In re: Apple has gone insane

This is, in short, a nightmare scenario for long-time iPod fans: are we entering a world in which Apple controls and taxes literally every piece of the iPod purchase from headphones to chargers, jacking up their prices, forcing customers to re-purchase things they already own, while making only marginal improvements in their functionality? It’s a shame, and one that consumers should feel empowered to fight.

via Review: Apple iPod shuffle (Third-Generation) | iLounge.

It's small and it talks to you, but doesn't play well with other headphones...

It's small and it talks to you, but doesn't play well with other headphones...

I am a big fan of Apple, but they have a very annoying habit of nickle and diming their customers on overpriced adaptors, plugs and cables.  There are too many instances of this to mention, but one example is switching to the new mini display port (mind you there are no monitors using this when this came out, and probably only one right now – a $1000 apple monitor) meaning that people who were plopping down a whole lot of cash for Apple’s computers needed to go shell out another $29 for the adaptor.  Every now and again Apple seems to get wise, the new Mac Mini’s include a mini dvi to dvi cable, nice… And the 3G iPhone moved to using a flush headphone port rather than the recessed for no reason on the first gen, meaning lots of us went and bought adaptors, special headphones, etc.

Well now Apple has really gone and done it, and I mean this is really nuts, they have limited the newly released iPod Shuffle to using only Apple headphones (that contain the controls) or to Apple licensed headphones that will contain an authentication chip, yes that’s right an AUTHENTICATION CHIP IN THE FREAKING HEADPHONES.  This is not a step forward, this is a huge step backward.  You know how each cellphone charger doesn’t work with other brands, well they are working to get a universal format (micro usb I think is what they have planned).  Thankfully for music the mini plug has long been a standard and we don’t think twice about what kind of headsets you buy.  Apple has said enough and the Shuffle will limit you (at least if you want to control the tracks, volume, etc).

Mind you the Shuffle was already a less than stellar device, kind of an afterthought of Apple to get into a cheap MP3 market and charge a premium, I bought the 2nd generation shuffle as I am already a heavy iTunes user and its nice for the gym, but other than that it doesn’t have benefits over other mini MP3 players.

I am sure this tiny MP3 player will still sell well for Apple, but its really disappointing to see such a horrible design (I already don’t like the idea of controls only on the cord) and adding to people the prospect of only having overpriced headsets available or having an adaptor that will probably be $20 or $30 (due to the chip) when it comes out.  Oh well…

In re: Huntington Park sponsorships rolling in

Huntington Park won’t open for five weeks, but it’s almost a sellout — for sponsorships.

The ballpark’s board has nailed down $39.6 million in corporate money for naming rights and is negotiating deals worth an additional $9 million.

The new ballpark in the Arena District, to open April 18, had promised to raise $37 million from private sponsors.

via The Columbus Dispatch : Huntington Park a hit for sponsors.

Surprisingly in this tough economic times when we have been hearing about the horrors of Citi Groups sponsorship of the Met’s new stadium the Clippers here in Columbus have not had trouble selling sponsorships for their soon to open new stadium.  For sponsors it might be a good deal compared to higher level leagues and the prices that come from that as well as the fact that attendance at the new team is likely to be strong with the new Indians AAA team as well as being an affordable entertainment option.  I know I am getting really excited for the new park and team, seems like companies are too.

In re: Cost to get railroad going in Ohio

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland says the state could restore passenger rail service with $250 million in federal stimulus money.

Strickland’s administration released the estimate Friday. Trains would run along existing freight tracks connecting Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus and Cleveland, with the eventual goal of making the service high speed.

The governor also estimates it would cost $10 million a year to operate the service, less than 1 percent of Ohio’s $7.6 billion, two-year transportation budget.

via WTTE FOX 28 – Ohio News.

As you may know I strongly support rail travel and I am hoping that the Governors plan to restart Ohio rail travel works.  One thing that people don’t seem to think about but that I read recently was the amount of state employee travel by car and how we could get some of them using rail.  I can attest that I would love to be able to travel this way, fire up my computer (hopefully with wifi) and get work done instead of billing the state for 5 hours of driving, doing some actual work.  Not sure how easy it would be to quantify this kind of information, but companies may also see a benefit here if they travel in state.  Of course we have problems as a lot of our cities sprawl and you would need easy public transport connections, but for a lot of us going downtown to downtown for meetings it would work great.

In re: Funny signs

The Telegraph is one of the newspapers that I regularly read (although admittedly mostly for football stories) one of my favorite sections is called “Sign Language” and consists of funny signs from the UK and around the world…one such example below.

sign-dog_tele

City of London Speak to the Dogs

In re: Technology in Soccer Broadcasts

I’ve been surprised (not really upset I might admit) that the television in England hasn’t jumped on all the gimicks of digital imaging and breaking down plays that the US has.  Some of these efforts were complete jokes (the glow puck in hockey, thanks Fox) but others like the first and ten line worked and caught on and are now the default in all but the lowest level of college broadcasts.

I’ve noticed that Serie A (Italy) has used some tech such as putting up a graphical distance circle when someone takes a free kick (although I haven’t seen this recently) and I have seen the distance run stats popping up in Champions League broadcasts – not saying they need to change or add crap to the game but its interesting to see the vast differences in broadcast styles from ESPN here to foreign feeds.  That said I really hope ESPN doesn’t get EPL rights for the US anytime soon… well that’s a different story.

In a comment to the post on Manchester United’s use of an iPod a commenter noted that they liked ESPNs Euro coverage’s use of a 360 view, I don’t remember loving it, but I don’t remember it real well so I can’t say I hated it, but you know if ESPN got into the game they be busting this stuff out for good or for bad.  Oh well..

In re: Prank war… really funny

Can’t say I am ever on the CollegeHumor.com website except when the occasional item gets a lot of diggs, this is one of those and this was pretty amazing in the amount of setup for this prank and how good it was (I guess its been an escalating prank war) anyway check it out at CollegeHumor where the whole basketball arena helps trick a guys friend into thinking he won $500,000 for hitting a blindfolded half-court shot.

In re: iPod helps Manchester United win the Carling Cup?

In an interview with BBC Sport, Foster noted “We went into the shoot-out as well prepared as possible. We have had things to look at over the last couple of days and before the shoot-out, you can see me looking at an iPod with Eric Steele. It had actual video on it and showed where players put things. Eric brought it when he came to the club. I have never seen anything like it. It is a fantastic tool for us.”

via iPod helps Manchester United win the Carling Cup.

Loving gadgets and loving soccer thought this was an amusing story despite my lack of interest in the Carling Cup final (why couldn’t they both lose?  seriously even being an Arsenal fan and hating all things Tottenham I still think I would rather have seen ManU win the worthless trophy with their kids).  Anyway, the only thing I wanted to say is that I am surprised by the lack of tech that has gotten involved in top flight football, given that there don’t seem to be restrictions a la the NFL in American football on showing video on the sidelines (hence all the guys up top calling down) I would think goaltenders, substitutes and players during injurying stannding around moments would be getting some video updates or using some other type of tech aids.  Even the locker rooms seem low tech, you would think they’d have lots of video setups at the big clubs, but it doesn’t seem to be the case.

In reality the iPod didn’t really have much to do with the win, the English can’t seem to hit their penalties and Sir Alex was wise enough to lineup 5 foreigners.

Update: a good comment on the use of technology in soccer to checkout, that said I still think the use of video for breaking down games takes a much lower profile in terms of percieved value in soccer than in many US sports that seem to get into this stuff a lot (for better or worse).

In re: Dispatch layoffs

Guess it should come as no surprise, papers were suffering before the downturn in the economy, but its still sad to see.

“The Dispatch is reducing the size of its newsroom, laying off 45 people effective on April 3, management of the newspaper announced today.”

via The Columbus Dispatch : ‘Dispatch’ announces 45 layoffs on editorial staff.

Made me think back to the last season of The Wire (I know another Wire reference – I thought we were past that!)  While that season was the most criticized and probably a bit out of touch with recent times it did help show the demise of the American paper and the role a newspaper played or could play in a community…anyway.

The problem is of course multifaceted, internet, longer commutes by car, TV time rather than reading mean that there are less readers, with less time and who have plenty of other options.  The problem is that blogs and other cheaper to produce operations lack some of the quality control that we have gotten used to and the investigative resources.  (Maybe we are ushering in a new era of investigative bloggers?).  Anyway, I do feel bad that I  canceled my Dispatch subscription a year ago, although I read online, but it was slowing me down on the weekdays and often times left a huge bin of newspapers that were barely read (I have read print media is better for the environment then online – due to huge electric usage – but it still made me think I was creating waste – at my peak I had two 7 days a week subscriptions, one to Dispatch and on to NY Times)  Right now I only get the NY Times in print 3 days a week (I would like more but as I said, it piled up during the week) and tons of magazines that I don’t get through (not even the Economist sadly these days gets its deserved full reading).

That said who knows, the times may shift the business to shift their thinking, lean times can lead to great creativity and getting more done with less.  I always thought the Dispatch website look pretty junky and I would be willing to pay for a better site, although knowing others reading habits I know this wouldn’t bring in many others.

In re: The Omnivore’s Dilemma

200903011136.jpgIf you’ve been fortunate enough to catch me getting into a rant recently on the subject you already know that I just finished The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, a Berkley journalism prof and NY Times magazine contributor. The book, which I had been meaning to read for a long time, hit upon exactly a subject I am extremely interested in and believe is skipped over by a lot of us in our  society that strives only for quantity and low cost  (but is starting to change) and that is understanding all the dynamics of the food we eat, the impact of our choices that are much greater than most of us understand. Okay before I start getting too lofty, let’s get back to the basics, for those who don’t know this book, it attempts to chronicle several meals, one based upon what is now the norm, the monoculture (corn & soy  among others) and fast food / industrialized food based upon these. Another meal is based upon a very different type of agriculture, on a small farm where food is local, animals are grazed on grass and all the profound changes that occur from this type of diversified farming. The last meal he goes through is a hunter/gather meal for the most part (his gathered sea salt doesn’t turn out too good from the San Francisco bay, but the rest works out pretty good — wild pig, mushrooms, wild yeast, etc.).

While I think just understanding the food chains we live in is a useful exercise, the book does a good job showing how far we have strayed from our origins (and arguably what we have evolved to eat) with our creation of the massive corn fields and cheap subsidized corn, that create corn syrup and any other number of other derivative substance as well as creating the cheap feed that encourages the toxic feed lots that fatten cattle with a food they aren’t designed to eat (thus requiring lots of drugs). While there may be other things that are harming the American diet, the thing I most took away from the book is that all the problems of this type of food society are inherently taken care of using more traditional methods of raising livestock on grass and careful rotation.

The last part of the book where he goes hunting also goes a long way to dealing with our complete separation from where our food comes from, the lives of the animals that feed us and that we are doing so intentionally – putting meat further and further into sanitized forms, moving butchering into factories, keeping primal cuts out of view.

“There’s a schizoid quality to our relationship with animals today in which sentiment and brutality exist side by side. Half the dogs in America will receive Christmas presents this year, yet few of us ever pause to consider the life of the pig-an animal easily as intelligent as a dog–that becomes the Christmas ham. We tolerate this schizophrenia because the life of the pig has moved out of view; when’s the last time you saw a pig in person? Meat comes from the grocery store, where it is cut and packaged to look as little like parts of animals as possible.” (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, page 306)

One last thing I’ll mention in the section on the ethics of eating animals is his discussion of the ethics of vegetarianism. One thing I hadn’t really thought about is that many of todays animals are domesticated, and would not continue to exist without humans (corn as well) and essentially if we all stopped eating meat certain species would be wiped out (something to think about). Additionally there is the conundrum of vegetables that are being grown using petrochemical based fertilizers versus animal protein raised off of grass, when you compare those two which is better? (“The world is full of places where the best, if not the only, way to obtain food from the land is by grazing (and hunting) animals on it–especially ruminants, which alone can transform grass into protein. To give up eating animals is to give up on these places as human habitats, unless of course we are willing to make complete dependence on a highly industrialized national food chain.” page 327)  Also veggies should take note that lots of animals are killed unintentionally by modern farm equipment, that crushes moles and other animals during planting and harvesting.

Lots of interesting stuff in this book, if you do get into and find you agree with some of the ideas, I think the thing to take away is to attempt and support local farming, local grass raised meats that raise animals in a lifestyle you aren’t ashamed to go and see. Even the organic national brands are factory farms, which while better than the rest are still probably not what you picture when you pick up the product in Whole Foods, which is a whole other subject he gets into.

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