MP3 For The Rest Of Us

From the San Francisco Chronicle –

The Sansa SlotRadio, which is being introduced this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, comes preloaded with 1,000 songs organized into popular genres on a companion SlotRadio music card.

It’s akin to an iPod Shuffle, only users don’t have to go through the process of transferring music from their computer. They simply turn on the $99.99 player just like a radio and enjoy music – though without commercials.

Executives at the Milpitas flash memory storage maker believe the new players, which also come equipped with an FM radio, fill a hole in the media player landscape for music lovers who are slow to embrace the model used by Apple’s iPods and some of SanDisk’s Sansa music players, which require users to download music to their PC and then transfer it to a device.

“That’s a big friction point with that model,” said Daniel Schreiber, senior vice president and general manager. “Either people are not downloading and transferring, or they’re getting someone else to do it. That offers a huge opportunity to bring music to people for whom this model is not ideal.”

The article goes on to say that the plan is to have collections (e.g. 80’s music) of 1000 songs per card sell for $40, or people can buy the equivalent of a CD on micro-SD.

Seems the Senior VP apparently thinks that the MP3 revolution is bypassing a certain market segment. It is, sort of. He also sort of implies that this segment is technophobic or doesn’t quite get it.

People in my age bracket (adult, but not quite AARP material) tend to not want to have to sit through hours of sifting through old record collections and CD’s to pull the 2 or 3 songs per record worth listening to and translate these to MP3 format. Alternately one can browse iTunes or other other stores online. Still takes a lot of time. And that would be a lot of time that frankly we simply don’t have.

Hey, Senior VP Schreiber: It’s not that we don’t know how or can’t learn. We’re not stupid. We’re simply apathetic.

On top of this the idea of 1000 top 80’s songs or 1000 hits of the 60’s for $40 is rather appealing: I don’t have to go and look for these. I don’t have to spend hours that I don’t have chasing these things down. Moreover, it’s not like I define my life in terms of music. I’m happy to listen to 80’s stuff, but frankly I’m not willing to chase down all of these songs. I’m certainly not willing to spend the std iTunes price of $1 to hear Boy George, either. It’s not that I don’t like Boy. It’s that I’m not willing to spend $5 of my time and then another $1 in my wallet to chase him down. But if something he sings pops up on the Sansa player, why, that’s OK. I’ll probably like it just fine.

You people at Sandisk crack me up. You came up with a brilliant, million dollar idea, but how you got there was wierd. I’ll repeat — it’s not that we don’t know how or can’t learn. We’re not stupid. We’re simply apathetic.

Either way, as technology improves it opens up more opportunity for all. And that’s the memo.

The Second Wave

The computer revolution was slow to take off. Obviously computers made for a better typewriter, but the price was high. Bang for the buck was not good. What propelled the revolution was the killer app VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet. For the first time, the average user could plug numbers and formulae into rows/columns and easily play “what if?” This was valuable; prior to this, “what if?” was time consuming. This was when computers became worth spending the big $$ on.

The First Wave of applications was simply transferring existing tasks into computers and having some control of it via software. Databases, dental billing, desktop publishing, all of these things were merely transfer of exiting methodologies to new equipment. This included the web. Much of the web is like a magazine, really, but with a sprinkling of some interactive thought process (e.g. database-centric data, like Amazon) which, if you think about it, is merely the online version of a catalogue.

In the midst of the first wave, Java was invented. It was noticed that a number of the methodologies transferred didn’t need to be realtime. e.g. With workers typing names and phone numbers into a billing database, the CPU was going to spend 99% of the time idling in a loop waiting for keystrokes regardless. Ditto for looking at online catalogues.

Java is too slow to do anything in a hurry. On the other hand, much of the first wave was concerned with asynchronous transfer. Pressing the “search catalogue” button was going to result in the database churning for a few seconds, so if the language responded in 3 mSec or 300 mSec was a non-issue. Java is suitable for such tasks, but not much else. It’s noticeably far too slow for anything requiring immediate response.

The Second Wave

In my job I work with constructing buildings via software. In the construction business, the way things were done before computers involved lots of notebooks and drafters laboring into the wee hours. The first wave allowed for estimates to be sorta/kinda guesstimated via spreadsheets. AutCAD allowed drafters to be able to more easily update or change drawings, store them, and so on. The process of estimating a building went from many weeks to many days.

“Second verse, same as the first”
— Herman’s Hermits “Henry the VIII”

My company set about creating a tool that was faster and more reliable. But something funny happened along the way. We noticed that our method, as implemented in lightning fast C++, allowed our users to create virtual buildings and get the PERFECT right answers as well as AutoCAD compatible drawings in seconds. Yes. I said seconds. Suddenly it became apparent that what we had was second wave; the ability to apply hundreds of lookup layers along with algorithms to play “what if?”, but this time on a scale that would melt a first wave spreadsheet. In other words, we stumbled into a primitive mixture of AI and expert system that was devoted to a specific task.

So what is “what if?” in this context? Let’s look at the first wave again.

The ability to do CAD drawings doesn’t translate to a part list, part prices, generate purchase orders, or much else. AutoCAD, for all it’s strength, is still just a drawing tool. Spreadsheets used for estimating don’t really have the ability to do much with complex algorithms looking for situational conditions. They also don’t draw, calculate labor, and so on. In the first wave, there wasn’t a tool that could combine these things. Outside of what we have, there still isn’t.

Our second wave tool does all of these things, and more. I could bore you until your ears bled listing features and innovations, but suffice to say that it’s the real thing. Moreover, because we assumed realtime (synchronous) computation from the start, creating a building takes seconds.

Green Button

Now, how you get “what if?” uses this ability. Let’s say that you can calculate out the basics of simple warehouse and office wing as per engineering spec. Done. Yay. Now, what we really want to know is this — if energy price is increasing $X per year, are we better off spending big on extra insulation, or perhaps doors with better heat retention, or adding fewer windows, or.. what, exactly?

Press the Green Button. All of these possibilities is calculated, from scratch, giving you the up-front construction cost as well as a “total ownership” cost for 10 years. Depending on where the building is constructed, energy price stability, etc. it may not pay you to invest too much into certain “green” stuff (insulation etc.) On the other hand in a region with brutal winters, it’s handy to know when the payoff comes for the extra that may be invested up front.

Sound familiar? This, folks, is very similar to a spreadsheet. Only this time it’s really smart. And more importantly, every time the CPU people make faster chips, our users can make fancier structures and do more “what if?” playing. In short, our company has pioneered the second wave in this industry: we take what was good about the first wave, and we build on this to make it faster and smarter and better.

I for one am happy we didn’t use Java. You can’t do second wave stuff with that.

Air Power

From another site we have this —

“Air power alone would not have defeated Saddam. On the other hand, the Legions were perfectly capable of imposing a regime change on Iraq.”

This has been said multiple times and in different ways. It has been repeated often enough that it’s almost a truism. But… is it?

Seems to me that a systematic extermination of Iraqi units from the air would work fine. What appears to be holding back doing this sort of thing seems to be the notion that air power alone can’t win anything. Some of this is obviously due to past experience with the pre-modern smart bomb wielding air force. And part of it is due to internecine warfare with other military branches; e.g. the USAF doesn’t want to deal with choppers or harriers or other ground support units because, it seems, the USAF would as soon be dogfighting over the English Channel in Sopwith Camels.

Set this aside for a moment, though. Let’s assume that we could’ve gone into Iraq and do so with air units alone regardless of service branch in control. Are the naysayers trying to honestly say that complete air control and unlimited shoot to kill authorisation wouldn’t have defeated Iraq just as handily? Whether an artillery unit is taken out by a tank or by a helicopter, it’s still just as dead. And helicopters get there faster.

Seems to me that the US owns the requisite technology to get things done; what is needed seems to be leadership that gets it, is willing to wield it correctly, and can put a plan in operation that works. I think the notion that air power can’t win wars is antiquated and has yet to be fully attempted/demonstrated in the modern era.

Resource Stasis As Policy

Looks like Obama has made his first major league blunder. Obviously he knows nothing whatsoever of science and it’s likely that he doesn’t know that he doesn’t know. This one is going to hurt. He’s named John Holdren as science advisor. That’s a bit like asking Code Pink to collectively work as Secretary of State. In case you don’t know Holdren, he’s the guy who worked with Paul Ehrlich claiming that the population would hit a big die off, lack of food would cause worldwide famine of unprecedented nature, and so on. He’s a professional enviro-doomsayer. He went from population die-off doomsayer to climate doomsayer after the first gloomy scneario didn’t pan out. Climate doom is big business these days. His greatest claim to fame is using “science” like the Drake Equation where you rearrange the letter meanings to come up with vacuous prognostications based on vague definitions and preposterous assumptions.

On a NYT blog a poster defending Holdren says –

The world economy is a subjective phoneme. It is subject to accounting tricks and the emotions of people. There is a fixed amount resource on this world. With over 6 billon vying for resources, if we’re not careful about our resources they will run out.

This is typical enviro-nutjob think. What, exactly, is a resource? Oil is a resource, but this has only been since the invention of internal combustion and plastics. Before then, it wasn’t a resource at all. The definition of resource changes. Regarding the notion of fixed resources, this too is fluid. Seems that what oil we thought was available in the 70’s is not accurate. Nope. There are trillions upon trillions of barrels waiting to be tapped, with at least one trillion of these lying beneath the high plains of the US.

The problem is of course that one can postulate that there is a finite amount of anything, that if the planet weighs X gigatons then the finite amount of gold one could expect is Y gigatons. In that sense, obviously, resources are fixed. But the poster there wasn’t arguing about theoretical limits; he is trying to apply an argument of stasis. That means simply that to be true, population increases and –

A) all possible resources are at the limits we see today
B) all possible resources are what we perceive to be resources today

…therefore, we run out of resources and gobs of us keel over en masse. That was the basis of Ehrlich’s predictions, which Holdren has supported enthusiastically. And in case you haven’t noticed, all enviro arguments start with the (flawed) assumption of stasis. We are assured that Holdren will apply this same keen insight and gifted intellect to solving the latest of the enviro concerns — the planetary climate.

Neanderthals and Food Technology

A recent article on Science Daily says that Neanderthals weren’t the victim of climate change so much as competition from modern humans. This seems reasonable because a couple of days earlier a paper reported that there was evidence that in North America some 10k years ago humans were slow-roasting a great number of plant bulbs for food. The interesting part of this was that said roasting had to take place over a couple of days to work, that otherwise these bulbs (lilys?) were inedible.

More interesting yet, a couple of other articles help paint a big picture. One was an osteological study of musculature. Seems that modern humans had developed patterns that could only result from repeated motion, almost entirely from spear chucking. None of the neanderthal skeletons had this signature. They didn’t throw. And then there was the article that was trying to blame global warming on the demise of megafauna and concluding that this wasn’t really the whole story.

So let’s look at the various bits and pieces and see what we have.

Neanderthals hunted megafauna, but they used spears. They were able to sustain small bands. Modern humans developed spear throwers (atlatl?) and such and were able to bring down more game with the same effort. More efficient. This resulted in larger populations being possible.

Eventually as megafauna were hunted out moderns were able to use their tech to go after smaller/faster game. Neanderthals were not. Moderns supplemented diets with slow roasting and other technologies. None of this stuff shows up in the record until after the megafauna are gone. Coincidence? Nope. Neanderthals exhibit no evidence of slow roasting and other tricks. Moderns learned how to eat what was available even if it required elaborate preparation. Essentially this boils down to moderns being able to quickly invent technology to adapt whereas the neanderthals were slow to invent technologies.

Technology is the key to everything.

Holiday Power Plant Capacity Bummer

In Australia, CSIRO is cajoling you to not use christmas lights. From the Courier Mail article:

“SCIENTISTS have warned that Christmas lights are bad for the planet due to huge electricity waste and urged people to get energy efficient festive bulbs. …Dr Glenn Platt, who leads research on energy demand, said Australia got 80 per cent of its electricity by burning coal which pumps harmful emissions into the atmosphere.”

Now just hold on here.

A coal fired plant is going to be running over 90% capacity during Aussie summer regardless, if for no other reason than air conditioning. Actually using a fraction of the capacity for holiday lighting is NOT the same thing as adding capacity: the same amount of coal will be used whether lights are on or not. There isn’t any energy being “wasted.”

I’m all for newer, cleaner tech. I like the idea of lowering power bills, of using 20W to do what used to take 200W. On the other hand this has little to do with plant capacity and how power generation works: even if you buy new efficient LED lights that use 10% of what the older models required, the power plant still runs at the same capacity. There is no capacity based savings until ALL power demand is reduced across the board.

In my mind CSIRO etc would come a cross as less of a political Big Brother wannabe and more of a serious entity were they to work with energy sucking technologies (e.g. air conditioning manufacturers) behind the scenes to improve efficiency rather than browbeat Joe and Jane Average with their scary messages. For that matter if they were to work even with vacuum cleaner manufacturers to create super efficient machines that require 4 amps and not 12 to do the same job, I’d be impressed. On the other hand apparently it’s a lot simpler to scream at ordinary consumers, as if crappy vacuums and poorly made air conditioning was their fault. Bummer.

Stupid MBA Tricks

I find it curious that many of the global warming true believers seem to have little problem with ordering DVD’s from NetFlix. It seems that much of what we take as “the way things are” is done without a thought given to it. How did we arrive here?

Back in the 80’s Harvard trained MBA’s were lauded for noticing that manufacturing success of many of the Japanese companies relied on the principle of JIT: “just in time.” Rather than have stockpiles of parts awaiting orders, these companies would gather orders and then have the parts made — and shipped to them — just in time for construction. JIT became a cause celebre in the business world. Companies ranging from NetFlix to Walmart owe their success to this concept; which esentially boils down to mere synchronicity.

The problem is that these proponents of gains in manufacturing efficiency never once considered the side effects. In this case, if you’re a global warming true believer, we now ship as needed because we can which wastes more fuel than was ever used prior to the JIT “revelation.” You see, before the revelation/revolution, companies stockpiled parts and used an asynchronous concept. It was OK if it took 2 weeks to get the next set of parts by rail because there were always plenty on hand.

Now, I’m not a true believer, but I’m also not one to waste fuel or energy. I don’t want to pay an extra dollar for a widget to offset fuel costs imposed by the MBAs working for the manufacturers. I don’t want to have to pay $5 for gas if I don’t need to.

I think overall that the JIT stuff illustrates a belief I have that not understanding technology (or misunderstanding as the case may be) or even failing to take it into account causes far more overall pain than it’s worth. If I were King I’d probably mandate that all MBA’s get degrees in energy technology if for no other reason than to have some understanding of the energy budgets of that which they submit as preferential solutions to the business problems they are supposed to solve.

Economics, Government Stimuli, and Political Science

It seems odd to write about what is otherwise a political subject but something recently attracted my attention — an article claiming that it’s a fallacy that government creates jobs. This article was a hit piece against “Keynesian economics” which was claimed as the philosphical underpinnings of govenment bailouts of the late 2008 recession. It struck me that there was a missing piece to the argument.

That missing piece is technology, of course.

The article claimed that the government cannot create a job, that the best it can do is take money from us to redistribute; i.e. the money has to come from somewhere to pay for that job’s salary, hence there is no net gain.

Interesting take, to say the least. Does it stand up, or is it rhetoric, theory, wishful thinking, what? It seems clear that historically when government wants a particular problem solved and technology is involved, wealth is created. e.g. the computer industry as we know it got started when the government poured money into ways to solve artillery and ballistics problems. Semiconductor chips were needed for ICBM guidance. The internet was needed to have a redundant and reliable military and/or command and control level communications network. I could give more examples, but your eyes may bleed. Suffice to say that when government is providing the spec and the money for a new technology, wealth is created as it becomes implemented. No fallacy — the government can, will, and does create jobs. And not only that, they’re among the best paying. Most of the jobs it creates aren’t those in direct government pay; governmental funding is the mechanism which later enables these to exist.

I posted this observation online. Oh, the humanity! The outrage! The most thoughtful of the critics said that this was a constitutional exception, that this was limited to the military, a constitutionally enumerated power.

Ummm… no. That’s just hand waving. Energy seems to also fall into the same category. TVA and other massive well known hydroelectric projects were done via “make work” programs. Providing energy created wealth, the same as funding technology did. Not an enumerated constitutional power. Not the military. Same result. My guess is that one could find a number of places where government has provided initial funding to kick start something achieving the same result. And as soon as I typed that sentence I remembered I’d just watched a documentary about aviation that showed that intial aviation progress was financed through the government. One of the first problems they wanted to solve was mail delivery. There’s a lot of geography to cover in a country this size. How about that? That one wasn’t the military either. And the required heavy lifting/cargo capacity was adapted for loads of paying passengers, and the airline industry as we understand it was born. So much for the enumerated powers argument.

Since much (perhaps all) of the criticism of this nature comes from the political right wing, it seems that somehow a crucial piece of the picture is missing from arguments that start from there. Note that left wing seems to have little (if any) problem with the concept that government plays a role in technical development. And yet I’ve taken the political left to task here on this site as well; at the left extreme seems to be the belief that government can mandate development and engineers poof stuff into being (technology creationism.)

Overall the only conclusion that makes any sense is that neither the technology creationists nor their anti-government polar opposites seem to have much understanding of things. They start with a philosophical belief and argue from there. There isn’t a spot in the middle that they can meet at, either. This isn’t helpful to discourse. No wonder politics are so polarized: neither side wants to deal with facts so much as to interpret facts to fit their belief system. Political science, then, isn’t a science in any meaningful understanding of the word “science.” I think this study would be better described in the medieval fashion: Rhetoric.

Politics and Technology

This is what I posted in reponse to a post at PajamasMedia –

( #71 [name deleted] — “The Democratic Party is together.” )

“Incorrect. The differences between factions are less. Mainstream dems may not buy into far left green global warming hysteria but allowing it isn’t a showstopper, either. Dems as a rule don’t care if other dems don’t drive a hybrid or shop at Whole Foods. Greens might, but… so?

In comparison mainstream reps (80% of the party) are hamstrung with “social conservatives” who presume they can dictate just how republican one really is based on meaningless nonsense: if you don’t support abortion bans, you’re an amoral Republican In Name Only — a RINO. You’re not a real republican. The factional differences are greater.

The far right social conservative types have seemingly never heard of Tragedy of the Commons. As a result, the republican party will continue to slide into obscurity; the party bosses seem to think that the bible thumpers, due to them being vocal, are their “base.” They will discount the moderates because they don’t understand that moderates are straight up republicans sans fundamentalist mindset (they don’t see gay marriage abortion as mega-important hot button issues that are over and above any/all other concerns.) As such they’ll misread and overreact to this election (citing CA’s prop 8 as their poster example) and nominate a Huckabee or Jindal, which will excite the social conservatives to no end and of course lose the next election cycle even more spectactularly.

There’s no republican reps in the northeast, and few in the west. If the party nominates a bible thumping Huckabee or fundamentalist Jindal type, there won’t be enough left anywhere to matter. The party will crater.

How did the biblical crowd get so vocal? Easy. Mainstream media cheers for the left. The easy and simple way to make their opponents look abjectly idiotic is to feature the silliest ones on TV and refer to them as “typical.” And who, exactly, tends to look out of touch more than someone who thinks evolution is a leftist plot? The bible crowd saw themselves on TV and reckoned they must be the average republicans. They bought the lie. So did everyone else. The average dem figures the average rep is a moron who is anti-scientific and has problems with evolution. Go to sites outside this echo chamber and — dare I say this out loud? — actually LISTEN to what they have to say. Their prejudices may be exactly that, prejudices, but they are REAL, and to those who hold them, they are facts. And they are facts to the *majority* of voters. That’s right. The MAJORITY.

The only way mainstream republicans can divorce themselves from that image is to divorce themselves from the social conservative crowd. And as you can read on this site, this is not likely. Too many people bought the same lie and it’s now a cultural truth. Orwell would be so proud.”

[end of PJM post]

****

Now, in case you’re not quite catching what I’m talking about, the underlying premise is simple: TV is used to paint with a large brush. Use of technology in action. In this case we’re talking image. And yes my facts are correct; socio-demographic polls show that it’s a minority faction of the republican party who are biblical literalists; that is, those who are the vocal ones praying on street corners at gays, demanding ID in schools, and so on. Now there’s a lot of people who go to church on BOTH sides of the politcal spectrum, but the majority seem to see biblical teachings as metaphorical, not literal. The majority “get” the idea of commandments, of allegorical stories (e.g. “Good Samaritan”) and so on; but the majority doesn’t figure the earth is 6000 years old and that Noah was 900 years old when a great flood scrubbed the planet’s suface (and inconveniently left no evidence.) The majority is OK with science, with evolution, and all of the wonders of technology in the modern world. This post isn’t about religion or what I think of it; it’s about how technology is used to present imagery. And the imagery presented is misleading and pernicious.

I can prove at least part of this. South Dakota is a “Red State.” As in really red. As in voting for McCain in bigger percentages than McCain lost to Obama by in CA. South Dakota has ballot measures akin to the Propositions in CA. In the 2004 election cycle, an abortion ban was proferred. It lost. Not to be deterred, the writers added exceptions to their ban for rape or incest. Tried it again in 2008. And… it not only lost, but was stomped. Now, how is it that a red state that is overwhelmingly republican and so on opposes an abortion ban? This is simple; most of those nice church going people in South Dakota (and most of them do go to church) aren’t biblical literalists. The image that’s presented isn’t accurate. It’s nowhere close.

It also true that a majority of democrat voters don’t merely disagree with republicans, but see them as filtered by TV as being a little off. This is easily seen in comment sections everwhere from DailyKos to DotEarth and so on; the rank and file democrat/leftist voter seems to associate republicans with an anti-science attitude, and especially so where it concerns skepticism of environmental issues. I find this interesting. (Most of the brighter minds I know re science knowledge are in fact moderate republican types, not democrats/leftists. In fact my experience is that the anti-science perception is almost entirely backwards; most of the painfully ignorant types are the lefties. But I digress.) The point is that the painting of ALL republicans as being bible toting anti-evolutionist neanderthals is quite successful despite this image being applicable only to small and dwindling minority.

Obviously the republicans need to get wise and figure out how to use technology to their benefit. Admittedly there’s a blur here in this entry regarding technology vs marketing and not the usual subject of engineering, but the thing is, this marketing, this associating/painting that’s going on, this couldn’t have happened in an earlier era, and I find that interesting. Technology does wonderful things. It also helps us learn that which isn’t so.

The Pro-Life Lobby Has Lost. Deal with it.

In a blog regarding technology one might wonder how on earth the topic of abortion would be addressed, especially with the premise that the pro-lifers have lost the case. Read on.

It was about 1903 that the pro-life lobby lost the case. This was before the pro-life lobby was even started as we know it, so how can that be? Simple. The argument was lost before it began, and it lost when the Wright brothers flew their plane. Their wonderful invention opened up opportunities, including air travel for the masses. The invention of the jet and the coming age of widespread, inexpensive jet travel sealed the deal. Anywhere on the planet was reachable quickly. But… how is this relevant?

Simple answer: let’s assume that the pro-lifers manage to get abortion banned. How much is a ticket out of the country to a clinic elsewhere? Cheap. Currently it’s about $300 to $500 if you buy an advance ticket. A clinic visit is not expensive either. Nor is RU-486 (no clinic necessary.) This is easily afforded by the middle class. I could afford this. I’ve been able to afford this for most of my working life. An abortion ban would not stop abortions from happening, especially for anyone middle class and up. And frankly my guess is that an abortion ban would have planned parenthood taking donations for plane flights. Lots of donations. Even many of the poor would not be affected. Technology — jet travel in this case — makes the entire argument moot.

Some abortion foes try to make the case that, well, aside from this being a moral issue, they’ll argue that this is really a state’s rights case. Leave it up to the individual states, they say, and take it from the feds because the federal government shouldn’t be “inventing” new constitutional rights. Damned activist judges, anyhow. And of course they reckon that at the state level they can get the state legislatures to put a stop to it (the two for one special.) Ummm… no. The same rules apply; those wanting an abortion can just drive to CA or wherever they’re legal. When SCOTUS rendered the Roe v Wade decision, smarter and cooler heads knew that all it would take is ONE (1) state to allow it, and all bets are off. And that one state would probably be California. The state’s rights argument is simply impractical.

In short, the pro-life stance has been defeated by technology, and there’s no going back. One would hope that the socially conservative brand of republicans would learn some pragmatism here, that they’re wasting time, money, and political capital on a battle that even if they win, they still lose. There’s little point to owning the moral high ground if a) nobody really gives a damn, and b) ownership means never getting elected. The point of politics is to get elected, after all.