Category Archives: Technology

Reflections on 11/6/2012

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Four years ago, I was in Asheville, North Carolina working for the Democratic party to get voters to the polls. It was an amazing evening, as my country elected a black man president – something I was certain would happen only after I died. I wrote it about it here – the memories are still fresh.

This year, 5000 miles from Asheville in the Isle of Man, I needed to feel connected to the most important thing the U.S. does every four years. So at about midnight GMT, I put on my “Life is Good” pajamas with guitars (for good luck) and settled into the home office for a long night. Ostensibly, the intent was to  make some last-minute trades on Intrade (more about that in a minute). But the real reason was because I wasn’t going to sleep until I knew who had won; there was no point in lying down until the outcome was virtually certain.

I filled my 30″ monitor with browser windows watching the results, doing trades, and monitoring Twitter; Skype and MSN chat windows to talk to friends; iTunes to provide a soundtrack for the evening.

One of the constants throughout the night was my friend and colleague, Brad Willis, who had been live-blogging the election since about 7:00am his time (on the East Coast). Yet again, Brad’s narrative was funny and deeply insightful and it was ongoing source of joy as the night progressed. I had Skype chat open with my Intrade betting mentor (who shall remain nameless here). He was busy looking for good bargains and has been unfailingly generous in sharing them with me.

The early returns had everybody’s nerves on edge and reports abounded of emotional eating (“I just ate half a pizza”). I succumbed as well, including a banana that somehow went MIA and didn’t reappear until the election was called for Obama. But as the good news continued to arrive, the mood lightened. Twitter began to shift from nail-biting to humor and relaxed conversation (ultimately ending up at pure schadenfreude watching Fox News as dawn rose here).

On the Intrade front, I made a healthy last-day profit, closing some trades that had reached an asymptotic price (e.g. 96 or so) and plowing the money back into trades that hadn’t seen the light yet. By far the most delectable trade was pouncing on the Indiana Senate race early (thank you, SR), and betting on the Democratic candidate there to destroy that unspeakable rape-apologist Murdouck. I got that one at 63 and cashed it out around 96 to put the money to work elsewhere. At that time, Obama was still trading in the high 60′s (more about that in a minute).

Eventually, there were no more profitable trades to be done, so I just sat on the sideline, watched, and communed with my friends online, loving being part of the whole experience. Here’s what I learned during those six hours:

  • Say what you want to about Obama, the man can turn a speech into a sermon. And furthermore, he was exactly on message in his victory speech. His speech reached out to all Americans in a way that Romney’s never could and never would have. And that is probably the most important thing we need now – to stop thinking about the guy who voted for not-your-guy as the “enemy”. Obama said:Whether you pounded the pavement or picked up the phone… whether you held an Obama sign or a Romney sign, you made your voice heard and you made a difference.

    Can you imagine Mitt Romney saying that? No, neither can I. As I said, Obama is not the best president we’ve had in a long time, but I believe he has the right vision and that counts for a lot.

  • The cultural norm is changing. Four states (MD, ME, MN, WA) passed same-sex marriage. Two states (CO, WA) legalized recreational marijuana, and voters in three pretty conservative states (MO, IN, VA) threw two rape apologists and a closet racist out on their sorry asses. We are not there yet, but the writing is on the wall.
  • If you are a “movement conservative” as they’re called, Tea-Partier, whatever, you should be livid. Your leaders, your media (Fox, Limbaugh, etc) lied to you. They told you that Romney was going to win, perhaps by a landslide. Can they possibly be that ignorant? They just sat there in their studios and told themselves (and their poor listeners) that everything was going to be great. I could go on about this, but Conor Friedersdorf at Atlantic Wire said it much better than I could. Old guard conservatives such as Newt Gingrich and Lindsey Graham are saying mea culpa and that they’d better figure out what’s going wrong. I doubt they’ll be listened to, but the honest conservatives in this country should demand that they are.
  • The “mainstream media” is really no better. Have a look at this Tweet that I sent out in the late morning GMT yesterday. How can we possibly expect to have an informed nation if the media is so egregiously clueless? Then again, the BBC said exactly the same thing when I was at the gym, causing me to pedal the bike at some ridiculous rate in frustration. I suppose I was stupid to expect better from them, but really – you’re the frigging BBC – I used to listen to you late night on NPR. Just those accents should make you more intelligent.

But the biggest outcome of the night? Two words: Nate Silver.

Nate Silver, keeper of the FiveThirtyEight blog, is a poll consolidator (for lack of a better word) and a genius statistician. In 2008, he correctly called the outcome of 49 of 50 states in the Presidential election. This year, he improved on that. Nate collects polls, reviews them, weights them based on his quality criteria, and melds them via some algorithms that must be an astonishment to see. And then he makes predictions. Throughout the run-up to the election, he published his predictions, “showing his work” in gory detail. The conservative media (of whom I spoken) derided him, accused him of bias, of dishonesty, and every other possible sin. He largely ignored them  [1] and just kept putting his numbers up.

Peggy Noonan (in the Wall Street Journal), Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and others said they knew what was going to happen – a Romney victory. Nate simply said “There’s a very good chance that Obama is going to be reelected, and this is how it will happen.”

And he was right, down to the last state. He blew the pundits out of the water, making them look like the fools they are. And we, the people who believe in numbers, in the immutable truth of statistics, simply bowed with appreciation and humility. A website has sprung up called isnatesilverawitch.com. And xkcd, an incredible cartoon that you should read simply because it’s awesome, summed up the situation perfectly.

This was, as a dear friend put it, the Revenge of the Nerds. It is what we have been saying all along: that the data, the evidence, the numbers pointed in one direction. By the way, the chances of getting all 50 states correct if you randomly guess: one in 2 to the power of 50, or about 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000. It is the same thing we have been saying about evolution, climate change, etc. This is the data – there’s a chance we’re wrong, but the highest likelihood is that we’re right.

Nate Silver has taken the lamp of truth and shone light in places where the darkness of punditry has prevailed. That light has given hope and strength to millions of people and the pundits will ignore it at their peril. It goes without saying that election coverage as we know it will never be the same. Any media company that wants to be taken half seriously will be scouring the bushes to find the next Nate Silver.

And speaking of Intrade, those of us who believed Nate had what amounted to a crystal ball leading up to the election. We went in and mercilessly slaughtered those who bet on what their leaders told them. First it was the Ron Paul supporters who knew, because it had to be so, that he would be the Republican candidate. Then we turned on the believers who kept Obama’s price at 70, even as the European betting sites were paying off the Obama bets (48 hours before the election). Like good poker players everywhere (and yes, Nate is a poker player), we cashed in on the information gap. I made a return of about 50% on my money in the eight months leading up to the election, 10-15% of that in the last 48 hours.

Ignorance is costly.

If you haven’t heard the name Nate Silver yet, you will. In fact, it just occurred to me: put your money on Nate as Time’s Man of the Year.

Those of us who live and die by numbers saw Nate and his methods – the methods that all decent scientists use – vindicated. And in many ways, that was even more rewarding than seeing President Obama back in the White House for four more years.

In closing, I need to thank all my friends and colleagues who shared the nerves, the nail biting, and the gradual realization that it was going to be a very good night in America. Throughout, I felt connected, included, and part of the process. For those who slipped me Intrade hints, who responded to my Tweets, who pinged me on Skype to say “W00t – we just got Virginia”, thank you. It was an honor to be part of your community. I’ll be back with you, one way or another, in two years. It probably won’t go as well, which will make it all the more important that I’m hooked up to you all.

Finally, I offer this video of Brad’s eldest, who (like Nate Silver) gets to the heart of the matter immediately. This kid ever wants to run for office, I’m on his team.

[1] Until he finally lost his temper in the last few days prior to the election and unleashed a searing series of Tweets on his attackers. They were a joy to read.

 

I guess I’m a road warrior now

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A few months ago, my spreadsheet of “Airports at which I’ve taken off or landed” reached 100 entries. This kind of blew my mind – that number really snuck up on me. But I guess after this much flying, I should know a thing or two about it, so I’ve listed a few things I’ve learned.

Packing

  • Learn to pack light. No, lighter than that. I’m still not a true minimal-packing ninja, but I aspire to it. Schlepping large bags through airports, paying for excess bags, etc, just sucks.
  • Minimize task loading and free up your hands. I carry my laptop and its accessories in a backpack so it’s hands-free. I know it doesn’t look as cool, but I’ve given up looking cool in airports.
  • Many smaller regional props and jets simply will not hold a traditional “roller-board” in their overhead compartments. When I have to carry a bag on board, I use soft-side luggage that will squish into the overhead. Otherwise, you’re facing gate-check, either waiting for it to roll up at the jet-way, or having to go to baggage claim to get it. In Europe they will blithely charge you a checked bag fee on the spot.

Stuff to have on long flights

  • An e-reader. At least for me, it’s the one indispensible thing. I used to have a Kindle, but now have the Kindle app on my work-supplied iPad. I feel like a kid at Christmas when I fire that puppy up and see half a dozen unread “books” staring back at me.
  • Real paper reading material. Until they calm down about electronics on take-off and landing [1], I want to have something to read on the going-up and coming-down bit. A New York Times or Times of London is a great way to kill the no-electronics time and it’s not expensive.

When you fly from the U.S. east coast to Europe, it’s almost always overnight. I haven’t reached the level of travel-fu that I get into the front of the plane that much, so I’ve perfected cocooning myself in coach. [2]

  • Noise-cancelling headphones are a must. Bose has obviously cornered the marketing on these, but I think my Sony’s (which cost much less) are better. They’re still not cheap, but they’re half the cost of a single at-gate upgrade to business class.
  • Sleep mask. I got a nice one at Container Store. Spend a few bucks for one that really does the job and feels comfy on your face.
  • White noise generator. I have loaded sounds of a tropical beach, rainstorm, and (my favorite) mountain stream onto my iPod, iPad, and phone (all of which are with me on the plane). That way if the battery on one dies, I have back-up.

The combination of these three devices allows you to completely remove yourself from what’s going on around you. I have occasionally woken to discover they’d brought the cabin lights back up and served a pre-landing breakfast and I’d slept through the whole thing. Yahtzee! It seems the airlines are particularly insensitive about bringing down the cabin lights in coach (sometime on an overnight flight, note how much sooner the front of the plane goes dark before the coach section). The difference between getting a couple of 30-minute naps and a solid 2-4 hour block of sleep is difficult to overstate.

  • Bring your own food. Airline food is (if this is possible) getting worse. Buy a meal in the airport and put it in your carry-on. You’ll be so delighted when they ask you if you want the “beef stew” or “chicken something” and you say, “Neither – just the side dishes please.” Then you only eat the brownie that comes for dessert.

Security

  • Practice your “disrobing-for-security” routine until it’s second nature. I now toss both my mobile and belt into my backpack while in the security line; it’s that much less to deal with as you reach the scanner.
  • With the advent of the  millimeter wave scanners (the full body scan ones that had Americans so scandalized for a while), you now have to empty everything out of your pockets (i.e. not just metal). This means your wallet, passport, and boarding pass. I am now putting those in a special side compartment of my laptop bag as I approach security. Partially so they can’t go walkabout during the scanning process, but  mostly so I can’t forget them on the other side.
  • If you carry toiletries on (I try to avoid it), have the baggie near the top of your stuff ready to come out. My sense is that (at least in the U.S.) there’s no quicker way to have your entire bag searched than to forget the liquids buried in your carry-on.
  • Double-check that you’ve grabbed everything on the far side. Get used to carrying everything of importance in a specific pocket, and then as you exit security, pat yourself down to be sure that everything is in its proper pocket. Recently, I caught myself without my passport and saw that some “helpful” security agent had moved it to a different tray as it came through. That’s what started my routine of bagging wallet and passport before security.

Safety on the airplane

By and large, I’ve become quite sanguine about flying. If Something Bad happens on the plane, there’s not a great deal I  can do about it, and I work hard not to worry about things I can’t change. However, I do have some things that I do as regards safety:

  • When they tell you to find the nearest exit, do it. Count the seat rows to that exit and say the number out loud. Don’t count on the “lights guiding you to the nearest exit”. I figure I can count to that number passing seats as I go.
  • I hate wearing shoes during a long flight, but I wait until 10,000 feet to take them off and I put them on as we begin our descent. If I need to get off the plane quickly, I want shoes on.
  • If I see people in exit rows who shouldn’t be there, I say something. Recall that if the plane needs to be evacuated quickly, you’re counting on the person in the exit row (probably at the window) to unlock, remove, and sometimes throw a 35-40 pound door out of the way (some airlines want you to throw the door out; others want it placed on the seat). Ask yourself if you like the current occupant’s chances of doing that in an emergency. Airlines are stupendously bad about letting obviously unqualified people sit in the exit row, but generally it’s easy to shame the flight attendants into moving people who will be of no use. I’ve twice gotten exit row seats because I pointed out that the person in the exit row had no chance whatsoever of getting us out of the plane and they swapped me in. That wasn’t my intent, but I wasn’t ashamed to take advantage of it. And I promise that the day I’m not sure I can get that emergency door tossed out, I’ll stop sitting in exit rows.
  • They tell you that if you have to evacuate the plane, don’t take your stuff. I’ve never had to evacuate a plane, but I promise you that people will be trying to grab their bags out of the overhead. At least, that’s what I suspect. At best, they’ll be trying to take their purses or whatever. I’ve made a promise to myself that if I have to get out of a plane, the only thing that will slow me down is helping somebody else out.

Seating

On short flights, I don’t care. On long flights, I want an aisle. There’s a safety component (you’re that much closer to the exit), but the main reason is so you have some moving room – particularly on overnight flights where there will be relatively little aisle traffic during the “sleep time”. I also prefer to not have to climb-over/disturb row-mates when I go to the lav.

But arguably the most valuable reason for having an aisle seat is that it puts you in that much better position to poach a multi-seat row. The value of having 2-4 seats to yourself (in coach) cannot be overstated. When you see the plane doors close, make your move. Of course, that means you’ve done recon during the boarding and know where you’re going. Generally nobody objects, particularly your current seatmates because your initiative is bringing them extra space for free. Some airlines (notably US Air) sell “premium” seating within the main cabin. They will actually bust you if you try to move into a “premium” seat within the main cabin (that is, some overly conscientious flight attendants do). It’s worth paying their premium seat upgrade ($15-$35) just to have a ticket in the seat-poaching lottery.

I need a full four-seat center row to really get stretched out, but many people (particularly women) can do it in three. You simply buckle the seatbelt around you in the center seat, deploy your headphones and sleep mask, and sleep across the ocean. In fact, on my most recent trans-Atlantic flight, I snagged a full four-seat row immediately opposite the lav. Nobody wanted it because of the constant coming and going, toilet flushing, etc. With my noise-cancelling equipment and the mountain stream soundtrack, I literally couldn’t hear the toilet (or anything else, really). I consider a four-seat row to myself to be essenstially equivalent to a first-class lay-flat seat in terms of sleepability, which (to my mind) is the only compelling value difference between the cabins.

Deplaning

When they tell you to check the seat-back pockets, etc. as you deplane, do it. This is particularly crucial when you’re leaving an overnight flight. No matter what you think, you are not operating anywhere near peak mental capacity. Specifically, don’t put your wallet or passport in the seat-back pocket. [3] I put them in an interior pocket of my computer bag, which is in the overhead. If that’s too dodgy for you, then carry one of those around-the-neck wallets and put it down your shirt.

Safe travels.

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[1] There’s a fundamental logic gap here. If our consumer electronics can “interfere with the plane’s navigation system”, then haven’t we given terrorists a great way to bring down a plane? I mean, how hard would it be to hack a normal-looking laptop to become a first-class RF-generator that would really “interfere with the plane’s navigation system”? Either they do or they don’t. If they can or do, then don’t permit them on the plane. But it turns out the airlines can make money from selling WiFi on the plane, and suddenly it’s safe now. [ClickAndClack] What kind of morons do they think we are? [/ClickAndClack]

[2] It’s called “economy” in Europe, and a friend of ours on Isle of Man just quaintly asked if we don’t call that section “couch”. “Ah no,” said her husband. “That would be first class.”

[3] Don’t laugh – guy in the seat next to me on a flight in the last 12 months found a passport in the seat-back pocket.

Two technological marvels that actually make life better

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The problem with technology is that it’s easy to overuse. I mean, I certainly wouldn’t want to give up my smart-phone; in fact, Lisa and I recently switched to smart phone plans in the U.S. [1]  even though we’re not back there that much. Just for the few weeks we’re in the States, it’s worth having. But the smart phone is maybe the perfect example of technology overwhelming us. I see people sitting together at lunch, both of them engrossed in their phones rather than conversation with each other. I have friends and colleagues who, when you’re in mid-sentence to them, stop to reply to a text (which they stopped and read while you were talking). Kids texting each other across the school courtyard rather than actually sitting, looking into each other’s eyes, and talking. This is meshuggah.

But I’ve found a couple of cool technologies that seem to be perfect in that they’re self-limiting; they do exactly what you want them to do, make life cooler, but don’t become the camel in the tent, overwhelming your life.

First, the one that basically everybody should have: a digital picture frame. You can get one at Best Buy (or Bed, Bath, and Beyond for that matter); they run from $30 to $150, depending on size and features (some newer ones have WiFi). It’s not that the addictive quality of pictures is new – we’ve all spent time flipping through an album and reliving people and memories that are precious to us. But how often do you take the time to pull out a photo album, sit down with it, and take a walk down memory lane? Yeah, that’s what I thought. But the digital picture frame grabs at you every time you walk past, or even just glance up in its direction. I must have spent 15-20 minutes last night, watching the one in the living room. Seeing the faces of family and friends – some present, some gone now, was an irreplaceable joy. There’s old Dean C. in his fishing camo; the family on the boat in the Galapagos Islands; Strawberry family members enjoying dinner at Kamp Koala.

I got my parents one and they are tickled to death with it. There may be a better gift for grandparents, but I don’t know what it would be. But it’s not just for grandparents; if you have memories in pictures (and who doesn’t?), this is a great investment that ensures you get full value for them.

Two most important features: (1) good resolution (at least 640 x 480, and preferably larger), and (2) ability to read the standard memory cards (essentially SD) and a USB input. After that, it’s mostly bells and whistles.

One important usage note: when you’re loading up your SD card with photos, do a lot of culling. Those pictures are going to be looping around all the time – be selective about what’s on infinite loop in your den.

Second: the Sonos Internet music system.  This probably qualifies as “toy”, but, as a friend put it: “‘Toy’ is relative. I spend money on sailboats and get huge value for that. Most people wouldn’t. So it’s a ‘toy’. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t important to me.”

Basically, Sonos is a hardware/software package that allows you to stream digital music wirelessly around your house. The “bridge” unit plugs into your WiFi router, then you put the “players” anywhere around the house you wish. But the magic comes from the software. There’s a controller app you can download for Windows, Mac, iPhone/iPad, or Android (do not buy their hardware controller). You fire it up and direct music to the various devices. And yes, you can direct different music to different devices (Broadway in the kitchen, blues in the den).

On top of that, the software goes out and finds a few thousand Internet radio stations; you can stream any of them over the system. Or you can stream services such as Spotify, Rhapsody, and Pandora. Or your own music database. It even supports network-attached storage (NAS) devices – imagine a terabyte or two of your favorite tunes, all available to any room in your house, controlled from your smart-phone (see, I really do like technology).

Oddly, the big gift to me from this has been the discovery of all kinds of new music via the Internet radio. “Dakar Musique? Yeah, ship it.” I visualize some guy sitting in a little studio in Dakar, streaming tunes to the world, them making their way over the Interwebs, into my Sonos system and thus into my ears. Hello world! A couple of taps on my iPad, and I’m bathed in the familiar sounds of Radio Bluegrass.

Here’s what Sonos does for me: it makes me listen to more music and more different kinds of music. It’s not cheap, but given the value I place on music in my life, it’s good value.

And it doesn’t interfere with my having meaningful human interaction.

P.S. This isn’t directly related to Sonos, but “coherent”, if you will: I’m writing this post on my Mac while sitting in the (wonderful) Jabberwocky coffee shop in Douglas. A really cool tune came on the music system, but I had no idea of what it was. Fortunately, the owner (who’s a pretty hip guy) was standing nearby talking to the members of a band that’s playing a private gig here tonight. I turned to them and said, “What’s that on the speaker?” Immediately they said “Oh – that’s Fun Loving Criminals – they’re brilliant.” In the old days, I probably couldn’t (or wouldn’t) have done anything with that. Now, when I get home, I’m going to fire up Spotify via the Sonos system. A few taps and I’ll be investigating a new band. That’s pretty damn cool.

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[1] We went with Straight Talk‘s $45/month all-you-can-eat voice/text/data plan ($497 if you buy a year). I couldn’t be happier and I giggle every time I drive past a Verizon store.

Math is Hard

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Since I don’t tweet, I’ll just put this here…

This morning, Japanese authorities increased the evacuation zone around a damaged nuclear reactor from a ten-mile radius to a 20-mile radius. CNN TV breathlessly reported:

“Evacuation area around nuclear reactor doubled!”

gg math

Into the cloud

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I know that some people among my family and friends consider me to be a technological guru. But it’s worth noting that my most recent technical degree is 27 years old and my technical professional employment ended seven years ago. In short, I am Out of the Loop.

That combined with my natural inertia has kept me tied to the old ways of Things Computing for a while. I mean, sure, I’ve had laptops for quite a while, and two years ago I switched to Gmail and bought a Blackberry.

The switch to gmail was eye-opening for me. Rather than my email being tied to a specific computer, it was “in the cloud” (as the current term goes). That is, wherever I could find a browser and the Internet I had my email. Not just access to send and receive email, but all the emails I had sent and received. Yes, this is true of Yahoo and AOL, but Gmail is cloud-email for adults. Their spam filters are spectacularly good and they provide all the tagging, searching, and sorting that even a power user such as myself demands.

Since I joined Cake Poker, I have been using Outlook for Cake email and Gmail for my personal email. It’s trivially easy to sync between my Blackberry and Outlook, so whatever my Outlook knew, my Blackberry knew, and vice versa. That goes for my contacts, calendar, tasks, and notes (the model number for the water filter in our vacation cabin, my Delta Airlines frequent flier number, etc).

But I use two computers: a laptop for travel and a hyper-powerful desktop at home, and it was a nuisance to make sure that I continually sync’d both computers to the Blackberry. Or if I sent an email from Outlook on the laptop, a copy of the sent email was on the laptop but not the desktop in my office. Note, of course, that if I used Gmail to send the email, I wouldn’t have that problem.

So I decided to switch my work email to a (separate) Gmail account. It turns out that Gmail is happy to let you have multiple accounts and there are tools such as the Gmail manager for Firefox that make it easy to manage them.

After that, I was headed down the slippery slope. Google has contact and calendar managers too and within a few days, I’d moved my Outlook calendar and contacts to Google. My only complaint is that Google doesn’t have a proper “Notes” manager. I spent a couple of hours transferring the Outlook Notes into Google docs and that was done. It seems like overkill to use a document sharing service to remember my biscuit recipe, but there it is, wherever the Internet is.

Furthermore, Google has a sweet little Blackberry app that auto-syncs the Blackberry to the Google stuff, without my even asking.

I have yet to make the complete jump and put all my important documents (professional and personal) in the cloud. I have bridged the gap by subscribing to a service that allows me access to my desktop over the Internet. It’s a one-year subscription – we’ll see what happens at the end of that year. I guess I’m not quite ready to say to Google, “Hey – here’s all my personal information, private documents, my will, copies of my family’s passports…” Maybe that’s false security – a bright hacker could surely find his way into my desktop anyway. I probably have bigger things to worry about than Google turning evil on me (and if they do, we have bigger concerns than their having my personal documents).

So now I’ve released this much into the cloud. It’s also freed me up to start thinking about replacing the Blackberry with the new Android X. And more and more, the particular computer I’m on won’t matter so much – everything that computer is supposed to store and remember for me will be floating out in the cloud.

And yes, I realize that this starts to take me toward that very scary place where I am gazing at Macs, like my friend Tommy Angelo.