recap and scenes-from-next-week’s episode).

So far, so good. A good show can sell more ads than a crappy show, but they can’t sell so many advertising minutes that people get annoyed and stop watching. However:

• Daytime soaps are an excruciating 50% advertising and 50% show (even lower than that, with recaps).

The soap viewers must have large bladders or be super-captive or have nothing else to do, or the advertising rate must be super-cheap. No matter how cheap, it still raises the question in my mind of what would happen if a network just could not get any advertising money for some time slot. Would they just go off-air, like some local stations do at night?

92.9 WBOS has been sponsoring free concerts in Copley Square on Thursday evenings. Today, Edie Brickell happened to be performing, so we went out to watch the end of the concert. We caught:

• What I Am (the song everybody knows)
• Circle (their other song that not as many people know)
• Stranger Things (Edie said this was the first track of their new album)

I haven’t really been keeping track of them, but I’m guessing that not many other people have, either; their free concert could barely fill half of Copley Square (albeit on a gloomy Thursday evening). But watching and hearing recording artists perform live is always fun. The popular recording artists that I’ve seen perform live:

• Bruce Hornsby and the Range (1989 or 1990 or something)
• Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians (2006)

We will be moving back to Northern California (San Francisco Bay Area) over Labor Day weekend. After five years to the day, I will finally get to go back :). Five years ago I simply boxed up my few belongings and shipped them via UPS. This time, for the move back, after having accumulated a spouse and a few more things, UPS simply will not do. I need full-service movers.

Moving is a stressful event. No matter how many times I move, whether across town or across the country, I hate it. Involving a moving company only makes it worse. I’ve never had a problem dealing with the people; the moving company agents have always been very professional and personable, and answered all my questions, even though they must answer the same questions a thousand times a day.

The problem I have with moving companies is the lack of information. There was not a single place I could find online that would spell out the formula used to determine the charge for a move: dollars per pound per mile, fuel, insurance, governmental fees and surcharges, moving during peak or non-peak dates, and whatever line items they decide to factor in to the final price.

Moving companies claim to charge based on actual weight of goods moved (e.g., they weigh the shipping container before and after they’ve loaded your goods). Therefore, the only real information one needs from an in-person estimate that can not be made available online is an estimate of the weight and volume of the goods to be moved, from a person who knows how to do that kind of thing. This kind of estimate could in fact be done by a third party, although a binding not-to-exceed estimate would probably need to be done by an agent of the moving company. This would still leave moving companies free to differentiate themselves with the different line items they will charge for.

Still fuming, and after many many weeks of procrastination, I’ve finally gotten estimates from two moving companies. The first moving company provided the following estimate (Olympic Moving & Storage, a local agent for Wheaton World Wide Moving):

There were some good things about this conversation:

• The representative was good enough to tell me that a pick-up date up through August 24 would cost less than a pick-up on or after August 25 (peak season). Sounds easy enough to understand.
• He said that the estimate of 4888 lbs. seemed kind of high, especially since my move here to Boston three years ago only had 2800 lbs. on the bill. We both agreed that it seemed unlikely that I had acquired 2000 lbs. worth of household goods. He offered to provide a new estimate if I obtained a drastically-different weight estimate from another mover during the course of my comparison shopping.

There were some bad things:

• He could not easily tell me how my quote would change if I elected to leave certain large-ish things behind (old couch, love seat, coffee table, etc.). The only way I could get this information would be for him to re-enter my inventory without selected items. He could not just give me a per-pound rate given my distance and date. I don’t think he was being secretive or sleazy in any way; I believe that the corporate software application he was using simply could not (or would not) provide that information, which IMHO should have been easily available online anyway.
• He only quoted me for a $0 deductible and did not offer the $250 or $500 deductible options (the information above was discovered after reading all the paperwork). This is almost inexcusable, but perhaps only merely dumb, since it makes his quote look higher when compared against other movers. It could have been an honest mistake since I hadn’t asked about it at the time.

The second moving company (Rainbow Worldwide Relocation & Logistics, a local agent for North American Van Lines) provided the following estimate:

This was also a very professional experience; the agent (actually a partner in his company) walked around the apartment punching everything into his PDA. I would be willing to bet that they use the same PDA software, because they both ended up with 4888 lbs. The volume was slightly different, but that was probably a result of different levels of eye-balling of things like piles of books and whatnot.

The information given to me by the second person:

• Pickups on any day in the month of August would cost the same.
• The current estimate was at a 63% discount. The discount would decrease over time, based on available capacity at the time the move is actually scheduled. (Basically, it is better for everyone involved to book early.)
• When I asked about leaving certain select pieces of furniture behind, he told me that given the distance of the move and the estimated weight of my goods, I was looking at about $107 for every 100 lbs. ($1.07/lb.). I still think this information should have been made available online, but at least I have this information.
• North American Van Lines had done away with line-item charges for factors like elevators or flights of stairs, etc. (I told him we actually didn’t have a destination address yet and couldn’t tell him about the presence or absence of elevators, or number of flights of stairs.)
• I asked him about recommended tips; he said about $40-50 for a driver for that distance, and about $10-15 for each mover, plus maybe a little extra for factors like many stairs or long carries between the truck and the residence.

I was actually rooting for Olympic Moving & Storage since they were a “known” party, having moved us without incident from Atlanta to Boston three years ago. Howver, given the price and the open information, I think we will have to go with Rainbow Movers. One might argue that a $100 premium is reasonable for going with a known party, but I already place a premium on openness, I don’t have any particularly valuable possessions, and it happens to still be cheaper.

From the New York Times (link courtesy of Freakonomics) comes news that advertising is going to get even more annoyingly aggressive (and aggressively annoying):

Newspapers, magazines and Web sites are so crowded with ads for entertainment programming that CBS was ready to try something different, Mr. Schweitzer said. The best thing about the egg concept was its intrusiveness.

They have borrowed a page from the affiliate-marketing ad-network model so annoyingly common on today’s websites:

Egg producers, distributors and retailers all share in the ad revenue.

Obviously this kind of business model works in the short-term because it addresses a perceived inefficiency in the market (”education” of uninformed but willing customers). However, in the limit, it is unfriendly to consumers: in the advertiser’s perfect world, everyone would shop via affiliate or ad-network links; prices would then ultimately simply rise across the board to cover these costs. In the end, some extra money simply gets transferred from the consumer to the ad network or affiliate marketer.

The only party being conspicuously left out of this ad-revenue-sharing plan is the consumer. This is similar to the entrenchment of credit cards: people who pay with cash subsidize the merchants’ costs of accepting credit card purchases from people paying via credit card (although the cash-users do get to live off the grid).

In both cases, the merchant maintains a status quo, a middleman makes money, and the consumer pays more.

We went to the Newport, RI to look at rich peoples’ mansions (”The Breakers” and “Marble House”). You know you’ve arrived when your house has a name.

They don’t let you take photos inside the houses. The windows are open, so photographic damage can’t be the reason. My belovedly cynical other half thinks that this is just so that the museum store can sell more postcards and photo books, but in this case, I’m actually not that cynical. I agree that money is the motivation, but not for the postcard and souvenir-book businesses. I think they just want (very reasonably so) to keep people moving through the museum so that they don’t clog up traffic, with 6-person groups all taking the same shot with 6 different cameras. If traffic doesn’t get clogged up, they can get more (paying) people through the door. So in that respect, the no-photography rule is motivated more by similarities to the restaurant business than to the movie business.

The mansions are all off of Bellevue Avenue. It is a very inconvenient location because of the presence of a huge shopping mall at the beginning of the two-lane street (with a pedestrian crosswalk to the parking lot, thrown in for extra-good measure) that clogs all automobile traffic and backs it up for many blocks in all directions.

The houses themselves? Ho, hum. The immaculately-landscaped oceanfront houses have 50-200 rooms and had waitstaffs of 20-40 people in their heyday. The Cliff Walk is a very nice ocean-side mostly-paved ¼-mile walk that runs from The Breakers to the Marble House.

The last tour is allowed inside at 5pm; the grounds close at 6pm. We were in the Marble House towards the end, and there was a staffperson following us through the house, politely reminding us that we were between her and the end of her day. We are the type of people who listen to every bit of the audio tour (including all the “optional” bits); three-quarters of the way through, our impatient escort reminded us that the grounds closed at 6pm and that we should be sure to leave time to enjoy the rest of the grounds.

The story is what kills this movie. Bank robbers with huge guns? Ho-hum: just walk up to the bad guy and let the bullets bounce off. Natural disasters? Yawn: fly around town and save everyone. What remains would be a story involving extra-terrestrial villains, and Hollywood just won’t go for that (too geekily sci-fi for mainstream consumption).

Knowing all that, everyone knows the plot will inevitably involve:

• Lois Lane: there will be some kind of romantic interest story, and
• The villain: will get his (or her) hands on some Kryptonite. The story will have some inspiring ironic twist that even Superman needs help from normal humans every once in awhile.

Spider-Man remains by far the gold standard for movie adaptations of comic book material.

A discussion about visiting the Cape Cod Potato Chip Factory led to a July 4th weekend trip to Cape Cod and to Martha’s Vineyard.

Friday we went to the Cape Cod Potato Chip Factory. It was very underwhelming. The potato chips are great, but the “tour” is just a 5-minute walk through a hallway where you can read artistically-handmade posters and see the potato chip floor through some windows. Pictures were forbidden inside, but I managed to take this picture before told to put away my camera:

After walking through the hallway, we ate some free samples of chips, bought a few bags and a “Cape Cod Potato Chips” chip clip, took some pictures outside, and drove to Hyannis. It is pretty much what you’d expect — picturesque New England seaside town.

The next day we got onto the ferry for Martha’s Vineyard. We stayed at the Wesley Arms in Oak Bluffs. The hotel was fine, having air-conditioning, a parking lot, harbor-side location, and walkable proximity to downtown and Ocean View Park, without being so close as to be bothered by people-noise at night. Walkability was key, because we were unable to secure a ferry reservation for our car — we walked onto the ferry, walked around town, and picked up our rental car the second day.

Martha’s Vineyard is basically a place to vacation in a low-key kind of way — read a book, go out to breakfast/brunch/dinner, walk around, and look at beaches, craftsy places (we went to a real pottery barn and a glass-blowing place), and lighthouses. Here are the Google-bait restaurant reviews:

• Palio Pizzeria (Hyannis, MA). Not quite Pizzeria Regina, but good enough.
• Baxter’s Boathouse (Hyannis, MA). Excellent fried and broiled seafood.
• The Original Gourmet Brunch (Hyannis, MA). Standard “gourmet” American-style brunch. My side rant is that I’ve never been satisfied with restaurant-style “over-medium” eggs — they are always too rare or too “done”. Over-medium eggs have solid whites and thickly viscuous yolks (but not “hard”).
• Zapotec (Oak Bluffs, MA). This was a recommendation from a friend; the mussels, fish tacos, and sangria were excellent.
• Mad Martha’s Homemade Ice Cream (Oak Bluffs, MA). Their website sucks, but the ice cream was good (as could be expected — New England has the highest per-capita consumption of ice cream in the US — an ice cream store has to be good to stay in business).
• The Black Dog (Vineyard Haven, MA). This is the iconic eponymous New England institution. We had brunch here. Good homemade sausages, but overall, nothing special — unsurprising, considering that their home page features their merchandise catalog instead of any food. I broke down and bought a Black Dog cap at the store.
• The Bite vs. Menemsha Fish Market (Chilmark, MA). We got some excellent take-out fried seafood next to the beach and had a sunset beach picnic. The New England clam chowder from the Bite was a very clear winner over the clam chowder from the neighboring Menemsha Fish Market. The Bite chowder was thick and tasty without feeling too heavy; the Menemsha Fish Market chowder was thin, with a pool of butter that floated at the top despite my best efforts to stir it back into the chowder. The Menemsha Fish Market did have a very excellent lobster salad sandwich.
• Humphries (Oak Bluffs, MA). More homemade ice cream. It’s all wasted on me because I’m not an ice cream fan. But it was good.
• Scottish Bakery (Vineyard Haven, MA). One can’t really go wrong with an English muffin egg/bacon/cheese breakfast sandwich.
• Chicama Vineyards (West Tisbury, MA). Not much of a winery tour, but the tasting was good. We bought a quarter-case of wine: Summer Island Red, Chenin Blanc, and Cranberry Satin.
• Little Pete’s (Oak Bluffs, MA). We were intending to go to Jimmy Sea’s for dinner, but it was a two-hour wait. The hostess pointed us towards Little Pete’s, a few doors down. We were hesitant because the place was completely empty. However, it turned out that the restaurant had just opened. So we discovered a gem. Both the lobster and the salmon with dijon crust were excellent. Little Pete’s has the perfect menu layout: fish at the top, sauces at the bottom, choose your combo. My side-rant is that restaurant menus always enumerate all permutations of entrée + starch + sauce, which just makes the menu huge and confusing. I’ve always wanted to see a menu where you choose (a) entrée (e.g., type of fish), (b) sauce (teriyaki, herb-encrusted, etc.), and (c) sides (mashed potatoes, veggies, etc.): Little Pete’s delivers!
• Linda Jean’s (Oak Bluffs, MA). More American-style brunch. Again, good.

Finally, it was back to the ferry and back to Boston, where we decided to forego the July 4th Esplanade fireworks that we’ve been seeing for the past three years. The show is good, and people go through a lot of trouble to watch it, but yeah — been there, done that.

In case you didn’t see it yesterday, here are the events leading to Zidane retiring from international competition about 15 minutes earlier than anyone expected:

This reminds me of one of the Street Fighter moves, but I couldn’t find a decent comparison video. However, Metafuture has obliged with what will have to pass:

The Charlestown Navy Yard is part of the National Park Service. We went to see the U.S.S. Constitution, the oldest commissioned warship in the world (launched October 21, 1797). The U.S. Navy makes the self-guided tour pamphlet available for download.

Entering the Constitution tour area required passing through a metal detector. There are two lines. The self-guided tour is an expedited line; you can board the ship when ready. A guided tour only boards once every 30 minutes. Being impatient, we went through the self-guided tour line. Once on board, however, we discovered to some small amount of disappointment that access to the lower decks of the ship is only granted to guided tour members.

Next, we went to board the U.S.S. Cassin Young, a World War II destroyer, another alumni of the Charlestown Navy Yard. It is completely self-guided (although there are NPS personnel available to answer questions). As on the Constitution, only the main deck is available.

Finally, we walked back to City Hall Plaza to watch the World Cup Finals on a large outdoor screen. PepsiCo was on hand to give out free samples of Sierra Mist and various flavors of Mountain Dew. WCVB (the local ABC affiliate) was also on hand to provide live shots of the enthusiastic crowd at a few points during the live broadcast. The spectating crowd was unsurprisingly overwhelmingly pro-Italia, with many people sporting national flags, blue “toni” jerseys, and painted faces.