Tralfaz

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  • A gem: The Phoenix Musical Instrument Museum

    Yesterday, on a lark, we visited the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM). I wasn’t sure what I expected. Perhaps exhibits of seminal instruments, and artist histories (they do have that), but I was blown away.

    First, it is in a gorgeous building, with fabulous architecture, and a well thought out plan. We started on the second floor, in the Africa region, and was completely fascinated. There are included headsets that come alive when you get near a station. All around the museum there are rolling video displays of the history and origins of various instruments, and how they were used in folk or court music.

    And there are LOTS of musical instruments on display. Many are old, some are newer recreations, but the attention to detail, and the care with which the exhibits are curated is top notch. As I mentioned, we started in the Africa region (the cradle of civilization), moving through the middle east and then to Asia, the pacific islands (and Australia/NZ), and into Latin America. We spent three hours, and were blown away, and we didn’t even get to the US and European halls (for a different day, me thinks).

    Then on the first floor there are two halls worthy of spending time.  The Artists area, that has some selected icons. First up is Dick Dale, the king of surf guitar. Yep, you know I was groovin’ to that (I learned something, he was a southpaw, but played a right handed guitar upside down. Way cool). Also of note is Andy Summers of the Police, Roy Orbison, a LARGE display of Elvis Presley, and a display of Steve Vai’s triple neck guitar he used on the G3 tour in 2004.

    The other room is a “hands on” room where you can play with some instruments. The price of admission is worth it to play with a Theramin.  Fun and awesome. They also had a few guitars (horrible intonation, and action, but for people to mess with I guess that is OK), and lots of percussion stuff to play with.

    I will certainly return many times, to understand the wholeness. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was awesome and inspiring. Music is something that binds humans, and listening to the primitive bowed or plucked string instruments of the various countries in Africa, as well as some virtuoso quality lute music was just humbling.

    Highly recommended if you get to Phoenix with an afternoon to burn.

    (Oh, and there is a piano in the main lobby that people can just play. Clearly some people kept up their lessons.)

  • Cleaning up my computer (Mac)

    One of the problems with how well integrated and how smooth moving from an old, tired Mac to a new machine is that a lot of old cruft gets carried along. For the most part, since you typically upgrade to a faster, with more memory system, it isn’t a big deal to carry a lot of baggage.
    Additionally, it is really easy to migrate and bring all your old programs, data and other items to the new system. The net result is that after 2 or 3 upgrade cycles, you have built up a lot of cruft on your system. While I don’t advocate deleting data, and I consider all my photos to be must haves, if you are like me, you probably have installed many programs on a whim to try out, but never used them after installing them. This is a good time to clean that up.
    The motivation is simple, in a week or so, my new MacBook Air will arrive, and with it a 256G SSD on board. My current MacBook Pro has a 240G boot SSD, and a whopping 750G spinning disk where the data files are stored. There is about 400G of stuff on that drive, and that isn’t including my video collection (another couple hundred gigs parked on my Drobo).
    Clearly, some sacrifices must be made. I know that I am not going to be able to keep my iTunes library on the MBA. But, fortunately with iTunes match, and iCloud, I can stream my collection seamlessly. Besides, I have gone to using my Spotify premium account for most listening, something that will work well for my MBA.
    Instead of moving my applications, I just decided to start from scratch. That way, I can install what is important to me, and by neglecting to re-install, I can keep my foot print to something reasonable.
    I have gone to using Dropbox to sync and maintain all my “working” documents, so that they are available wherever I am at. My documents directory is going to be pretty bereft of files, but I view that as a good thing.
    It is going to be a busy weekend, but I don’t mind. Tripping down memory lane, one file or program at a time.

  • Living in Suburbia

    Warning: I am going to write about extremely boring shit for a few posts.

    When we moved to Arizona in 2003, we were moving to Tucson. A great place, lots of charm, but truly a no plan sort of place for how they let growth happen. Consequently, you had lots of little communities scattered all over without rhyme or reason. We lived on the far east side of town, in a fairly low density neighborhood. We lived at the end of a road, with a lot of open space around us. We liked it.

    Then last year we moved to Chandler, a suburb in south-east Phoenix. It is everything that Tucson is not. Well planned, plenty of green space, well maintained cities, enough population density to support local businesses (stores, restaurants and the like). The sidewalks are paved, and there are street lights. Yes, it is hotter then hell here, but the myth that Tucson was 10F cooler is pretty much debunked (we both track each other quite closely).

    Why do people still do this?
    Why do people still do this?

    But Phoenix is a big city, there is no denial of that fact.

    Chandler is where Intel is located. The Kyrene school district is one of the best in the state (all that Intel tax money), and the neighborhoods are well groomed.

    But, I experience something here at a scale that is astounding in this day and age. Direct door hanger marketing. Almost every day, I come home to find a pitch, coupons, or offerings of service. Landscapers trying to sell their services (lots and lots of them ply their trade here), Baskin Robbins trying to get people to have a treat, house cleaning services, even the local Auto Row has put hangers on the door. Sigh.

    I thought that this primitive form of direct marketing had gone the way of the Do Do. Apparently not, as it is alive and well, flourishing here in SE Phoenix.

    In Tucson we had very little of this. Maybe a couple times a year. Before that in San Jose, I don’t recall EVERY having a door tag on my condo or any place I rented or lived. (There probably were some, but not enough to be memorable.)

    Well, I guess it is better than the crap that is Groupon.

    Next up: The joys of shopping with extreme couponers.

  • Why I care about being able to jog for exercise

    This week, I was happy as a pig in a sty that I was able to run most of a 4 mile loop at lunch. Some people might think that is an odd position to be happy about, but it really is a big difference.

    I have battled with plantar fasciitis for over 2 years. It has limited me to moderate walking, and lately bicycling for my exercise. While walking is rather pedestrian (ha ha), cycling is actually a pretty good workout. But it isn’t a “great” workout.

    The reason why is pretty easy to figure out with my handy – dandy heart rate monitor.

    Walking, 4 miles per hour pace, I burn about 560 calories in an hour. My heart rate rarely rises above 80 BPM. This is fairly moderate exertion by any measure (heightened by the beta blocker I take)

    Cycling, 19 miles per hour pace, I burn about 1,100 calories per hour. Much better, and certainly a better workout. The monitor tells me that I average around a heart rate of 120 BPM.  A pretty good aerobic workout, but again, it is affected by the medication I take.

    Running. 6 mile per hour pace (very slow for me, but when I am in shape I can d0 8 minute miles easily). I burn about the same calories per distance as walking, but I go further in the same time.  I burn about 900 calories in an hour. But the real benefit is my heart rate.  I can overcome the beta blocker, and keep my heart rate between 130 – 145 BPM, a pretty good aerobic workout by any measure.

    So, of the three primary avenues for me to exercise, running is clearly the winner in the aerobic sense, and pretty good burning of calories.  Cycling’s benefit is that I can keep up a 19 mph pace for 2 – 3 hours, and burn a shedload of calories. Something that I enjoy.

    But running has one other major benefit, the fact that when I am traveling, I can pretty much run ANYWHERE. If I get up early enough, I can do 5, 6, or even 7 miles before a day of work.  All I need are shorts and shoes, and I am good to go!

    BTW: Having a smartphone with a GPS and a bluetooth heart rate monitor makes tracking my progress easy, and VERY satisfying.

  • I feel like a failure – Gardening Edition

    I think I need to turn in my Man card. I confess that I liked living in Tucson, because, we had xeriscaping that took almost no effort to keep up. It wasn’t elaborate, but it was easy.

    We moved to Chandler (suburb of Phoenix), and we have a small patch of grass in the back yard. It is “maybe” 100 sq ft. Regardless of my efforts to kill it (and then be justified in ripping it out and putting in artificial turf) it continues to grow and thrive.

    Shit.

    That means that it needs to be maintained. Mowed, edged, and fertilized. I thought for sure that it was a goner over the winter, but alas, it came back with a vengeance.

    If I had this for a mower, maybe I wouldn't mid mowing...
    If I had this for a mower, maybe I wouldn’t mid mowing…

    So why turn in the Man Card? Well, I just hate mowing and yard work. I don’t envy people who are maniacal about their lawns, and their gardens. Keeping the grass clipped, and shrubbery trimmed is just nothing I give a damn about. I have a push mower and a string trimmer, but I got half way through the grass last week, and gave up. Even 100 sqft of grass being mowed with a reel push mower in 105F temperatures is too much for any sane human.

    So we called a landscaper. $75 to do major clean up (it needed it) and $30 every other week to maintain it all. No brainer. And I don’t feel even a little bit guilty about spending that money.

    Next in things I am a failure at: I just don’t appreciate theater.

  • My next computer (?)

    I have long been a Mac fan.  Started back in 1988 when I bought a Mac SE with a 20 megabyte HD built in. I used the heck out of that before getting deeply engrossed in FPS games and building a string of PC clones.  I came back to the Mac fold in 2001, with an iBook, and have been there since.

    His Steve-ness with the MacBook Air. But will it blend?
    His Steve-ness with the MacBook Air. But will it blend?

    Currently I have an aging 15″  MacBook pro.  It isn’t dying, but it is showing its age.  I did rejuvenate it with a SSD, and a second HD where the optical drive used to be. But I have been jonesing for something newer. My first encounter with a Retina MacBookPro was OK, but it wasn’t lust at first site (and a well equipped 15″ version with 16G ram, and 512G SSD is about $2,800 before buying the AppleCare extended warranty).  I looked at the 13″ version and it was ok, but not blow your socks off.

    Then Apple decided to spam me for Father’s day on the new MacBook Air’s.  I guess they think my furkids should buy their daddy a MacBook Air. Suddenly the idea of a powerfull-enough, but light and long battery life machine was appealing. Yes, I would have to give up the huge HD storage (almost a TB between drives on my MBP) and a bit of speed, but I would be getting a real 10hr + battery, and a very small, light package.

    I can see myself springing for a 13″ MBA, 256G SSD, and 8G ram.  Probably my next computer. And it is about 1/2 the price of the Retina MBP.  The current MBP will make a fine server and media streaming box.

  • Music Streaming – conclusion

    TL;DR version: Spotify wins

    To round out the saga, I needed to make a decision on whether to keep Google  All-Access or Spotify for my online streaming pleasure. If you recall, I signed up for a trial of the Google all access, and was comparing it to Spotify.  While I am an Apple fan, I am not sure their entry this fall into an ad sponsored offering is going to be worth my time. (Perhaps if it was free with my iTunes match subscription …) Primarily, it is because I need to use it on my windows machines as well as my Mac, my iPhone and my Android tablet. iTunes sucks donkey balls on the PC, so unless Apple does something amazing, I am discounting it without trying it.

    Early on, Google All Access was plagued by the glitches that I experienced with my tunes in their database. Skips, pauses, and long halts in playing. Spotify pulled into the lead, because their dedicated application was really solid, and whatever magic they do buffering, it has almost no issues (except when my crappy work network connection flakes out).  But about 2 weeks ago, Google got their streaming act together, and it became solid. Almost as reliable as Spotify.

    However, I am going to stick to my Spotify premium account, and turn off the all access.  While it is $2 cheaper, and it is better integrated with my Android tablet, the Spotify apps make the difference. A quality user experience across platforms, coupled with great streaming, and a good catalog. Spotify FTW.

    Aside: One thing that I never did much of was use the radio option of spotify. I compared the radio option of Google All Access versus spotify, and I like the selections of the Spotify radio stations a wee bit better than on All Access.  Both services have holes in their catalog (due to licensing issues, I would believe), but points in All Access’s favor is that since I have all the Led Zeppelin and Paul Gilbert tracks (legally) they get in to the mix. But that isn’t enough to save its bacon.

    Winner: Spotify

  • Exercising in the heat

    Living in Arizona, it can sure be tough to get out and pound the pavement when the temps climb into triple digits. Many people recede to the gym, and work out in air conditioned comfort, but I have always hated the gym (variety of reasons). So I lace up my shoes at lunch and go for a run, or I ride my bicycle in to the off (always good for a 106F+ ride home).

    People in the office look at me like I am from Mars.

    But it can be done safely. There are precautions that you take, and symptoms that you look for while on your outdoor fitness excursions:

    • Pre-load with fluids. If you are going to run at lunch, drink 2 – 3 12oz glasses of water in the hour before you head out. Your body will need it.
    • Bring fluids with you. I go through about 16 oz for each 3-4 miles I run. If you begin to cramp, drink.
    • Put some electrolyte supplements in your water. In the summer I use Accelerade, a protein/carb mix that really does help recovery.
    • Don’t “start” cold turkey. The key is to acclimatize yourself. Start in early spring, and keep at it as the temps rise. You will not “shock” your system, and it will become more enjoyable (plus exercising regularly is a great stress reliever)
    • If you cramp, become dizzy, disoriented or “dazed” STOP.  Call for help.  The difference between a comfortable albeit it hot run, and heat stroke can happen quickly.  Carry a phone.

    It isn’t for everyone, but if you prepare, and ease yourself into it, you can keep your outdoor fitness going, even in the baking Arizona sun. Use common sense, and don’t push too hard.

  • Touching a nerve

    So, I have a regular blog where I talk about product management and other career-like things.  I get 20 or so visits a day, and I have some followers in the product management / product marketing world. I try to be a little bit of a balance against all the happy-feel-good self promoting blogs from the Product Management conslutants.

    Some things I have noticed:

    • The greater the “snark” factor, the more visits. When I write something that is non-controversial, or informative on the role, I get far less of a response than I do when I go on a rant.
    • The oddest topics seem to resonate.
    • Some people just need to take a chill pill and relax.

    Case in point. The second most viewed post was when I was ranting about LinkedIn. They are doing a lot of scummy things to try to bolster their database, and to make money. Can’t blame them, but it does get tiring (I should do a follow up, because it seems like every week, I get an entreaty from them to try the “Premium” service.) If you want to check it out, it is at this link.

     

  • The curse of being a “Techie” – Making things too complicated

    I have always been adept at technology. I am sure that some of it is natural aptitude, and some is single bloody-minded-ness that I learned from working with many different computers and other “smart” devices for years (decades now). I am the person that all my family calls when they have problems with tech.

    But sometimes, it is a curse.  Case in point:

    My bluray disc player
    My bluray disc player

    In 2007 or 2008, we took the plunge and went BluRay. We bought a good mid range player at the time, the Panasonic DMP BD30. It has been a faithful player, working great.  Every disk we tossed into it, regardless of the warning that a firmware upgrade may be required played without trouble.  Until May 10 2013 (My birthday).  I got a BD copy of Skyfall, and while the damn trailers on it played, it just wouldn’t play the main movie.  F*ck. I didn’t get a copy of Skyfall on Bluray to watch the damn, tossed in DVD copy.

    So, I investigated the firmware upgrade. I have to say that the Panasonic website for support completely blows.  Yes, I was able to find it, but it took too damn long. Of course, it comes as a self extracting archive that is a Windows program.  Poopies.  I am a Mac person. But it was a self extracting RAR archive, so I was able to get the firmware file out.

    But the instructions were complicated. It said to burn the image to a CD-R (not a CD-RW) and that it had to be ISO9660 format.  Easiest to do on windows, so I tried it with my work laptop.  No joy.

    For some reason, I thought the PANA_DVD.FRM file was a disk image, so I tried all my tools and utilities to burn that image to a CD-R. I now have 4 coasters.

    Finally, I thought to myself, perhaps it isn’t an image file (like an iso) but just the firmware file. I opened a toast session, selected “data CD” and ISO format, and burned that file to a disk. Joy, it took about 10 minutes, but the firmware is now updated to 3.1 (from 1.3) and I am watching the end of Skyfall on BD now.

    My error was in my natural inclination to try to treat it as a disk image, and to burn it as such. That is because I am accustomed to that workflow. But in this case, the simple solution was to just burn the firmware file on a disk. Of course, the instructions say nothing like this, but are filled with warnings about Windows Vista or Windows 7. Being the geek that I am, I avoided the easy solution, and spent a few weeks messing around creating coasters.

    For the record, the player works beautifully, and I am astounded that I was able to go 5 or 6 years before I was forced to do a firmware upgrade. I have friends who are constantly updating their player to handle new discs.