New website!

OK, after many fits and starts, I finally overhauled my website. This exercise has reinforced my understanding that I am not very good at website design... It's not quite finished, I need to add some more content, but that will come as I feel like it. It's still a really simple site, that's by design. My main goals were to update the look a bit and get rid of the clutter that no one ever looked at, including me. I still need to put up my econ papers, those actually got a fair number of views and they are what drove more outside visitors to my site as opposed to family and friends. Please let me know if there are any obvious bugs or problems!

More iPad apps

A few more apps I've become smitten with... First up is something that sounds trivial, but it really works well. I'm using the FIOS remote app. It lets me view the program viewer, chose the channel, and gives me a duplicate remote control on the iPad. This is nice because I'm using a tiny 13" TV right now and it's awfully tough to read the stupid TV guide onscreen. In addition, the regular remote control seems to have an incredibly narrow angle of view. I have to aim carefully in order to change a channel. The iPad app uses wifi, so it works no matter where I am in the house. Plus, it's really quick.

OK, that one is handy, this next one is amazing. Its name is Awedetorium.

 

This is an app that really takes advantage of how you use the iPad and it fits in really well. It is a music discovery app, all of those tiles you see are different bands. When you tap on one, the image fills the screen and a song from them starts playing. While it plays, the app will pop up all sorts of factoids about the band.

 

 

Along the bottom, you'll see some controls that will allow you to buy the song, favorite it, and even show you a video (the main image is a still one). The main screen with all the times can be scrolled though, there are hundreds and hundreds of bands on there. I'll be browsing though this for a long time. I'm also under the impression that they keep adding new songs and bands to the the app. I've come across all sorts of music on there, country, folk, noise, hip hop, and lots and lots of rock. Best of all, it's a free app! I am constantly amazed at the quality of apps I can find, even for free.

 

Using the iPad

As I use the iPad more and more, I find myself using the internet less and lass and using apps instead. In other words, instead of going to Google Reader to read my RS feeds or to Facebook to keep up with stuff, I am using the programs Reeder and Facely to access those things. The apps seem more natural and better integrated than the web experience.

 

I have also found myself getting sucked into whatever I am doing on the iPad more than I did on the computer. The iPad does an amazing job of isolating the current task and eliminating distractions. I've already mentioned how much nicer it is to read on the iPad, RSS feeds and email are a pleasure. Now I find myself doing other things like listening to music in a much more intensive way.

 

OK, I know that I tend to listen more intently than most anyway, but this is taking it to another level. When I use the iPod app on the iPad, my music will stream wirelessly from my computer to the iPad. I have headphones on (currently using a pair of VModa crossfade LPs), the album artwork for the song I'm listening to pops up, and with a tap, I get the lyrics as well. Listening to the music while reading the lyrics is a very different experience, the more obscure or opaque the lyrics the more clarity is gained. Even with straightforward lyrics (Red Football by SInead O'Connor for example), there is more impact. Yes, this can be done looking at the web while itunes is playing on the computer, but the way it is presented on the iPad is totally different. There are no banner ads, google ads, or various other distractions, just the album artwork and the lyrics.

The same goes for all of the other apps as well. The Economist magazine, Omaha Steaks, the games, etc, are all a more focused experience on the ipad. I think this is great, it is a way of working that I haven't really done since college. Of course back then I tended to single task on the computer because there wasn't anything else to do. Or to see, come to think of it... it was all command line interface back then.

I'm still using my computer. There are times I want to have everything going on at the same time. Plus, I'm still looking for a good blogging program. I am looking forward to a new computer sooner than later. Part of it is for using it as a computer of course (Can't wait to do the real work on my website on a real screen) but part of it is for the iPad as well. The streaming capabilities will be much better on the new computer... Plus, I'll be able to use the iPad as an input device as well. As cool as the Magic trackpad is, I gotta think the iPad is going to take multi gestures to the next level.

There'll be more apps and thoughts about the iPad from me soon...

If you love America, you throw money in its hole.

Why is it that the Onion is what we rely on to uncover what's really going on? This piece is amazing. They manage to skewer  most of the political spectrum with this bit. Even when you have someone on a discussion show try to argue in favor of personal choice, they are still as insane as everyone else on the show. The rest of them really are how I see Keynesian talking heads, they have never made any sense to me. Some of my favorite quotes include the title of this post and "... if I did (receive money) I would throw it in the hole, because I am a patriot!" And there's the priceless "It's like they say, you have to throw money in a hole and set it on fire if you want to make money."

 

 

More Atari

As much as I loved playing Atari games at home, I was only ever good at two of them, Warlords and Yar's Revenge. I pretty much sucked at all the other action games. I never did well at any of the arcade games even though I spent a fortune (to an 11 year old) there. Games like Defender really intimidated me. I enjoyed watching people play that, but I only ever attempted it a couple of times. Still, it was a good time at the arcade.

I went to the arcade that was within walking distance of my house all the time. There was a guy there that I saw all the time, he was a real whiz on all the tough games, even on the pinball games. He always seemed to wear a Black Sabbath t-shirt all the time, it was my first awareness of that group. He disappeared for a while and when he came back, he was in a uniform. He had gotten shipped off to some military school and got shaped up. No more arcade for him!

The two biggest and best arcades I ever went into were both on vacations. The first was in the bottom of the Contemporary Hotel in Disney world. Keep in mind that this was before Epcot was built. I don't actually remember much about that trip, but I sure do remember that arcade! It was huge, I thought i had died and gone to heaven. They had the latest games, but they also had all the classics like Space Invaders, Star Castle, and Lunar Lander. They even had some mechanical arcade games that predated the electronic ones. The other one was on the boardwalk in Cape May NJ. I didn't care a whit about the beach (still don't) but I wanted to live in that arcade. They had all those pseudo gambling games there that gave you tokens instead of money and also skeeball. Those were a real novelty to me and I ate it up.

When we moved away from the suburbs, my arcade days were over. Every once in a great while I would wander into a game room in a mall, but they were never proper arcades and they left me cold. Plus, none of the games there really resonated with me. Dragon Slayer was all the rage, but it's animated sequences off of a laser disk left me cold. I missed the vector graphics of the old Atari games...

Years later, while I was in college, I came across an original stand up Missile Command game in Cortland NY. I got all misty eyed even though that was a game that came out before I got into the arcades. I had played it on the Atari home system and it was cool to see the original. Fast forward another couple of years and I was in Vancouver with my brother and father. I found an original tabletop, 4 player Warlords arcade game.

 

I was dumbstruck. That was the one game I owned on the Atari console at home. And when I say "owned" I mean it was the one game I dominated in. I could play anyone and beat them. It was my one taste of video game mastery. I had no idea that the arcade version had ever existed. I wanted it so badly. I had visions of being the guy that could beat anyone else in an arcade, including the dude in the Black Sabbath t-shirt. Alas, it wasn't to be. I sadly left it in Vancouver and despaired of ever seeing it again.

Imagine my surprise when I loaded it on my iPad. I may never stop smiling. Total nostalgia overload....

Atari games

Atari has released an app for the iPad and iPhone that includes 100 games. That got my attention. I loved Atari back in the day, my life revolved around it for a couple years of my life. I got one for Christmas one year and it made my year. I had lots of friends with the system and we would go from house to house playing various ones.

Even then, we knew that the vast majority of Atari games sucked. Their version of Space Invaders had pretty good game play, and there were a handful of other Atari games that were OK. Most of the really good ones were made by other companies like Activision and Imagic. My favorite games that we owned were Warlords and Yar's Revenge both by Atari, Boxing and Pitfall both by Activision, Riddle of the Sphinx and Trick Shot both by Imagic. The reason we knew that most of Atari's games sucked was because we also went to the Arcade.

That is where the real magic was. They were dark, had lots of sounds, loud music, and flashing lights. Magic. Atari did well early on in the arcade. Games like Asteroids, Battlezone, Tempest, and Centipede were really popular. As time went on, other companies took the lead in both arcade and console gaming and by 1984 Atari was essentially dead. What a rise and flameout...

I bought the iPad app of course. The ability to have all of these games for $15 was just too good to pass up. The stars are the arcade games. Check these out...

 

Tempest has a really good control system on the iPad. I was a little leery because of the absence of the original wheel, but the virtual scroll wheel on the left does a great job.

 

 

 

Space Duel was an Asteroids-type of game although I'm not sure which came first. I'm partial to Space Duel because of the cool linked ships. It always led to craziness when you played with two people... At first, I thought the control wheel on the left was a bit of a pain in ass to use but then I remembered the original controls were a pain as well.

 

SO the games are great of course, but Atari also packaged some great promotional materials with each game as well. Check out this sweet tabletop version of Asteroids!

 

 

 

All in all, an amazing app for $15. If you're as nostolgic as I am for those early arcade days, you owe it to yourself to pick this up. I hope Activision releases all of their old Atari games and all the old console makers do the same...

iPad apps

OK, I've had a day or so to fool around with my iPad, here are some of the apps that have stood out to me...

 

1) iPod. This is something I didn't anticipate using since I wasn't going to put any of my music on the ipad. There's a new wrinkle though that has made it something I will use quite a bit. That wrinkle is called home sharing. I can stream anything from my main itunes library to my ipad inside the ipad app. Why would I do that? The ipad is a lot more comfortable than my laptop for viewing videos, plus the screen is better too. Now I can watch my stuff at home without having to take up any space on the iPad.

 

2) Reeder. This is a great RSS feed reader. It's simple, legible, and stable. I was caught off guard by how nice it is to read my copious rss feeds in this app. It's quick, and easy on the eyes. I like the full page view which removes just about everything except the article I'm reading. It's hard to explain, but for an infovore like myself, this is going to be one of my most used apps. I tried using Flipboard, but I found it too busy, tooiPeng precious. Reeder does it right. Give me the article and remove all other distractions.

 

3) Email. Once again, this caught me by surprise. Reading email on this device is a real pleasure. There's something about having the message take up the whole screen that is lovely. All the other mail clients I've used look and feel clumsy and busy by comparison.

 

4) iPeng. I have this app for my iPhone as well, it's something I use quite a bit around the house. It is a remote controller for my squeezebox. I was a bit peeved to find out I had to buy it again for my iPad, and it was 10 bucks no less. Still, I knew I would use it a lot, so I sprung for it. Wow, this is a big improvement over the iPhone version! Sure, it is bigger, but it also has a lot of other refinements. For instance, I have much finer control over the volume on this as compared to the iPhone version. Plus, it is great to see the cover art so big too. If you have a squeezebox, this is well worth it.

 

5) Mobile Me Gallery. I use this app on both my Iphone and iPad so that I don't have to take up much space on my devices but still be able to see all of my pictures. I'm still using it for that, but wow, pictures look great on this thing. It might even inspire me to go and take some more pictures...

 

6) TED talks. TED is a well known conference with great speakers. This app brings them all together and makes it easy to find the ones you're looking for.

7) Omaha Steaks. Warning, do not use this app if you are hungry! It has a bunch of recipes, instructional videos, and, oh, they happen to have an order system just in case you want to order any steaks...

There are several games that I have been very impressed with. I'm going to give some of them their own posts and I'll do some of them here. I want to say that I really didn't anticipate games being much of an attraction to me but once again, put them on the iPad and they become so much more difficult to resist.

The first game I downloaded was Words with friends. It's a scrabble like game that I started on the iPhone. Having the much larger screen really makes a difference. The other game is one I tried on a whim, it is called Bust a Marble. It is a classic match colors and things blow up kind of game. I seem to be a sucker for those sorts of things, I've played lots and lots of Bejewelled, this is just as addictive.

 

As I come up with more apps that are great, I'll post about them.

 

Government funding

A friend on facebook was recently complaining that because of the looming government shutdown, he was facing no trash pickup, and the closure of the pool he practices in. He rightly criticizes the folks in DC over their political grandstanding and arguing over petty things, but I think he missed the real issue. I can't help but point out that if things are funded by the government, they are subject to the whims of the political process. And that includes everything from park access to social security checks. Reasonable people can disagree over what the government needs to fund, but we should always keep in mind just how tenuous that funding actually is. Things that seem like a good idea to fund when your team is in power suddenly don't seem like such a good idea or are in danger when the other team takes over. You can't really depend on stability in the political sphere, so why would you count on stability of services from it?

When the government shuts down, there will be plenty of places where pools are open and trash is collected because they aren't operated by the government. Sure, those can be interrupted too, but there are consequences for them if that happens. In the private sector, the pursuit of profits, fear of competition, and possible legal implications over broken contracts keep things going. Things tend to get done more often than not in the private sector. I keep hoping that at some point the discourse will shift over to the idea that perhaps we depend too much on the political process. I'm not holding my breath, especially around here.

The campaigning has started already

I've started to get posts in my facebook profile about the "In it to win it" effort to re-elect Obama in 2012. Pop quiz, which party starts wars and expands existing ones, adds trillions and trillions to the federal deficit, busts people legally selling marijuana to cancer patients, has a terrible track record on civil rights, operates secret (and not so secret) detention centers across the world and routinely denies habeas corpus to it's inmates, and bails out and supports large business and special interests on the taxpayer tab? Trick question, it's both parties of course.

 

For the life of me, I can't figure out why Obama supporters still support him, he has become everything he professed to hate when he was running in 2008. Where have the anti-war protestors gone? Where is the anger about Gitmo? Why does Obama seemingly get a free pass on all of these things? The only thing I can come up with is that the people that were protesting before were really protesting the fact that the "wrong" team was in office. That would also broadly fit into the reasons behind the more recent protests. Anything the tea partiers are protesting could have been relevant when Bush II was in office, and yet they didn't show up then. Cheerleaders, that's all that republicans and democrats seem to be.

Despite all of my gripes, Obama is in a weaker position now then he was last election. Luckily for him, the republicans don't seem to be able to come up with a real candidate. It reminds me of when dubya was running for a second term and all the Dems could come up with was John Kerry. I really think that the only republican that would have a real chance against Obama is Ron Paul. That's because he is, and has been, anti-war, anti-drug war, anti-deficit, pro 2nd amendment. He was against the bailouts, doesn't trust the federal reserve, and is adamantly against corporate welfare. The really wonderful thing about him is that all of that is philosophically consistent, all of his positions are based upon individual liberty and autonomy. He hasn't flipped his positions, check out the speeches from Obama's 2008 campaign if you want to see the definition of a weasel politician. Of course, the reason Paul won't get the nomination is because he is too different from regular republicans. The irony is that makes him different from most Democrats too, making him the ideal candidate to run against Obama.

 

I predict more of the same fiscal mismanagement, foreign entanglements, crony capitalism, and vacuous assurances that they are doing everything possible to make everyone better off in 2012. I know, crazy prediction, right?