Jethro Tull

Me - "Siri, play Heavy Horses".

Siri - "I don't find Heavy Horses in your music collection, Dude."

(Yes - Siri calls me "Dude". Because The Dude Abides. Does Siri really just call you by your name?)

This was the scene as I drove down I39 hoping to listen to this particular song, long my go-to for removing unwanted music from playing repeatedly in my skull. Heavy Horses wasn't there. I own it. I own virtually everything everything recorded by Jethro Tull. But it wasn't there on my phone.

Clearly I had never ripped it into iTunes.

This, I realized with some thought, was an artifact of the need to preserve disc space. Even with a modern hard drive there are limits to the amount of space that can be dedicated to music. So - even though I have CD's of every official album the band released, as well as some vinyl LP's and an unofficial recording or two, I'd had to be selective about what I committed to iTunes.

Apparently Heavy Horses hadn't made the cut.

Fortunately, an iTunes Match subscription makes this a non-issue. Once you've ripped a CD into iTunes and allow it to "match" it's there on every Apple device you own. You can then delete the physical file from the original computer, because it will still stream through iTunes. It's a little like iTunes is a bag of holding.

So this is what I did last weekend. I sat down in front of my CD collection (a sentence that, I am certain, we are less than one generation away from never seeing written again) and located Heavy Horses in the first half or so of the Tull section. I pulled it and, for good measure, also pulled Warchild, Songs From the Wood and Too Old to Rock and Roll, as well as To Cry You a Song (a pretty decent Tull tribute album that I really haven't listened to enough). I ripped them, matched them, and deleted them.

For the better part of the past week I've been listening to Heavy Horses, and I realized something:

I really, really like Jethro Tull.

I realize this probably seems painfully obvious for someone who has gone to the trouble of collecting the entire discography of the band. But the reality is that I started that collection when I was in my last year of High School, and completed most of it at least 15 years ago. My love for the band endured in an academic sense, but my active listening of the music has dwindled over the past decade. There was a time when I would dedicate huge blocks of my time to parsing through the intricacies of Thick as a Brick (I could, back then, sing every lyric in the 43 minute song), but more recently I'd just quietly enjoy the occasional appearance of Aqualung when it would show up in a random shuffle.

Listening to Heavy Horses as an entire album - in the presentation format Ian Anderson intended - took me back, reminded me why I have been so passionate for the music this band produced.

When you tell people that Jethro Tull is your favorite band the typical response is a disinterested "ah". Assuming they are past a given age they've heard of the band, and probably recall hearing Bungle in the Jungle at one time or another. If they are polite they say as much, and that's where that portion of the conversation ends.

If they are not polite it ends a might sooner.

The adult me finds this understandable. Tull is not a pop band. The songs are filled with flutes intermixed with heavy guitar riffs and counterbalanced by Mandolins. The lyrics rarely touch on the topic of love or sex or angst and, when they do, it's never what you expect.

Instead, what you get are lyrics full of dynamic imagery centered around themes that may be snippets of life in the country (as with Heavy Horses), or of social commentary, or of environmental or political musings, in a persistent theme that weaves its way through an entire album. And these, too, are never what you'd expect.

Go listen to the song Heavy Horses. Go ahead. I'll wait.

The imagery starts at the beginning of the song:

Iron-clad feather feet, pounding the dust
An October's day, towards evening
Sweat embossed veins standing proud to the plough
Salt on a deep chest, seasoning...

You are there, in the moment, outside, standing next to the great beast, this the starting point for your journey through the rest of the song.

The song itself clearly puts forward a message of advocacy for the simple rural life. But it's not an attempt to get you to move to that simple life. Rather it's a discussion of one man's personal desire to see that life to continue. And his personal realization that, some day, just maybe, we'll all have no choice but to return to that life:

And one day when the oil barons have all dripped dry
and the nights all seem to draw colder
They'll beg for your strength, your gentle power,
your noble grace and your bearing...

...In these dark towns folk lie sleeping
as the heavy horses thunder by
to wake the dying city
with the living horseman's cry

Virtually every song is an adventure, a visual and auditory journey through a world I'd never seen before; a journey taken with a man (Anderson wrote virtually all of Tull's songs after the first two albums) who wanted to look at the world from the unconsidered perspective. He's an environmentalist, but he writes a song from the perspective of a jailed whaler. When he gets political, it's from the perspective of a politician realizing that he's really just a part of the machine.

There's a novelty, a variety, an intrigue to all of it that has always been something I've loved. It's also impossible to explain in casual conversation. The adult me understands this, though the younger me was frequently frustrated by the glazed look he'd receive.

I'd lost touch with much of that over the past few years, gravitating more to spoken word entertainment. Ripping Heavy Horses brought it back for me.

I'm really glad it did.

There Are No Excuses

Here at the Homestead we are rolling into the tail end of a redecorating project that puts us, finally, into a proper bedroom. No longer do we have to sleep in the tiny side room off of our living room (tho, that room served as my grandparent's bedroom for years). It's a very nice place to be at.

As one of the finishing touches to this project, we decided to order a rug from Kohl's. A nice item, with a color scheme that complements the room, and a surface that will offer protection from the chill of the wood floor as the weather turns cooler.

Once we'd selected it I fired up my iPad and placed my order thru the Kohl's website.

Or I tried to.

Their purchasing scheme is a familiar three-step process that loads purchasing information, then shipping information, and then provides a confirmation. But when I got to step 3 the website simply hung, never appearing to complete the sale.

I checked my email to see if there was any purchase confirmation and, seeing none, I shut down the website and tried again. Same result.

A little frustrated, I moved on to other things. A short while later I saw that an email came in congratulating me on the "Kohl's Cash" I had earned from my purchase. I still had no order confirmation, mind you, but now I had Kohl's Cash for placing an order.

And then a short time later a second, nearly identical email came in.

So I checked my credit card account and, sure enough, there were two identical pending purchases from Kohl's.

I called customer service and, after some clearly over-scripted back and forth ("I'll be so very happy to help you with your issue today...") the foreign gentleman on the other end of the phone tells me that I have not made any purchases. I make him aware that I do, in fact, see purchases on my credit card, and he tells me "those are not real; they will go away". He helps me place the order over the phone and, to his (and Kohl's) credit, offers me 15% off on my purchase.

A week or so later I received (you've probably guessed it): Three identical rugs.

I was telling some friends this story, and one asked if I'd placed the order on my iPad. When I indicated that I had, he suggested that may have been the problem - that the website had not been able to work successfully with the iPad's browser. And he could well be right - in fact, the same thought had occurred to me.

But here's the thing: It doesn't matter.

The iPad has been around now since 2010, and the iPhone came out three years before that. Literally hundreds of millions of mobile devices have been sold, with many people now using them as their primary, or only, means for accessing the Internet.

There is no excuse, now in late 2014, for any major retailer to have a website that doesn't work properly with a mobile browser. If that was the problem in the case of my purchase attempts, I can tell you that I have no intention of giving up on the purchase on my mobile device in order to seek out a "proper" computer to complete it. Rather, I just won't buy from that site.

In a world where the Internet offers hundreds of options for purchasing identical and similar items, it behooves a retailer to ensure that they aren't making it hard for a customer to give them money.

Now, to offer credit where credit is due, Kohl's does let you return online purchases at their brick and mortar stores (which saved me the trouble of figuring out how to ship the two unwanted rugs back). And, when I returned the items to the store, they were accepted quickly and graciously. As with the phone call, their customer service in person was very good. But they apparently haven't fully figured out this new-dangled internet thing.

EVO - by HUGE Design + 4130 Cycle Works

The Bike Design Project is a competition geared towards encouraging development of bicycles oriented at building the movement away from cars and towards biking as transportation.

There are five teams, from five different cities, building bikes for this contest. The EVO - by HUGE Design + 4130 Cycle Works in San Francisco got my vote.

All of the concepts are at least somewhat interesting, and some have some neat features - integrated blinkers and lighting, a collapsible carrying rack that slides in and out of the top tube, USB charging hooked up to an internal battery built into the bike.

But it seems to me that those neat features are also a problem.

This project appears to be oriented around developing bikes that will be useful, utilitarian transportation. In that respect, In a lot of ways a good urban bike, I suppose, would be like a well designed economy car - flexible, efficient, and durable. The original Mini and the Honda Civic, and the current Honda Fit, might be examples of this.

A USB port might ring the "cool" bell for a proposal in current day, but it's time limited in its utility. What happens when we stop using USB as a charging standard?

The life span of a good bicycle is measured in decades. My regular ride is over 20 years old, and still going strong, and I routinely see bikes of a similar vintage and older. Things like USB ports, as well as proprietary lighting designs of various sorts, will likely sit non-functional on the bike in years down the road.

Which is why I like the Evo.

The Evo is built around a modular attachment system - that's the reason for the tall sections at the front and rear of the frame points. The concept is simple - an "urban" bike needs to be able to do multiple things across the course of a day or a week, and one set of fixed items will not do the job, so the bike needs to be be able to change quickly. They show a variety of attachments for it, and since the attachments are not a part of the bike itself, there is room for growth and change based upon future need. If an attachment item breaks it won't have an impact on the utility of the bike itself the way built-in items will. In addition, the owner can purchase only the components he or she needs, and not be stuck with unwanted items - no small kids in your family? No child seat.

Further, the mounting point itself looks to be fairly straightforward, suggesting that multiple vendors could design attachments for it, opening the door for a variety of specialized items.

If I lived in an urban setting and relied on a bicycle for daily transportation I could absolutely see a bike like this meeting my needs for a long time.

Typing on Glass

iPad vs. iMac vs. iPhone Typing Comparisons

It's been nearly four years now since the release of the original iPad. This is an annual date that seems always to bring out a series of articles exploring whether an iPad can be used for work and/or in replacement of a laptop. A key critique routinely brought up in these articles is the purported limitation of typing on a virtual keyboard - with the oft-repeated conclusion that one will never be able to type as quickly on glass as on a mechanical keyboard.

While this is often written as accepted dogma, it is, in fact, an empirical question: Can a person learn to type as fast on a virtual keyboard as on a mechanical keyboard?

Back when I first got my iPad I compared my typing on glass to my typing on the iPhone and on a mechanical keyboard, and found that it was faster than the iPhone, slower than the keyboard, but improving over the month or so that I had owned the device. It's been nearly four years since I first wrote that review, and I've been using iPads on a daily basis since then. This article made me curious to see where I was at with all of that practice under my belt.

To explore this effectively, used a couple of different typing speed websites. I wanted to be able to include results from my iPhone, as I had back in 2010. Unfortunately, the difference in devices makes direct comparisons somewhat challenging. Probably the best site I've found for checking typing speed on the iPhone is the aptly named iPhone Typing Test. This site also works quite nicely for the iPad, but is functionally impossible to use with a desktop computer (to end your entry requires you to tap a "done" button that appears on the iOS software keyboard, but doesn't have a hardware equivalent - that I could find - on the desktop). So - to perform the test here I used iPhone Typing Test for the iPhone and iPad, and a separate site called Typingtest.com for the iMac.

I did six practice sessions on each device, and then recorded my performance on six subsequent sessions for each device.

The two sites use different techniques to measure typing speed. iPhone Typing Test randomly rotates short passages (you are presented with a different passage each time), and reports your time when you finish each passage and tap "done". TypingTest.com provides a list of passage options and grades against how much is completed at the end of a minute; it also provides both total wpm and a corrected result against errors. I cycled through the first six choices on TypingTest.com to simulate that effect (e.g. A different passage for each trial). Note - this wasn't random; I cycled through them in sequential order. However, they were longer passages, and I only saw each twice, so I did not become familiar with them. Plus, truly random assignment would be quite a bit of work, and it was really farther than I was prepared to go for a casual blog entry.

All of the typing was completed sitting at the work desk in my home office - a very familiar environment. Typing on the iMac was completed using the Apple Bluetooth Keyboard. Typing on the iPad was completed on-screen, with the iPad in its DodoCase, mounted on the original Compass Stand from 12 South in typing position. The iPhone, by necessity, was held in my hands, but I was sitting at the desk in my desk chair.

The results of my test are shown in the first graph above. As can be seen, my results on the iPad and the iMac are quite similar, particularly when the iMac results are corrected for errors. This seemed relevant to include, as autocorrect on the iPad significantly reduces my rate of error when typing on that device.

In fact, I was able to locate a second site that allowed a more direct comparison between the iPad and the iMac (though not the iPhone) - calculatorcat.com has a typing test that has simple on-screen controls that could be worked easily from both devices and did not attend to errors. Those results are shown in the graph below.

Using the website calculatorcat.com I was able to do a more direct comparison between the iMac and the iPad.  As can be seen, the differences are negligible.

In both cases this shows that, after four years of routine - daily - use, my typing speed on the iPad is functionally indistinguishable from a hardware keyboard.

Also notable within all of this is the overall effect of all that practice. My typing speed on the iPad has improved considerably from that first test four years ago - from ~64 wpm then to ~74 wpm now. Not only that, but my speed on the iPhone has also shown a marked change - from ~33 wpm in 2010 to ~57 wpm now.

All of this brings the idea that a virtual keyboard is inherently less effective sharply into question.

The people who make these assertions are, fundamentally, people who are long entrenched in a system of hardware keyboards and pointing devices. Joanna Stern, in her recent wsjonline article (found courtesy of John Gruber at Daring Fireball ) for example, rakes a number of tablets over the coals because she cannot match her accustomed 92 wpm on their (external) keyboards. But this fails to take into account the fact that she most likely achieved that 92 wpm on a keyboard with which she was intimately familiar. Expecting similar results from borrowed, significantly less familiar equipment is unfair and unreasonable at best.

I suspect we are at the leading edge of a sea-change in how people interact with their computers everywhere - not just at home. As Benedict Evans so ably notes recently, we tend to get stuck on how we do things, forgetting that the relevant detail is what we want to accomplish.

iPads at Work

It's like clockwork, like some anti-celebration: Every year about this time folks come out with a series of articles about how one cannot do actual work on an iPad (or, as a variation: the iPad cannot replace a laptop). This is perplexing to me, given that I've been regularly doing my work on an iPad - which replaced my use of laptops - since the device was first released back in 2010. I wrote about it back then, and it continues to be the case.

This spate of articles came my way via Daring Fireball this past week. John Gruber linked to this article by Joanna Stern in which she makes an attempt to use several different tablets in place of her laptop. And one wants to give her a bit of credit, in that she actually tried each of them out. Allowing for that, her article still presents with some fundamental flaws. The first is the Turkey Bacon Problem (TBP) - the mistake one makes of trying to use something to replace something that it is not. A tablet is not a laptop. Yet in this article she is clearly trying to use each of the tablets in exactly the same fashion. In many ways this is like a carpenter purchasing a pneumatic nailer to replace his hammer, but using the device by trying to drive traditional nails and complaining that it doesn't work as well.

Additionally, she clearly doesn't have a full understanding of the capabilities of her iPad. In her section on multitasking she notes:

...using the iPad, which displays one app at a time and requires you to press the home button twice to switch apps...(Emphasis added)

Actually no - the iPad doesn't require you to press the home button twice to switch between apps. You can also turn on multitasking gestures in the settings to allow a four finger swipe to move back and forth between recent apps, and a four fingered swipe up to get to the app menu. Admittedly, this is somewhat of a power-user approach, but so is the use of alt-tab - the command combination for which she is pining - to switch between apps.

Which brings up my final point with respect to her approach. Ms. Stern indicates that, to write this article she borrowed the tablets in question (though the article suggests she does own an iPad Air). This would suggest that her evaluation of each item came from a relatively short time with each device. This shows in her evaluations of the keyboards, in which each and every one comes up wanting:

There was a tie for best keyboard. I was able to type 82 words a minute on the Surface Pro Type cover and the Galaxy Note Pro's keyboard cover, slightly down from my usual 92 words a minute. The Samsung keyboard was the closest in size to my laptop's, though my fingers felt most at home on the Surface's firm, backlit keys... I typed 80 words a minute on the Nokia keyboard case, and 72 on the iPad's Logitech cover. All of these let me type faster than on a screen. (Again, emphasis added)

Along with the Turkey Bacon Problem, there appears to be an expectation that there will be no learning curve when moving to a completely new tool. Not to beat the carpentry metaphors to death, but this is a little like buying a circular saw and manually moving it back and forth across the wood, and then proclaiming that you can cut faster with your trusty old hand saw.

I'm happy for her that she typically types at 92 words a minute (pretty specific number there - 92, not 90... But I digress). I suspect that's on the keyboard of a laptop with which she is extremely familiar. A few hours, or even a day or two of practice on an unfamiliar device is unlikely to gain the same results.

There is also an inherent assumption here that I see made over and over again:

All of these let me type faster than on a screen.

There has been a long-standing assumption that use of a hardware keyboard will always be a faster input option than typing on-screen. This was an oft-repeated trope when the original iPhone was released, and it persists in relation to the iPad. However, it seems to me that this should be taken as an empirical question, rather than something accepted a-priori.

Back when I first got my iPad I compared my typing on glass to my typing on the iPhone and on a mechanical keyboard, and found that it was faster than the iPhone, slower than the keyboard, but improving over the month or so that I had owned the device. It's been nearly four years since I first wrote that review, and I've been using iPads on a daily basis since then. This article made me curious to see where I was at with all of that practice under my belt.

In the interest of brevity those results - including the methods of measurement - can be seen here. By way of summary, let me note that I came out with the following average wpm on each device:

• iPhone - 57.50 wpm
• iPad - 74.17 wpm
• iMac -79.33 wpm
• iMac corrected for errors - 74.67 wpm

A couple of items stand out to me here, and are relevant in context of Ms. Stern's article. The first is the level of improvement between 2010 and 2014. My performance on the iPad is considerably higher than back in 2010 - 74 wpm compared to about 64 back then. But it should also be noted that my performance on the iPhone is also considerably higher - 57 wpm compared to 33 in 2010.

I say this not to pat myself on the back (though yes, my arm is a little sore from doing so), but to point out the practice effect from using these devices on a daily basis over the past several years. One is going to be more proficient with a tool - any tool - used with regularity than with one that has just been picked up.

The other thing I noted was that my current results on the iPad are comparable to my results on the iMac with its hardware keyboard. In particular, when the iMac results are corrected for errors - relevant here because autocorrect on the iPad significantly decreases my error rate - the results are nearly identical.

In fact, when I ran a second test - using the same website for both iPad and iMac - they were even closer: 74.83 and 76.50 respectively.

I am, of course, only one person - an n of 1 - but as Andy Braren at thinkertry can attest, there are others who have found similar results. We fall short of real science here, but these results clearly suggest it is possible to learn to type as quickly on glass as on plastic, mechanical keys.

To be clear, people should use the tools and devices they want to use, the ways they want to use them. It's when information is presented as fact when it is clearly opinion based upon limited experience that I balk.

I suspect we are approximately one generation away from all of this being a non-issue. Children being born now are likely to wonder why we tied ourselves to these hulking devices - desks, big screens, keyboards - when we could have been comfortably working on things in our laps, laying on couches, etc.

Arizona Winter Ride

This was my view on my bike ride this morning.

It was the last day of our Arizona trip. We had a very nice time, both with friends and as our little family exploring the Tonto National Forest, Tonto National Monument and Roosevelt Dam.

We had a little time left to kill before our flight in the evening, and it seemed a shame to have come out west in the middle of winter without having taken the opportunity for a bike ride. A quick internet or Yelp search will show that there are a lot of shops in the Phoenix area that rent bikes of various sorts and kinds. I went with Arizona Outback Adventures. I initially picked them because they had road courses mapped out that started and ended at their shop - a major bonus since I'm not familiar with the area. And that was great, but I have to say that the service and the shop was just awesome! I was coming in with very little notice, and they accommodated me quickly and politely, included a helmet, a rubber band for my pants (I don't do the whole spandex bike clothes thing) and a couple bottles of water all as part of the rental.

The course mapped out was perfect: A 15 mile ride laid out following the bike lanes in Scottsdale. I asked about the traffic - many of the lanes were on 4-lane roadways. The folks at the shop assured me that Scottsdale is a "pretty bike friendly town". This was absolutely the case - all traffic treated me as if I was supposed to be on the road with them, with no horns, no angry passers-by. Probably my favorite example of this attitude was from the roadside maintenance crew. Two gentlemen were out there alongside the road, next to the bike lane, running weed whackers. Each of them stopped as I rode by to keep from hitting me with debris.

All that, and the view! I wouldn't move to Arizona just for the weather - I mostly enjoy winter in Illinois. But for that sort of biking environment... Well, that might be something to consider.

Old Tech

I love technology, and I imagine for most of us that word typically elicits thoughts of electronic devices - things that light up, beep, and buzz. The word is more broad, of course, relating simply to the application of science to practical application.

The gripping cold of the past few days here in the Midwest has had me thinking about that, as it has caused us to bring out an old friend: our Hudson Bay Blanket

This massive wool blanket was a wedding gift from MLW's grandparents. Being from Canada they had a special appreciation for the cold, and a Hudson Bay store in the their city (Winnipeg). While it was, of course, appreciated, it initially seemed an unusual gift. Unusual, that is, until it was used. Regardless of the temperature in the house one only has to be underneath this blanket for a few moments before the world becomes a warm and happy place.

It also becomes a place of stillness. In addition to being very warm these blankets are quite heavy. We place ours either on top of everything else on the bed, or just underneath the comforter. Once there, and once one is securely underneath, the sensation is a little like laying under sandbags - not unpleasant, but affording little in-bed mobility. Like anything else, this sensation fades as one adjusts to the situation, but it's always there the first night of the Hudson Bay Blanket Season.

The technology angle? Wool

It seems - and is - a very old school thing, but as I understand it, wool was - and is still - something of a miracle fabric. It wicks away moisture, retains a large percentage of its insulating capability even when wet, and is extremely durable (our Hudson Bay Blanket is nearly 20 years old). As anyone who enjoys winter sports knows, there are a vast array of synthetic products marketed for winter warmth. We think of synthetics as superior to the old school products, but I've articles that state that the the goal of many of the synthetic products is to try to get close to the properties of wool. Very cool stuff.

TV Everywhere

As is undoubtedly clear, I love technology. That said (admitted?), this should not be inferred as a whole handed endorsement of its widespread application without consideration of consequence.

As I write this I am sitting at gate K2 at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. I've been here - O'Hare - before. But this time, at this gate, there is a new addition: a flat screen TV hanging from the ceiling.

This addition is forcing CNN - currently covering the Chris Christie bridge controversy - how long until we add a "-gate" to this in some way? "Bridgegate"? "Trafficgate"? - in excruciating detail upon the weary travelers as they wait for the next flight.

This experience echoes my breakfast experience at RBI Restaurant in Rockford, which successfully places a flat screen television at every potential viewing angle, foisting ESPN, Faux News and, again, CNN on its customers. There's really no position in the restaurant that allows you to avoid a screen, so it's really just a matter of choosing the lesser of evils.

You can have the opportunity to watch television while getting your hair cut, teeth cleaned, and filling up your car as well. I find, as time goes on, that this is increasingly frustrating.

Which leads me to wonder: why?

This is not a screed against television as an entity. I grew up watching TV every night, and my daily conversation is peppered with television references, done conscious, some not. The number of Seinfeld references alone passed between myself and MLW during our trip is staggering (my favorite - the man who passed by us in the very large hat was clearly wearing an urban sombrero).

Still, as technology advances there has been a significant shift in how we consume video entertainment. In the era of iTunes, Hulu, and Netflix we can be selective about what we watch, and when we watch it. It is, in fact, possible (at home) for the television to always - and only - be displaying something that the viewer explicitly chose to see.

Which means that these public screens, displaying video that no one actually asked for, video selected with an eye towards the lowest common denominator, have become the metaphorical equivalent of the kid with the huge bass speakers in the trunk of his car. In both cases they inflict their preferences - unasked - upon the world around them.

One would correctly point out that I don't have to eat at places that do this - and I don't, as a general rule - I avoid restaurants and gas stations that make television a primary component of ambience. But the TV at the airport gate is a different thing. This is a public space, and the TV is an irritation at best, and perhaps better categorized as noise and sight pollution.

Winter Biking

It's nuts, I know. But apparently I'm not the only one.

Where possible, I prefer to exercise outside. This, of course, becomes more challenging as the weather turns to snow and cold. There's cross country skiing as a potential option, but the weather in our region rarely blesses us with sufficient snow to make it viable. I can always hike, and do. But I love my bike, and it always seems a shame to have to put it away at the end of the season.

Then I came across this article in Bicycling Magazine on why's and how's of winter biking. A little additional research found that there are other sites as well, and (of course) there's equipment available to make it all possible.

So I thought I'd give it a shot. It had recently snowed, which seemed a good test, and wasn't super cold. I geared up with multiple layers, essentially dressing in a fashion similar to how I prep for cross country skiing.  I set up the bike, mounted up, and hit the trail.

As you'd expect, there are differences from summer riding.  The going is slower, and care must be taken in turns and transitions - there's no leaning through a corner. Standing up in the pedals is fruitless at best - on hill climbs, for example, all the extra power does is make the rear wheel spin free (which can be a bit unsettling). It appears, at least from this first outing, that one should be prepared to walk the bike a bit. Once the rear wheel broke free on a hill I couldn't get it replanted enough to move forward without relocating to a flatter spot.

Like cross country skiing this is not a cold activity.  While you are out in the winter elements, the exercise heats the body up rapidly and thoroughly. It becomes more a matter of regulating temperature to keep from getting too hot than it is a concern about cold.

I also learned a few things:  this is a wet activity. The article recommended waterproof shoes or boots and pants, which seemed unnecessary to me for a short ride. I was wrong.

Even though I ride a road bike, with skinny tires, the tires throw back an amazing volume of snow. My feet and lower legs were coated within the first mile of the trip. I had synthetics on under my pants, so my legs were fine, but my shoes were soaked by the end of the ride and my wool socks kept my feet safe from exposure, but they certainly weren't comfortable.

Also - when faced with the option of fresh snow or a path offered by vehicle tracks the fresh snow is the better choice. This seems counter-intuitive, but the frozen bits in the tracks can pull the front wheel off course suddenly and without warning.

Lessons learned, this was a blast!  It's very similar in physical experience to cross country skiing, but without the frustration of waiting weeks (and sometimes an entire winter) for enough snow to make it possible. Seems nuts - and maybe it is - but I would certainly recommend it to anyone looking for outdoor options in winter.

Other sites on winter biking:

Bike Winter

Ice Bike

Wikipedia's entry on winter biking

Sorting Analysis from Fact in Reporting

An article entitled Microsoft Reports Drop in Profit by Nick Wingfield in the New York Times on 1/25/13 includes the following paragraph:

While its Office suite of applications showed weakness overall, as some customers delayed purchases ahead of the release of a new version of the product, business revenue from that division was up 2 percent and consumer revenue declined 2 percent, excluding deferred revenue.

My difficulty here is with this component of the statement: as some customers delayed purchases ahead of the release of a new version of the product

This statement is almost certainly an assumption - a belief behind why sales of Microsoft Office might be lower than in times past. But it is dropped into the middle of a paragraph, and in the middle of an article, that presents an array of factual information. Including that statement in this fashion lends it the same level of credence as the rest of the information presented.

It is more likely the case that no one is exactly sure why sales of Microsoft Office are "weak". While the statement above offers one explanation, there are several alternative explanations that seem as likely:

• It is possible that slow economic times have caused customers to refrain from purchasing what is, frankly, a costly software bundle.
• Customers who currently own older copies of Office may see little need for an updated product as any given user only uses a tiny percentage of the features in the product as it is.
• Lower cost alternatives - such as Apple's iWork Suite - provide much of the functionality of Office for far less money; Google Docs offers less functionality, but is free. These options may be eating into Office's market share.
• PC sales are shrinking, while Tablet sales are growing. iWork and Google Docs can be used on tablets, while Microsoft offers no equivalent product (Office 365 is an online service, but at $100.00/year it isn't even close to equivalent).

Now - to be clear - I have no idea whether any of these items accounts for the drop in sales of Microsoft Office. But they seem to me to be at least as reasonable - if not more - than the idea that folks are waiting with bated breath for the next version of Office to emerge.

Part of being an objective observer is being open and honest about the degree to which one understands why something has happened. Researchers are actually trained to consider alternative explanations for their study results to help stave off bias. Part of being an objective reporter of those observations includes indicating when one does, or does not understand the why.

What is likely the case here is that the one piece of clearly understood information is this: "it's Office Suite of applications showed weakness".

Full stop.

Anything explanation as to why is likely speculation or propaganda and should be identified as such.

This type of thing troubles me not because of the specific product to which it is related (though I will admit to having little love in my heart for Microsoft Office) but rather because I find it to be a common occurrence in modern reporting. When stated casually in the fashion in which it appears in this New York Times article it takes on the ring of fact, and will likely register as such for many readers. It is a practice that should be caught and corrected by editors, and of which we, as educated readers, should be aware.

John Oliver asks: Who Wants to be a Member of the U.N.?...

Swing by and check out this clip of the Daily Show's John Oliver interviewing the Palestinian Ambassador about that nation's application to be recognized by the United Nations.

Watch for the flash of realization crossing his face as the Ambassador realizes where John Oliver is heading with his discussion of the thermostat. The Ambassador deserves major kudos for being a good sport.

Incidentally - if you enjoy John Oliver on the Daily Show then you may also enjoy The Bugle, which is his podcast with Andy Zaltzman.

Laptop Free Since 2010

As we stand on the cusp of a new Apple announcement PC Magazine's Eric Grevstad steps up to tell us Why the iPad 3 Won't Replace Your Laptop.

He offers several paragraphs in support of his case, but for me the answer is much simpler:

The iPad 3 won't replace my laptop because it was replaced by the original iPad in the spring of 2010.

In early April of 2010 I spent my time in hell (standing in line at Best Buy) to bring home an iPad on day one. My intention out the gate was to replace the MacBook I'd been hauling around for work since late 2006.

A month in I chronicled my experience. With the iPad 3 set to be announced on March 7th, it seems a good time to follow-up on that original review, and discuss what some others are saying about their experience using an iPad for work.

Essentially, in that original review I was very happy with the device. It was smaller, lighter, and had phenomenally better battery life than my MacBook, enabling me to forego carrying power cables along with me. In addition to document management and editing options, it was a feature-added experience, with reading and video options that exceeded the capabilities of my laptop.

But, as with anything, it was not perfect. The first version of Pages made some truly odd decisions with respect to the editing tools:

...

the formatting tools are only available in portrait orientation, making it very cumbersome to format as you write, which is my common practice (to italicize as you go you must stop typing, orient the device to portrait mode to get the toolbar to show, select the word in question, tap the appropriate tool button on the screen re-orient to landscape, and return to typing)...

...And with respect to document management:

There has been quite a bit written by actual reviewers about the issues with file handling in iWork, so I will only summarize here: In essence, it's a pain in the ass to get your files on to and off of the device.

The oddity in the editing tools layout was addressed fairly quickly with updates to Pages. The document management issue has been much slower to resolve. Changes to the DropBox application for iOS have made it easier to move documents around, but extra steps are still required, and these involve either routing through iTunes, emailing documents to yourself and then uploading to the Dropbox app, or using a third party solution like Dropdav to go directly from iWork to Dropbox. These solutions are effective, but still a bit fiddly. I'm pleased to note it appears this issue will finally be completely resolved with the transition to Mountain Lion.

I wrote that original review a month after getting the iPad. Within another month or so I'd completely mothballed my MacBook and subsequently sold it to a colleague. To be clear: My work tools now consist of an iPad, an iPhone, and a new 27” iMac. There are no laptops in my kit.

It seems unlikely that I am alone in this, and yet there are people like Grevstad who continue to struggle with the iPad:

That’s because, for all the talk about whether the iPad 3 will have a quad-core processor or a retina display or a VW Beetle bud vase, we already know one thing about it: It won’t be a laptop. And we know, if we’re honest, that the iPad is no substitute for a laptop. Never will be. Isn’t supposed to be.

This is something that can even affect Apple-Centric folks. Dan Moren, in his recent three-part series at Macworld, comes to the following conclusion:

Is the iPad ready to be your only computer? It’s not quite ready to be mine, but I doubt that’ll be the case forever.

I've spent some time trying to understand why these authors have had experiences that vary so much from mine. Ultimately, I think they may be having a Turkey Bacon Problem (TBP).

The TBP comes into play when one tries to plug a new, distinctly different item into the same role that a different item once played. Turkey Bacon in the place of real bacon aside your scrambled eggs; Fat-free sour cream on your baked potato; Boca burgers in place of a Quarter Pounder. Anyone who has tried these things has had the experience of them paling as they attempt to fill the role of their predecessors - it's just not the same. Honestly - show me a man who says he enjoys fat-free sour cream, and I'll show you a person who is lying to you... And to himself.

If you approach the iPad as if it's supposed to be exactly the same thing as a laptop you are bound to be disappointed.

But although fat-free sour cream (which is truly an abomination) has no place in nature, the iPad actually calls into question the paradigm that a laptop forces upon us. Despite the name they are not comfortable (nor especially safe) to use in the lap. When I see them in use in coffee shops and the like, I rarely see them in a lap. Usually the laptop user is tethered to a table and, when not - when actually using the devices atop their thighs - people rarely look comfortable.

I notice these things from my position in the comfortable chair at Starbucks. My comfortable chair in which I sit, working on my iPad.

I don't use my iPad as my only computer, as Daniel Moren suggests. Rather, it's the mobile extension for my desktop system - which is always how I used a laptop as well. The reality of this, though, is that I spend the overwhelming majority of my work time on the iPad, as I am mostly away from my main desk. But when I am away from my desk I find that the iPad can easily meld to my environment, the type of work I am doing, and the environment I am in. It's very comfortable to write with the iPad in my lap in landscape orientation while sitting in a comfy armchair, for example, and I prefer to write presentations on the iPad, since I tend to pace as I think my way through how the presentation will go. And, since the iPad can easily move with me - from desktop to pacing to comfy chair - I find myself able to work longer, in a wider variety of settings, with less fatigue.

And note - none of this work involves the use of an external keyboard of any sort. It is the heart of overgeneralization to assert that the only way anyone writes on the iPad is using a separate keyboard. I'm sure there are those who prefer that approach. Others - like myself - tried hauling around the extra keyboard at first, but then found it - despite Grevstad's protestations to the contrary - to be as effective to learn to use the on-screen keyboard. In fact, portions of this post were written on my iPad, and those that weren't were written on my iPhone while I was waiting for my iPad to render the video from my daughter's gymnastics meet.

And this is the rub: these folks talk about trying to replace their laptops but really seem to be trying to replace desktop replacement machines. Perhaps this is why Grevstad appears to be afraid someone is going to come and take his laptop away from him.

Unfortunately, in expressing this fear he comes across as a nonagenarian talking about the dawn of the horseless carriage:

Meanwhile, people who contend that the tablet is destined to replace the laptop tend to overlook a couple of things: Laptops have been around, and proven themselves in the portable productivity marketplace, for decades, and they've continuously evolved and gotten better.

Insert ”automobile" for "tablet", "carriage” for "laptop" and "transportation industry" for "portable productivity marketplace" and you'll see what I mean.

It's okay, Eric - I'm sure Dell will continue to produce low quality laptops for you until they finally descend into bankruptcy.

Microsoft Office for the iPad? Maybe Not...

This excellent, elegant post at minimalmac does a marvelous job of outlining a reality that must be uncomfortable for Microsoft:

No one really needs Microsoft Office.

My company has been mostly an Apple iWork shop for some time now. Pages is our default word processor and, although we do a lot of training presentations, the truly exceptional capabilities of Keynote has kept my copy of PowerPoint gathering dust for some time.

The only exception has been Excel. We do a metric truckload of spreadsheets and graphs, and our invested time into the platform has made it harder to transition out. However, recent experiences with the "upgrade" to Office 2011 for Mac has us looking very closely at completing that transition. It should never take 45 minutes and a web search to figure out how to make a text box... Not to mention the f$@king ribbon!

For many people, for some time, it's been a common refrain that one must have Office to work on a computer. That refrain may no longer ring true.

(Tip of the hat to Daring Fireball for bringing this link to my attention).

Bitter About Apple

Last week Apple tried something different and did a pre-release of its latest version of OS X (Mountain Lion) by doing 1:1 presentations to a select group of tech journalists.

This has led others - notably, those not selected - to opine that the company has begun to take favorites, and that it has specifically ostracized the New York Times. This, the theory goes, is due to that paper's recent series of articles about working conditions at Foxconn in China, a company that assembles consumer electronics for Apple... And for a large number of other major electronics companies.

A theory that, as Daring Fireball's John Gruber ably points out, ignores the fact that David Pogue was among that select group of journalists. That's David Pogue of the New York Times.

The entire story smacks of sour grapes... Or perhaps bitter apples.

As someone who runs a business and who has on (very rare) occasion had business related interviews, I can tell you that one is always uncertain how the information one gives will be used by the interviewer. Anyone - and any business - in such a position would take pause at considering giving additional direct information to a news source which had shown a bent towards sensationalizing or reflecting unfavorably on their business in the past.

The news here - if any - is that Apple didn't excommunicate the New York Times. Pogue got his early information despite a multi-part exposé that, frankly, often seemed to present Apple as if it were the only company using the massive Foxconn operation for product assembly. This despite the fact that the entire industry - virtually every major consumer electronics manufacturer - has the same issue.

I'm not sure I'd be so generous were I in the same position with my company. Especially if I was in Apple's position. They likely no longer really need the NY Times for publicity.

The rest of it - complaints over who did and didn't get early information - plays as whining from the did-nots.

My HP Officejet Pro 8500 is a F&%king Liar

This afternoon I was in the middle of proofing and printing a series of reports.  The printer I was using was my HP Officejet Pro 8500, which has the added nice feature of being able to print double-sided documents.  All was going quite swimmingly until, in the middle of report number six or so it stops and gives me the following warning:

Cannot Print

The ink in the following cartridge is depleted.

Black [K]

Prior to seeing this, there was no indication, no suggestion, not event a hint that the black ink was low.  The last letters printed were just as crystal clear, just as sharp, as the first.

Well - no hint aside from the little warning triangle saying "a cartridge is low" that first started showing approximately 24 seconds after I first set up the printer.  HP as a company would perhaps benefit from a study of the effect of false positives on the response of users...  But I digress.

Most troubling here is this specific phrase in the warning:  "Cannot Print" followed by "Replace the following cartridge to resume printing".  And it isn't kidding.  The device simply WILL NOT print until you replace the cartridge.  It resolutely refuses to budge no matter how many obscenities one screams at it.  

Or so I hear...

Older models of HP printers would warn you (again, ridiculously early) that you were running low on ink, but you could press on bravely, printing page after page.  Then, one day, months (sometimes years) after that first warning you would finally reach the point where the ink on the page began to fade, and it was clear that now, at long last, one might have to give in and replace the cartridge.  

Now, instead, apparently the printer has been programmed to engage in a sit-down strike until it gets its way.  And I can't help but think, given that the ink never faded (not once), that this thing is holding out on me, greedily holding on to those last drops of ink, resolutely refusing to give way.

Undoubtedly this change in behavior would be framed by HP as presenting with some sort of benefit that I just haven't yet considered.  Still, it seems to me that the entity most benefitted here is HP itself, as I have now been required - not just encouraged or warned, but required - to replace a print cartridge despite no clear signs of need just so I could complete my document.  

All of which is why I'm pretty sure My HP Officejet Pro 8500 is a F&%king Liar.

Elevation Dock

Here's a very cool KickStarter project I first saw on Daring Fireball this evening. The Elevation Dock is an aluminum dock that will fit multiple generations of the iPhone, as well as different versions of the iPod touch and classic iPod. More importantly for my purposes it is designed to allow docking of an iPhone while it's still in a protective case.

This would allow me to retire the Lego stand I'm forced to use instead of an Apple dock as I am apparently a mutant with a superpower that causes the coefficient of friction on my hands and fingers to be far lower than that of any normal man.

At any rate, this evening it looks as if the project is already very close to getting funded. This makes for a good opportunity to get in on this product before it hits the market at full price.

If you aren't familiar with KickStarter you can learn more here.

Tonsure /= To Ensure...

Okay, I am certainly not the first to notice some issues with the auto-correct software in iOS devices. But what I find especially puzzling are some of the decisions it makes.

This afternoon I'm typing the words "to ensure" on my iPad and, as is often the case, I somehow miss the space bar, leaving the two words together - e.g. toensure. The iPad then, as now, offers to replace it and, because I type relatively quickly on the iPad, it happens before I can make a decision about it.

The word it selects? Tonsure.

Now, I fancy myself a relatively well read and educated person, with a fairly decent vocabulary. Still, here I find that I am - not for the first time, mind you - having to look up the word that iOS has elected to replace my text.

Incidentally, tonsure refers to the shaved crown of a monk or priest's head. Look it up yourself if you like but, honestly, why would I lie about this?

When you do look it up, you'll find it to be a word first encountered in the 14th Century, derived from old French and Latin. As I gaze at this in the definition I wonder once again what algorithmic logic went into making the device assume that it was somehow more likely that I wanted to make reference to a friar's bald pate than simply having accidentally tied two correctly spelled words together.

I write on the iPad often, and while I dearly love my device, this feature is routinely the most frustrating aspect of using it. Among the things I write are psychological reports, and the word "pattern" features prominently in them. For a long period of time I had problems with hitting the "o" instead of the "p", which the iPad would then helpfully correct into "oat tern", apparently believing that I was writing about grain farming near the sea. Every time I add an additional "s" to the end of the word "was" I get "Wasserstein". What's more, while it offers these miscorrections routinely, it continues to resolutely leave the word "fir" in place each time I type it accidentally instead of "for", thinking either that I'm writing a newsletter for the American Evergreen Society or perhaps that I am writing dialogue in a western novel.

What I don't get here is how it makes those decisions. It clearly has some capacity to learn - I don't see "oat tern" any more, despite my continued errors with the word "pattern" - but it seems to make poor decisions in regard to the likelihood of a given word. What is the likelihood that I actually was trying to write "tonsure", a middle-ages relic of a word instead of, well, anything else? While I appreciate that these words are in the dictionary on the device - and that I learned a new and interesting word today - it would be great if Apple would perhaps re-think the words it offers based upon some calculation of the statistical probability of the word being correct.

Another alternative would be to allow the autocorrect to be turned off, while leaving the spell check turned on (this does not currently appear to be an option). Because the autocorrect puts in real words for relatively fast virtual typists the end results are sometimes rather strange, and more challenging to detect because, though the words are wrong, they are spelled correctly. This option would be helpful tonsure the errors would be caught when the piece Wasserstein proofread.

Perspective

It was a little while before I realized the power was out this morning.

It wasn't a surprise, really. The storm that was rolling through provided a convincing combination of wind and rain, which I'd chosen to ride out by reading portions of Sloane Crossley's I was Told There'd be Cake on my iPad. I suspect the noise level the rain and wind made against the ancient windows of my old house kept me from noticing that the window AC unit in my home office was no longer operating.

Power outages happen everywhere, but the effects are different depending upon the location. When you live in a town or city, as anywhere else, it means no television and only battery operated radios. And everywhere one should avoid opening the refrigerator unless absolutely necessary. Out here in the country it means all of those things, but it also means no water, as the well pump is operated electrically.

This requires a retardation of one's natural muscle operational patterns each time one uses the bathroom.

It's also fascinating - and a little silly - how one's mind can fail to fully grasp the reality of the situation. This morning I went for my second cup of coffee, thankful that the pot was still hot even though the coffee maker's hotplate was no longer functioning, and hopeful that it would still be warm for cup #3. If it wasn't, I reasoned, it was really no big deal - I'd just warm it up in the microwave...

I grew up out here - literally a mile across the field. When I was little a power outage meant that anything electric or electronic for entertainment was out (except for the aforementioned battery powered radios). Today I failed to initially register the outage because I was distracted by the book on my iPad, and now I'm writing this post on the same device. I'll post it after writing using the internet connection through my battery powered MiFi.

It does put things in perspective when the biggest concerns one faces following a storm are cold coffee and managing not to jiggle the flush handle on the toilet.

"Three of us voted for airplane, Sheldon voted for train, so we’re taking the train."

Yup - I wanted to take the train.

When I was in college I took the train on a trip from Illinois to Utah over spring break. I remember it fondly, rolling to the clackity-clack of the rails. I wore my American flag-colored drug rug, wrote poetry, and watched the wildlife as we rode to and then through the mountains. I had fascinating conversations with the people I was seated with in the dining car. I slept in coach without a care in the world.

I am no longer twenty years old.