blog@cliffdweller

Will Portland learn from the greedy music industry?

2/9/2010 – 3:28 pm

meter Will Portland learn from the greedy music industry? Today Ars Technica is reporting that "Variable download pricing correlated with slower music sales." Remember a year ago when iTunes dropped DRM but allowed the greedy music execs to raise the prices of popular songs? Let's take a look at how that panned out.

Ars says:

As noted by MediaMemo, this slowdown in growth has all happened over the same period of time that the iTunes (and Amazon, and Walmart) pricing changes went into effect.

That's right, after iTunes (and Wal-Mart and Amazon digital downloads) pricing went up, sales went down.

There are a million ways to spin it, but that's the bottom line. The decline in sales just happened to coincide with the price increase.

Like iTunes and the greedy music industry, The City That Works™, Portland, raised it's parking rates about a year ago. I for one stopped going downtown for everything I wanted to do, so my net is that I'm paying Portland less money every year for parking. I wonder if anyone's done a study to see if the higher rates are actually producing higher revenue…

By Paul | Posted in knowing | Comments (0)

How to Report the News

1/28/2010 – 4:24 pm

This is brilliant! I ran across it on The Kidman Project, my friend Rob's website. Thanks, Rob, for sharing!

BTW, it does have a little bit of swearing (including the F word in one place). Ah, those Brits. They didn't call us Puritans for nothing…

By Paul | Posted in waiting | Comments (1)

JC Supertablet and friends

1/27/2010 – 8:58 am

jcsstablet JC Supertablet and friends Last night I dreamed that I was trying to get people to buy the Apple Tablet (that is going to be announced in a couple of hours) by trying to play Jesus Christ Superstar for them on my Apple Tablet.

Odd.

I guess I heard the phrase "Jesus Tablet" one too many times yesterday.

The sad part was that it didn't have enough memory so I only had part of the rock opera with me. Like the old days of the 8GB iPod Nanos. So I could only play one phrase out of one song over and over.

And that one phrase was "We need him crucified, it's all you have to do…" Everytime, just as it slipped into the next words "talk to me Jesus Christ…" it would repeat "We need him crucified, it's all you have to do,"

So instead of using my tablet to show off, I had to sit on the couch and dig through countless options on the thing to try to figure out how to make it play the rest of the song.

Somewhere I screwed up and jumped into the middle of "I don't know how to love him" but then it just was one phrase out of that song over and over and over.

Then I went in the spare room and was upset that the overnight guests had messed it all up and made it look like I did it.

Like I said, Odd dreams. But I'm awake now. I'm gearing up for the actual tablet unveiling in about an hour and a half. I'm hoping for new iLife, new iWork, new Tablet and cheaper TV shows from iTunes. iTunes in the cloud would be nice, too.

woohoo!

By Paul | Posted in dreaming | Comments (0)

I launched Kurt's New Website Today

1/25/2010 – 2:23 pm

It's true, I launched the new website for my friend Kurt in San Francisco today.

SomaticPsychotherapySF.com

This post is more or less just google bait to get the mighty search engines to take notice. However, if you want to click through, you may also do that.

Enjoy yourself, as always!

It's based on a new wordpress theme that I really like. I am thinking of changing Cliffdweller to use this theme, too… at least some variant of it.

By Paul | Posted in webbing | Comments (0)

Painting the world plaid

1/19/2010 – 5:52 pm

The Globe of PlaidAPP 5bit Painting the world plaid What did you do today? Somebody asks me that question every day. It's not always the same person, but it is always the same question.

So here's what I did today: I painted the world plaid. No, seriously. It was no easy feat.

I started with a website known for having public domain pictures of the planet we live on. I wanted to find an animated globe.

What I found was a lot of work in Photoshop. It takes time to create graphics. Designers know that, but people often forget. So this afternoon, I started with a map of the world, and painted it plaid.

Then I animated it and saved it in a dozen formats. I have plans for this Plaid Earth…

By Paul | Posted in waiting | Comments (0)

California and Texas, first and second. Or not.

1/12/2010 – 3:23 pm

NikeMiles2010 California and Texas, first and second. Or not. Not that I'm getting into the whole competition thing or anything, but since a couple of weeks ago when I started actually using my Nike+ shoe doohickeys, I've been digging around the Nike Running website.

Today I ran across the pictured statistic. The miles quoted are how many miles that people in those states have run so far in 2010. It's a lot of miles until you start looking at populations.

Some guy in Texas was bragging about being second. Interesting. Second, only behind California. I went to look at the aggregated stats, and I see Oregon is number 3! Go Oregon!

Of course, some simple math will show the *real* bragging rights:

According to Wikipedia, the state of Oregon has 3,825,657 people in it. Divide that into the miles run in 2010 (23,192) and you get 6.06 miles per thousand people in Oregon.

I wonder what Texas and California get. Oh, let's go find out…

Texas has 24,782,302 people running 65,533 miles comes out to 2.64 miles per thousand people in Texas. The people in Oregon are running on average 2.29 times as much as the fatties in Texas.

California is even worse with 36,961,664 people running only 49,225 miles. That comes out to 1.33 miles per thousand people. Oregon is 4.55 times better than California. Ouch.

So I guess it kind of explains why Oregon feels so more "in shape" than either California or Texas, assuming of course that running miles equates being in shape. Until now I had always assumed it was just because we like our great outdoors, mountain climbing, snowboarding, skiing, camping, and hiking more than all the other states.

Maybe I am getting into the whole Nike competitive thing a little bit…

By Paul | Posted in laughing | Comments (0)

Happy New Year

1/1/2010 – 3:00 pm

The chorus to this ABBA song goes something like this:

Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbour is a friend
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don't we might as well lay down and die
You and I

A bajillion years ago in high school, I think I made people listen to this song incessantly right around this time of year.

Just to back that statement up, here's one Melanie posted on Facebook today:

Melanie Clark *Sings "Happy new year, happy new year, may we all.." As with EVERY New Years day, Abba haunts me until I cover my ears and start shouting "It's a small world after all.." CURSE YOU PAUL ADAMS, AND THE MITSUBISHI COLT YOU DROVE IN ON!!

At first glance, I smiled and giggled a little bit inside. Was I really that obnoxious back then? (when I see my nephew John in action I realize that I probably was…)

But on further reflection (are we supposed to be all reflecty today?), I started thinking more about the paths my life has taken since way back then.

Here's another lyric from the song, the one that has actually stuck with me all these years:

It's the end of a decade
In another ten years time
Who can say what we'll find
What lies waiting down the line
In the end of eighty-nine

Besides horribly dating the song in 1979 (ABBA was so 1970's after all), it also gave me pause to reflect at the end of '89, just like the song said.

So here's the rundown.

At the end of '89 I was working as the manager of an 8 screen movie theatre in Arlington TX. I remember being upset on New Years Eve because there were no less than 5 accidents between my work and my home at 2AM when I got off work. I had spent the last decade trying to balance going to college and maintaining a demanding 60 an hour a week job. I finally gave up on college. And soon after this decade was over, I gave up on the demanding job.

At the end of '99, I was living in San Francisco, working for myself, running my own company. In the decade since '89 I had worked in three of the crazy startups in Silicon Valley, I had worked at NASA, and I had survived cancer. I had made several trips to Europe and the UK (my first trip to Loch Ness to look for Nessie!) I had camped in the dessert looking for UFOs with Gary. I went to the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras with Jim (That's in Australia). Who would've expected all that back when they released this song?

At the end of '09, I am living in Portland. I am married to the man (and his ginormous extended family) that I love. In the past decade I have been the youth director at the largest Methodist church in Oregon, I have re-connected with many of my friends from the old days, I have remained cancer free. I've been to Antarctica, South America, Alaska, back to Europe, and all over the USA.

And more good news: this song no longer applies. I don't have to play this game this decade, only because "nineteen" doesn't rhyme with "who can say what we'll find"…

But, if it did apply, looking ahead I plan to have many happy years with Tim, travel a lot, maybe get a dog. It's the simple things. Maybe I will check back in in the end of twenty-nine.

By Paul | Posted in journaling, knowing, laughing | Comments (3)

Go Captian & Tennille! a.k.a. we don't need no stinking QA

12/25/2009 – 10:13 pm

CaptianAndTennille Go Captian & Tennille! a.k.a. we dont need no stinking QA Today, Allan and Eunice gave me the Captain & Tennille "Ultimate Collection" DVD for Christmas. Yay team!

I was such a fan in Jr. High School. I once tried to sing my way to free tickets to one of their concerts on a radio station. Nothing like a 7th grader singing "I will, I will, I will…" and that's that last time I ever did anything stupid.

Oh wait, when ABC canceled the Captain & Tennille Show, I actually wrote in to get them to keep it on the air. That was the last time I did anything stupid.

So I was super happy when I got my whole yard of bubblegum from Miko and the Captain & Tennille show DVDs today.

I ran right home to rip the DVD so I can put it on my Apple TV and watch it, just like I do with all my DVDs. While ripping them, I noticed a very peculiar thing.

So, Captain, Tennille, if you're reading this, please note that when I put your 3 DVD set into my iMac, the title of the icon that shows up on the desktop is spelled wrong.

"Captian" and Tennille is a whole different group. I'm just sayin'…

By Paul | Posted in waiting | Comments (0)

Baby, It's Cold Outside

12/24/2009 – 1:53 pm

Yesterday after my trip to the Apple store, Leif and I headed over to lunch and ended up at the "Everything's a Dollar" store. Why not? It seemed like a great place to find that something special for Tim's Christmas (I did, hint: it's pink and glows in the dark for about 4 hours).

While we were there a song came on that reminded me of that one by Ewan McGregor and Renee Zellweger from that movie a few years back. You remember the one, it was done in the 1960s Rock Hudson/Dorris Day style and was really a lot of fun.

So I thought, I like this tune. I launched up Shazam on my iPhone to find out what it was but it failed me. Like Target, the dollar store is made of kryptonite and lead that blocks AT&T's 3G network. So I was left with the catchy Christmas-ish tune in my head and no idea what it was.

Enter iTunes today. Yes, I'm admitting right here on my blog in front of everyone that I've been listening to my meager Christmas music collection most of the day.

It turns out I already had the song I heard yesterday. It came in on the Trojan Horse called "iTunes Holiday Sampler" that I downloaded for free a couple of weeks ago. The mystery is solved!

The tune is "Baby, It's Cold Outside" by Lady Antebellum. Who'd've ever guessed that?

As a side note, I think it's funny that had I found it on Shazam yesterday, I would have had to pay $1.29 for it even though I was at the "Everything's a Dollar" store. iTunes wouldn't have warned me I already had it since it would have been coming from a different album than the free sampler I downloaded before.

By Paul | Posted in hearing, laughing | Comments (0)

How Many Geniuses does it take…

12/23/2009 – 7:25 pm

genius How Many Geniuses does it take... How many geniuses does it take to fix an iMac?

The short answer is 1, but the more complex answer is 2. Unless you count the genius who broke it in the first place (that would be me).

I gotta say I love my ginormous iMac. It's the first desktop computer I've ever had that has and SD Card slot built right in.

A couple of weeks ago, when Tim and I were working on the Unger Family Calendars for 2010, he handed me some photos on the SD Card from his MacBook and I reached up and blindly shoved it into the slot on the side of my monster iMac.

And just like when you slam your locked car door just as you realize you've left the keys inside, I knew I had shoved the card in the wrong slot. Because I didn't actually look, I had shoved it into the DVD drive slot. Dang. That was my first Genius move.

So I've been iMacing without a DVD drive for a couple of weeks. I scheduled a Genius appointment at the Apple store last week, but I never could actually make it into Portland at the appropriate time. So I rescheduled and rescheduled and rescheduled. Wheeee!

My second Genius move was rescheduling the appointment for today. During lunchtime. I knew I'd be downtown anyway, so what the heck, I'll just stop by the mall and drop it off and they'll take it in the back for a couple of hours and then I'll bring it home.

Ooops that. Today is the next to the last shopping day before Christmas. Every parking space within a 3 block radius was taken. I had to lug the 27 inch iMac down stairs, into elevators, across streets, and through the whole habitrail system that is Pioneer Place.

That was the tough part. The easy part was when the guys who get paid to be geniuses spent longer documenting the problem than actually fixing it. It took the tall guy in the kilt holding the iMac and the short guy in the glasses with a piece of packing tape about 2 minutes to extract the SD Card.

YAY! I was their second SD Card extraction today, so they seem to be getting quite good at it. I didn't have to leave the iMac behind, I only had to lug it into the store and back out again.

So the real answer is 3. 3 geniuses, 'cause I had to break it in the first place.

By Paul | Posted in laughing | Comments (1)