04.13.09
Posted in Tech at 9:12 am by Cavorter
After reading a theory about how #amazonfail might have happened it is a bit tempting to try and test the theory directly. If the theory is valid and Amazon has not changed their alleged feedback/delisting mechanism then it should be a fairly simple test to run.
I think it would be pretty tempting to initially target something that was similar on the other side of the political spectrum. In the #amazonfail debacle GLBT oriented works seemed to be the primary focus and the obvious knee jerk response would be to target something like ex-gay manuals or other strongly christian or right-leaning publications. I think this would be exactly the wrong target however for some pretty simple reasons.
The first and most obvious is that we don’t know if the theory is actually valid or not. It certainly sounds reasonable but there is no actual proof that I’ve seen yet and several people who seem to think there is evidence against it.
The second and best reason though is that there is no way to currently know who to go after. Flailing about at random targets is only really likely to reinforce any existing persecution complexes that seem to be so common on the other side of the fence. Any authors that might be randomly targeted because they wrote a book you don’t like may be in the exact same position as several of the people impacted by the alleged Bantown that happened with #amazonfail and would really just be censorship on a different group.
I think instead the ideal test target would be for volunteers to publish something via Amazon’s print-on-demand division CreateSpace. One of the options on that service is that for a 40% share of the list price Amazon will list the item in the main directory. Having a volunteer submit a target is really the only way to ensure that someone is not a victim of virtual mob violence. Next step is to get a small number of people to purchase the item thus ensuring that the item gets into the sales ranking system. I don’t know how many would be needed but one would guess that somewhere between 10-100 would be a good starting number. Since this would involve actual purchases I would think that donating the remaining %60 of the price to a charitable organization (The ACLU, EFF, EPIC, or CBLDF would be ideal recipients) would be a reasonable action.
Once the test item has established itself in the ranking system the next step would be to then have a staged attempt to remove the item through the feedback system. While it would be simple to just have everyone hit it at the same time, it might be more interesting to set up a simple ticketing system like a website where people enter an email address and when the test is ready a randomly selected set of the participants would be notified to go submit feedback and then notify the ticketing system that they have done so. Once some amount of time has passed the item’s status could be checked to see if the total number of feedback attempts has delisted it yet or not. If not, run the next batch. Heck, you could even use Mechanical Turk to source the feedback attempts. )For some reason I find it perversely funny to use Amazon’s own systems to test other parts of their infrastructure.)
The obvious downside would be that Amazon would still be making money from the initial purchases of the test item. Good research costs money though and the result might be worth the attempt.
Permalink
02.08.08
Posted in Tech, Video at 6:46 pm by Cavorter
I’ve been running into a huge number of people who don’t understand what’s going on with HDTV lately, so I figured I needed to put something out for the couple of people who do read my blog.
- The HD broadcast switch is a funded federal mandate. (see item #3)
- You do not have to get rid of your existing TV unless you really want to. (see item#3)
- Every household in the US is entitled to two (2) coupons good for free HD to SD content converters. You can get your coupon from https://www.dtv2009.gov/. These are set top boxes that go from a standard pair of rabbit ears or whatever you’re using as an antenna to your TV and let you watch HD content on your regular old non-HD TV.
- You are getting something (two things!) from the government for FREE here people.
- If you plan to continue using a VCR or other SD equipment (Tivo series 1 and 2, Windows MCE, MythTV, etc) to record programming make sure that you get a converter box that can change channels on a schedule or can be controlled by your recording equipment. If your recording equipment has built in schedules of some kind they may not match the new HD lineup and schedule.
- Shop for a new TV carefully. Just because you buy a new “HD capable” TV does not mean you can just hook up an antenna and start getting HD content. Many “HD Capable” TVs sold do not include an HD tuner (though it’s better than it used to be) since for the most part the manufacturer’s figure that you will have either a cable box or satellite receiver that will do the tuning instead. A TV with an HD tuner will likely cost $100-$200 more than an otherwise identical model.
- Not all HD capable TVs are widescreen. Many manufacturers make several “normal” (4:3 aspect ratio) sets that are just as “HD capable” as their widescreen versions.
- Not all HD capable TVs are light and thin. I personally own a ~125lb 30in widescreen CRT that I really quite like except when I decide to move it up or down stairs. CRTs still for the most part look better than other competing technologies. The problem is that, as evidenced by my 125lb wonder of modern technology, the technology does not scale well to really big screens.
- “Plasma” TVs use much more power than a similarly sized CRT. Really big plasma TVs use proportionally more power. My brother heats his living room with his (Not a joke).
- LCD TVs use much less power than a similarly sized CRT. Really big LCD TVs use proportionally more power which may actually be more than your current 27in non-HD TV uses. Do not take the word of the salesman at the store on this one, get a Kill-A-Watt and find out for yourself.
- The biggest downside to many of the non-CRT technologies is that they can be very difficult to see anything when you are not directly in front of them (though it is much better than it was a few years ago). Some sets are much better than others. If the comfy chair is off in a corner you may not be able to watch anything on that big new thing heating the living room. Before you go to the store, figure out where you might end up trying to watch it from in your room and figure out what that distance and angle are and try and replicate it in the store to see what it will look like.
- A 30in widescreen TV has a picture that is about the same size vertically as a 27in “normal” (4:3) TV. Remember that the measurement is diagonal.
- You do not have to have cable or satellite to get local broadcast HD channels. Most satellite receivers get their local HD content from an antenna you hook up to the back of them. Some cable systems don’t display all of the local HD channels.
- Most cable systems highly compress their content so it is very possible that NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX/PBS/CW/etc might look better from an antenna in your area.
- Not all content from HD sources is really HD. There’s quite a bit of programming (especially children’s and daytime programming) that is still displayed in SD. Re-runs of Cheers and Friends will always be in SD. The HD source might make it look a bit better than the old SD signal though.
- Not all stations that are broadcasting in HD are broadcasting HD content at all. Up until Fall of 2007 my local CW affiliate in particular was broadcasting everything in 480P which meant the widescreen dramas (Like Smallville) get shrunk to fit the lower resolution and looked really bad on my widescreen set with black bars on all sides. (Thanks to Aaron for pointing out they had changed over) Still, it is something to watch for in your area, especially on stations that are not affiliated with the big four networks.
That’s all that I can think of right now but if anyone has any questions feel free to ask them. If I don’t know the answer I’m more than willing to look them up.
Permalink
11.27.07
Posted in Media, Tech at 7:16 pm by Cavorter
One of the things that I like about the Zune is that it has podcast support that is more like how I really use them rather than the way they work with iTunes. It’s not perfect by any stretch (Why can’t I squirt a podcast?) but it’s generally very good. Good enough that I’m looking for more content to listen to.
I have two very different kinds of podcasts that I listen to for very different environments. I find that I can’t listen to people talking without having to pay attention to them, at least if I want to get anything out of it. This is just as true of talk radio as it is of audio books. I also find that after 45 minutes of people yakking I get really, really bored pretty quickly but I find items less than 10min long to not be worth the effort to fiddle with the player to listen to (Not perfect #2: Can’t put them in playlists). Which is really unfortunate since I otherwise would have a couple of really short items that I do like (The Engines of Our Ingenuity being a prime example).
So here’s what I’m currently listening to:
I also really used to love SpaceMusic, but that shifted to a paid subscription model a year or so ago. Though looking on the site now there does appear to be some free stuff again so maybe I’ll take a look at them again.
Any suggestions anyone?
Permalink
11.15.07
Posted in Tech at 11:00 am by Cavorter
According to MPR there is a major opportunity to recycle a lot of old electronics and other household waste this weekend at the Mall of America. I’m going to drop off a bunch of the things that I have listed on the Take My Stuff! Please! page so if you want anything in particular say something now.
Permalink
11.14.07
Posted in Tech at 1:49 pm by Cavorter
Permalink
11.13.07
Posted in Tech at 12:00 pm by Cavorter
A few of the things that I do think are really very good about the new Zune software are both the Podcast and the social/community support. I have been using services like Last.fm, iLike, and a large variety of others for a very long time now and am really happy to see that kind of support built-in as a basic feature that is incredibly simple to use and visually fairly appealing. So far, in the couple of hours I’ve been playing around with it, it’s wonderful.
Podcast support also is very well executed. The v2 software was able to use my existing cache of downloaded podcasts to seed the Podcast view and while I did have to do some cleanup and am having some difficulty getting some of the really old stuff integrated into single items in the Podcast list I was able to get up to date with the majority of what I regularly listen to simply by finding the existing item and hitting the “subscribe” button in the interface. I can not say enough positive things about how well this got implemented that it almost makes up for the total absence of support for the past year.
Oh, and the software is very, very pretty. No really, it’s quite nice to look at which is a rarity.
Update: I can’t believe I forgot to link to my profile page!
Permalink
Posted in Tech at 11:35 am by Cavorter
Microsoft launched the second version of their Zune hardware yesterday and their software today. For the most part I am really very happy with the progress that the platform has made, but I am also quite disappointed in a couple of choices that I do really consider a big step back. I’ve already commented in a couple of locations about the change to the ratings system from 5 Star to Heart/Broken Heart, but I just posted the following message in the Zune Forums about the lack of auto playlists:
As a software engineer I do understand that sometimes the process of creating software involves making trade offs and sometimes good features get cut for good reasons. Given that auto playlists seemed to function pretty well in the first version of the software, what was the design decision around not implementing auto playlists in version 2? I am really honestly curious.
I would have put this in one of the existing posts complaining about the removal of this feature but I really want to try and start from a position not of blame or anger, but one of curiosity.
Too be honest I am very disappointed since auto playlists is one of the features that I consider to be absolutely required for me to take media management software seriously. I have a really hard time thinking of any media management software that doesn’t have this sort of feature as significantly lacking. In many cases software in this market that does lack auto playlists at least have a compensatory feature of allowing some sort of extensibility to the application through plug-ins or whatever but that is also missing from Zune v2.
Thanks for the work that you have done in the software and the great improvements that do exist. I’m going to give it a serious opportunity to see how the software fits into the way that I consume my music collection but without something that I consider so fundamental to the way I perceive the ideal method of that consumption I have a hard time seeing how this can work for me in the long term which makes my monetary investment in the hardware seem like a really very bad idea.
I hope I get an answer, though I don’t expect the majority of the replies to keep the tone of the message too civil.
Permalink
11.01.07
Posted in Tech at 6:30 pm by Cavorter
Permalink
Posted in Tech at 10:40 am by Cavorter
[Update: I appear to have lost the original post contents because of a really weird problem I'm having with my WordPress installation. I'm going to put in a very similar, though not identical post instead since I can't seem to find a cached version of the original.]
I’ve been going through my attic lately and finding piles and piles of old computer stuff. I’m trying to decide if I want to get rid of it as one big lot of stuff, or part it out for whoever wants the various bits.
Permalink
10.24.07
Posted in Tech at 12:56 pm by Cavorter
I finally got around to looking at the new community features on Netflix this morning. There’s some interesting stuff they’re trying to do here that I can’t help but think would work better with a more open model for social graphs. It was only a month or so ago that I found that a couple of friends had Netflix accounts and managed to get they added to my friend’s list. More interoperability would make that sort of oversight very difficult, though there is the obvious (to me) caveat that these systems should also make it relatively easy to partition how some of that information travels.
Anyway, some items in particular with the Netflix Community features that I found interesting where the difference between “public” and “private” information and the “Reviewer Rank”. I am, unsurprisingly, pretty low on the ranking coming in somewhere just shy of 65,000th.
But you can see some of that by going directly to my profile.
Permalink
