The second was ill
the screen ignored my fingers
known, fixed by apple

3rd time not the charm
microphone refused my voice
replaced in the morn…

…and 12 ticks later
four met it’s watery end
slipped into toilet

five wins the award
for longest in possession yet
replaced with 3G

six took a world trip
last seen lounging in hong kong
someone got lucky

just replaced today
seven was a white 3gs
crack in case near switch

now 8 is restored
hopeful that it shall live on
at least till next one

Oftentimes when you’re going out, looking for a new job, you’re going to fight for highest salary.  I mean, of course, right?  Who wouldn’t?  That’s why we’re in this rat race – more money!

It’s important to realize that there’s are ramifications.  It may seem obvious, but I’m not sure everyone thinks this through.  If you are offered 70K, and negotiate to get 80K, your employer will likely be looking for 12% more work.  The boss may not come out and say it, they may think you’re a great candidate and want to get you on board, but every month, they’ll be looking at your salary, and thinking about what you are worth.  Frankly, it’s easy to negotiate yourselve into a position that you can’t actually perform at yet.

Keep in mind that your “job” at a new position is to make your boss happy.  Most of the time that means doing the work you signed up for, but there’s a whole host of other requirements you have to meet as well. Your negotiation isn’t just getting you more money, it’s piling on the requirements as well. I’d strongly recomend everyone who’s starting a new job read The First 90 Days.  

On the other hand, if that isn’t how your new employer works, you may be getting into the wrong job!  You want to work somewhere that puts personal responsibility on each employee.  If they’re free with the money, what else are they free with?  If they’re desperate to get you on at any cost, are they equally desperate elsewhere?

Screen:

Amazing, and a bit disappointing.  If you’ve not yet seen e-ink, you’ll be in for a surprise.  It looks like printed text.  It is extremely readable in all lighting conditions.  The slight grey background has no impact for me at all.   The screen can display the text in 5 sizes; I’ve found that I most like the second smallest.  It’s the right compromise between jaggy and density.  The screen is only 600×800 pixels, so the smaller font sizes are noticible for not being smooth.  They are totally readable, but just not as good as the printer page.  I’d almost call them comparable to an inkjet on quick – a little messy, but totally readable.   If they could double the resolution, I’d be happy.  The single font doesn’t bother me at all, nor does the lack of formating.  Just get rid of the jaggies.

The flash: yes there is one.  The screen goes black for 1 second while it’s changing pages.  Beyond the speed impact, it’s not an issue.  At all.  I got used to it in 10 min, and don’t notice it.  Move along.

Graphics in books are a joke.  The “screensaver” shows that it’s possible, but I suppose that no one is releasing graphics optimized Kindle e-books yet.  If your book includes graphics as a key element, just get it in print for now.

Ergonomics:

The first real red flag.  Take a gander at that picture.  See how the disembdied hand is holding the Kindle?  Good, cause that’s basically the ONLY way to hold the kindle.  Pick it up anywhere else, and you hit a button.   But you don’t want to hold it that way?  Tough.  And see those nice big buttons on the side?  You are going to hit them.  Not only to turn the page, but every time you glance at the thing.  You will lose your page a dozen times till you get locking religion, and lock out the keyboard everytime you put it down.  A sneeze will change the page.  The keyboard?  It feels like crap, but that’s ok, cause you’ll use it for 5 min max.  So why does it take up 20% of the machine?

You can hold onto the included case, which gives you some more options.  Till the Kindle drops out, as it’s held in by weak little monkeys trying vainly to clamp onto the 2 square micrometers of free space that doesn’t have buttons, and even their genetically engineered hands don’t have the strength.  Especially if you’re like me and hold books in odd ways, upside down hanging off couches, etc.

Oh yeah, about that case.  You’ve been trained like a good Pavlovian OCD pigeon to lock the keyboard EVERY time  you put the Kindle down?  Right?  Right!?  Cause if not, forget it.  The cover will hit some button, if you’re lucky you’ll be 50 pages from where you were when you put it down.  If you’re like me, your battery will be DEAD.   Let’s say your lucky, and only some random location from where you originally were.  Well, good luck.  Changing pages takes ~ 3 seconds per page.  3 x 50 = 150.  That’s 2.5 minutes of flipping pages.  SO BORING.  So remember, LOCK the keyboard, even if you’re putting it down for 5 seconds.

Now, the much maligned, and well, frankly asinine back button.   This deserves a special place in hell.  The concept is great – take me back to where I was just at. The problem is, let’s say you’re reading a book, and maybe, for some reason, you might have say first started this book at the front, then flipped forward 20 pages.  Then you hit the back button.  and you’re back… to the begining.  Literally.  Yes, you now need to flip 20 pages.  It’s SO easy to hit this, and totally lose your place.  It’s in the #1 button position, begging to be pressed.  DON’T DO IT.  I have yet to find a situation in which I’m not better off figuring out some other way of getting back.  I’ve trained myself to just never hit that back button, and I’m much better for it, thank you.

Content:

Content is king, or so 18,900,000 people say.   Amazon has decent coverage, borderline acceptable.  I am constantly finding books that aren’t available however.  I’d say around 50% of the books that I’ve wanted to read have not been available, and some are not exactly long tail.  If you are into some more obscure content, forget it.  I was curious to get some philosophy books, with NO luck.  The collection is fairly similar to my library.  That’s not fair – my local library has more books.

The other aspect of content is appropriateness for format. Obvisouly, this isn’t the device to read coffee table photography books.  Unexpectedly, I’d also argue that it isn’t the device to read reference material on.  The Kindle is ideal for linear content, such as fiction or some non-fiction.  However, I often find when I read more challenging material, 10 pages after reading something, I suddenly realize I need to re-read a paragraph.  Usually it’s a 10 second flip flip, found the section, read and think, then back to where I was.  Not with the Kindle.  Here, you’ve got to find the passage, which can take a while as you press, flash, wait, scan over and over.  Then you need to get back to where you were.  ick.  This cuts out all reference, programming, and intellectual content for me.  Sure, you can search, but I need the serendipitous random search, not the computer driven kind.

Blogs and periodicals fall into the same problem.  I like to skim, and dive.  Kindle doesn’t work for that.  Stick to linear works.

Social:

Reading is inherently a social activity for me.  My family goes on trips once a year, where everyone brings books, reads everyone elses, and powers through way too many.  Not with the kindle.  No sharing here.  This may be Olivia’s #1 issue with it.  I read something, tell her about it, and basically taunt her, since I’m not going to give her my Kindle.  This isn’t really Amazon’s fault, it’s just something to be aware of.  If you do have multiple Kindle’, it actually works fairly well.  My dad also has a Kindle, and it’s tied to my account.  Although he’s in NJ, and I’m in CA, we both have full access to anything the other person purchases, barring periodicals.

Technology:

The wireless is slick.  Great signal everywhere I go, and it just works.  Surfing web pages is stupid painful, due to the screen and UI refresh.  Wikipedia access is cool, and useable.  I use the embedded dictionary at least once an hour, possibly my favorite ancillary feature.  Battery life, assuming you lock the damn thing, is great – 5 days with wireless on, 2 weeks with it off.  Although it has a USB port, that’s just for data transfer, not charging.  Only way to charge is to plug in with the wall-wart.

The sample feature is neat.  You can download the first few pages of any book for free.  It seems to be the first few pages from the beginning, regardless of the book.  If there’s a huge TOC, you may only get 1-2 pages of actual book.  If there’s not much fluff at the beginning, you could get a whole chapter.  I’ve love to see them move to the first 20 pages of “content” if possible.

Je ne sais quoi:

All things being equal, there’s still something about the paper book.  It just feels better to read on paper.  There really just is a certain something about paper.  Now, that said, I’m very happy with the Kindle.  I’m reading more, both on paper and electronically with it.  Especially for traveling, the Kindle is great.  Having 5 books on hand at once, in a light package, is wonderful.

If they fix the basic ergo issues, I’d recommend it for linear reading with a big thumbs up.  As it is, go in with your eyes open, and you may find it’s a great device.

For the past year, our dog has spent 1 day/week at Smilin Dogs. We first found them when Olivia saw a neighbor’s dog bouncing 5′ in the air with this white van picking him up. These guys have a great model – they have 750 acres they’re renting out in the HMB coastal area. They take packs of dogs to hike and play all day. Our dog loves it – I’ve never seen an animal get so excited as when they come to pick him up. He’s happy, tired, and satisfied when he gets home.

Since we first started looking, there have always been rumors of issues. Friends in the guide-dog community, vet techs, others, have whispered about dogs getting hurt, lost, etc. After hearing a friend relate how one dog broke his leg, Olivia and I reluctantly canceled the service. The owner, Conrad, quickly called to find out why. He was very polite, and was genuinely curious to know if there was anything he could do. During the call, he said something that resonated to my core – “this is inherently risky. We walk them off leash, with a pack of dogs, in a wild enviornment. We could keep them locked up, and it would be much safer. But that’s why you chose us in the first place.” And he’s totally right. Of course, if my dog was at home in a kenel all day, he would be safe. And sad. Conrad has explicitly set out to run a business with inhrent risk, and with great reward for the dogs that participate.

These guys take safety seriously. They are literally doing everything they can to mitigate the inherent risk in their endeavor. They run report cards on each dog every time they go. They eject any dogs that aren’t acceptable. Conrad personally interviews every single dog that comes in. Yes, every now and then a dog gets lost. Apparently new dogs sometimes get a little freaked out, usually they haven’t been properly dog socialized, and run away. So far, Smilin Dogs has always found the dog the next day. Yes, dogs get hurt. One excited dog ran into another one, and broke the poor guys leg. But that could happen at the dog park just as easily. They take thousands of dogs up ever year, and apparently have a very small incident ratio. They have understood the risk, the randomness, and the reward, and have taken the right steps to put the ratio into a positive balance.

I’m willing to take risks in my life – for my job, for my wife, for myself – that pay off with huge rewards. There’s no such thing as a 100% safe environment. We all lose sight of the impact of randomness in our life, and I lost sight just this past week. Olivia and I talked it over, and realized that we were losing perspective. Starting this Thursday, Indy will be VERY happy once again. For the right dog (well socialized, gregarious, not-aggressive, friendly) Smilin Dogs is the BEST treat I believe you can give them.

Conrad, thanks for taking the time to call, and taking the time to personally care so much about this. You’ve taken a risk yourself with this business, and hopefully it’s one that we can all reward.

NHT PVC PC

What: A passive volume control. Simply attenuates whatever is fed into it. In home computer use, the claim is keeping your computer audio at maximum, and then using this analog controller provides better audio quality. Includes ground loop eliminator.

Connections: RCA in and out. Hook up to monitors only. No power. No headphone.

Aural: Compared with direct, it’s honestly hard to say. In my case, the ground loop noise was BAD without this. With, it’s clean and nice. I’ll call this baseline, but I honestly don’t know if it sounds better barring the ground loop noise.

Purchase: ListenUp.com. $179 delivered.

Fubar III

What: A small little integrated USB DAC and amp. Front features a big smooth pot, headphone jack, and two LEDs. Bottom blue led is power. Top led indicates active audio source. Green when active. Red when unplugged or computer is sleeping. The bottom blue one is so bright it’s distracting. 2-3x brighter than the green/red one. At eye level, it’s almost blinding. Off-axis, it’s just damn annoying. It’s always on.

Connections: USB to computer for DAC. Just plug in, and the mac automatically routes audio out to it. Truly PnP. Provides line-level ouputs as well as headphone jack. Headphone and line-out are active at same time, i.e. plugging in headphones does NOT turn off line-out audio. I left speakers always plugged in, but turned off when not in use. Unplugged headphones when not in use. 12V DC. Includes cheapo wall wart. Offers upgrade for another $100. Didn’t purchase upgrade.

Aural: A clear step up from the PVC PC and iMac. Enhanced, broader and clearer imaging. Better overall definition across the range. Slightly less boomy sounding on the NHT M-00 (though it’s still there, and annoying me more and more). Getting into serious audio realm. Check out this great review of the NHT/Fubar combo for more details. He does a better job than I, so I’ll leave it to him.

Other: Every 20 min, I’m getting audio drop out and stutter for 1 second. Annoying, and not sure what’s causing it yet.

Purchase: Audiophile Products. $238.97 delivered to California. Although in Canada, cheapest shipping took exactly 1 week door to door. Between this and the PVC, it’s a NO brainer. Dump the PVC, get the Fubar III instead.

Apogeee Duet

What: Firewire AD/DA. Targeted to musicians. Mac only. Level meters and big old knob on top. Build like a brick. Perfect fit in a mac environment from build and looks.

Connections: XLR mic input, 1/4″ instrument input, 1/4″ monitor out, 1/4″ headphone jack. The 1/4″ monitor is running straight into my NHTs. First, I set the levels from a test signal to 94db (84db with -10db test signal) on both the duet and the Fubar. Since the NHT have both 1/4″ and RCA in, I was able to leave both DAC hooked up, and switch in the Sound control panel back and forth.

Aural: I A/B’d this with the Fubar for about 6 hours of listning. Music included:

• Joshua Judges Ruth by Lyle Lovett
• Speakerboxxx / The Love Below by Outkast
• Don’t Mess With The Dragon by Ozomatli
• O by Damien Rice

plus a smattering of Paul Simon, Imogen Heap, AC/DC, and Vampire Weekend.

Compared with the step from the PVC to the Fubar, the difference between the Fubar and the Duet is relatively small. The first thing I noticed is an unveiling (sorry Tara, not quite an unleashing) of the music. A layer of gauze has been removed: the soundstage is broader, the layers of the music clearer, the tone more balanced. There’s a sense of space that emerges in the Duet that is totally missing from the Fubar. Interestingly, the Duet is less sibilant than the Fubar. I can’t tell which is more “accurate”, but I am preferring the Duet.

Unlike the PVC/Fubar comparison, which it instantly recognizable as better, the Duet requires more careful listening to appreciate. Further, I’m very aware of the price bias I have. My wife and I setup a little ABX test, and we both could actually tell the difference. In her words, “the duet sounds clearer”, which is just about the perfect description.

Other: Apogee has done a great job integrating this into the Mac. The volume control is unified – changing the system volume with the keyboard is the same as turning the wheel. Turning the wheel displays the volume on screen. It feels like a part of the normal flow.

The Duet is actually designed for input – instruments, mics, etc. I am NOT the target audience here. I’m hoping to use it for some podcasting work moving forward as well, but frankly that’s just icing on the cake.

Purchase: Sweetwater. $495 delivered.

What am I keeping?

The Apogee Duet. It sounds better. It’s integrated. It doesn’t skip every now and then. It has input, which I can at least pretend I’ll be using at some point. Plus, it looks damn good on the desk, and doesn’t have those insanely bright LEDs. The Fubar is sitting in full on sun right now, and the blue LED is STILL too bright.

For those headphones users – I compared the Fubar and Duet with my Sennheiser 580 for an hour or so as well. I couldn’t balance the levels very easily and thus can’t really tell to accuratly. I’d say the Duet sound better, same comments as above. Perhaps better bass and cleaner power delivery.

1. you gotta grab that GPS data. I need a small device, reasonably durable, good battery life, and Mac compatible. Wintec WBT-201 fits that to a tee. You can see an earlier post on my one aborted attempt to look at a different device. The WBT-201 is so simple, this step is done. Turn it on. That’s it.
2. Take pictures. Keep in mind that you will be syncing the GPS and photos based on time. Make sure to set your camera clock accuratly. Instead of messing with timezones, I’ve taken to just setting the camera to GMT. When I don’t, for some reason I can NEVER get the GPS data and photos to line up.
3. Import and tag your photos.
   1. First use HoudahGPS to get the data off the WBT-201. Free, works over bluetooth perfectly.
   2. Merge the photos and GPS. I use ImageIngester, which also takes care of getting the files off the memory card. (If you import with some other tool, you can also use the excellent HoudahGeo.) In ImageIngester, go to tools->GPS, “read GPS data”, set timezone (London UTC 0 for me), check “enable GPS tagging”, and select close. The import, and it will merge in to any file – CR2 in my case
4. Upload to a site that supports geotagging, such as flickr or smugmug.

That’s it.  The trick, of course, is to remeber to BRING the damn GPS device, and TURN IT ON.  I’m not so good at that.

Saw whales plus waterfalls and occasional fauna.

The whale shots were pure luck. We took a tour with Pacific Whale Foundation. It was OK, saw some whales in the distance, got lucky and saw dolphins swimming with some whales (bad photos), but overall it was a bit disappointing. Until the LAST 5 min. I was just sitting there, gazing out when this guy above does his thing right in front of me, maybe 300 yards away. So lucky. Still could have used more lens. ;)

Allow me a digression: I was flipping through AudioAdvisor’s catalog one day, and saw this big “SALE” notice next to the aforementioned speakers. Save 38%!!!! Big flashy colors!!!! I did a quick internet search before buying: too bad they’re still 25% more expensive than you can find for a “normal” price at ListenUp. In a nice circle-of-life type thing, ListenUp is the CO based store that nurtured my original addiction back in college. I would spend hours hanging out there, talkign to the sales guys, playing with the toys, going at least one weekend a month. I probably spent <$1,000 in the four years, and they never treated me as anything less than a great customer. I was ecstatic to buy from them again.

Back to the speakers. I picked up a pair of the NHT M-00 (affectionately called the Moo), the S-00 and the PVC PC on top of it all. While the speakers and sub are self evident, what’s the PVC PC? There are those who claim that adjusting the volume on your computer limits it’s quality. The PVC allows you to keep the audio at 11 on your computer, and adjust the volume in the analog world. Plus, you can use line-out sources (i.e. the iPod) and not blast your ears.

ListenUp was originally out of stock on the PVC. My initial hookup was a mini->RCA into the sub, then balanced from the sub->satellite. There was a ton of groud loop noise, enough that the auto-power would never kick in, and the speakers would all stay on unless manually powered off. The quality while playing was pretty good besides the noise, but I didn’t listen super critically.

Two days later, the PVC PC was in place. I’m now running the mini->RCA into the PVC, RCA->RCA from PVC to sub, and balanced from sub -> satellite. As it turns out, the PVC is also a ground loop eliminator. There is NO noise at all, and my cables are crossing power lines 20 times up and down, left and right. Silent.

Enough yammering, how does it sound? Amazing. I can not get over how much better this sounds. There is a level of clarity and musicality I’ve never expected from my computer. Compared with my Sennheiser 580, the Moo are more analytical, less crystal clear, but somehow more engaging (probably cause the physical bass). Sure, the cans are better, but not enough that I really care. The M00’s are involving, accurate, fun, detailed, crisp, natural. With the S00 there’s some bass, nothing below 50hz to speak of, but enough to annoy the dog.

In my room, they are far from tonally flat. Possibly because of the layout (tucked into a corner, on a desk), I get this huge +5-10 db (as measured with my rat-shack hand held SPL meter) mid-bass bump around 100hz. It’s noticeable in listening, and even at times a bit annoying. It’s cloys up the sound, almost a bit of pollution in this otherwise accurate gem. None of the settings on the cross-over have had a positive effect – I’ve minimized the impact as much as possible. Don’t let that scare you away though, I’m not listening to the 580’s any time soon while I’m sitting here! I really just love this setup.

I can honestly say this has totally changed my listening habits. I can’t wait to sit in front of my computer now. I’m working more, I’m sure as hell listening to music more, and most importantly, I’m enjoying the hell out of it. Every song just sounds great (or terrible, if that’s what they intended). Yes, it’s a lot of money to spend on computer audio, but I’m using it more than my home setup, it’s significantly cheaper, and frankly it sounds better for stereo music listening. Highly highly recommended for anyone looking for great computer audio.

Next up – A friend has the Adam A7 and Mbox setup. All the cool kids scoff at the NHT (it’s not even sold at sweetwater) and drool over the A7. At some point, one of us will bring the other’s speakers over so we can compare. In the meantime, I have NO regrets, and strongly encourage anyone out there to give these a spin.

Disclaimer: My source so far has been 192KBPS VBR MP3 (or higher) from either the Great Re-Rip of 2006 (that’s a blog post for the future) or Amazon MP3 store. For some out there, that’s enough to invalidate any thoughts I have, as clearly my ears are crap if I’m not listening to FLAC/Apple Loseless/whatever with some fancy external DAC.

I arrived an hour before the start, and positioned myself right at the exit of the second turn. The corner was in shade, with great even light even at 1pm in the afternoon. I set the shutter to 1/200 sec in the hope of some motion blur, and tried my hand at panning. I used a polarizer later in the data as a ND filter to keep the aperature open and help blur the background. Pictures link to larger versions and the full gallery.

Assume someone offered you $1M to play Russian Roulette. Would you? I’d argue that almost everyone out there can evaluate if this makes sense for them – I’m sure most would say no, but someone desperate enough may well say yes, and know what they’re getting into. Now let’s say that you are offered $1M/year, for 30 years to play it ever year. Now would you? You would have to be insane.

But what if 100, 1,000, or 1,000,000 people all did in fact play this “game”.

After 30 years, you’d have over 4,000 people with $30M. Yes, you’d have almost 1,000,000 dead people too, but hey, that’s 4,000 very RICH people. And I bet they would find each other, and offer the fact that there are THOUSANDS of them as PROOF that if you follow their SUREFIRE method, you too can be a multi-millionaire, GUARANTEED! Just jump on one foot before pulling the trigger. Or maybe flap your arms. Or pray to your god. We really are just pigeons.

Want to know what the odds are? Go ahead and play with some numbers: