Other Stuff White People Like . . .

White people love newspaper subscriptions. Especially subscribing to major market newspapers from a major market other than the one they live in. I.e.: A New York Times subscriber who lives in Los Angeles, or a Washington Post subscriber living in New York city.

White people have been known to leave the newspaper on the driveway or stoop until well into the evening as a beacon to their whiteness. It’s a badge of superiority to have that New York Times blue plastic bag lying there, as is having your paper recycling pile topped off with a copy of the New York Times Book Review. At the dog run, scooping up your dog’s poop with a blue New York Times bag asserts your alpha-whiteness over another white person who’s using a simple black plastic bag. Only those white people who use a Whole Foods bag are on par with those using the New York Times bag. All other bag users are inferior.

White people subscribe to newspapers not to actually read them (though many have been know to), but to show neighbors and peers that they are enlightened. Keeping one folded under your arm as you commute via mass transit is an ideal way to assert whiteness. New media is great, but nothing appeals to a white person’s sense of intellect and vintage chic quite as much as a physical newspaper; it’s a two bird killing stone. Sure, you look cool and connected when you bring your MacBook to the coffee house, but whip open a copy of the London Times and you are suddenly whiter-than-thou. Even if you’re just doing their Sudoku, perhaps especially so.

Flipping through a copy of The Economist (okay a magazine, but its editors refer to it as a newspaper) on the L trail to/from Williamsburg/Greenpoint tells other white people that you don’t tow the white party line 100%, and thus this minor act of subversion makes you even more of a white person. Reading The Nation is simply too white-trite these days.

Having a newspaper on their person or on their driveway/stoop is a distinctive trait of the white person. It simply telegraphs whiteness.

United America

While many are going on and on about how we need to bring America and Americans back together again, recent evidence suggests that most American’s are united about a few things. Recent (and not so recent) polls show that nearly two-thirds (and sometimes many more) of Americans agree about the following . . .

1. Bush is a lousy president

2. Cheney is a lousy vice-president.

3. Congress is pretty lousy too.

4. The Iraq war sucks, and we should get troops out of Iraq right away.

5. The economy also sucks, and America is in a reccesion.

6. Oil prices are too high and are affecting American’s bottom line, and America needs to reduce it’s dependence on oil.

7. The world needs to lower the amount of greenhouse gases released into the air.

8. Americans would like to see a decrease in the number of illegal immigrants entering America.

9. The health care system in America needs revision.

10. FEMA could be doing more to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

That’s right TWO-THIRDS of American’s agree on the above things! Two-thirds is a landslide mandate in American politics these days. America seems rather united to me, despite what you see going on in the debates in both houses of congress.

(poll data source: pollingreport.com)

Barak O’gone-a?

Is this the beginning of the end for Barak Obama? His recent problems . . .

1. Seems to be against new primary elections for the people in Florida and Michigan.

2. Has not completely disassociated himself from Reverend Wright.

3. His wife Michele’s recent comment about being proud of America for the first time.

Oddly the press does not seem to think these issues will have much effect on Obama moving forward. I disagree. I think the Clinton campaign will jump on this soon; she’s already all over the Florida/Michigan issue. And once McCain returns to the states and shakes off the jet-lag, he’ll be all over it too. But worst of all, if Obama does win the DNC nomination he will be eaten alive in a national election by the GOP and the far right as they are sure to accuse him of being less than patriotic and American. It would be naive to think that they will not attack his character and patriotism about the above three things. Hell they were giving him heat over his middle name, for Christ’s sake! A neo-con 527 group is sure to put together a real spicy and negative ad against Obama using the above three things, and perhaps more. Normally — and if it were earlier in the primary elections — the above three things would end a candidate’s campaign. Too risky too controversial, people would think, and vote for someone else.

Personally, I don’t think these things are all that bad. What does trouble me is that Obama has not made it a number one priority to dismiss these blunders as just that, blunders. Okay, he gave a world-class speech yesterday, but unfortunately it did not go far enough to squelch his detractors now and probably into the future. Rev. Wright is going to haunt him for a long time. Especially since Obama has made his judgment the central theme of his campaign. All one has to do is say, “what does having had Rev. Wright as your pastor for over 2o years say about Obamas judgment”? I think Obama needs to show what it takes to win a national campaign and put issues like these way behind him and unequivocally assure American’s that he is the real deal and truly patriotic –and perhaps more so — than his opponents. Unfortunately this requires a type of non-academic, non-intellectual speech that Obama has yet to master. He better start wrapping himself up in the American flag. Or at least start wearing an American flag pin on his lapel.

I predict Obama’s campaign will lose momentum right away. The only question is how much and for how long.

Bush Supports Torture

Bush vetoed a bill that would make illegal for the CIA to use waterboarding as an interrogation technique, refusing to to hold the CIA to the same standard as the military and law enforcement.

The education president has become the torture president.

Apparently McCain knew Bush was going to do this when him appeared with him earlier in the week. McCain has been against torture since the days he was subjected to it as a POW in the Vietnam war. Yet McCain urged Bush to veto the bill, saying it would hamper the CIA’s ability to gather intelligence if the bill were signed into law. McCain’s contradiction as being against torture but for CIA waterboarding will surely have a negative effect on his presidential campaign. His critics will be wise to point to this hypocrisy.

“The fact that we have not been attacked over the past six and a half years is not a matter of chance,” said Bush in his Saturday radio address, ignoring the bombing in New York City’s Times Square on Thursday.

Mortgage Crisis

We have to be careful not to reward stupidity.

We are all for foreclosure freezes to try to give people in need a new chance to reorganize their finances and avoid people having to lose their homes. But we must not protect people that tried to live beyond their means. The trouble is, how do you define the difference between the two, especially since housing prices have been so damn high up until very recently?

Anyone who who acquired a non-doc, interest-only mortgage on the house they intended as their primary residence for the long-term played with fire. It is extremely risky to take out such a loan, and is generally reserved for situations of speculation where the buyer intends to sell the property in the short term in a booming market. Such mortgages are like buying stock on margin: you either win big or have to payout more than you bet with.

As tragic as it may be that some people undertook this strategy to finance their home and may have to give up their home, this type of behavior cannot be caught by the safety net that politicians are proposing. This falls into the realm of ideology that the law often uses when it states, “ignorance of the law is not a defense argument”, meaning you cannot say I did not know killing someone was illegal, thus I should not be charged with murder.

Those who took out interest-only loans should have know what they were getting into and that the risk of financial loss was extremely high. Bailing them out because they bet that home prices would always increase and that they would be able to use this increase in equity to refinance into a better mortgage is not the right thing to do. For then it is a slippery slope that leads to the point were one can make the argument that poor investment choices that lead to an under-performing stock portfolio are equally worthy of a bailout. This is simply not the world we live in, for such a world is not economically sustainable.

As with all investments, homes included, buyer beware.

If we reward stupidity, I will become a wealthy man.

MS, Apple, Google, Linux? Some thoughts . . .

IMHO:

Windows is the best and cheapest OS for pro apps like Avid, Scenarist, Maya, Photoshop. And for enterprise software and disk raid management. Linux has a long way to come before it will satisfy the needs of the average home user, let alone a hardcore business user. Right now it is a product for enthusiasts & hobbyists, not for people with mission critical work at hand. Apple products are too expensive and don’t allow much modification. They also lack in certain features while offering ones of questionable use. If Microsoft and “Billy” are so evil why is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation one of the biggest and most effective charitable organization the world has ever seen? Why has Warren Buffet decided to contribute a large percentage of his net worth to the foundation? Microsoft is not standing still, it continues to innovate and adapt in the ever changing tech world. Individuals and business will pay extra for peace of mind and increased productivity. The initial out of pocket cost is not the only cost to measure when considering the efficiency of anything. Google is trying to look like Microsoft just as much as Microsoft is trying to look like Google. Ads in Google Sites, a productivity suite, won’t that be distracting? The last thing a productivity suite needs is distractions! Cloud computing is fine if you don’t give a damn about security, privacy, packet loss, or data mining.

Good Show Harry!

Prince Harry has been fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan! Kudos!! So often you hear the critique that politicians should be willing to send their own children to fight in combat if they favor legislation to bring their country to war. Well here’s the third in line to the throne of England (okay technically not a child of a politician) actually serving in his country’s army and fighting in combat. And he decided to do so on his own accord against the wishes of his family and superior officers. Fantastic, I say. Harry gave up a cushy lifestyle to support his country in doing its hardest work. And he’s even quoted as saving, “I don’t like England much.” It’s refreshing to see a child of privilege act in such a humble and selfless way.

Prince on Patrol

Oh-bama & Clin-tonne

It’s interesting that on the one hand Obama wants to ignore the rules that super-delegates can vote for whomever they want as he tries to bully them into voting for him when he is essentially tied with, and will probably remain tied with Clinton. He says the people’s votes need to be counted and respected. But on the other hand, he wants to ignore the votes of the people in Michigan and Florida, almost 2 million votes. The he accuses Clinton of being self-serving. In my view, you can’t have it both ways. The super-delegate system was put in place to deal with close elections like this one. If the DNC decides to leave Michigan and Florida out in the cold, perhaps the super-delegates will cast their votes with the people’s votes of those two states in mind.

Huckabee Is Done

Folksy populist Mike Huckabee proves again he has the wrong stuff to be US President. Apparently he feels there is a threat that Pakistanis will be entering the US with shoulder-fired missiles as carry-on luggage. Also, he shows very poor judgement when he sites a Denver Colorado newspaper as an authority on border security. He didn’t know that martial law had ceased in Pakistan or that the National Intelligence Estimate revised its view of Iran’s nuclear program. Both issues were front page news. He also said that the terrorists in the eastern border region of Pakistan could not be controlled by the Pakistani government. Though Pakistan has troubles on both borders, Huckabee was referring to its western border with Afghanistan, not its eastern border with India. Also, he apologized to an Orlando Florida crowd for the recent assasination in Pakistan. He meant to sympathize. A senior Huckabee campaign aide admitted that Huckabee has “no foreign policy credentials”.

We already have an ineloquent, foreign policy amature in the White House!

PADRP

The Powerhouse Arts District of Jersey City

Jersey City. Arts capital of New Jersey? It’s been called that. These days though some JC artists feel they are getting short-changed by the city. They feel the city has not followed through on commitments — via various zoning laws and provisions for developers — to provide affordable live/work artist studios. I’ve read the entire Powerhouse Arts District Redevelopment Plan (PADRP), and I must say that it is troublesome. Looking at the document from a macro view, it is very easy to accuse it and its framers of elitism. It seeks to create a special class of Jersey City citizens — qualified artists — that should be protected from free-market real estate forces on the sole proposition that these artists somehow are inherently more capable of contributing to the overall good of a community than any other type of citizen in the community. It also seeks to provide the type of haven to artists that other groups of obviously more needy people never get. The elderly, the physically and mentally handicapped, the blind, the deaf, should all be so lucky to have a municipality equally concerned for their special housing needs. When finished reading the PADRD, you cannot help but feel that the people that wrote it see themselves as victims looking to create a below market price real estate sanctuary onto themselves.

The PADRP rests on some very questionable legal grounds. Mainly, is it fair and just to make affordable housing available only to a very small and select group of low to middle income people, and not to all people of low and middle income? Poor people have always resided in JC, long before any artists had. The qualifications to be considered an artist by the PADRP and thus eligible for the special housing offerings are not that strict. In fact, it reads as though you only need to practice your art as a committed hobbyist rather than as a working professional. You can sell used cars by day and as long as you sketch out a drawing or two each and every month and show them to your friends, you’re an artist! By PADRD metrics, I myself qualify as an artist of three disciplines: writing, film/video, and photography. Yet in a recent Jersey Journal front page article, it is noted that many of the new live/work artist units available are not being snapped up by the glut of eligible artist applicants. Instead it seems many of the artists have not been following through with the required paperwork. The city and the building owners are now starting to allow anyone with the proper income requirements to apply for and occupy these units. Which is a good thing because empty affordable housing is perhaps even more offensive than no affordable housing at all.

The PADRD’s complex zoning restrictions certainly do not make the area a very appealing one to developers as it will cost a lot of money to meet all the requirements. But that might have been the point of the PADRP, to preserve the status quo of a blighted, toxic industrial area so a small group of people could continue to live and work on the cheap. But now that JC has become a very desirable place to live — which is not entirely due to the artists and arts community, as the PADRP and local JC artists would have you believe — even toxic, industrial land lots are now seen as diamonds in the rough. (And before we do anything else, let’s all please stop and pause to reflect at just how great that is!) Let’s face it, it’s the PATH train with its easy access to New York City that makes JC and its real estate so desirable, not its art or culture. The same market forces that shape New York City are going to shape JC too, it’s unavoidable. Regrettable to some perhaps, but we should remember that New York City is considered the greatest city in the world. We all have to figure out how to adapt to this changing environment and not expect the environment to adapt to our particular needs: in case you haven’t noticed that’s how it works, that’s how it has worked, and that’s how it will always work. One fact of economics, real estate development, and politics is that most municipalities seek to develop land so as to increase their tax revenues. A city like JC needs all the tax dollars it can get to improve its educational system, its social services, its public works, and to fund various government departments like its fire and police departments. When a company like the Toll Brothers seeks to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to create properties that will provide the kind of property tax dollars that might actually help improve all wards of JC, it is very hard for the city to take the marginal concerns of a very small group of artist all that seriously.

The Toll Brothers actual do seek to meet many of the art and culture requirements of the PADRP. Sure not all of them, but again, a reading of the intricacies of the PADRP makes it clear that it is impossible for any developer or group of developers to hit every one of those nails on the head. The Toll Brothers proposed changes are really not that drastic; many are practical considerations regarding building materials. In one case they would like the option to use aluminum instead of wrought iron. In another, they want to reduce the width of some of the parking lots from nine feet to eight-and-a-half feet. Yes they want to make some of the buildings taller so they can recoup their sizeable investment by having more units to sell at market prices. The nature and scope of the redevelopment outlined in the PADRP is going to cost huge sums of money. So far, it seems that the Toll Brothers are the only developers that wish to make the investment in the Powerhouse District and are willing to work within the vast majority of the PADRP regulations. It can only be expected that any organization like the Toll Bothers is going to have some changes in mind. Let’s not forget that the entire PADRP could easily be voted out of existence by the JC legislature, and the Powerhouse District could become one of many things that would be far, far worse than what the Toll Brothers are proposing.

To have a thriving art and cultural scene in any city, you need to have a lot of residents in that city. The more people that live here in JC, the larger the demand becomes for art and culture. Residents of JC often complain that there are too few good bars, restaurants, and shops to be found locally. More are needed they say. Yet most of the local bars, restaurants, and shops are hardly booming. Their owners are anxiously awaiting the population growth spurt destined for JC as new housing is built and occupied. These business owners understand that more residents here equals more economic stability for them. Why don’t the artists here in JC comprehend this basic principle? Surely not all artists wish to remain starving do they? If they do, well then they are going to have to do so somewhere else, as most of us like to eat.

Overall the PADRP could be a great thing. Its only major tweak should be that the affordable housing be made available to all people and not strictly reserved for qualified artists. I foresee minor concessions being made by current Powerhouse District residents, the Toll Brothers, and city officials as they are all fundamentally on the same page.

Fooled Again?

We Won’t Be Fooled Again and Again and Again, Will We?

First it was Johnson/McNamara/Westmoreland then it was Bush/Rumsfeld/Franks, now it is Bush/Gates/Petraeus. They have all lied to the American people in efforts to lead America to fight unnecessary wars. Please do not believe them again, especially as they make the case to fight Iran and whether or not it has, or will soon have, weapons of mass destruction. Bush and his cronies cannot be trusted at their word. This has been proven to us many times. Don’t believe them again. Iran is not on the verge of starting World War III. Iran is not an imminent threat to the America. So says the Nation Intelligence Estimate of America’s 16 intelligence agencies.

Presidential Endorsement

SynFlux and Louis James, after careful thought and analysis, are officially endorsing Hillary Rodham Clinton for U.S. President in 2008.

Donate money to her campaign by clicking here!

Learn more about her and volunteer for her campaign by clicking here!

Go Team Hillary!

(Of course I may change my mind, so stay sharp Hill!)

CNN + YouTube + GOP = LAME!

Wow, this GOP debate on CNN sucks. There are far too many stupid questions from stupid people via YouTube. The star of this “debate” is YouTube, not the presidential election, the candidates, or the issues. The pure banality of watching the candidates answers questions about such minor issues like gun control, capital punishment, and abortion, — state and judicial issues to boot — while ignoring the major issues of foreign policy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the national and global economies is sickening and embarrassing.

Oh wait here’s a the first foreign policy question, about 90 minutes in, let’s listen . . .

. . . okay it’s 9:45pm now as I return to this blog entry. The foreign policy question went nowhere. Not much has improved in the CNN GOP debate. None of these candidates — with the possible exception of Giuliani — seem to have half as much intelligence as any of the Democratic party’s candidates. Also, there are commercial breaks during this debate? I don’t seem to recall that there where any commercial breaks during CNN’s last DNC debate. This is a real joke and a new low for CNN.

Oh now they are talking about gays in the military, another major national issue. It’s great to watch Anderson Cooper — who is actually gay — grilling the candidates about the issue. I bet this goes on for a long time.

Great, Mitt evoked Regan in an answer to a question regarding the nation debt. Oops! AC didn’t even call him out on it. Damn this is sad. This debate has not even touched the issue of heath care costs and health insurance in America. What is going on here? What is this debate’s intent? It feels like a huge ad for YouTube. CNN does not have the facilities to gather questions from Americans via video? Of course it does. So why call in YouTube? This whole thing is very odd.

I think the frequent choruses of “boos” from the audience say it all.

Well now it’s over, praise Lord. They never got to the health care issue. The GOP, whoever they pick, is going to be creamed by whoever the Democrats pick.

None of these topics were mentioned at all in the debate: America’s energy policy, health care in America, the war in Afghanistan, the Iranian nuclear situation, education in America, jobs in America, the mortgage crisis, global economics, global warming, the middle east peace process, the Pakistani political situation.

POTUUSOI?

George W. Bush, President of The Un-united States of Iraq

Apparently Bush cares more about the citizens of Iraq than America. His record shows he continues to divert American tax dollars toward improving the lives of Iraqi citizens, while cutting funding and proposals to increase funding of domestic programs geared toward improving the lives of American citizens. I personally applaud the U.S. Senate for recently stepping in to circumvent this behavior. On Thursday night, during the Democratic party’s debate held on CNN, we heard Joe Biden say that his father used to say (paraphrasing), “You don’t need to tell me what your values are, show me your budget and I’ll figure out what your values are on my own.” Bush scores low when held to this metric, hypocrisy revealed.

All evidence of recent history indicates that no amount of U.S. money and military will bring the Iraqi people and its government to ever develop the desire to create a better Iraqi nation. The U.S. cannot force its will upon the unwilling. There is neither a military solution nor a political solution to the troubles that Iraq faces. There is simply no external solution for Iraq’s problems. Change will only come from within, if at all. Iraq is destined for a horrific and protracted period of collapse and failure that is the only path that may lead it to a better state.

Kids = CO2

Reduce your carbon profile by not having children!

I am sick and tired of all these eco-friendly yuppies running around, driving their Priuses, recycling their wine bottles, all while they insist on having children. What hypocrites! Children are the single most toxic thing that two human beings can produce. All these kids are going to want cars, shelter, and hot running water: kids are energy-hungry little fossil-fuel consumers. Some of them are going to even want more than one SUV when they get older. The last thing this world needs is more human beings. If you are really serious about being green, don’t have children. In fact, committing suicide is the greenest thing you can do. Lights out for you means lights out in your home too. Be green, be dead.

Motorcycle Diary Entry

About a month ago I bought a motorcycle. All it took was one ride on the back of my friend’s Vespa. About ten years ago, I took motorcycle lessons and almost got a bike, but I opted for a car instead. I was living in New York City at the time. So recently I took a few more lessons, and took the plunge. I bought a Kawasaki Ninja 250. It’s a small bike, light and not very powerful compared to most other bikes out there; a good beginner bike. Though it has a fairing and the Ninja tag, it’s really a standard motorcycle more than a sport, or super-sport bike. Or else something that is often referred to as a sport-standard. She’s still plenty fast for a newbie like me, faster than 95% of all the cars out there. But slower off the line than 95% of all the motorcycles out there. I bought the bike used (already broken in) from a dealer. It came with a aftermarket performance Muzzy mufler. This plus the up-jetting of the carburetors required with such a pipe give the bike a few extra precious horsepower. And it lowers the bike’s overall weight too. You get the weight reduction since the custom pipe is much lighter than the stock pipes, and because the centerstand has to be removed from the bike to fit the pipe on. As well as the power gain and weight loss, you also get a much louder bike. And since this is a 250cc bike, a little extra noise to let people know you’re around is not a bad thing at all. “Loud pipes say lives”, as the Harley riders say.

All in all, I love this bike. It’s not so fast that an accidental slip of the wrist is going to put you through a wall. It’s just fast enough to keep you entertained as long as you keep the revs up. And it’s cheap. Cheap to buy and cheap to run and insure. I’ve been getting about 70 miles per gallon with a mix of driving around town and out on the highway. I must be having fun ’cause I’ve put about 800 miles on the bike in one month!

So here are some observations that I’ve made while zipping around on “the Ninj”, as I’ve been calling it. These observations are to be taken at face value, and may not represent good riding practices. I am a newbie after all, so don’t take anything I write too seriously or as sagely advice . . .

Speed kills, but first it thrills! While riding a motorcycle, it feels like you are going twice as fast as you are in a car. This is both good and bad. But mostly good!

Taxis and limos tend to turn first and ask questions later. Keep you eyes on them, they are full of rude surprises.

Soldiers talk about having your head on swivel and maintaining situation awareness while in combat. These are good practices for motorcycling too.

Semi trucks coming at you in the opposite lane suck, due to the blast of wind they produce. But following a semi is kinda fun, since they tend to maintain speed and never make sudden moves, and there’s a nice pocket of calm air right behind them.

Wind gust can be very dangerous on a bike. I’ve been spooked quite a few times by a good push from the wind. It’s a strong force of nature.

When downshifting to decelerate, it pays to let the clutch out slowly in case you’ve skipped over a gear. Yeah, I’ve done the opposite and partially locked and skidded out the rear wheel more times than I’d care to admit. It produces an odd sound and motion. In both the bike and in your lower intestines.

Follow the Harleys. They know where the nice roads are.

Rear view mirrors lie to you. They don’t give you the full picture. Always look over your shoulder to confirm things.

You can’t scratch your nose with the face shield down, so don’t even try.

Motorcyclists are nice to one another, they always wave to each other. Try to keep the custom alive and always wave to your fellow motorcyclist if you can spare a free hand. Try to keep this tradition alive too: give car drivers the finger a lot.

If motorcyclist had their way, double parking a car would be a felony.

“Push left, go left, push right, go right,” actually works. Don’t over think it though. Just look through the turn and lean in. Sticking your inside knee out actually helps too.

I’ve racked up a lot of miles on bicycles. When you get into trouble on one, you almost automatically take your feet off the bike as a precaution. This doesn’t work so well on a motorcycle. But it’s a two-wheel instinct that I have. I’ve got to unlearn this. Putting your foot down while going 60 mph accomplishes nothing positive.

Getting up on the pegs is good practice when riding up over bumps or pot holes at speed. And it’s kinda fun too. Just make sure the bike doesn’t kick out of gear on you.

Tailgaters suck.

Always keep the high-beam on, especially during the day. Only turn it off when behind a cop.

Guys on super-sport bikes that are four times as powerful and expensive as a 250 hate it when you can keep up with them. And you’ve got to wonder what they are thinking when you leave them behind.

Charging up a steep hill is a lot of fun. Coming down a steep hill sucks.

Down shifting is a good way to slow down, but it doesn’t really let the guy behind you know what’s going on. Hitting the brakes to light up the brake light is a good idea however you decide to decelerate.

Applying neutral throttle is a lot of fun.

Picking up your bike sucks.

Little kids like to yell “pop a wheelie, pop a wheelie” at you.

You can actually pop a wheelie even on a 2500cc bike. I’ve done it accidentally by letting the clutch out too fast going into both first and second gears. Little wheelies, though, barely a foot of air. I doubt I can (nor do I want to!) do it in all six gears like you see in those videos on YouTube.

It seems the best time to ride is early in the morning on weekends, or late at night any day of the week. The car traffic is more bearable at these times.

“It’s not a matter of if you go down, it’s a matter of when.” This is a very sobering statement. I’ll never pay my medical insurance late again.

At the DMV, they shouldn’t even ask if you want to become an organ donor, it should be mandatory to get a motorcycle practice permit and license. This would make you think, right?

They should hand out boilerplate living wills with your motorcycle registration at the DMV.

Overall, motorcycling is sweet, sweet fun and the risk has been worth the reward. Thus far anyways.

This is what I’ve got so far, more may come!

YouTube Revolution?

When it comes to the YouTube Revolution, as some call it, I feel what it has really revolutionized is people’s ability to accept poor image quality and dull content as entertainment worth spending a lot of time consuming. Who knows how this audience will react when you give them world-class content that is free or nearly free. Clearly there is always an audience for junk, but no one can survive on junk alone. I feel what people really like about experiencing YouTube is not its content in and of itself, but rather the ablility to share that content with others. “Look at how cool I am, look what I found and/or created,” is the unspoken mantra underlying every YouTube link you receive. Just check the one below for proof!

Of course this not to say that there is not high-quality content to be found on YouTube. But it certainly didn’t make its name with it! When was the last time you saw something really profound on YouTube? To me, an HD cable box with a DVR inside is a lot more fun and fufilling than YouTube.

It’s interesting to see how the computer and the internet have become a communication tool more like the telephone than the movie theater or TV. I remember in the mid to late 1990’s everyone was predicting how video was going to be the next big thing on the web. But what actually became the next big thing on the web were blogs. Text. No one was predicting that simple writing like I am doing now would become a big thing on the web and affect mainstream media, especially mainstream news media. Did anyone predict blogs? I may be wrong, but I don’t think so. Yet look at the impact blogs have had. And no one saw it coming! Blogs are arguably the single most influential thing on the web. A blogger started the chain of events that led to the U.S. House of Representatives vote to impeach a standing U.S. president. So beware of predictions and those who make them. Surprises will never be obsolete.

I do believe the internet will continue its growth as a way for people to communicate with one another. But until there is a huge increase in internet bandwidth for the home user, to say 1 Gbit/s, I do not see the internet changing fundamentally. And even at those speeds and greater, unless some brand-new form of media is invented, computers and the internet will only then be able to match the media viewing experience of technologies that already exist like HDTV and film. Technologies, it should be noted, that aren’t static and are changing and evolving themselves. I am willing to bet cold hard cash (and in a way actually have) that 70-inch and greater HD flat-screen monitors in the home will cause a sea change in the media consumption habits of people. But of course I may be unpleasantly surprised!

Lest we forget, the only true new form of media that the internet has been able to offer has been websites. Everything else on the web is merely existing media distributed in a new way. So: “Don’t believe the hype, it’s a sequel.”

Geek Speak: Headphones

Yeah, headphones baby!

So my dog chewed off the plug to my main set of cans, a Sony MDR-V600, and I was forced to buy new headphones after I realized that I could not repair the cable myself. The research for the best new set began. I had three main qualities I needed in these headphones: they had to be under $100, they had to be really good, and they had to be available at a store within a ten minute walk from my studio. Turns out that Tekserve sells cans! They have Sony MDR-7506’s for $99, the same price as at B&H. It’s always good when a store has the same price as B&H. And Tekserve is right around the corner. Mission accomplished.

But why I am writing this is to mention just how good the 7506’s are. I’ve used these headphones before as they are the industry standard studio reference headphones. I always meant to get a set, but I figured the V600’s where good enough to the point where I would not notice the difference. Wrong! I still have another working pair of V600’s as I need two sets, one for home and one for work, so I did the old side-by-side comparison. It’s amazing how different the two are. The V600’s are muddy and wet against the 7506’s, whose brilliance and clarity is amazing. You hear everything. With the 7506’s you get this nice flat response where no one frequency is favored. I never realized just how bass-heavy the V600’s are. It’s all mud covering up all the good stuff. The 7506’s are so nice and true that you can hear things in tracks that you NEVER heard before. Things like: the artist’s breathing, guitar pick noise against the strings, doubled vocal tracks that you always thought were single, and all sorts of fine nuances in the layering of tracks like very subtle panning and flanging. In fact these cans are almost too good as MP3’s of low and even normal quality sound like ass. You really need to replace all your MP3 files with nice fat ones if you are going to use a pair of headphones like these. Sure there are even better headphones out there (think Ultrasone) but none can make this claim: there’s a really good chance that MDR-7506’s were used in the recording and mixing process (when headphones were called for) of the music you are listening to, more so than with any other set of headphones. So why not listen to this music as the artists, producers, and engineers did when they were making it?

The only thing is that the form factor of the V600’s is definitely more comfortable than the 7506’s. That is not to say the 7506’s are uncomfortable per se, it’s just that the V600’s are better if you ask me. (But these 7506’s are far more comfortable than their main competition, Sennheiser HD-280’s.) Of course, my V600’s are old and entirely broken in to the shape of my head. The new set still feels a little clampy, if you know what I mean. The 7506’s are definitely of better build quality, with far less plastic parts than the V600’s. And all that plastic tends to creak and squeak, and transmit more cable knocking noises like a bad stethoscope. This may seem like a nit-pick, but when you use headphones to QC audio, it’s a real issue. Many parts of the 7506’s are held in place with bonafide screws! And they came with an exploded parts diagram, something that I thought was a goner in the disposable age we live in.

Anyway, I could not be more happy with the Sony MDR-7605’s. Good stuff. Get yourself a set if you need great, affordable cans. One caveat: you may find yourself listening to all your music all over again!

Apple goes nuts?

Apple has “released” its “new” version of iMovie, iMovie ‘08. It sucks. Even Pogue hates it. Ditch iMovie, Final Cut Pro, and move to real video editing software from Avid. They even have a free ($0) program, Avid Free DV which kicks iMovie’s ass.

Avid vs. Final Cut Pro, why Avid Media Composer is better than Apple Final Cut Pro:

It’s a mature product with about two decades of updates and R&D behind it.

Avid makes all their own break-out-boxes.

Avid has superior customer support with 24/7 toll-free phone support.

With MC you can mix resolutions, HD and SD, within the same project. Not so with FCP. With MC you can also do a SD downconvert output while simultaneously outputting HD all in realtime. And this SD stream can be set to reformat the HD aspect ratio by either letterbox, anamorphic, or center-cut means.

MC has world-class video codecs, especially for HD, and has for a long time. FCP’s HD codecs for anything beyond HDV are a joke. With MC, you can transcode your HDV footage up to a stable, professional HD codec that can withstand heavy, multi-layerd compositing and its subsequent rendering – at manageable data transfer rates too. (HDV, while nice and used by pros quite often, is a consumer video standard and employs a heavy amount of lossy MPEG2 encoding and poor color sampling.)

MC has more realtime video effects and options. FCP’s realtime capabilities are really bad. It’s almost like Apple is using a totally different definition for realtime than Avid and the rest of the post-production industry.

The MC user interface has more buttons and is more customizable than FCP. The FCP user interface looks like a toy’s when compared to MC’s. With FCP, there’s like, nothing to click!

Once your footage is digitized in MC, you’re ready to edit, there’s no other processing or rendering required.

With MC, outputting back to tape requires less, if any, prep work or rendering. Almost everything, even lowly DV video over FireWire, has to rendered before output with FCP. How do you meet deadlines with that step looming over your head? I guess there are no FCP systems in newsrooms.

MC has better video effects and compositing and titling right in the program. You’ll use Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects far less often, enhancing your creativity and efficiency.

You can color-correct right in MC without having to launch another application and do any importing and exporting.

MC has infinitely superior media management over FCP. FCP media management is a joke. It really is. Honest. Take it from everyone who has used both applications.

MC has Script-Mode editing. FCP has nothing like this. And never will since Avid holds a patent on this technology.

MC has ScriptSynch editing. FCP has nothing like this. And never will since Avid holds a patent on this technology.

In MC, keycodes and foot/frame numbers are all managed within the application, no need to use any other program or any third party plugin(s).

I’m not 100% sure about this one, but I do not think you can import FlexFiles from telecine directly into FCP. I know you can in MC.

FCP has really lousy keyframing in its effects toolset. You cannot even cut-and-paste a keyframe. Just how the hell do you edit without that ability???

FCP lacks any sort of fluid motion in its motion effect capability.

MC’s Multicam feature is far more reliable than FCP’s.

FCP and Apple offer no centralized and shareable media storage for multiple system users, and migrating from one FCP sytem to another is a real pain in the ass. Avid has made all of this simple and reliable. Okay, well, simple and reliable once you know what you are doing!

You can run MC on PCs and Macs. FCP is Mac only.

Vick’s a Dick

What’s up with Michael Vick? This guy is an NFL quarterback. What was he thinking? Was he sitting around saying: “This NFL paycheck just doesn’t make ends meet, how can I get a little something goin’ on the side? I know, a dogfight gambling ring should bring in some extra cash!” Here’s some million-dollar legal and PR advice: cop a plea and disappear. Douchebag.

“Wazzunt me.”