Sacramento

This fine Worksman cruiser bike is an imposing presence in my hotel
room.

I'm in Sacramento this week for work, and with some Googling, I found
a brand new shop called Practical Cycle (it opened last Thursday) that
sells and rents basic bicycles. Since I was taking the bike for a few
days, they let me have it for the very affordable rate of $20 per
day. I'd also like to give props to the Holiday Inn Express -- when I
inquired at the front desk about a place to park my bike, I did not
expect the lady to say I could put it in my room.

I took a cruise down the bike trail along the American River this
evening, and cut back to the hotel through some neighborhoods that
blended from industrial to residential. (The maps on the iPhone make
this sort if wandering much easier than it would otherwise be.) Always
great to experience a new city by bike...

News via Facebook

The Washington Post posted an editor's note today about integration of Facebook with their site. If you're logged into Facebook on your computer, you will automatically see a box on the Post that shows articles your friends have recently shared. And there's now a Facebook "Like" button for every article.

There's some irony in the fact that the Post has dubbed this new feature "Network News." The original television network newscasts for which that term was coined, along with other traditional media like the Post, created a mainstream where media gatekeepers guided the national conversation to a certain set of issues. New media have been dismantling that, serving up specialized channels of information that are only relevant to and consumed by a subset of the population. The Post's "Network News" embraces social media's tendency to take that one step further, and expose you to information based on what other people in your social circle are consuming. This has long-term implications for the flow of information through society and our ability to have collective discussions about topics that affect us all. It's not like this change at the Post's website will have much impact along those lines on its own, but I had previously noted that the social media effect can be a bit unnerving when you can see it happening.


In any case, I'm sure the Post freaked out a number of people, because while opt-out instructions weren't included when I saw the note this afternoon, they have now been appended. It's actually rather counterintuitive to opt out, because it's controlled through your Facebook account -- I imagine that it would be difficult for many people to understand that they need to go to an entirely different website in order to remove a feature that appears on the Post site.

Miscellany

A bit lacking on the blogging lately.

This new table I got for the porch is awesome. Sitting on the porch with a beer and a couple friends is a lovely evening activity when the weather is this nice, at least until the bugs kick in later in a couple months.

I went to Cincinnati for work during the first part of the week. I found the farmland on the way from Columbus to Cincinnati very reassuring for some reason. (Ohio seems to be very heavy on the beginning of the alphabet -- Akron, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton.) We ate the local specialty of chili, which, for the uninitiated, is more like a sauce and is served over spaghetti. Not bad, but not great either.

My parents visited last weekend, and we got a West Wing tour courtesy of John. It was cool to see it in person; perhaps not surprisingly, all the parts you're used to seeing look much smaller in person.

Warming up

Today, it felt like summer outside -- a high in the low 80s, and even warmer temps expected in the next couple days.

After work, I took a ride up the Capital Crescent trail from Georgetown to Bethesda. The destination was the Apple Store to try out an iPad, but it was really just an excuse for a ride on a beautiful evening. (The iPad was cool, but I think I'll be able to restrain myself for a bit. While it's spectacularly thin, it's heavy enough that you'll pretty much always want to be sitting down while using it.)

I took the Capital Crescent back home -- it's not the most direct route, but because it's an old railroad grade, it has a very gentle downslope for all 8 or so miles from Bethesda to Georgetown, and you can cruise 15+ mph with little effort. The slope is almost imperceptible visually, so it makes you feel like a very accomplished cyclist. By the time I was heading home, it was dark, and cooling down. When you have warm days followed by cool evenings, and you're wearing only a t-shirt, differences in temperature are easy to feel on your skin -- warmer air near swaths of pavement, cooler air where the trees are thick, etc. The variety of vegetation, development, and water features that the Capital Crescent passes through create a good number of these noticeable variations, and the fact that you're cruising pretty fast makes them more obvious because the transitions happen faster. Between the lovely cool night air, the zippy ride, and the the ability to feel the environments as I passed through them, it was a wonderful ride.

Generation gaps

I picked up a copy of the most recent Wolf Parade record, From Mount Zoomer. (It's good, though I've only listened to it all the way through a couple times so far.) There's a line in one song about a telephone ringing without anyone at home to answer it. This brought to mind the likelihood that there are a number of young people today for whom the concept of a phone ringing in an empty house is a totally foreign concept.

I wonder if that would impact their understanding of the song? I'm sure almost everyone would know what the lyric is referring to, whether or not they've spent much time with landlines. But those who grew up without using a traditional telephone might have a harder time connecting with the feeling that the song is trying to convey.

Given that lots of things that form the basis of our daily experience have been changing rapidly in recent years, it seems like there's greater potential for generational disconnects. The generation gaps of yore were created by broad changes in attitudes on big topics like gender roles, sex, politics, etc. While there's still a good bit of macro-level change in attitudes, today's generational divisions also stem from micro-level changes in how people go about their daily lives and interactions with others -- I'm thinking in particular about the influence of cell phones, smart phones, and social networking.

This idea is supported by a study I saw written up in the Post a while back (their archives are pay-only, so I can't get to it now). The researchers found that there were major differences in how young people born just a few years apart were using technologies such as cell phones and social networking. Someone like me who got a Facebook account after graduating from college uses it very differently from someone who used it daily throughout their college years. Current college freshmen, many of whom started using Facebook early in high school, use it differently from either group. Likewise, most people in my age group use texting frequently for logistics and one-off notes, but kids who are a few years younger have entire conversations through text messages.

While individual disconnects like the telephone lyric in the Wolf Parade song might not be a big deal on their own, it seems likely that the cumulative effect of the differences in how the generations think about things will impede cross-generational understanding in unpredictable ways. I suspect that I will end up feeling like a cranky old man before my time, for instance.

Songs of the Moment (An Occasional Feature)

> Animal Collective - Winter Wonder Land
> Torches - Mr. Vampire
> Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - White Corolla
> Constantines - Nighttime/Anytime (It's All Right)
> MIA - Galang
> Modest Mouse - Gravity Rides Everything
> Bon Iver - Flume

iPad

My MacBook is now a bit more than 4 years old, and I'm looking to get a new computer. I want to get a fairly fast one, so that I can use it for video editing.

I tend to mull over large purchases for months before actually going through with them. I had been thinking that I would get a mid-range MacBook Pro. I also looked into PCs, since I think the gulf between PC and Mac usability has narrowed. But although they're much cheaper, I'd have to spend more on software to get something equivalent to the Mac's Final Cut Pro, which I already know how to use. And I'd prefer a Mac anyhow. Then, looking at iMac desktops, I was reminded how much more computer you can get for less money, compared to a laptop. Since I tend not to carry my computer with me all that often, I started to come around to the idea of getting one of those.

Then, I realized: With an iMac, I could afford to get an iPad along with it -- as long as I got the cheap one, it'd be the same total price as a MacBook. I had initially dismissed the iPad as something I don't need. The several people to whom I've mentioned my plan have greeted it with a groan...there's significant skepticism about the iPad, and for good reason, since no one has used one yet. But I think it would actually make a good bit of sense for me. I often sit at the kitchen table or on the couch interacting with a somewhat claustrophobic version of the internet on my iPhone, and I'd read e-books if I had a comfortable device to use. The iPad is so thin that I think I'd be willing to put it in my bag and take it with me. And there's the potential for some pretty cool and/or useful apps that take advantage of a touch screen that big.

So, I think I'm going to try one out after they become available next month, and if it works for me, take the plunge. Feel free to try to talk me out of it...

For-profit education

You may have seen the recent article in the NY Times about for-profit trade schools. The companies take advantage of the huge streams of available federal student aid for education (both grants and loans) -- according to the article, they often derive upwards of 80% of their revenue from federal student aid. At the University of Phoenix chain, 86% of revenue came from the federal government last year. The schools aggressively recruit students, saying that they will position themselves for high-paying jobs upon graduation, but many graduate poorly equipped to land a position with the sort of pay needed to pay back their big student loan debts. Default rates are high.

Of all the morally-suspect lines of business one could be in, this racket seems particularly evil. You're sucking up valuable federal student aid funding for something that doesn't provide real education. Even worse, you're convincing young people who are trying to better themselves to do something that won't really help meet their goals, and at the same time saddling them with huge amounts of debt that will destroy their ability to get back on their feet afterward. (It's very difficult to have student loan debt forgiven, even in bankruptcy.) I'm sure there are some decent for-profit schools, but the basic business model of many of these operators is just repulsive.

Coming Attractions

I'm excited for the new albums by Caribou (April) and The National (May) -- even more so after seeing these two clips.

Video for "Odessa" off Caribou's new album:


The National performing "Terrible Love" on Jimmy Kimmel:

Wolf Like Me

I've posted videos of TV on the Radio performing Wolf Like Me previously; here's another version that's also great.


I'd say the vocals are a little high in the mix, but I'd also say that the part where they kick in after the bridge (around the 3 minute mark) is totally awesome.