Dare on Copyright

Dare Obasanjo had an insightful post on copyright and how it works a few days ago. Typically, I would simply dump this into my del.icio.us favorites and FeedBurner would dutifully insert it into my RSS feed. However, I'm calling it out on my blog proper because I loved this analogy: 

Pointing out that copyright infringement doesn't meet some 17th century definition of the verb "steal" because the original property isn't changing hands is like arguing that calling your ex-girlfriend a slut isn't libel because you only said it to people over IM.

QOTD - Rick Barnes

As usual, I'm behind on blogging. This quote is actually from last Tuesday.

"Sunshine is a terrific bleach"
                                -Rick Barnes

Rick, by the way, is my manager.

QOTD from Raganwald 2.0

Saw these on Reg Braithwaite's while I was reading that Wasabi cannot cure rotten fish.

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

And my new personal personal favorite:

"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."
Howard Aitken

I like that quote so much, I updated my email signature to include it.

IDEA 2006

I saw from Bruce Sterling's blog that he's going to be at Idea 2006 next month in Seattle. Bruce is at or near the top of the list of "folks I'd like to chat with over a few good beers". I saw him at ETech and have since read and thoroughly enjoyed both Shaping Things and Tomorrow Now. I wonder if I can make it to IDEA?

Off to Mashup Camp

In direct contrast with my last trip to the Bay Area, this one is going well so far. I'm in Mountain View for Mashup Camp. The flight down was actually early and nearly empty - I had my side of the bulkhead row to myself. On the other side of the aisle was Todd Biggs from MSN, who was the one who announced the availability of free tools for building IM bots and MSN Messenger Activities with Conversagent. Long time readers of this blog might remember that I've been involved with programming to MSN Messenger in the past, so it was great to spend some time with someone from the product (service?) team.

To top it off, Avis was out of normal cars, so I ended up with a red convertible Mustang. Yes, I can hear your pity coming my way now.

Of course, no trip is all early arrivals and convertibles. As my wife wrote a week ago, ours is the House of Plague. Everyone back home is still sick to some degree. And to top it off, today is Patrick's birthday. We had his party yesterday morning, so really the celebration was all weekend, but it's hard enough to be gone much less when my boy is turning three.

No Go on Developer 2.0

Well that was the most annoying business trip of my life. The short version of the story is that my flight to San Francisco sat at the gate for over two hours before they decided to offload everyone and rebook them. I ended up taking a flight into Oakland which was itself thirty minutes late. Combined with the longest AirBART bus trip from Oakland Airport in the history of mankind and I ended up being 20 minutes late for my session, which they had canceled when it became clear I wouldn't make it. Mucho apologies to the FTP staff, though I was in contact with them thru the day so they are well aware of the effort I made to be there on time.

The most annoying part was the airplane crew who continuously assured me that I'd make it because the repairs we were waiting on would be finished any minutes. Two hours later the damage was done.

I guess if I go to Toronto or Orlando, I'll go in the day before to avoid this happening again. I didn't want to be gone from home the extra night since both my kids are sick. But instead, I ended up going to SFO for nothing which is worse.

Xbox 360 Marketing Challenges

While my blog was down, Microsoft launched the Xbox 360 with significant fanfare and dramatic demand. Of course, a month later the Xbox 360 is still sold out pretty much every where you go. I remember I got able to find an original Xbox before Christmas back in 2001 so either the demand is much higher or the supply is much lower (probably both). I've personally decided to wait on getting a 360 - I'm way behind on original Xbox games and my two kids don't leave much playtime anyway. But I'm certainly in the minority on this one.

Anyway, at the height of the frenzy a couple days after launch, John Porcaro wrote what I thought was an amazing post about the difficulties of marketing a product like Xbox 360. I mean, we're all acutely aware of the technical challenges of designing a hardware product like Xbox 360 or a software service like Xbox Live. Maybe that time in marketing rotted my brain, but the challenge John describes is significant.

Furthermore, I think John really lays it out there in his post. It may not have been good news (i.e. Xbox 360 shortages for the near-term future) but it was open and forthright about where Microsoft is with the Xbox 360 and how Microsoft wants Xbox to grow.

(Note: AFAIK, I am not getting a free Xbox 360 from John for writing this.)

Custom Domains Rock

I'm digging the new Custom Domains service from Windows Live. Setup couldn't have been smoother:

• Sign up on Custom Domains
• Change the MX record of my domain
• Add Users

The only even slightly tricky point is that I had set up a passport for harry@devhawk.net in the distant past and long forgotten the password. However, Custom Domains allows be to "evict" a user from the domain so I was able to recreate it with little trouble.

I do have two feature requests that I'm guessing are on the horizon for the Custom Domains team:

• Aliases: I'd like to set up "webmaster@devhawk.net" to simply forward to my main devhawk email. This is a pretty common feature of other email systems, so I expect some future release will include this.
• Non-Web Client Access: I can use Outlook to access my personal hotmail account, but I had issues accessing my devhawk email.

Back in Business

After an extended absence, DevHawk is back on the air (so to speak). My pal Tom had a hardware failure and we've moved DevHawk onto a hosting service. As it turns out, Tom had the hosting service set up over a month ago and I just never got around to making the switch. So, I have no one to blame but myself for being offline so long.

There's much to blog about, but I'll get to that tomorrow. This is as much a test post as anything else.

One quick note, thanks to the relatively-new Windows Live Custom Domains, my blog email is also working again.

It's Great To Have Hockey Back, But...

I'm glad the NHL is back. I'm glad that I get to watch some games in HD. But it's more than a little disconcerting to see commercials for hunting shows and other so called "field sports" during breaks in the action.

I'm not sure that having the NHL on the same station as "Wanted: Ted or Alive" is really helping the sports image.

Stalked by Author of Several Best Selling .NET and Win32 Programming Books

First it was at Fred Meyer a week or two ago. Next it was at my favorite teriyaki resturant last Thursday. Then this past weekend, it happened again at Remlinger Farms. I think Jeff Richter is stalking me.

Penguins Lay A Goose Egg (So Far)

It warms my heart that Toronto and St. Louis both won tonight. That means the only team without a win in the NHL at the end of the first week is the Penguins. I can hear John groaning as I type. And Pittsburg doesn't play again until Saturday, so I can run smack at him all week.

Finally Back On The Ice!

So Day One of the 2005-06 NHL season is in the books. Good for the Caps, bad for the Kings. Really bad for the Penguins, but I hate the Penguins so that's cool. And I was pleasantly surprised to discover that OLN was broadcasting the Rangers/Flyers game in HD on INHD. They have an HDTV broadcast schedule, so the need for HDNet just dropped dramatically. I will have to spring for NHL Center Ice - one night of the free preview and I'm sold. The only bummer was not getting the Caps game live - with all 30 teams in action tonight, there weren't enough channels to carry them all live. But they won, and after eighteen months and one day since their last game that is good enough for me.

The NHL in Outlook

Mark Schmidt from the WWF team built a nifty little app to import the NHL hockey schedule into Outlook. So I went to import the Caps schedule, only to find that the time zones don't match up. All the game times are in east coast time and I am on the west coast. I was going to bug Mark for the code, but decided instead to change my current timezone to east coast, import the games into Outlook, and then change my timezone back. It's a bit of a hack, but it was quicker than changing the code. Sometimes, simple is better.

Now, I just need Comcast to get HDNet.

UPDATE: No word from Concast on getting HDNet. They hope to have more HD Channels "by the end of the year". I found a petition online asking for HDNet on Comcast and a blog entry from Mark Cuban (co-owner of HDNet) that compares HDNet vs. InHD to "David vs. Goliath". InHD is owned in part, I think, by Comcast. However, Comcast now owns the broadcast rights to the NHL via their OLN network. So I'm hoping we'll eventually see HD NHL on Comcast, thought it sounds like I have to wait a few months. :(

MSR RSS

I hadn't realized it, but Microsoft Research is RSS Enabled with seperate feeds for news, downloads and publications. As you would expect, there's some cool stuff up there. The current headline caught my eye: Concurrent Programming Enters Atomic Age. We spent some time discussing this with the ARC MVPs, so it was fresh in my mind.

Two Things I Want From My Digital Camera

GPS and Voice Recording

Omar does a good job covering the GPS front, so I won't bother repeating those reasons. However, often when I'm taking pictures of something, I want to record a little voice note so I can later remember some details about whatever I'm shooting. Maybe the place has history, or maybe something caught my eye. Often, looking back at picture I can remember those things, but not always.

And since I'm asking, I wouldn't mind bluetooth so I could shoot pictures of my kids and send them to my parents via my mobile phone. Sure, the phone has a camera...a crappy one. Fun for my MSN Space, but not for any serious picture taking.

Owning Content

Personally, I am listening to music chosen for me by Comcast right now and a combination subscription/buy model sounds most interesting to me. Most music I listen to isn't worth owning. But the RIAA doesn't seem particularly concerned about music listeners.
[Robert Scoble - Om says tough times ahead for Jobs]

Scoble's comment that most music isn't worth owning really resonated with me. I think we can generalize - most content isn't worth owning. Music, movies, books, etc. I find it interesting how the own vs. rent model works in each of these independent forms of media. For example, most people want to "own" their music, but have no problem renting movies. Most people buy books, even though libraries are pretty prevelent, but I wonder if that's more related to availability. How many popular books are at the local library to borrow?

I hope we see some dovetailing around the rental model across all content types in the future.

Scott Charney on Critical Infrastructure Protection

Scott Charney is the Vice President of Trustworthy Computing for Microsoft. If you've never seen him present, check out this talk on Critical Infrastructure Protection that he gave at UW last year. Even if you don't care about critical infrastructure protection (all none of you) you should check out Scott's talk because he's a great presenter. Great stories, great connection with the audience and no crutches slides.

Finally

From NHL.com:

NHL, NHLPA reach agreement in principle on new CBA

NEW YORK/TORONTO (July 13, 2005) - The National Hockey League and the National Hockey League Players' Association have reached an agreement in principle on the terms of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Details of the new Agreement will not be made available publicly pending the formal ratification process by the NHLPA Members and the NHL Board of Governors.

It is anticipated that the ratification process will be completed next week, at which time the parties will be prepared to discuss the details of the Agreement and plans for next season. No further comment will be made until then.

Game On!

Update - Obviously, the NHL has to do ALOT to recover from missing last season. Apparently, HDTV is one of the things they are thinking about:

The NHL, which claims that hockey fans are the most technologically savvy of all pro sports fans, will focus a portion of its marketing energies on the cyber world. It will also work to improve the at-home experience for an ever-waning television audience, employing new camera angles, microphones on players and coaches and the use of high definition television production.

"The opportunities that exist for us with high definition television are enormous," [NHL Group VP of Communications Bernadette] Mansur said.

[Scott Burnside, ESPN.com, NHL Marketing Challenges Lie Ahead]

I'm hard pressed to say that getting HDTV would make the lockout "worth it" but it sure would lessen the sting.

The Inform Language

I got interested in computers when my dad started bringing home a terminal to access his companies mainframe over a 300 baud telecoupled modem. The first terminals were paper-based, then we moved-on-up to a VT100. I got interested in programming because I wanted to be able to build my own game like Adventure or Zork. The rest as they say is history and some 20-25 years later I work for Microsoft. I never actually built an adventure game, but if I still wanted to, apparently Rory is teaching a sesson on Inform which apparently is a language for building Interactive Fiction.

Sounds like Code Camp is going to be a blast. Note to self, bug Rory for his slides.

QOTD - Norman Guadagno

Actually, this quote is from Tuesday - I'm just way behind on blogging.

"The benefit of being despised is that you have carte blanche. They can't hate me any more than they already do." - Norman Guadagno

QOTD - Jim Dial

I'm giving credit to Jim Dial for this quote since he told it to me, but he did say someone told him. I just don't remember who...

"The difference between a hallucination and a vision is how many other people can see it"

QOTD : Harry Pierson

Yes, I am my own quote of the day...

"There are no stupid questions, just ones that are easy to mock"

QOTD : Michael Lehman

I was talking about modeling with Michael Lehman today when he mentioned the "cult of the arcane" - people who specialize in typically older technologies that are not widely understood who use this general lack of knowledge for job security. I thought it was funny.

Three Seperate IM Stacks

It's interesting to see how consumer and corporate IM have finally started to evolve in different directions. I have a personal IM account (harrypierson at hotmail dot com) on MSN running the newly released MSN 7. I really like the integration with Spaces, the contact cards and the new Personal Message feature that also integrates w/ WMP and iTunes to show "what I'm listening to" (in case you're curious, baby lullabies - I'm sitting in Patrick's room as he goes to sleep). I hadn't realized how many of my coworkers (primarily ex-teammates) have started blogs on MSN Spaces.

I also just installed Office Communicator 2005, the new corporate client for Live Communications Server 2005. While we've had LCS installed internally for a while, I rarely used it. I mean, the only real value I saw in corporate IM in general was security - if your employees are chatting on IM, better to keep it off the public Internet. But w/ LCS 2005 & new new client, there are several cool new features. First off, LCS 2005 connects with both AOL and MSN public IM services. So if you want to, add me as an IM contact via my corporate email address (hpierson at microsoft dot com). Next, LCS 2005 & the new client integrate with your Exchange calendar. So if you're in a meeting, you're status changes to Busy. I can also hover on a contact and see what they're up to now (in a meeting until noon, free until 3:30, etc). Finally, the new Office Communicator client integrates with PBX systems. So I can select a conact, hit call, and my desktop phone automatically calls the person. For incoming calls, I get notification even if I'm not in my office. So if I'm in a meeting, my wife calls, I can click on the notification to forward the call to my mobile phone.

Finally, I'm running Skype (callto harrypierson). I was in Barcelona most of last week and I used the SkypeOut service all the time, except when I was making connections in the Amsterdam airport. I racked up the big 2 Euros in calls over the course of a week. I seem to remember MSN IM having support a similar service via Net2Phone, but they stopped some time ago. I'd probably can Skype if they brought it back. I don't want or need three contact points like this. Two is good - one for work and one for personal - but three is one too many.

If you want to reach me, you have zero excuse! 

Great Support from Napster on the Bleeding Edge

As I have written several times on this blog, I am using Napster 2 Go with my Creative Nomad Zen Micro. Unfortunately, the N2G compatible firmware from Creative is still in beta. Everyone in a while...not sure what the repro steps are...the Zen Micro would lose all the N2G music licenses. They've released new firmware (2.11.02) that is supposed to solve this problem.

However, while the new firmware will eliminate this from happening in the future, it doesn't help you with songs that have lost their license. So you have to delete them off the device and reload them. Simple enough to do w/ WMP10. However, the music you download from N2G has a set of license restrictions, including a limit for the number of times you can transfer it to a portable device per month. I think the limit is three. I've reset my device a few times experimenting with it, so about half my N2G songs had reached their limit. Major bummer.

However, I dropped a quick email to the folks at Napster and the next time I synced my device, suddenly all the songs had their transfer count reset. So I was able to resync even the songs that didn't work before. I had figured I wouldn't get those songs back until next month, so I decided to download some other stuff to tide me over. Having the older songs transfer was a very pleasant surprise.

Bravo Napster Support!

Tape Deck for PC

Back in college, I used to DJ for KSCR, USC's student run radio station. I've got a bunch of old cassette of my "work". Now, with the PlusDeck, I could actually install a tape deck in a free 5.25" drive bay of my home computer. But for $150, I think I'd rather just plug my old tape deck from the garage into the sound card.

Inverse DVR

Usually you use your DVR to watch the show and skip the commercials. Today, however, I did the opposite. Used the DVR to blow thru 58 minutes of The OC to catch the new Star Wars Episode III trailer. Pretty cool stuff. As an added bouns, they also had the trailer for Sin City. I didn't realize Robert Rodriguez was directing.

The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit

Matt got this book as a present for Patrick when he was still a baby. When Patrick was a baby that is! :) It has my favorite line from all of childrens literature:

THIS is a man with a gun.

They don't write them like that any more!

Dino Rocks so now I can Rock and Roll

Last weekend, I tried in vain to install a PIE GM9-AUX in my Chevy Blazer. The GM9-AUX converts the CD changer port on the stock CD player that came in the car to a standard RCA jack, which I can plug any one of my four Nomad media players into (though I imaging 99.9% of the time, it will be the Zen Micro) via a standard miniplug to RCA adapter cable. This weekend, my neighbor Dino helped out and we got it installed. He did most of the dashboard removal work and I did the cable installtion and threading it thru the dashboard to somewhere accessable from the driver seat. Thanks Dino!

DIY Car Radio Harder Than I Thought

I want to listen to my Nomad in my car. Turns out you can get a cable that plugs into the CD Changer port on the back of the stock stereo in my 2001 Chevy Blazer that converts it to an RCA jack for only $60. Add a $5 miniplug to RCA cable and I figured I was golden. That is, until I tried to install it.

A comedian named Rida Rutner once said she "only like cars because they take me to clothes". I'm not a big fan of clothes, but I don't like cars much either (I only like care because they take me to Fry's?). Apparently, this simple sounding DIY project of "plug in cable" requires the disassembling of half the car. Well, half the dashboard anyway. I didn't realy expect that removing the radio would require "releas[ing] the park brake release cable from the park brake lever". Wow.

Of course, in my area of expertise I guess most non-experts would be equally lost. I'm setting up a website for some friends, so I sent them a quick email with the status, and the response came back "could you write this again, but this time in English?" :)

Almost Hockey On Carpet

I watched the National Lacrosse League All-Star Game this afternoon. It's not hockey, but I enjoyed it quite a bit - especially at the end. They had the league commissioner on at halftime talking about expansion. If they had a team in Seattle, I'd go.

One of the things I liked about Lacrosse is that the players all have to have day jobs. Average NLL salary is apparently around $12,000. Apparently, many of the player's teach for their "day jobs" which impressed my wife immensely. She mentioned that this is how all sports leagues should be. I couldn't agree more.

When I lived in LA, I used to play hockey in the amateur league. I haven't played since I moved up due to a variety of reasons - including cost and distance to rink. But there's an indoor facility where they play lacrosse in Redmond, less than four miles from campus. They also play inline hockey and indoor soccer too.

Slight Issue

I've discovered one thing about my Nomad/Napster To Go/WMP combo that I don't like. Napster is wholy inconsistent when it comes to tagging their music. For example, I downloaded Denis Leary's Merry F'n Christmas album, but half the songs are tagged that they come from the Merry F#%$in' Christmas album. This specific example only appears to be an issue in WMP, but I also had issues with the tagging of Chris Rock's Never Scared album. One song shows up as part of the "Never Scared" album, but the rest show up as "Never Scared [Bonus DVD]".

I think WMP adds to the difficulty here because of the sheer amount of metadata it tracks. Artist and Album Artist for example. Good idea, but it's really easy for those to get out of sync (check out this website for more info on that). And because these files are all DRM protected, you can't edit the metadata in the file itself, only in WMP's library. But I can't figure out how the metadata & file structure on my computer corrisponds to metadata structure on the Nomad with 100% certanty.

However, even with that, I still recommend Napster to Go highly. This is a very minor issue that I think highlights a few of the remaining rough edges in a consumer scenario that involved Microsoft, Napster and the media player manufacturer. Plus, I'm anal about things like album names.

(One other side note - deleteing and rebuilding your WMP library causes all the songs on the device to be retransfered. Woops. Had to reformat the device, but since there's nothing on it but my Napster music, it was no big deal.)

Experimenting with Podcasting

So I'm playing around with podcasting. The new version of dasBlog supports RSS enclosures for local binaries and I'm thinking of adding support for remote binaries. (I'm not sure my friend who hosts this blog for me would appreciate the bandwidth spike from adding downloads of media files. Of course, that assumes people would listen). So far, I'm just listening. My friend Mike does his Manic Minute and I guess Daily Source Code is the defacto standard podcast. This will be easier when I get my new AUX input installed in my car.

Listening to 30 minute podcasts like DSC on my Nomad have me longing for WMP's variable speed feature. I listen to podcasts primarily on my Nomad - the combination of WMP 10 AutoSync, Doppler Radio and Sean's podcast playlists makes syncing down to my player effortless. But listening to Adam Curry ramble on about podcast commercialization for 45 minutes doesn't fit into my communte. However, listening to Adam Curry sped up 1.4x would make a 45 minute show end in just over 30 minutes. But alas, the Nomad doesn't have that feature. Does any player support that? Or does it take more proccessing power than these things are carrying around?

Note to MSTV Foundation team - variable speed support would also be a great feature for the DVR. I wouldn't watch 24 sped up, but I might watch the Daily Show that way.

UPDATE - I neglected to "give props" to my boss Norman for convincing me to look at this whole podcasting thing in the first place. Given how little spare time I have these days, I'm not sure that I needed yet another hobby. On the other hand, not following your boss's suggestions or giving him props is never good for the career! :)

NHL HDTV?

The NHL is also counting on the ever-growing popularity of high-definition television to boost TV ratings that are respectable on a regional basis but minuscule nationally. Both ESPN2 and NBC plan HDTV telecasts once the league returns, though ESPN2 first must pick up its options for the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons.

Hockey, like football, is well-suited for HDTV's movie screen-like wide picture, which is five times sharper than conventional analog TV. The league is also excited about the ever-expanding acceptance of HDTV, which saw more than 1 million sets sold recently during the run-up to the Super Bowl.

[Associated Press: NHL looking at new rules, becoming HDTV-friendly]

At least we have something to look forward to I guess 

24 Does Use A Three Act Structure

Sunday, I said that I didn't think that 24 has a well defined three act structure. On further reflection, I'm not sure I was correct. I'm used to seeing these three act structure within a single episode and I don't think most episodes of 24 follow that model. However, if you look at the season as a whole, it follows the three act structure pretty closely

[Note - as with Sunday, there some first season spoilers here - but again I'm avoiding the big ones. I also talk about the current season a bit at the end]

Typically, the three act structure divides the story into three parts - Setup, Confrontaion and Resolution. Each of these parts is deliniated with a plot point - some type of major reversal in the story. In a story as long as a season of 24, these reversals take a much more screen time than I'm used to. To take Star Wars as an example, the first reversal is when Luke discovers his parents have been murdered and he decides to go with Obi-Wan. That's one scene - takes up a couple of minutes of screen time at most. But in 24, the first reversal is the last 20 minutes of Episode 6: Jack is comproised by the bad guys who have his daughter, it's revealed that his wife is with one of the bad guys, the guy that kidnapped Jack's daughter realizes what a bad situation he's in and Palmer decides to tell the world about the death of his daughter's rapist at the hands of his son that been covered up for seven years.

The second act is typically a series of cycles - alternating between story exposition and action. For example, the first cycle of the second act builds towards the attempt on Palmer's life at the morning press conference. This goes on typically for half of the overall length of the story and ends in another reversal. To use Star Wars as an example again, the second act ends with our heroes returning to the rebel base with the Death Star's plans while being tracked by the Empire. In 24, while the end of the first act ends is very clear and occurs exactly at the one quarter mark, act two runs a little long and has a muddier ending. Personally, I'd say it ends in the middle of episode 19, with Jack in the underground prison, realizing who the prisoner being kept there is while Palmer is realizing that he can't trust his wife anymore.

Of course, the third act is where everything is resolved - typically running the final quarter of screen time. You can really see here the major difference between a format like 24 and a two hour movie. I don't think you could reveal a twist as big as the one at the end of the next to last episode of 24's first season in the last five minutes of a 2 hours movie and make it work. But that's the time ratio - every minute of a two hours movie equals 12 minutes of a season of 24.

If you apply this same structure to the current season of 24, you realize that the we're in the middle of act two right now.  The kidnapping and trial of the secretary of defense was act one - and again act one ends right at the end of episode 6. Jack and CTU realizes the "real" target is melting down nuclear power plant via the override device, Behrooz kills the man his father sent to kill him, Jack's girlfriend's estranged husband shows up and we realize there's a mole inside CTU (I get the feeling this is a running plot point - the CTU spy. I'm guessing that if they've used that every season it's gotta be pretty old by now). I put "real" in quotes because assuming this season follows the same pattern as season one, there will need to be some new "real" target in act three.

But I Don't Think 18 Is A Catchy Title

Tanya pointed out the other day that having a DVR causes you to watch a lot more TV. Case in point: 24. I missed the first three seasons. I never knew when it was on and once you miss a single episode, you're kinda done. Now that I have a DVR, I've haven't missed any of season four. Furthermore, the first three seasons are available on DVD, so not only am I watching more TV from this season, I'm catching up on previous seasons. We just finished season one tonight.

[Note - there are some first season spoilers here - not big ones, but some nonetheless]

First off, there is alot of filler - at least in season one. There are long sequences (the girls escaping from the kidnappers leaps to mind) where there's all this action and suspense, but everything ends up back where they started. Secondly, by the end I thought it was over the top on the amount of resources the bad guys had. I mean, they kidnap his daughter again? Maybe it bothered me more because I watched the whole season over a couple of weeks, instead of several months. Finally, the story flow really feels off - but that's the nature of the real-time format. In a more typical series, there's a slow build towards a final confrontation with a collection of connected yet distinct stories. But 24 is like a single 24 hour long movie, except that it doesn't have a clearly defined 3 act structure. It kust puts the pedal to the metal at around episode four and doesn't let up. That's not as exciting as it sounds - stuff just happens...and keeps happening. There's no time for reflection or anticipation which makes it much more difficult to enjoy the story.

I realize part of the show's gimick is that it's a full 24 hours. But really, I think the story - at least season one's story - would have been better told in 14-18 hours. Of course, that won't stop me from watching the current season or starting in on season two.

Rory Gets The Scoop

...And I'm laughing so hard that I can barely type.

Read This.

Getting Things Done

A few weeks ago, I got a chance to see David Allen present his Getting Things Done methodology. It really struck a chord with me, in many ways because it's seems like such a basic point. I would describe GTD as a way of dealing with the fact that our brains haven't evolved to deal with the details of modern day life. Face it, our brains evolved in a time when our big concerns of the day were finding food and not getting eaten.  It's just not designed to keep the millions of picky little details that make up life today in order.

I've only just started reading the book, but I've been trying to apply what I've learned. I haven't reached "Mind Like Water" yet, but I have knocked my inbox down from 400+ emails to 20. I've been taking it slowly - cleaning out all the new stuff plus 10-20 of the backlog every day. I'm doing it on my own - there's a GTD addin for Outlook, but I just hated it. One of the principles of GTD is to get the stuff out of your head and into a system that you trust. Frankly, when the GTD addin started hiding my email, I couldn't trust it anymore. So instead, I do my own thing with Outlook - heavy on the task list of course. And so far so good.

Note to self, check out Jeff's GTD wiki...

NHL Players - Do Any Of Them Have Any Common Sense?

"[H]ow many [people] can actually stand up and shout to the world that they let a BILLION DOLLARS in cash disappear into thin air?

I couldnt  name one off the top of my head that has lost cash money of 1 billion dollars or more, until today.

Congratulations Bob Goodenow, President of the NHL Players Association. You turned down 30 teams paying what would probably average out to 35mm dollars in salary per team for this year. Thats more than $ 1,000,000,000.00 in cash that would have been paid to NHL players this year." [Blog Maverick - How to Lose 1 Billion Dollars]

I guess it's not surprising that the owner of the Dallas Mavericks sides with the owners. But he brings up an interesting point - the players are giving up money that they will never get back. And it's more than a billion - the final league proposal was for each team to pay a maximum of $44.7 Million. Times 30 teams equals ONE AND A THIRD BILLION DOLLARS.

Even the league's Feb 2nd proposal, which the players dismissed out of hand, guaranteed the players would receive a minimum of 53% of league reveues. Assuming $2.1 billion in revenue - which obviously the league won't get back to for a long time - means the players would have received over $1.1 billion dollars.

The players have short careers (I think the average is four years) and are losing much more by not playing than the owners are. Even if you don't believe the owners are losing less by not playing, I can't imagine anyone believes the owners were making money hand over fist - i.e. the way the players are. How much common sense does it take for the players to realize the gravy train is over and forcing the owners to lock them out isn't going to change that fact?

It Has Come To This

"When I stood before you in September, I said NHL teams would not play again until our economic problems had been solved. As I stand before you today, it is my sad duty to announce that because that solution has not yet been attained, it no longer is practical to conduct even an abbreviated season. Accordingly, I have no choice but to announce the formal cancellation of play for 2004-05" [NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman]

I have blogged about the NHL work stoppage several times - I imagine it's pretty obvious that I place the blame for the cancellation of the season firmly on the shoulders of the NHL players association. I find it interesting that Gary open his comments today with an apology to the fans while NHLPA exec director Bob Goodenow opened his comments today by slamming the league. In fact, when asked if the NHLPA owes the fans an apology, this was Bob's response:

"Absolutely an apology to all the fans, and speaking on behalf of all the players up here, they didn't want to be locked out. They didn't want to be not allowed to entertain the fans. Gary owes an apology because he started the lock out. He put all this in motion, and the proposals that these players have put forward, in particular, the roll back, which would have made the league successful in one fell swoop, very serious steps were taken, and, you know, yes, we apologize to the fans for this situation, this circumstance, and the fans can say, what are you going to do about it? Well, we've done an awful lot, we feel, to get to a fair resolution, and unfortunately, it's the other side that we haven't been able to make a contact with, and it's unfortunate that this situation will continue. That's all I can say."

I guess the NHLPA doesn't believe they owe me - the fan - an apology. Here's my response to Bob's response:

Fuck you, Bob.

If Bob really believes that the player's proposal would have made the league successful, how come they didn't accept the league's offer last week to try it the player's way, but have a system in place to enforce cost certainty if it didn't work? I'm guessing it's because no matter how many times the Bob refers to one of his proposals as "groundbreaking" than nobody - including Bob - really believes that the 24% rollback would do anything to stem the skyrocketing salaries in the long run. Bob had the nerve to say in his statement today that "During the last CBA, when revenues went up, so did salaries. When revenues eased, so did salaries. As evidenced by recent signings." What a load of bullshit. When revenue growth dropped to around 5% year over year in 01/02 & 02/03, salary growth ballooned to almost 12%. And as for "evidenced by recent signings", I guess Bob is just going to gloss over the fact that reason that salaries has eased recently is only because so many players went unsigned last summer since all the teams realized the lockout was looming.

Well I guess if I need a hockey fix, my only choice is catching a Silvertips or Thunderbirds game.

You Never Owned Any Music

"I just tried out Napster to Go with my iMate and while I still am not sure that I like the idea of music rental, but I would pay a monthly fee to Apple if I could get access to any piece of music anytime even if just for a while after using Napster for even a few days.  The software experience needs work, but it is a lot better than I ever expected it to be.  Napster has something here actually, but most people don't realize it yet because Microsoft and the industry is doing a piss poor job at showing just how interesting life can be in this model." [Lenn Pryor]

While Lenn admits that "Napster has something here actually", I guess I have never understood the issue some people have with "music rental". You don't own the music and you never did. You've always owned a copy of the music. You "rented" the music in perpetuity (that's legalese for "a long ass time") for a flat fee. You can argue that the record labels have kept more than their fair share of said flat fee, but it doesn't change the fact that you never owned anything but a copy.

Personally, I like the Napster model much better. I am paying $15 a month in perpetuity but I get access to pretty much everything that comes out. Actually, I'm not even paying yet - I'm still in my 14 day trial period. But I've downloaded nearly 3GB so far including a variety of stuff that I was going to buy on CD anyway when I got around to it. Life is certainly more interesting under this model.

Inital Thoughts on Zen Micro and Nomad to Go

After using the new 2.1 firmware for my Nomad Zen Micro for a couple of days, I can see why they haven't upgraded all their players en masse quite yet. It still has a few rough edges. Red Chair Software, makers of the awesome Notmad Explorer that I use to manage my other Nomads, advises that you use the older 1.x firmware "you have a specific reason to switch". Of course, I have a very good reason to switch. The 2.1 firmware is actually beta - something I think Creative should make a little more obvious on the website (not that I wouldn't have downloaded it anyway). For the less adventurous, the 2.0 firmware also supports Napster to Go and isn't in beta.

The place where I notice the rough edge the most during song transition. When I push next or previous song, sometimes it happens right away and sometimes it takes 4-5 seconds. It doesn't happen when it's playing back a set of songs - what ever the Nomad is doing (verifying licenses I'm assume) it must do it for the next song before the current song ends, so the lag only occurs when you're jumping around manually.

That's really my biggest complaint. Napster to Go works really well. They haven't upgraded their help files to the new 3.x version of Napster - for example, all of their screenshots have a separate library function within Napster, but on my machine it just uses WMP's library - but it's pretty easy to figure out. I've configured NTG and WMP 10 to auto sync any Zen Micro with any songs I've downloaded from Napster (about 1GB in the first 24 hours I've used it!). The only complaint there is that autosync works by playlist. If you download a Napster compilation, autosync will transfer the music but not the playlist.

And that reminds me of a feature I'd like to see on the Nomad (all of them). I want to be able filter the list of album to exclude the ones that only have one or two songs. When you download a compilation, you get around 25 songs from different artists. Great for discovering new music, but it adds a bunch of noise to the list of albums. So why not exclude albums that only have a few songs downloaded?

My Fourth Nomad

I just got my hands on a Nomad Zen Micro. That makes four Nomad's so far - I also have a IIc, Zen Xtra, and a MuVo NX. While I like my other Nomads, the Micro blows them all away.

First off, it's tiny. It may only be 5GB compared to the Zen Xtra's 40GB, but it's also around a third the size. The touch pad is a little funky to get used to, but it sure looks nice. And unlike the Xtra, it pulls power from the USB connector. It doesn't even have a separate power connector - the AC adapter that it comes with actually plugs into the mini USB slot. Cool

Haven't had it long enough to talk about battery life or the interface, though the interface at first blush seems much better than the Zen Xtra. For example, if you're listening to a song you can jump to that artist in the library. I've wished for that feature many times with the Zen Xtra.

Of course, the first thing I did was flash the device to the new 2.1 firmware. The 2.x firmware adds support for Plays for Sure subscription services like Napster To Go. And I signed up for my 14 day trial on Napster about 10 seconds after I updated the firmware. I've downloaded about 1GB of music from Napster - I figure that's a good start.

(Note to Creative - the fact that I got a Zen Micro does not let you off the hook for updating the firmware of the Zen Xtra. I expect to be able to use that with Napster To Go as soon as possible.)

Do Muppets Grow Up?

This is way off topic, but did you ever notice that the characters on Sesame Street that date back to the 70's - Big Bird, Grover, Oscar the Grouch, Cookie Monster, The Count, etc. - are all adults while the more recent additions like Elmo, Rosita, Zoe and Baby Bear are all kids. I'm not sure what it means, but it made me think: Did the makers of the show decide they needed characters that kids could identify with better? Or did the original characters somehow grow up? That's a sorta wacky thought.

In case you're wondering, Patrick watches Sesame Steet every morning and I have to sit in with him to make sure he doesn't climb out of his high chair.