An Argument for the Obvious

David Pogue of the Times, who I do not much enjoy, nevertheless made an argument for the obvious that is worth reblogging. In fact, everyone should reblog this until software designers get a clue. From Pogue's review of the new Office 2011 for Mac:

The Mac suite now includes the Ribbon, a horizontal toolbar that’s built into Office for Windows. What I don’t get is this: Last time I checked, computer screens were all wider than they are tall. The last thing you’d want to do is to eat up that limited *vertical* screen space with interface clutter like the Ribbon. Don’t we really want those controls off to the *side,* like as with the Formatting Palette in the previous Mac Office?

In my previous post I mentioned that most computer LCDs now adhere to a squished 16:9 format, mimicking wide-screen TVs. Lots of width, little height. You have to spend big to get a taller 16:10 monitor, $500 or more, and the squarish 4:3 monitors of old are long gone. If you actually use your computer monitor for reading, as more than a few people do, you want a tall screen rather than a wide one. Optimal line width for reading is constrained (traditionally, 66 characters is considered the ideal). Our brains cannot effectively parse long lines. You can't just stretch Word docs or web pages across your massive 1920 screen. If you want more text on screen, you can only go taller. And all computer workers want to read more and scroll less.

Software design has ignored these facts, constantly cramming more and more into the tops and bottoms of our screens. Software and system controls needs to be designed vertically for modern superwide desktops. In this respect, the palette in the previous version of Office for Mac was obvious and brilliant. I've always wished it would find it's way onto the PC. Microsoft has now homogenized the platforms on that account, but in entirely the wrong direction. Oh well. One less reason to feel Mac envy.

True Colors

Anyone who uses a computer ten or more hours a day, like I do, appreciates two things above all else: a good chair and a good monitor. Chairs are easy. Just sell a kidney and buy yourself a Leap. Trust me.

Monitors are harder. Most people just want big and bright, and they want it cheap. The market has responded with a flood of 21.5" to 24" 1920x1080 ("full HD") LCDs. You can buy them any day of the week starting at $170 or less.

But LCD technology is not monolithic. All LCD monitors use the same basic technology, called TFT, but there are various subtypes. At work I use a 5 year-old Dell 2405FPW 24" LCD that has a PVA panel. When introduced, it was probably about $1200.

PVA technology is still used on some high-end monitors. Rather than the now-prevalent 1920x1080 (16:9 ratio), it is sized at 1920x1200 (16:10 ratio). This extra height makes two-page reading much more enjoyable. My old Dell also displays color at full 8-bit color depth (16,777,216 colors).

But all of the big, cheap LCD monitors you see today are based on TN panels. They are at most only 1920x1080, which is fine for movies but lousy for on-screen reading. I personally use my monitor more for reading than movies, but "Great for Reading!" is apparently an unconvincing marketing point.

TN panels are bright and fast, as well as cheap, but they achieve this by compromise: they only display 6-bit color (262,144 colors). They then "simulate" the full 8-bit color gamut with various dithering techniques, which compared side-by-side with true 8-bit color are immediately seen as unconvincing. They also have little stand adjustability, poor viewing angles, uneven backlighting, poor blacks, color casting, clouding and other problems. My cheap Acer monitor at home has all these problems at once.

The best monitors today use IPS panels. All IPS monitors are 8-bit true color (or higher) and have wide viewing angles. They also tend to have much better backlighting and, well, better everything. IPS monitors used to be much more expensive than TN, starting around $500. New IPS technology (e-IPS) has brought down the cost of entry-level IPS monitors dramatically, starting under $250. You still get more when you pay more (wider gamut, better performance, 1920x1200 or higher), but reviews of entry-level models have been positive.

In a post the other week I included a flower photo I made with a Canon EOS-1Ds MkII. It looked wonderful on my 8-bit work monitor, with perfect detail and great color. On my craptastic 6-bit monitor at home, though, the colors were smeared and garish, and some fine details obliterated.



Photographers spend big on great monitors. It's vital to both the
enjoyment of photography and the production of great photos. I'll never settle again for a cheap TN monitor. True color is a must.

Pirates, Hoarders, Saviors of Culture?

This post by David Pogue is not interesting for David Pogue (who I rarely find interesting), but for the letter it reproduces, the issue it raises, and some of the 300+ comments it has generated. The fundamental issue it raises concerns those (many, MANY) people who are engaged in scanning and trading print materials in the same way millions do music and movies. The particular subject here is sheet music, but it could be anything ever put into print. I've been involved with this professionally for some time, for example, in creating a digital library for Syriac scholars. For this project we only included out-of-copyright materials, but informally scholars trade copyrighted research materials on a massive scale, just like these music traders. With equal excitement and glee, and a similar lack of compunction.

Academic swapping and hoarding of copyrighted material is called research and is protected in some measure, ostensibly, by fair-use laws. These laws exist to facilitate research and creative work. There is no possible way any scholar could purchase all research materials used. But no scholar was ever sued or even called a pirate for photocopying (now, scanning) an article or monograph, because you can't produce more articles and monographs without doing this. Copyright law was always meant to curb commercial exploitation of another's creative work, not to prevent the use of that work in creating new work, whether artistic or scientific.

Also, I'm not sure copyright law was originally intended to curb the profitless enjoyment of creative work without payment to the copyright holder, who so very often is not even the creator, but rather a commercial exploiter of creators. But I'm no legal scholar and that's another topic.

When a pianist, as in this article, collects all the significant piano music ever published, pops it on a thumbdrive, and gives it away to other pianists, I have a hard time seeing any difference between that pianist and most scholars. Probably, true enough, this is sowing some seeds of destruction, but it also contains the seeds of creation. And I don't know why doing this is fair-use if you work at a university but piracy if you, well, work for a living. But of course, if academics ran the world, we'd replace copyright with open access on day one, or at least some generous implementation of Creative Commons licensing.

I see this as principally an economic problem, as many commenters to this article pointed out. People with more time than money will always trade and hoard, but put all this sheet music in a database and charge $10/mo for access, and much of this activity would stop. The people who did not stop are mostly people who would not buy your stuff anyway (i.e., the teenager in the article). This is just the market's way of saying that prices are too high and selection too limited. If your time is worth anything, this traded music is not free. People spend years collecting this stuff, at a very high effective cost. It's just cheaper than the alternative, and for many rare or out-of-print works, the only alternative. As one commenter observed:

This is actually quite an interesting economic phenomenon. The fact that people illegally acquire content that is copyrighted shows the imperfect market. We, as consumers, don't always find the suppliers we want. As an example, in my town I cannot buy bok choi in the supermarket. I'd have to drive really far away to get it. I don't have the option of "stealing" it in any way that is easier. The internet allows this, though, and it's something classical economics hasn't thought about much: Stealing as a means of overcoming the imperfect market system.

Bio-fuelishness

President Obama is still pushing hard to enforce legislated biofuel production and usage, despite widespread bankruptcy in the biofuel industry. This is a policy I disagree with. While biofuels may decrease greenhouse gas emissions (it may in fact increase them) and might reduce (very slightly) dependence on foreign oil, the rush to biofuels has driven up food prices, increasing poverty and instability in the poorest of countries. It has been broadly condemned even by many environmental progressives, because it is simply a repugnant trade of one set of evils (unsustainable oil consumption) for another (food scarcity, deforestation, etc.).

Obama is so sensible, and manning up to some many things, I don't know why he is supporting this particular failed Bush policy. The solution to our oil dependence are things like increased mass transit, urbanization and environmentally-responsible consumption. This is universal knowledge. Biofuels are just another enabling mechanism for what Bush infamously termed a non-negotiable "Amercan way of life." Which is, single drivers in large SUVs commuting to urban employment from distant suburbs to earn lots of money to buy mountains of cheap goods transported 3000 miles from sweatshops and toxin-spewing factories in the impoverished third world produced by workers making $7 per 14-hour workday.

As noble as this American way of life is, it is not sustainable, and biofuel will not change that fact. One estimate is that, "For the United States, attaining 20% biofuel content will require it to use 100% of its current corn production to power cars rather than feed people." Hardly a big-picture solution. I cannot guess Obama's intentions, but he must know this. But whatever he knows about biofuel, he also certainly knows that there is no will in America to end this way of life. End it will, of course, and likely a long emergency will end it. But that's another topic.

I Want Me a Delany Flushboy

Warning: This post contains potty talk.

I hate plunging clogged toilets and our toilet at home (how shall I put this) was really only designed for the lightest of duty. However, the commercial toilets at work are all business when it come to . . . business. I'm sure some people are a little intimated by the loud whooossh and rush of air one experiences when one tugs on the handle of a gleaming Delany Flushboy valve. Maybe they fear for any small children or pets that might be sucked in unawares. Not me. I get a little thrill from that throaty roar, like hearing a Harley-Davidson roar to life through a set of straight pipes. No need for plungers here.

So I want me a Delany Flushboy. As it turns out, Delany just makes the valves, and they are definitely a commercial item only. But the technology used in my office toilets, called pressure-assisted jet flush, can be had in home toilets as well. They look just like any other toilet and are not difficult to install. (And they are quieter than those commercial brutes.) But they are, however, more expensive than a basic gravity-feed toilet, starting about $480. Still a bargain, I say. And with that, having stepped upmarket, you also get a much better toilet design. In fact, good gravity-feed toilets now are designed with ballfeed passthrough that really will flush (stuffed) animals right through, no problem. Seriously: "Watch Our Latest Toilet Video."


An American Standard Cadet: Fully glazed 2-1/8" trapway, 2" minimum ballpass, close-coupled flushometer tank, and even a Speed Connect tank/bowl coupling system!

Some people may be laughing, but for me this is a dream in white vitreous china. Someday. Yes, someday . . .

Update: Flashlights and Batteries

First item: My UltraFire C3 flickering problem was in fact persistent. The problem (fairly common on these models, it turns out) is with the way the head mates with the battery tube. The tube must ground on the emitter but, when screwed down, it rests on just two blobs of solder on the emitter back that, on some lights, do not provide good enough contact. The solution is to take a piece of bare copper wire, shape it to fit just inside the head beneath the battery tube, and screw it all together. That fixed it for me. But I'm still steamed I had to correct a design flaw. For $11 it is still an amazing light, but even at that price point there are actually a lot of options.

I was perhaps too bold, or at least naive, with my recommendations in my previous flashlight post. I don't know that I recommended any lemons, but even now with just a bit more research, I'd make some different recommendations. Though not here and now. This is Knife Month, after all. But look for more discussion and reviews to come.

Flashlight and battery tech naturally go hand in hand. Most high-performance lights work best or even exclusively with exotic lithium-ion* batteries (go lithium!) that you basically have to mailorder from Asia. They run at higher voltages, which hi-po lights like. Again, more on this to come.

But I did want to mention one interesting fact, relative to AA batteries and flashlights, as yet another supplement to my original battery post. First, alkaline (disposable) and NiMH (rechargeable) AA batteries produce different voltages, 1.5v and 1.2v respectively. That means that they are not strictly interchangeable. The device they are used in must be regulated to use both voltages. There is also an exotic AA-sized rechargeable lithium-ion battery called a 14500 that runs at 3.6v or 3.7v. But before you drop one of those guys in your light, again, you need to be sure of the voltage range that it will accept. Or you could literally blow up your light.

My UltraFire C3 is regulated for 0.8v ~ 4.2v. That means it will run on any AA you care to put in it, even a 14500. You can even buy an extension tube that turns it into a double-AA light (but not two 14500s, do the math!). The fact that it will run on as little as 0.8v also means it will suck your batteries pretty dry. That's a very good thing.

But different battery chemistries (see my first supplement) can change the way your light performs. More expensive lights are digitally regulated to produce a consistent amount of light as the battery draws down. When drawn down close to dry, some switch into "moon mode," a low-power draw that produces little light but sucks that last bit of juice from the cell. However, cheaper lights are usually direct drive. Basically, the power goes straight from the battery to the bulb or LED emitter. In these lights, the kind of battery you use can really change performance.

For example, in my UltraFire C3 (per this review), a 2500mAh NiMH lithium battery* will produce a consistent 40 or so lumens for about 90min, and then output drops steeply until completely dead at about 130min. A good alkaline AA will produce about 36 lumens when fresh, but steadily declines to about 4 lumens at 100min, then running at that level out past 220min. Two different batteries give you two quite different lights.

The reason for this difference (per Wikipedia) is that even though "the nominal NiMH voltage is lower, it sustains for the length of the discharge cycle, because the low internal resistance allows NiMH cells to deliver a near-constant voltage until they are almost completely discharged. Alkaline discharge voltage drops more towards the end of the discharge cycle."

High drain on alkalines also decreases their effective capacity. "Alkaline batteries, which might have approximately 3000 mA·h capacity at low current demand (200 mA), will have about 700 mA·h capacity with a 1000 mA load. Digital cameras with LCDs and flashlights can draw over 1000 mA, quickly depleting alkaline batteries. NiMH can handle these current levels and maintain their full capacity."

Bottom line: For direct drive lights, NiMH = more light for less time, while alkaline = less light for more time. (Whew.)

This is just geeky tech abstraction if you only need a light to occasionally find your car keys, but in more critical applications, knowing precisely what to expect from your light may be more important. For such uses, one should really own a quality light with digital regulation and accurate manufacturer-supplied performance specifications (like this Fenix LD01). And always have on hand a spare battery and backup light.

*Further tech point: Disposible lithium (NiMH) batteries and rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are not the same thing. Both are lithium based, but two different chemistries, voltages, etc. Lithium, the psychotropic drug, is related to these batteries chemically, but the Lithium Press just topically.

Netbooks: Evolution or Revolution?

There was a good article in the NYTimes today on netbooks, the latest incarnation of the subcompact notebook computer. Tiny laptops have been around for years, but the general trend has been that the smaller it is, the more it costs. Netbooks have made a big splash less because they are small than because they are cheap. That's because they use smaller, slower and cheaper CPUs, little memory, small hard drives, etc., and sometimes don't even run Windows. In that past that would have killed sales, however cheap, but anymore the primary application for most computers is simply the internet. At their name implies, netbooks run the internet just fine, and at long last the internet has conquered the technology universe. It is the "killer app" that by itself justifies a hardware purchase.

But the first netbooks were still merely evolutionary. "Thin clients" have been around for years and have long been hailed as the computer of the future. So, pretty cool, but not a new idea. And a $300 computer that cannot do much more than surf the internet is a niche product. It may steal some laptop sales, but cost is still prohibitive.

However, the next generation of netbooks may just be revolutionary. Makers will push the price under $100, at which point cost becomes (at least psychologically) irrelevant. That's less than an iPod Nano. You've just created a new product category.

Personal computers — and the companies that make their crucial components — are about to go through their biggest upheaval since the rise of the laptop. By the end of the year, consumers are likely to see laptops the size of thin paperback books that can run all day on a single charge and are equipped with touch screens or slide-out keyboards.

The industry is buzzing this week about these devices at a telecommunications conference in Las Vegas, and consumers will see the first machines on shelves as early as June, probably from the netbook pioneers Acer and Asustek.

“The era of a perfect Internet computer for $99 is coming this year,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, a maker of PC graphics chips that is trying to adapt to the new technological order. “The primary computer that we know of today is the basic PC, and it’s dying to be reinvented.”

I'm looking forward to Christmas already . . .

Battery Addendum

My earlier post on the newer (low self-discharge) battery cell technology could have benefited from a bit more homework. But hey, I don't do this for a living. It's just a lunchtime diversion. So, some corrections and expansions.

First, the Wiki article on the low self-discharge NiMH battery is useful. The article lists about 30 brands, all apparently produced by just five makers. So consumers have lots of choices.

I contrasted alkaline single-use batteries with NiMH rechargeables in terms of energy density, and said they were much lower. That is not true. Now, not all (non-lithium) single-use batteries are alkalines. There are several technologies used, some better than others. Most dollar-store batteries are probably non-alkalines and therefore have very little juice, much less than rechargeables. But the name-brand alkalines are in fact more energy dense than rechargeables, approaching 3000 mAh for the very best.

That being so, why do rechargeables last longer and/or perform better in some devices like digital cameras? I had thought it was related to energy density (mAh), but that is incorrect. The reasons are more complex, but one forum poster explained it nicely:

It's true that alkaline cells have an impressive energy capacity, usually greater then 2500mAh. But this is only one of several factors that affects the performance of a cell. At certain points in their operation digicams have extremely high power demands. The power a cell or battery can deliver depends on both the voltage it can provide, and the electrical current it can deliver (the power supplied is actually the voltage multiplied by the current). The voltage is limited, it is fixed by the chemistry of the cell, so the only way to deliver that power is with a large current. The essential problem with alkaline batteries is that they have great difficulty providing these large electric currents. Alkaline cells are brilliant, however, in the right application. For low power devices, or devices that are used infrequently e.g. doorbells, radios, remote controls, etc., they are superb. They have a huge energy capacity, and a shelf-life of several years. But if you need bursts of high power, as required in a digicam, they are unsuitable - except in emergencies. (Many pro photographers keep some high quality alkalines in their bag so that they can always take a few shots if their rechargeables run out, etc.)

So, for low-power, long-term use, alkalines work great. But for electronics with higher power demands (cameras, music players, flashlights, portable gaming devices), lithiums and NiMH rechargeables perform much better. But the new low self-discharge NiMH batteries work about equally as well as any of them in most applications. As well as being cheaper and greener. For now, they retain their superbattery crown.

Addendum: See further update here.

Battery Revolution

I've realized recently that a number of my "guy stuff" interests (watches, DAPs, pocket knives) fit under the general umbrella of everyday carry items (EDC, in guy stuff lingo). A surprising number of guys give a surprising amount of thought to what they put in their pockets, on their key chains, and in their backpacks, briefcases, etc. It may be partly some hardwired Boy Scout impulse, but it makes sense that we should think hard about the stuff we pack everywhere with us.

So I ordered a mini flashlight. Any number of times I've wished I had one (again just last night), and with the incredible new LED emitters out now, a single AA flashlight just a little larger than the battery powering it can throw out an amazing amount of light for more than an hour. When I get it, I'll review it.

But another interesting discovery was that there has been a big leap in rechargeable battery technology in the last couple of years. I think it started in 2006, when Sanyo introduced their Eneloop batteries. You can read their website for details, but these are a fantastic improvement over older NiMH rechargeables. The biggest advance is this: Traditional NiMH cells discharge even when not in use (self-discharge). That means, if you charge them up and toss them in your camera, when you pull it out next month to use it, the batteries will be partly or even entirely dead. You basically have to charge them right before use.

But Eneloops retain 85% of their charge after a full year of storage. This is not as good as quality alkaline or (especially) lithium single-use cells, but it is still a phenomenal advance. And these cells still retain the two big advantages of traditional rechargeables: very high capacities (2000 mAh vs 400-1000 mAh for standard alkalines) and high reusability. Eneloops are said to be good for 1000 charge cycles. That means if you use a full charge and recharge every week, a set will last you 19 years.

How expensive are they? A four-pack of AAs is about $12. You can buy an excellent Duracell charger with two AAs from Amazon for $17. Given the cost savings, greater performance, and environmental benefits, there is now no reason to buy conventional alkalines. However, lithium cells are still the best choice for long-term emergency storage and extreme temperature usage. They self-discharge just 0.5% per year at room temperature, meaning they are still pretty fresh after 10 years, and work well even in very cold weather. They are also very energy dense (typically 2900 mAh for lithium AAs).

Since Eneloops came on the market, other manufacturers have introduced similar cells under the name "hybrid" or "pre-charged rechargeable." (Older rechargeables necessarily came uncharged.) The main contenders are Duracell Pre-charged Rechargeables, Rayovac Hybrids, and Kodak Pre-charged. Some Duracells (made in Japan) are thought to be rebranded Sanyo Eneloops, while other Duracells (made in China) are thought to be rebranded Rayovac Hybrids.They all perform similarly, but the Sanyos have a bit more energy than the Rayovacs.

Addendum: See updates here and here.

Give Up Orange Juice, Save the Planet

PepsiCo, which owns Tropicana, just completed a study of the carbon footprint of a glass of its orange juice.The damage? "[T]he equivalent of 3.75 pounds of carbon dioxide are emitted to the atmosphere for each half-gallon carton of orange juice." Most of this comes from the effects (both manufacturing and use) of the fertilizer used to grow the oranges. Of course, one can grow oranges without using nitrogen fertilizer, but this makes them more expensive. Which makes no sense to a for-profit corporation, so instead they are just debating whether to spin this statistic or bury it. Too late to bury it.

PC Magazine to Cease Print Publication

The internet continues its relentless borging of all forms of human communication. I'm a little sad the PCMag is ceasing print publication, because I hung on every issue when I first got into computers, which at one time were exotic and exciting. They're still a little exciting to me, but then, I find wristwatches exciting. Anyway, print media is in steep decline and I would not be suprised to see print journals almost cease to exist in my lifetime. It's all economics.

Scientists Prove that Kevin Bacon Is Key to Understanding the Cosmos

I've long subscribed to the philosophy of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, who is a lesser philosopher than Francis Bacon but a way better actor. This theory, originating with Bacon (Kevin, not Francis), is that any actor can be linked through his or her film roles to Kevin Bacon. Bacon's original quip was that he'd worked with with every actor in Hollywood, or with someone who had. The link isn't always that close, but the Oracle of Bacon has rigorously tested the theory and found that only 12% of 800,000 actors in the IMDB cannot be linked to Kevin Bacon.

So, as an utterly random example, I go to the Oracle and type in "Rosemary Clooney," whom I cannot imagine being linked to Bacon in any immediate way. But it turns out she worked with Mark Jeffery Miller in the Radioland Murders (1994), who worked with Kevin Bacon in Death Sentence (2007). Eerie.

My mind is always making these movie connections, unconsciously, and when they bubble to the surface it tends to unnerve me. It's almost like insight into the foundational principles of cosmic sympathy, with the ley lines all leading Hollywood. For example, let's return to Rosemary Clooney, whom most would place far from the center of the cosmos. (Hold on, this gets a little complicated.)

Robert F. Kennedy was shot on June 5, 1968, in Los Angeles in the Ambassador Hotel's Embassy Room ballroom. Present was Rosemary Clooney, a close friend of Bobby Kennedy. Clooney was the mother of actor Miguel Ferrar. Miguel Ferrar and actor Jacob Vargas starred together in Traffic (2000). Jacob Vargas also had a minor role in Bobby (2006), a movie about the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. This relates Clooney and the almost unknown Mexican actor Vargas to each other in two different ways. Uncanny.

Back to Kevin Bacon's theory. (To give due credit, the general idea comes from the small world theory of Stanley Milgram, which more or less concluded that all people in the US are separated by only six degrees of removal.) Scientists are now discovering that there is some kind of "hidden metric space" beneath complex systems. Says the author of a recent article on this theory, "A vast majority of very different complex networks have similar shapes.  They have similar shapes not just for fun, but perhaps because they all evolved toward structures and shapes that maximize efficiency according to their main common function, and that function is communication." In other words, most systems grow in such a way that they are in fact closer to other things in that system than they appear on the surface. Insight into this hidden space could revolutionize the internet, medicine, and many other areas of technology and science. See here.