2016 Chevrolet Volt

As anyone who comes by this spot with any type of regularity will already know, transportation issues - whether it be roads, cars, bikes, trains, etc - fascinate me. In part this is because I believe that our approaches to transportation have a significant impact on the lives we lead; and, in part, it's because I'm a person who lives in a rural area and must travel considerable distances both for work and personal activities.

To the latter end, automobile efficiency has a significant impact on my life, and I've often tried to select my cars accordingly. When the original Chevrolet Volt came out back in 2011 I spent some time trying to understand how to figure out whether it would be a good choice for me. This turned out to be more complicated than I thought it would be:

The Chevy Volt has a problem.

Confusion.

This past February I had the good fortune to attend the Chicago Auto Show with the inimitable Ted E. Dunphy. We go to the auto show every year or two, but this year I was particularly interested in seeing and having the opportunity to ride in the Chevy Volt. The ride was fun - around a short track inside McCormick Place, the cars running entirely on electricity.

What was more interesting - and perplexing - was trying to figure out what kind of mileage I would get with the car. Usually this is a relatively straight-forward thing, published clearly on the window sticker of each new car. But if the Volt were treated the same way, it's sticker would just say "it depends".

In a nutshell, because the car has an electric only range, how much gas a person would use would depend upon how far they drive - the more driving done outside the range of the electric motor, the less attractive the Volt becomes.

In that original post I compared the 2010 Volt to two of my own cars - a 2007 Mini Cooper S and a 2010 Honda Fit - as well as the Toyota Prius, which is probably its primary competitor. I also included the original Honda Insight, a car I have always been interested in, albeit one that is very different than the rest of the group.

For the original Volt it turned out to best all of the others in real-world mileage for people driving less than 25,000 miles per year, over which the two hybrids - the Prius and the Insight - caught up with it. Even then, though, the Volt was still competitive in terms of mileage.

Where it suffered, though, was overall cost of ownership:

But gasoline is not the only cost of owning a car. Most people buying a car will borrow, and that cost will always be a relevant factor. If one compares the same cars, including the monthly car payment assuming a five year loan with no down payment for each new car, and the blue book value and a two year loan for the Honda Insight, and my current car payment for the Mini, one gets a considerably different picture... Because of it's relatively high purchase price ($32,780 after government rebate), adding in the car payment ramps up the cost of Volt ownership considerably.

I found then that, ultimately, the cost of monthly payments completely reversed the situation, and the Volt moved from least to most expensive to operate. The price of entry was a more relevant component than the fuel costs.

Several important things have changed since 2011:

• The electric range of the Volt has increased considerably - from about 35 miles to 53 miles.
• The MPG rating of the gas generator - the mileage the car gets after it runs out of battery charge - is also much higher, rising from 37 mpg to 43 mpg.
• The original Volt required premium fuel, while the new one gets by with less expensive, regular unleaded.
• The price of the Volt has dropped. With the government rebate in place, the purchase price is now $26,495.00

So the question is, what kind of a difference do those changes make?

This time around I compared the 2016 Volt to the 2016 Prius and the 2016 Honda Fit. I also included my 2010 Fit as a comparator to evaluate against a fully paid-for, relatively efficient compact car as an option. Assumptions made were:

• An average fuel price of $2.183 per gallon, based upon the Midwest price on 5/2/16 from the US Energy Information Administration website.
• Mileage ratings of 34 mpg for the 2010 Fit (based upon my personal measurements), 37 for the 2016 Fit, 52 for the 2016 Prius, and 43 for the 2016 Volt.
• To account for the Volt's all electric range, the number of miles it traveled was reduced by that range, assuming overnight charging only (e.g. no opportunity for additional charging during the day). For example, a yearly travel amount of 10,000 miles was averaged out to 200 miles per week, or 40 miles per day over five days (a work week) for the other cars. The 40 miles per each day was decreased by the electric range of the Volt - 53 miles - to calculate the remaining average miles traveled per day, and that remaining mileage was calculated against the Volt gas generator mpg of 43 miles per gallon.
• The same price of $26,495.00 for the Volt and the Prius. This decision was made because there are so many option levels for the Prius that it's price ranges from about $24k up to well over $30k. This seemed simpler and more straightforward.
• The 2016 Honda Fit model selected was an EX with a handful of options based upon my personal preferences (The EX is the highest end Honda Fit that is available with a manual transmission) for a purchase price of $19041.00.
• Monthly payments were based upon a 5-year loan, with no down payment, a 6.25% sales tax (Illinois), and 3.26% interest, calculated on the car payment calculator on Cars.com.

With all of this done, what I found was this:

The Volt is still the hands-down winner in terms of fuel cost:

If you drive less than 10,000 miles per year, odds are good that you will pay virtually nothing for fuel over the course of that year, and the cost for folks at 15k/year is less than $100. Back in 2011 the Volt's advantage leveled off with the Prius's for people who traveled 25k or more miles per year. With the improvements in range and fuel efficiency the 2016 Volt maintains a considerable advantage in fuel economy all the way up to 30k per year. If you are a high mileage driver deciding between a Prius and a Volt, on average the Prius will use $1259.42 worth of gas per year, while the Volt comes in at $850.35.

As in 2011, things change when we add in the cost of purchase:

What we see here, unsurprisingly, is that your cheapest option is still to own your own economy car outright (the 2010 Fit), and that the amount of fuel savings of neither the Volt nor the Prius is sufficient to compensate for the difference made by buying a conventional economy car that is several thousand dollars cheaper. If you must buy a new car, and you are looking for the least expensive overall cost of ownership, something comparable to the Honda Fit is still your best option.

What is pleasantly surprising to learn, however, is that the improvements made for the 2016 Volt make it less expensive to own than a price-comparable 2016 Prius, even for very high-mileage drivers. If you must buy new, and you are comparing hybrid options, the Volt is your best bet. General Motors has come a long way down this road, and it's worth noting that this is only the second-generation of the Volt. Toyota is on it's fourth generation of Prius, and has been building them now for nearly 20 years (the first Prius came out in 1997).

Of course, one does not have to buy a price-comparable Prius. The Prius comes in at a lower base-price, and one could opt for that car, which costs $24,200.00, according to Toyota's website. But it turns out that the cheapest Prius comes out to mostly be comparable to the Volt:

So - if you are selecting between the Volt and the Prius, you aren't really saving much in terms of overall cost of operation by opting for the base Prius to get in at a lower initial purchase price. Given Toyota's head start on this I'd still call this advantage Volt.

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And Now for Some Speculation

I noted above that the fuel savings of neither the Volt nor the Prius were enough to make them less expensive than a conventional economy car like the Honda Fit. This is the case, in part, because gasoline is relatively inexpensive in the US at the moment. Out of curiosity I adjusted amounts to see what gas prices would need to be in order for that savings to make the difference.

The Volt takes the advantage here as well. It starts to become cost-comparable with the Fit for low mileage drivers at a gas cost of about $4.75 per gallon:

And it's comparable or better for all drivers if gas rises twenty-five cents to about $5.00 per gallon:

As can also be seen here, the Prius is still more expensive to own than the Fit, though it's getting closer to comparable for super-high mileage drivers. The Prius reaches a comparable level for those at 40k miles per year if prices rise to $5.75 per gallon, but at that price the Fit is still the better deal for anyone driving 35k or fewer miles per year:

For the Prius to reach a point at which it was comparable or better for every mileage point on the graph I had to ramp the cost per gallon up to $20.00:

And, at this (hopefully) unbelievable cost level, buying a new Volt is actually a better deal than keeping your old economy car, regardless of how many miles you drive per year. Or it would be, except that it seems likely that, were gas to reach $20.00 per gallon, we'd be cruising the wastelands in Police Interceptors, heavily modified dune buggies, or gyrocopters searching for food and a bit of juice... But I digress...

The larger point to this last bit of fiddling with numbers, I suppose, is that the Volt becomes the most economical new car choice in this mix at a fuel price not that far above prices we've seen in the past decade. This suggests that, from an economical standpoint, General Motors appears to be, at this point, far ahead of Toyota in terms of having a realistic financial savings based upon fuel economy.

Perhaps the only remaining caveat here is that the Volt's purchase price continues to include a federal tax subsidy, and things would be somewhat different - the Volt loses its cost advantage over the Prius under those circumstances. But the current reality is that the tax break is in effect, so it remains a part of the calculation here. And, given the progress GM has made on all fronts with this car, and its ongoing work on the electric side with the upcoming Bolt as well, it doesn't seem too optimistic to believe that they will reach a point of unsubsidized price parity with Toyota in the not-too distant future. This all leaves me far more excited about American - and specifically GM - vehicles than I have been in a very long time.

Evaluating Reported Science

On the most recent episode of Last Week Tonight John Oliver tackles the problem of science reporting in the media. It's an incredibly important issue, and he manages it quite nicely.

We are, in our modern world, surrounded by the products of science. I'm writing this post on a technological miracle, and making it available to you on a worldwide network that would have been impossible to imagine a century ago. We live longer, we are healthier, we are safer than any generation that came before us. It's really not possible to overstate the benefits we've received from science.

Despite all of that, the actual process of science is often very difficult for people to understand. When science is portrayed in stories, whether books, television, movies, or what have you, the necessity of storytelling presents it as a dynamic, active, and rapid process. It's not. The reality is that real science is slow, methodical, plodding. It's fascinating to the people conducting it, to be sure, but it's not something that makes good fodder for entertainment.

The entertainment portrayal of science seems to interact with a growing tendency for researchers to report information partway through the scientific process. If I've begun a study and I find something interesting, a press release on that effect may bring attention - and possibly funding - to help me continue my study. Research funding is a challenging and competitive process, and one can see why researchers would look for every opportunity to get their particular project out in front of others.

The difficulty is that the interaction here leads to the portrayal of information in the fashion that John Oliver so deftly demonstrates. Each study that's discussed gets similar air time and treatment as another, with little to no evaluation of the relative merits or applicability of the research. And this is problematic at best.

For professionals that work in any healthcare-related field this often means spending time explaining to clients, patients, and concerned family and friends why the thing they heard or read about does not mean they should suddenly go out and change their diet to include eating 473 grapefruits each day, or begin sleeping hanging upside-down in their closet.

Overall, this trend suggests a need for ongoing educational focus on critical evaluation of information. This isn't a new idea, and it's certainly not one I'm coming up with on my own. As those links show, there is considerable thought and effort towards teaching students - starting in adolescence - how to evaluate information they find online.

This is excellent, but I strongly believe there needs to be more. Evaluating information online is only a part of the picture. It's clear, as time goes on and information becomes more pervasive and readily available, that the relative value of memorizing facts has declined, and understanding how to get the information you need is the more relevant skill. Again - this isn't my revelation, instructional processes have been acknowledging this for some time now.

Children should be taught, perhaps starting in adolescence, and repeatedly following, how the scientific process actually works, and how to critically evaluate scientific research. This should include at least the following questions:

• What was the design of the study? Did it include controls?
• How many subjects were studied?
• Who were the subjects? Humans? Animals?
• Was the sample representative? If so, of whom?
• Has the study been replicated? If so, how many times, and was the same effect found each time?

Science is, by its nature, long, slow, and methodical. Significant findings, when they occur, should be replicated by additional studies before results are ever felt to be a real phenomenon. The genie appears to be out of the bottle with respect to the infusion of incomplete scientific information in the media. Given this, our kids need to be able to realistically understand when they are receiving useful, actionable information.

Game of Thrones Season 6

Tonight is the night for Game of Thrones fans around the world. We wait for the beginning of the new season the way football fans pine for the opening of the next season.

Or - at least - I hope tonight is the night. Since we'll be streaming the show via HBO Now, it's a bit of a mixed bag. The app itself says that HBO Now subscribers will have new episodes “every Sunday”, but the company hasn't always been super reliable at turning these types of things around. I'm a huge fan of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which also comes out every Sunday, but the folks who post it to HBO Now are often several days behind in getting new episodes up. But I digress - one suspects they will be more vigilant with a property as popular as Game of Thrones.

Season six is something extra special. GoT is, of course, a television adaptation of a series of books - A Song of Ice and Fire - by George RR Martin. While modifications have been made to the storyline to make it work better on the screen, the TV series has been largely faithful to the ultimate focus and intent of the storyline found in those books.

But: The end of season five reached the end of the storyline in the books.

This is, of course, not news to anyone who has slogged their way through all of the existing books. Those of us who have spent that time - whether reading words on paper or screen, or listening to it via audiobook as was the case for me - have been well aware for some time that the pace of the TV Series was such that it was going to reach the end of the books before Martin had an opportunity to put out the next installment in the series.

I, for one, am very excited by this prospect. In part this is because this will be the first time since season two that I have no idea what to expect (I started listening to the books after watching the first couple of seasons). Like many, perhaps most, I have ideas about where things might be going, but I don't actually know where they will end up now. This, in and of itself, is exhilarating.

But there's something more. Frankly, I think the TV writing team does a better job with the series than Martin does himself. I described the books as a slog and, in many ways, they are. While they are ultimately entertaining as a whole, Martin gets lost in details and secondary (and tertiary, and perhaps quaternary) storylines that spend pages and chapters often, it seems, to little effect. It often seems as if he has been given a book contract without being assigned an editor.

The show writers, given the limitations of time to tell their story, has chosen to eliminate several of those components. They have consolidated characters, choosing instead to focus on a relatively limited set of primary and secondary players (yes - all of those people you are keeping track of in the TV Series really is a much shorter list than you'd need to manage if you were reading the books), and removing entire sections of storyline. There is a seemingly endless period of river flooding that seems it will never end in the middle of the series, for example, taking place during the time Arya is traveling with The Hound. Their travels end much the same in the show, but there is no flood, it doesn't take nearly as long, and Brienne and The Hound do not face off in the book. The TV writers are able to communicate the key components of the relationships and lessons learned much more succinctly, and in a more satisfying fashion.

To be clear, I do realize that the show runners are following the outline provided by George RR Martin. I'm happy to acknowledge that the show is his creation. But the originator of an idea isn't always it's best caretaker (I'm looking at you, George Lucas), nor it's most skillful operator. And sometimes the application of limitations leads to better outcome than having the world at your hands. The constraint of a fixed number of hours to tell a story, a fixed budget for cast, crew, and sets versus the seemingly unlimited space of a book makes a difference here in the decisions that are made.

So I'm excited to see what they do with the remaining story, and I'm excited to let them resolve it for me. I find, for now at least, I prefer that to waiting to see how Martin chooses to portray it on the page. It's questionable, in fact, whether I will choose to read (listen to) the remaining books after I've finished the TV series.

Time to Re-Tire

Last December I noted that I was running a bit behind on my tire-changing schedule, getting my snow tires onto my car later than I intended. This spring is no different.

We've had unusual weather here in Northern Illinois - our spring has seen multiple snowfalls late into the season, with the most recent just a few weeks ago, well into April. So - in this case, my delay is only partially due to procrastination. It seemed wise to wait a bit, to avoid having to contend with the white stuff in my all-weather tires.

As the weather gets warmer, though, one can start to see how the traits that make the tires so effective in the cold are a limitation during the rest of the year. As I understand it, the rubber in these tires is explicitly designed to stay softer in the cold than do other types of tires. This means that they become softer still when the temperature rises. Takin an off-ramp at speed becomes an interesting experience of feeling your car seem to roll to the side of its tires, bouncing and bobbling in a fashion that is, shall we say, not comforting.

And so, dear friends if you, like me, have been waiting for just the right time to get to this task, I say today is the day. For, although it's clear that this evening it will seem once again that winter is coming, it's actually done with us in the Midwest. For now.

Apple's New Notes

With iOS 9 Apple has given some serious love to its Notes app, including many features that you often have to purchase an app to get - drawing, some rich text editing features like bold, italics, etc, and capabilities like making different types of lists (in particular I like the checklist option - great for making shopping lists).

With iOS 9.3 they have added the capability to lock individual notes so the content is kept from prying eyes.

This is great. Because Notes is a system app, it's likely to fall to hand for marking down all sorts of information on the phone, some of which the owner might not want others to see. But its implementation of this feature is, well, a bit odd and clunky.

First, the feature has to be turned on in settings, and then an individual note has to have the locking feature enabled by tapping the share sheet. To finalize enabling it, the user has to either enter the password or use Touch ID. All of this is fine, I suppose, though a bit obscure, particularly with the enabling feature in the share sheet menu (which otherwise mostly houses ways to, you know, share things).

What's odd here is that this process enables the lock, but doesn't lock the document. You have to then tap the little lock symbol in the upper right hand corner to formally lock the document. What's more, you also have to do that every time you exit the document in the future.

What I mean is this: Say you go through the process of locking a document, and then go back to read it again, edit it, etc. When you get done with that, and navigate out of the document, it remains unlocked unless you manually choose to lock it. What's more, unlocking that note to edit it also unlocks every other locked note you have in Notes.

To their credit, there is a "lock now" button at the bottom of the document menu screen which, when tapped, locks all open notes. And when I manually lock the note I was working on, it also locks all of the other notes that I inadvertently opened as well. But why this manual process to lock? If I really am protecting sensitive information in a note, wouldn't it be better for it to lock automatically when I exit, always requiring a password or Touch ID to open it again? Then I would know it, and all of my locked notes, are always locked - there would be no need to, say, check to see if my notes were locked before I handed my phone to someone else to look at.

One suspects that this is an attempt to compromise. Other notetaking and writing apps can have a password applied, but this is typically to access the the entire app. Here you can access the Notes application itself without entering a password, but your notes themselves can be protected. One can see the value in that - I can show another person what's on a note without giving them free access to everything I've written. The same cannot be said for an app like Day One, an otherwise excellent journaling program. There, when you enter your password or Touch ID and hand your device to another person you have just granted them free access to anything you've ever written in that app. The Notes solution is better, I suppose, if you want to be able to show others selective information on your device. But honestly, those notes I want secured should automatically secure themselves when I exit them - period.

Time Change...

Today is, of course, the start of Daylight Savings Time here in the United States - a day that presents distaste and a bit of dread for many. It steals an hour from us each year simply to make it lighter later in the day, a phenomenon that, with the nature of the seasons, was already well on its way toward taking care of itself without our crazy clock dance.

This also leaves me with the weighty responsibility of moving about the house and adjusting the time on the analog clocks that we have scattered around the home. It occurs to me that this latter activity is one that, like so many others, is likely on its way out due to the changing nature of technology. For many of us, the clock dance is taken care of automatically, as our cell phones are also our primary timepieces, and they update religiously based upon location and event. In addition to updating for DST, anyone who has traveled across the country with their phones in recent years is also familiar with the fact that they update to the local time zone when you pass across those borders.

It's certainly a convenience, even in my household, as I no longer need to calculate whether I'm advancing forward or taking back - I just look at my iPhone and make the clock on the wall match it. And as I do this I find myself considering the relative value of those clocks at all.

I enjoy an analog clock. I find, with a lifetime of practice, that I can quickly determine the approximate time by glancing at the positions of the hands on a clock face. But my daughter would not say the same. We will routinely be standing in the kitchen, which has two wall clocks opposite one another, and she will say to me "what time is it?" For my own personal entertainment I will point at the larger of the two clocks, as if perhaps she is unaware of its presence. This is then followed by her departure as she moves about the house to find her phone in order to read the time on its digital display.

Like handwriting or paper books, it's unlikely that analog clocks will disappear in their entirety but, as time goes on, it seems likely that they will fade back to become luxury and/or fetish items. And, upon reflection, it isn't all that surprising that this is occurring. Analog clocks are significantly harder to read than a simple digital display of the time.

The thing is, they don't actually need to be. The other day I came across something - or more accurately, I realized something about a thing that I've been looking at, off and on, for a few years now. I have, on my iPad, an app called Emerald Observatory.

This lovely looking app has a number of features that are tied to the movement of the planets, including a display of the relative daylight across the map, and so on. It also includes both a standard analog clock with two hands, and a single-hand 24-hour clock. I'm a little embarrassed to say that I don't believe I realized, until now, that this was part of what I've been looking at over the couple of years that I've had this app.

And it turns out that single-hand clock faces are a thing.

Setting aside one's own lifetime of experience reading traditional analog clocks, how much simpler would it be for a new learner to pick up reading the time on one of these? Rather than sorting out what to do with the minute hand, and remembering that the hour hand isn't going to point directly at the current hour unless it's the exact top of that hour, and so on, one only needs to look at the relative position of the hand between the hours. If it's quarter past, the hand will have moved a quarter way past the hour. Half past? Halfway. Quarter till?... You get the idea.

Our history is replete with examples of society adopting and keeping less than ideal versions of things due to primacy, or political or business strategizing - highways instead of railways, the failure of the U.S. to adopt the metric system, the proliferation of Microsoft Windows, etc. This, combined with the fact that digital clocks are both ubiquitous and easier still to read, makes this an idea who's time has past or, more honestly, essentially never came. Still, an intriguing idea in the abstract.

Things That Actually Kind of Suck: Facebook - Part Deux

So.

Facebook is a platform that is supposed to keep us in touch with our friends, our families, even when separated by vast distances. And, to some degree it does that. It's obviously immensely popular, in the literal sense of the word - a lot -lot - of people use it.

It's also doing a delightful job of illustrating some of the worst, and frankly creepiest features of the Internet in general and social media in particular. I submit, for your consideration, three examples, in order of escalating creepiness.

The first is the insistence Facebook has presented in suggesting that I follow Mark Zuckerberg. I assume absolutely everyone sees this particular recommendation, and it seems to be working, as he has a metric shit-ton of followers already:

Now, I've repeatedly tapped that little "X" in the upper right hand corner to make him go away, and yet he repeatedly returns, like the veritable bad penny or the frustrating bit of dog poo on your shoe that is too tiny to find so you can remove it, but stinks to high heaven. Facebook supposedly uses algorithms to determine who it should recommend you follow. Apparently the salient variables in this particular algorithm are:

• Does this person exist on the planet earth?
• Does he or she have a Facebook account?
• If yes to both, recommend the Zuck.

To be clear, Facebook, I would not, could not follow him on my phone.

I would not, could not, look at him in my home.

I would not, could not tap him on my iPad.

I would not, could not - this recommendation makes me mad.

(Apologies to the estate of Dr. Suess)

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The second item is the eerily targeted advertising. The other day I was listening to the ladies on the Nerdette Podcast interviewing Sarah Vowell. It occurred to me that I had a friend, who is a history buff, who might enjoy one of Sarah's books, Assassination Vacation. I hopped over to Amazon to see if it was available there so I could send her a link.

That evening I sit down on the couch and begin to scroll through my Facebook news feed, and I see this:

This has become a regular occurrence. My child needed to read the book Life of Pi for school, so I sent it as a Kindle gift and, sure enough, there on Facebook was an ad for Life of Pi.

And let's just set aside, for the moment, just how f&@king stupid it is to advertise a book, that I just bought, to me. Is there some hope that I will have been so excited about my purchase that I will run off to Amazon and buy it again?

And - while we are at it, have you ever noticed how many of the sponsored links that show up on Facebook say that your friends have "liked" that particular item? It's clear that at least some portion of this is an outright lie - check with your friends and ask them if they've done so. I happen to have two of my Facebook friends living here in the same house with me, so I've had the opportunity to do exactly that, and it turns out the answer is "not so much". One of those two - my child - is on Facebook only by protest (apparently the cool kids nowadays prefer Instagram which, I've been informed, I would know if I were a cool kid... But I digress...), and it's quite rare that they even open the Facebook app. And yet, there they are, liking products on a routine basis.

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Item number three has to do with phone numbers - specifically, mine.

For some time now, Facebook has been encouraging me to share my phone number with them "for security purposes". This is irritating, to be sure, but it's only that. It's likely an artifact of the extremely limited amount of personal information I actually put on my Facebook profile. As a matter of principle I limit this - ultimately, Facebook is an advertising company - yes, it's a social media platform, but advertising is their source of revenue, so this is really what they are - and I just don't see handing my particulars over to such an entity.

So - irritating I can put up with. In fact. Irritating would describe about 80% of the Facebook experience anyway. So, you know, c'est la vie.

But the other day, something different happened. Instead of "tell us your phone number" I had a notification indicating a specific phone number, and asking if it was mine.

It was. It was my personal cell phone number.

That number is unlisted, and is on the do not call list. I share it sparingly. I have never entered it into Facebook, and won't ever do so.

And there it was, right on my screen, waiting, wanting for me to verify it.

Where did Facebook get it? After a bit of thought, I realized: Facebook got it from my friends.

Periodically this evil little service will ask its users to upload their personal contacts to its servers. If you scroll down to the bottom of the "Friend Requests" page it will offer you that option again, and you will see a list of your Facebook friends who have already done so.

And, of course, some of those people have my phone number.

So let's take this in for just a moment.

This means that Facebook has scanned the contact information uploaded by other people, pulled my phone number out of that information, and used that data to try and get me to give them my number.

Which, let's be honest, they already have, so why would they need to ask me? And in what universe does it register as being okay to both do this in the first place, and to then think that it will be well received to present it to me and ask me if I'd like to verify it?

It's uber-creepy.

What universe is it in which these things seem okay? Mark Zuckerberg's universe.

Which is why I won't be following him.

iTunes Ambiguations

Before I launch into this, let me just say that I get it - this may be more my problem than it is an iTunes problem. I am a person who used to organize his cassette tapes, and then CD's, in alphabetical and chronological order - by artist and then by release date, respectively.

Because I'm not an animal.

Perhaps this is the reason why I find the episode numbering system for iTunes TV episodes so frustrating. For example, we recently started watching The Expanse (which is excellent - if you are not watching it, you should be). The picture below shows how the episodes are numbered, and the order in which they download from iTunes.

Episode 1 - Dulcinea - is indeed the first episode of the season. But if you want to go to the second episode of the season, the second episode that contains the continuing story that you are following, you must in fact select Episode 3 - The Big Empty.

Why? Because iTunes insists on tagging "Inside the Expanse: Episode 1" with the numeric indicator slot that should be reserved for Episode 2. So it lists like this:

2 . Inside the Expanse: Episode 1

This means, of course, that the first episode of "Inside the Expanse" is actually listed as episode 2, which is confusing in and of itself. It also means the real Episode 2 is actually listed as Episode 3, and it gets progressively worse, as the third episode becomes Episode 5, the fourth is Episode 7, the fifth is Episode 9, and so on. It also means that "Inside the Expanse: Episode 2" actually refers to the numeric Episode 3, that "Inside the Expanse: Episode 3" actually refers to Episode 5, and, and... dogs and cats are living together...

How could this possibly be considered less confusing that just giving these extra episodes a three-digit designation, as they've done with the other extra features also within this show - e.g. Episode 101 - Sneak Peek, or 102 - Premise. Wouldn't it make far more sense to have something more like this:

106 Inside the Expanse: Episode 1 107 Inside the Expanse: Episode 2

Done this way, Inside the Expanse: Episode 2 would actually then - believe it or not - refer to episode number 2.

Incidentally, Apple, I hereby waive all rights to this incredibly clever, innovative numbering idea I've invented myself out of whole cloth - please feel free to just go ahead and use it.

I have to believe this approach would be clearer for the people watching the extra features as well. Which brings up another thing:

Aside from the clear organizational chaos that this causes, it is exacerbated for me by the simple fact that I don't believe I could possibly care less about whatever appears on "Inside the Expanse: Episode Unclear". I am certain there are people out there who delight in extra features (there must be, since they are all over the place), but I am not one of them. I want to watch the show, and experience it as it is presented, interpret it as I experience it. I do not want the writers telling me what they intended I feel, the set designers telling me the mood they were trying to achieve - the proof of all of that is in the pudding. If they did their jobs well, my experience will gel with their intentions and, if they did not, well, all of their protestations to the contrary won't matter.

And while I'm taking these things to task, let me also note that putting up additional extra features for a season still in production is not equivalent to putting up a new episode. Earlier this week I was greeted with the following email:

”Finally!" I shout in my head (it echoes in there, incidentally), call LB down to partake in the latest installment of zombie gore and Ricktator shenanigans, and fire up the TV, only to find...

The email clearly states that "The Latest Episode of The Walking Dead, Season 6 is now available". Except it's not. Second tier extra content - in this case, actor interviews about their characters - does not an episode make. If it's not clear by now, that term should be reserved for a segment of content that is part of the continuing story being told by the show. As it stands, receiving the email only to find an extra feature is disappointment at best, and feels like a cruel trick at worst (oh, the agony of being denied blood and guts and interpersonal angst).

There's a lot to like about iTunes - it provides reliable access to things that are difficult to get anywhere else, and it lets you watch favorite things over and over again, without fear they will be pulled from availability. Still, one would think that a company so clearly concerned with precision in design of its products might also provide similar precision in its communication and organization.

One would, apparently, be wrong.

When is a donation not a donation?

The final season of Downton Abbey is on the air. We don't have any sort of broadcast TV in the home, so we look to see these things via streaming services, including PBS through the Apple TV - very much the way we watched the last season of the same series.

This year we are a little late to the game, and the first two episodes have already gone past, and episode 3 is the most current at the time that I put these words down. Like any right minded soul, we want to watch the first two episodes before watching the third - we aren't animals.

This is not as easy as one might expect.

It turns out that episode one is only available through a WTTW Passport membership (WTTW is our local PBS station, inasmuch as Chicago - an hour and a half away - is local). This is a multiple step process that finds, after one works one's way through it, that WTTW would like a bit of cash from me if I'm to watch the earlier episodes.

How much? $5/month, or $60/year. But this isn't a fee, mind you. It's a donation.

A mandatory minimum donation. One which I must pay to watch earlier episodes of this season through through the PBS app.

Now, to be clear, I don't mind paying to watch a show I enjoy. I've done it many times before, and will likely do it many times again. Still, while one might argue that it's simple semantics, I struggle with the idea of a required donation. It seems, somehow, disingenuous. You have a good show, one that people want to watch. One that people will pay to see. Why not be up front and just fucking charge for it?

This bothered me enough that I decided to look around. The current season - season 6, the last season - isn't on Amazon Prime, but it is on iTunes. For $14.99.

So - for three months worth of donation to PBS I can watch this show - the only show I'm currently interested in watching on PBS - as many times as I want, for as long as I want. This seems a reasonable exchange to me; and certainly more straightforward and up front than a mandatory "donation".

To be clear, I have nothing against public media, and have been a long-term consumer of National Pubic Radio in particular. Many years, though admittedly not all, I have been a contributor. I think there is considerable value in having a service like public radio and television. But when you've moved beyond that and you are marketing a product based upon its desirability, let's be up front and simply charge for it. It seems likely to me that everyone involved will feel better for it as a result.

Uploading Files Online in iOS

For folks who use iOS devices as primary work machines, there have been a couple of limitations in the operating system that can be challenging to work around. A major limitation has been an inability to upload files to websites. For example, my daughter, who participates in online schooling, has historically done most of her schoolwork on an iPad. This is great for flexibility in terms of work location and it's clear in watching her do things like edit video in iMovie that many of her skills are iOS specific - she can do things faster and more effectively on an iOS device than many people can using similar software on a laptop.

When it came time to upload assignments, however, she was stuck. There was no way to upload the work through her school's web interface using the iPad. We set up a workaround by saving the assignments to Dropbox, and then uploading from a desktop machine. This fall, when the 2007 white MacBook she was using for this purpose came to a premature end (hardwood floors, LCD screens, and spinning disks do not a good combination make if introduced at speed), I broke down and bought a used 2013 MacBook Air from Dan Benjamin's online garage sale (@danbenjamin was a delight to interact with, incidentally, and included 5by5 network stickers and a Bacon Method magnet and coffee cup in with the MacBook Air when he sent it - very cool!)

The MacBook Air is a fine computer in general, and the one I purchased from Dan works quite nicely - my daughter was very excited to have it join the household. But it turns out my purchase was, apparently, unnecessary.

I discovered this listening to the inaugural episode of Canvas, a podcast by Frederico Viticci and Fraser Speirs, with a focus on mobile productivity. The episode itself covers a lot of territory, primarily looking at apps that allow for downloading and managing documents on iOS, of which there are multiple options - I can heartily recommend listening to the episode if you are interested in meeting that particular need. For myself, having worked off of iPads for the past several years, it offered a couple of apps I had not heard of, but I'd otherwise already solved the downloading problem for myself, and so I was somewhat impatiently waiting for them to talk about how to upload documents.

It seemed to me a bit like they were giving the uploading side of the conversation short shrift, but when they got to it I realized why:

Apple added the capability to the operating system when they released iOS 9.

I've been using iOS 9 since it came out in September 2015, but I was completely unaware of this change until listening to the Canvas episode earlier this week. Once I heard it I took the first opportunity to find a site that took mobile uploads to see how it works:

The document picker essentially gives you access to any files in iCloud, as well as any file serving service that works with iOS (for us that's Dropbox).

This change functionally eliminates one more barrier that some people may have encountered when considering iOS as a primary platform, taking one more reason off of the list of needs for keeping a "real" computer around the house.

While I'm pleased to see that the feature is now available, I am a little frustrated that it doesn't seem to have been announced in any way by Apple (I've double-checked, and I cannot find it mentioned on the website for iOS 9). If it weren't for the discussion on Canvas, I'd still be unaware of it and, as it stands, iOS 9 came out a full month before I decided to buy the MacBook Air. Had I been aware of this capability, I may not have made that purchase (though it's probably a good thing to have around - the only other family Mac available in the house is nearly a decade old).

App Lag

I mentioned starting to work with the iPad Pro a few weeks ago, and finding a workaround for the fact that some of the apps hadn't yet updated to use the larger keyboard that the device offers.

This is not an atypical experience for people who take in new technology as it comes out. The trade off for the excitement of playing with the new thing is that you also get to find out what doesn't yet work with that new thing. While it has quickly seemed familiar to me, one should, I suppose, bear in mind that the iPad Pro only came out in late November - it's only been around for a couple of months.

What has been around longer, however, is iOS 9. The newest version of the operating system was released September 16th, 2015, and it's had, according to Wikipedia, the fastest adoption rate of any new operating system, appearing on half of all active iOS devices within the first week of release, and on 71% by mid-December.

iOS 9 also has multiple new features that are specific to the iPad, including new multitasking and split screen features. It is surprising to me that there are a number of programs that have not been updated to take advantage of these features. Obviously any new feature is work, and it's understandable that many smaller app development companies will find that they have to prioritize in a way that may not put development for those new features first. This is the way I find myself framing things when I realize that Day One was not only not updated for the new iPad Pro keyboard, but also does not support slide over or split-screen multitasking on any iPad.

But where I can see that for a small company, it's somewhat perplexing when it comes from the larger players. Frederico Vitticci from MacStories has been tweeting his frustration about the lack of support for these features in Google Docs for a while. I don't use Google Docs; my frustration comes from a lack of support from Dropbox. If there ever seemed a service that was designed to be a perfect compliment to the iPad, Dropbox is it - it's your repository for everything you might need to access, right there on your device, even though it's not on your device.

I'm with Frederico, here, in that every time an update comes out for the Dropbox iOS app I'm waiting to see the liner notes indicating that it's been updated for the multitasking features.

Every time I'm disappointed.

Because, as an early-adopter, I'm accustomed to the delays, I know that we're likely to get there eventually, and I'm somewhat content to wait. The longer the delay, though, the more the eye wanders. Although I found the portrait workaround for non-updated keyboards effective, I also wanted to get some practice working with, and becoming accustomed to, the new layout. To meet this, I ended up downloading 1Writer, based upon the recommendation of Serenity Caldwell at iMore.

The upshot of this is that this entire post is written in 1Writer, where I've traditionally written almost everything for my sites in Day One. And, while I'd initially downloaded it as a make-do app, the longer I use it the more I find that it has excellent features - it's support for Markdown is exceptional, and better so far than any other app I've tried - it has an excellent toolbar to allow for quickly entering links and other Markdown features, and today I discovered that it will directly export Markdown text into SquareSpace's Blog app in a Markdown field - no copying or pasting necessary. The multiple steps I've been taking to get my posts on to the website are unnecessary. I've also learned, today, that it has its own web browser to facilitate finding links in the first place. And it supports autocorrect, which Byword, another otherwise excellent Markdown text editor, does not.

I'll copy this to Day One when its finished, to keep everything in my journal where I can easily find it. What becomes clear, though, is that the longer apps delay their updates, the greater the opportunity for competitors who have. Right now 1Writer is where I'm starting my writing process. That wasn't the case a month ago. I'm starting to wonder whether the alternatives to Dropbox have updated their iOS apps...

Star Wars...

We made arrangements to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens on Christmas Eve. The movie had been out for a week or two when we went to see it and, out in the hinterlands where we live it didn’t draw the same degree of crowds that it might in more urban settings[1]. Still, it certainly is the big movie of the season, so we went ahead and got our tickets in advance. All in all it was a delightful experience, made even more so by the multiple post-game discussions on the Incomparable Podcast.

For my part, watching the movie and listening to the podcasts made me want to go back and watch the original movies. By original, I am, of course, referring to episodes IV, V, and VI - A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. I am led to believe there were some other movies, made later, that I might even recall having seen in the theatre at the time, that also purported to carry the name “Star Wars” but, out of respect, we shall not speak of those…

As an adult with an actual, full time (or slightly more than) work schedule, making time to actually watch the movies was somewhat challenging. We finally managed to get the first movie in this weekend[2]. Though I have to admit it’s not the first time this has occurred to me, one of the primary impressions A New Hope leaves is one of just how quickly the world, apparently, can change.

Luke, our hero, comes across an old dude in the desert and, within the course of a half-hour or so, decides to entirely abandon his family farm and take off with the old dude to fight against the evil Empire. This is, of course, made somewhat easier by the fact that his guardians - his aunt and uncle, who are functionally the only parents he has ever known - are conveniently killed by stormtroopers. The fact that Ben - Obi Wan Kenobi - is completely unsurprised by the sequence of events is apparently lost on Luke. Of course Luke doesn’t know what we, the (unfortunate) viewers of The Prequels know: Ben could clearly have prevented their deaths.

But let’s not dwell on that.

Over the course of the remainder of the movie Luke manages to help negotiate passage on a freighter, fight his way into, and then out of, a detention center on an Imperial space station, and ultimately to be an exceptional pilot, blowing up that same space station. All based upon his skills as a moisture farmer on a backwater desert planet. And all of it appears to occur over the course of a few hours - maybe a couple of days, at best.

I’ve actually had these thoughts before, and none of this is to suggest that I don’t continue to dearly love these movies. Still, the turnaround for Luke in the first movie is truly astonishing. In our world he’d be the equivalent of a farm kid from Kansas or Nebraska - a hard life, to be sure, but with nothing in his background to suggest that he would suddenly become an expert pilot and a crack shot with military weapons. I didn’t question these things when I first saw these movies - but then I was six years old at the time. As an adult I suspect it’s a good thing that young Master Skywalker had a wise old Jedi Master, and a time-hardened smuggler, at his side to help him work his way through the world. It’s unlikely he would have made it on his own.

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Update

Let me note also, now that I’m winding my way thru the other two movies that, in Jedi Luke - undeniably the most powerful member of the Endor landing party - completely abandons his friends to go and have a confrontation with Darth Vader and the Emperor.

What a douche.

Ultimately he has virtually no impact on the final outcome of the movie. He’s busy arguing with the Emperor throughout the last half-hour or so of the movie. His friends are engaged in an assault on the shield generator, and the fleet above is getting torn apart because the Death Star remains protected behind a shield - both events which Luke’s involvement would have brought quickly to a close - while he is engaged in banal chit-chat about who will and who won’t be turning to the dark side[3].

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1. This is, of course, one of the primary reasons one might choose not to live in an urban setting. It is true that we are somewhat less in the forefront of cultural events but, when they do occur, it isn’t necessary to crawl across the bodies of one’s fellow humans to access them either.  ↩

2. In all fairness, MLW and LB managed to get the whole thing in on New Year’s Eve, and then were also subject to it on New Year’s Day, due to my personal inability to remain conscious. This has less to do with the movie, mind, than it has to do with a slightly ridiculous work schedule.  ↩

3. Emperor Palpatine has to be, by far, the least convincing persuasive speaker ever. You wouldn’t buy a used car from this guy, much less join his little club of evil. ”Strike down your father and take his place at my side… What? These scars all over my face? The fact that your father has to wear biomechanical S&M gear just to breathe? Pay no attention to that - being a Sith is great…"  ↩

Snow Tiring

Snow Tires

Every year, as the weather turns colder, I go through a ritual that involves hauling out a jack, removing one set of wheels from each of our cars, and putting another set in their place. Actually, I'll admit that, as I've gotten a little older, I try to make arrangements to have someone else do the heavy lifting in the project, though this year, a combination of busy schedule and procrastination meant that it was up to me.

I've been putting snow tires on my cars for at least the last 15 years. Until the Internet pretty much eliminated the magazine from my life, I was a regular reader of car magazines, particularly Car & Driver. They could be counted upon every year to do a roundup of snow tires, including routine measurements and demonstrations of vehicle capabilities on snow and ice with and without winter rubber.

Most people don't do this, of course. Most cars come with "all weather" tires that are designed to provide some reasonable level of grip in, well, all kinds of weather. Snow tires represent an additional cost - one is purchasing an entire additional set of tires for the vehicle, of course - and often a storage issue, unless one has a friendly tire shop which will agree to hold on to the off-season wheels. In the United States, at least, the common "extra-step" approach to dealing with winter weather is to buy a vehicle with some variation of four- or all-wheel drive.

I can speak from personal experience, incidentally, when I say that four-wheel drive does an exceptional job of getting one through very deep snow. Unfortunately, it does absolutely nothing with respect to helping the vehicle turn or stop in slippery winter conditions. I can, unfortunately, speak from personal experience in that regard as well.

By dint of busy schedule and procrastination, however, I am quite late in getting the snow tires on the car this year. As such, I had the opportunity to drive my car with its all-weather tires through a bit of snow the weekend of December 18th.

I have to admit that I may have periodically gotten a bit frustrated with other drivers in the winter, as they move so incredibly slowly in front of me following a dusting of the white stuff. It's remotely possible that I've called one or two of my fellow travelers less-than-flattering names from behind the safety of my window glass. It's been many, many years since I've had to navigate a winter landscape on anything other than purpose-built tires, and so I didn't understand.

But now, fellow traveler, I understand again why the winter snowfall makes you operate your vehicle like an octogenarian who's just left the optometrist having had his eyes dilated:

Your tires suck. They suck balls.

I realized this most acutely as I approached an intersection with a stoplight, preparing to turn left. My foot was firmly planted on the brake, the anti-lock brakes could be heard to do their work, pumping away. It was all for naught, the notion of stopping at the stop line in the intersection mere whimsy, the thought of the vehicle actually turning in response to the physical motion of the steering wheel, laughable.

I came through my non-stop without incident, I'm happy to say. But it was a painful reminder that "all-weather" really just means "compromise". Given how very different - how very much better - vehicles perform in the snow with winter tires, I'm honestly a little surprised snow belt states don't require them.

iPad Pro Keyboard

iPad Pro set in portrait orientation on the left, iPad Air 2 (in a BookBook Case) in landscape orientation on the left.

I have had an iPad Pro now for a couple of weeks. I have had some difficulty incorporating it into my workflow. I knew that having it was going to be useful, and I have some ideas about how, but it will take some time to fully integrate it.

One of the more frustrating things is how long it is taking some of the app developers to update their apps for the device. In particular this means apps don’t take full advantage of the features of the device, and I am particularly struggling with the failure to integrate the iPad Pro’s new virtual keyboard (which is, in and of itself, pretty awesome - it’s essentially a full keyboard).

In part, this presents an issue because it will take me a bit of time to learn the new keyboard. After five years of typing on glass with the 9.7“ iPad I have a lot of habits based upon that device’s keyboard. For example, I use a lot of dashes in my writing, and I have a habit of hitting the little ”.?123“ button in the lower left-hand corner in order to access that item. But two things are different on the new keyboard. First, there is now a dash on the main keyboard, right where you would expect it on a typical physical keyboard. Second, the Pro reverses the location of the ”.?123“ button and the emoticon button; this means that I keep accidentally accessing the emoticon keyboard when I intend to access the ”.?123" keyboard.

One of non-updated apps in question is Day One, the journaling app I use to do the overwhelming majority of my writing. This means that, when I set the app up in landscape format, I get a comically-large version of the keyboard from the 9.7" iPad, which is spaced all wrong, making typing a challenge.

To better incorporate the new iPad Pro I considered actually pairing it with a Bluetooth keyboard, something I haven’t actually done since the first-generation iPad[1]. And then I remembered something: the size of the iPad Pro is frequently described in articles as being, in landscape, about the size of two 9.7“ iPad screens side by side. This also would mean, that in portrait the iPad Pro is about as wide as a 9.7” iPad in landscape.

Which means that the portrait version of the old keyboard on the iPad Pro is almost exactly the same size as the landscape version on the iPad Air. So I turned Day One to portrait orientation and started typing. This entire entry has been typed on the iPad Pro in portrait orientation. It’s worked quite nicely.

This won’t last, of course. Eventually Day One and the other apps I use will update to put the new keyboard in, and I will be writing on them in Landscape, and learning the new keyboard. But it’s nice to have found a work-around in the meantime.

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1. When the iPad first came out this was exactly how I pictured using it - with a keyboard paired, writing in that format all over the place. But, as often happens when a new system presents itself - in this case, the virtual keyboard - I became curious about using the new thing instead. It turns out that it’s quite possible to type very quickly and effectively on a virtual keyboard.  ↩

Old Soldiers

For the past decade we have been an Apple household. Among the reasons for this - and one that continues to surprise me - is the longevity of these machines. I may have mentioned before that my first Mac, a 2005 Power PC Mac Mini, continues to soldier on as our media server, a decade after I bought it and several years after it reached the end of its service as a work machine.

The Mini was replaced by a late 2006 iMac, which served for several years before being placed into retirement as a machine for my daughter to use for school. Still, longevity and all aside, it appeared over the past year that the iMac had finally reached the end of its useful life. It was having trouble running for any significant period of time without locking up, and varying white lines across the display suggested to me that the graphics card was on its way out. It was set off to the side, and replaced with a lightly used and well-cared for 2012 MacBook Air that I purchased from Dan Benjamin at the 5by5 Podcast network.

By "set it off to the side" I essentially mean literally that. It sat, for months, on the floor beside my desk, waiting for me to have the time to decommission it by wiping the hard drive and sending it off to the recycling center.

I finally got around to it over the weekend before Thanksgiving. I dragged the Snow Leopard disk out of one of my drawers-o'-technology, and used disk utility to do a secure wipe of the hard drive. Done right this takes a while, and I let it run for several hours (and overnight) while I did other things.

When it was done I noticed that, while running off of the install disk, none of the white lines appeared. This, despite the fact that it had been running for hours. Given this, I went ahead and did a clean install of Snow Leopard just to see what I'd get.

The iMac has been running more or less continuously since the Sunday before Turkey Day, a full two weeks now, with only a brief interruption due to a power outage. The screen is free of artifacts. Essentially, it appears that the machine itself was fine, it just needed a clean install to recover from nearly a decade of continual use.

Of course, now this leaves me wondering what to do with it. Its operating system is several generations behind (10.6.8 vs 10.11 for El Capitan), and it doesn't have some of the bells and whistles of the newer systems like Handoff, for example. However, a little exploring after the clean install finds that it does, for example, run the iWork suite just fine through iCloud.com (though, ironically, I had to install Google Chrome to do this). So, it could serve as a backup desktop system for now, I suppose, while it waits to take its turn as a media server when (if?) the Mini finally shuffled off.

Military Ridge Trail

Military Ridge Trail Ridgeway Wi to Barneveld Wi

Most years for Thanksgiving we travel to the Cheese State to spend the holiday with MLW's family. My sister-in-law suggested that I bring along my bike this year and take advantage of the bike trails in the area. Seemed like a pretty good idea - in line with REI's #optoutside campaign and all - so I did just that.

The Military Ridge State Trail is a Rails-To-Trails path that runs from Dodgeville to Madison. The entire trail is about 40 miles long, but that seemed a touch optimistic after all the turkey and wine, so I rode from Ridgeway to Barneveld and back. The trail over this section is primarily crushed stone, which was very soft following the persistent rain we had here for Thanksgiving. It was a fair amount of work, and I was rarely able to get MLW's Schwinn up into the big front ring. The Schwinn, incidentally, I borrowed partly in anticipation of encountering surfaces which would not be friendly toward my vintage Cannondale road bike, and partly because said road bike is in desperate need of some rear-wheel maintenance.

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Enjoying this post? Check out our Cycling page for links to other cycling articles on Applied Life

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With regard to scenery this section of trail is somewhat of a mixed bag. The area in general is beautiful. The Baraboo region is essentially an ancient, buried mountain range, the peaks of which jut above the sediment, giving an alpine feel in a landscape of rolling hills. If you like the outdoors and live in the Great Lakes portion of the Midwest it's an excellent place to spend time. It provides a wonderful backdrop for any riding trip.

As is sometimes the case for riding trails converted from rail lines, though, the trail often runs within direct view of the highway. In addition, while most of it is bordered by plowed farmland, this section does run past a fairly large livestock operation, which one can detect via olfactory means before one actually lays eyes on it.

I had the trail entirely to myself, being the only person nuts enough to be out riding in 30-degree weather, and overall, it was a nice way to spend some time on Black Friday.

Opportunity Lost

The recent turn of Thor - which features a female version of the Thunder God - came up for sale on Comixology at $0.99/issue, so I snapped them up. I had been waiting for them to show up on Marvel Unlimited, which is sort of like Netflix for Marvel Comics, but that seems to be taking some time, and I've been looking forward to reading this, so I took the opportunity.

I wish I had waited.

There was, as I recall, a fair amount of controversy surrounding this artistic (and, let's be honest, marketing) decision. I've been a fan of the Norse Myths - both the "originals" and Marvel's version - since I was very young. To me, this was an opportunity to provide some new life and perspective into an old story, as well as offering a bit more focus on female characters.

Unfortunately, it's poorly told.

They could have told a complex story that shows the individual strength of a female character in a subtly patriarchal society. Instead, the authors made the decision to distill Odin - a truly, intensely complicated character - down into a base, sexist pig as a foil against which to have its female characters fence. They might just as well have have put a beard and eye patch on Archie Bunker and had him told Freyja to stifle and get him a beer.

I have other difficulties with the series. The artwork is mediocre at best, with a handful of nice moments (Mjollnir flying into the month of a Frost Giant and then out the back of his head among them) spoiled by a preponderance of lazy work that relies upon colored hammer flight paths rather than showing real action much of the time. It is, in fact, often difficult to determine what is actually supposed to have happened from what is drawn on the page. Additionally, the artist appears to believe that shorter male facial hair should look like AstroTurf - and Thor - the male character - is drawn in the fashion of Chris Hemsworth in a light beard, so there's a lot of AstroTurf on display.

In addition, the entire storyline relies upon Marvel's concept that Mjollnir can only be lifted by the "worthy". This seems, again, artistically lazy, given that it's been a repeated mechanism drawn upon in the movies of late. I also personally struggle with it because, as a long-time fan, I recall that the enchantment that causes this was removed by Odin in the Walt Simonson run of the comic series (Issue 340) back in 1984. I'm sure, given the intricacies of comic book continuity it was re-established somewhere along the way, but I struggle with it nonetheless.

The whole run seems an opportunity lost.

Red

A while ago I opined about the derogation that is directed towards Sammy Hagar when it comes to his time in Van Halen. This was inspired by listening to Van Halen specific playlists on Apple Music, and those playlists also reminded me that Hagar had come out with a memoir a few years ago, titled Red.

I'd come across the book by chance in a somewhat atypical bookstore in Denver - a place called The Tattered Cover - when we were there for a conference a couple of years ago. I was curious about it - I've been listening to Sammy Hagar since I was in junior high - but it wasn't available on Audible at the time (I've found that I typically can't keep my eyes open when I try to read in the evenings any more, so I capitalize on the opportunity to "read" when I'm driving and working around the house and yard), so I made a mental note of it and moved on.

Listening to the playlists fired up that mental note, and I did a renewed search on Audible, with success this time. A couple of clicks later I was the proud owner of the unabridged audiobook, and set about listening in the car, on my bike, working on my trailer...

...It is, as they say, possible to know too much about those you admire.

Perhaps unwisely, I had entered into the book with hopes of learning about Hagar's approach to writing music, pulling lyrics together, playing guitar. While I would never describe Sammy as a musical genius - for every thoughtful, interesting song like Remember the Heroes or Salvation on Sand Hill there is another like Sweet Hitchiker - his material has often struck me as presenting a working class philosophy, perhaps colored with a bit of California beach life for good measure. Within that structure as well he's always been a master of the hard-rock hook, producing songs with a musical edge that also stick with you.

After listening to Red I don't know any more about how he accomplishes any of that than I did before I started it. In fact, I couldn't even say whether he thinks about his music in any way even close to what I've just described above. The amount of time dedicated to anything about actual music production is so brief and poorly described as to almost leave one wondering whether he actually sees himself as a musician, as opposed to just a guy who shows up on stage in-between parties and expensive purchases.

Red is, in short, a tell-all book.

To be clear, my disappointment here is most certainly my fault. In retrospect, it is obviously the case that someone - either Hagar himself or a manager or publicist with his ear - encouraged him to produce something that covered all of the "titillating" details of his time with Van Halen before public interest dwindled to nothing. After all, his 10-year span with the band started nearly 30 years ago, in 1986.

But there's something more here.

When telling a story - even a tell-all like this book - one would like the author to have some self-awareness with respect to how he is presenting himself. He is, after all, the main character of the book, it's hero, for want of a better word. What we see of Sammy Hagar here, however, is a man in his 60's who, although looking back on his life, hasn't seen, is perhaps unable to see, the inconsistencies between who he describes himself as and who he actually presents as being.

Examples include passages in which he indicates that he doesn't really drink or do drugs, followed a short time later by descriptions of himself jumping into a limo and snorting coke with Eddie Van Halen; and indicating that he was largely faithful to his first wife, except, of course, for all of the random casual sex he had when he was on the road.

Perhaps the most troubling example of this, however, are the ongoing descriptions of how much time he spent away from home, and how difficult it was on his first wife, who nonetheless tolerated it and supported him; followed by his protestations that she was really bringing him down when he finally had to take a year off to care for her after she had a nervous breakdown; and that followed by his eventual breakup with her accomplished largely by avoiding her by moving from place to place ahead of her attempts to meet up with him and to bring his children to see him. At Christmas.

I actually found myself wondering whether he actually read the book after it was compiled (it seems clear from the way it reads that it was a series of stories dictated to someone else to have it out together).

I was grousing about all of this to my 13-year old daughter when I was about two-thirds of the way through the book. I went on long enough, apparently, that she felt the need to pat me on the shoulder and say "Dad, you know you can stop listening to it, right?"

But I couldn't. It was like passing an accident on the side of the road - you don't want to look, but you are compelled. I had to finish it.

There were interesting bits. Hagar is the second musician of his era whom I've learned has chosen to enter other businesses so that he doesn't have to rely upon music as an income (Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull being the first; I'm sure they are not unique in this). I learned that Marching to Mars, probably my favorite Hagar solo album, was a poor money maker. I learned that he owns a chain of bicycle shops.

And, fortunately, I find that I still enjoy the music.

Of Bikes and Batteries... And Cell Phones

The Mophie Powerstation fits nicely in my frame bag.  

In an unusual twist the weather today - November 1 - turned out to be perfect for riding.

When I go out for rides I use my iPhone to track my distance, speed, etc, using an app called Cyclemeter. I also use it, paired with my Jumbl Bluetooth Audio Receiver, to listen to audiobooks and podcasts while I'm riding[^1].

The difficulty is that, on longer rides, the battery on the iPhone may have trouble keeping up. It's not really the phone's fault - it's being asked to do a lot: run the the GPS radio continuously, keep the screen lit, and transmit audio over Bluetooth. For rides that run longer than an hour it's hit or miss as to whether the phone will last the entire ride. I can lengthen this by turning off the screen, which can help quite a bit, but I enjoy the feedback the app gives.

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It occurred to me a while back that I could take a battery pack and attach that to the phone while I was riding. They do make products to do this - for example, this gizmo that uses the power from your pedaling to provide a charge. But that type of thing seemed fiddly and expensive, and a simple battery pack like the ones made by Mophie would also have uses in settings besides riding.

So that's what I did. I purchased a Mophie Powerstation and set it up to sit in my frame bag, with a lightening cable connecting it to the iPhone, secured to the frame using a Velcro cable strap. I've been using it for the past two or three months, and it works like a charm. I have enough power to get through the ride without worrying about my charge, with a minimum of fuss.

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[^1]: The entertainment for today's ride was the 10/29/15 episode of NPR's Ask Me Another featuring Bruce Campbell and Lucy Lawless. I always enjoy this show, but it was exceptionally good this time - both Bruce (from the Evil Dead movie franchise and Burn Notice, as well as the short lived, and truly awful Brisco Country Junior) and Lucy (Xena: Warrior Princess and Battlestar Galactica) were some of the funniest guests I've ever heard on the show.

VW Beetle Fifth Wheel

For most of my life I've been a small car guy. I've had somewhat larger vehicles - my first car was a '77 Chevy Camaro, and I've had a couple of Toyota Pickups - but I've generally run toward the smaller, more economical and flexible arrangement of the compact hatchback. 

Flexible: Need more room for stuff? Fold the seats down. Got something long to carry?  Leave the hatch open. Got something that won't fit inside?  Put a roof rack on it. 

And: got something you don't want in it or on it? Get a trailer. 

This latter idea is not one that I think is universally shared surrounding small cars. They generally don't have a lot of torque for pulling, and usually don't have tow ratings provided by the manufacturer. So where does the idea come from?

I was considering this the other day and, unbidden, a memory arose of a segment I had seen years ago on the PBS car show Motorweek. The Internet, being a (sometimes) wonderful thing, found it after just a couple minutes of looking: