The Nationals game was rained out last night, so I didn’t get to see Albert Pujols. It was fun anyway – we wandered around the stadium, stopped at Ben’s Chili Bowl, and then came home. I actually saw someone wearing a McGwire shirt. I’m kind of surprised – I thought he was pretty much disgraced and forgotten. I mean, he was my favorite player growing up, and I wouldn’t wear a McGwire shirt. There was also a tiny girl in an Eckstein jersey, probably about the size of Eckstein himself. I’d guess she weighed about 95 pounds. I almost took a picture of her to send to Fire Joe Morgan, but then I thought she might not appreciate it. Edit to add: They’re making up the game today at 1, which doesn’t really work for my schedule, but Pujols isn’t playing. I don’t really mind missing a game between the awful Nationals and the Pujols-free Cardinals. Edit again to add: Pujols pinch hit in the 7th and hit one out in a 4-1 Cardinals win. Now I’m annoyed. I should have gone to the game.
My wife is the good kind of crazy
So it looks like I’m going to Boston this weekend. The wife has orchestrated a huge family-and-friends get-together at Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Sunday. All the details aren’t yet in, but it looks like my father-in-law and at least two brothers-in-law will be there, plus some other friends. We’re taking the train up on Sunday, in part because we have a wedding in Annapolis on Saturday. Then back home on the train on Monday to go back to work Tuesday, since we’re missing the following Monday for our Vegas trip. I thought Paris was our babymoon, but I guess I was wrong. Games at the Garden when the wife was living in Connecticut have achieved legendary status, so I’m looking forward to this. I’ve never been to a pro sports playoff game. I guess Celtics-Lakers is a good way to start. Of course, we’re busy at work right now. So I’m going to be working on the train, which should be interesting. But at least I have that option.
The future of paper
Seth’s Blog: Do you own trees?
Many businesses act as if they have a stake in their suppliers and other vendors. Instead of scaling the part of their business that can move quickly and well, they defend the part they don’t even own.
Many in the music industry are figuring out that there are new ways to make money. As Techdirt says, every aspect of the music business is growing rapidly except the sale of plastic discs with music on them. And Godin says, “there are more people reading more news every day than ever before”. He doesn’t substantiate his claim, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. And then he talks about the book industry.
I worry about my esteemed friends in the book publishing industry as well. The amazing thing about the Times story today was the report that the mood at BEA was ‘unease’ about ebooks. The fastest-growing, lowest cost segment of the business, the one that offers the most promise, the best possible outcome and has the best results… is causing unease!
This is what hits closest to home for me. I like to maintain that I have a book or two in me somewhere that will come out eventually. But I look at the industry of selling pieces of paper with words on them and I think it’s in trouble. It hasn’t happened yet because no one has made the book equivalent of the iPod (No, you didn’t do it, Amazon. The Kindle is kind of cool, but not there yet), but ebooks WILL be better than books. It’s inevitable. We’ll all miss the feel of paper in our hands, but we’ll get over it because of all the things you’ll be able to do with electronic words that you couldn’t with paper ones. And since the marginal cost of producing an additional copy of an ebook is nothing, the price of ebooks must go to zero in an efficient market. Sure, the book industry can go down the same route as the music industry did and put artificial barriers in place to drive up prices. But that kind of an industry can’t last for long. It’s economically inefficient, and it’s insulting to the customer who just wants not to be treated like a criminal. So, how do we get authors to write more books? Sure, JK Rowling can make money without selling paper books. The top authors in the world, and some who hit small but dedicated niches, and some other authors in special situations will all make money. But what is the equivalent of concert tickets in the book industry? Speaking engagements? That might work for a few, but not for most. I don’t know the answer. I don’t know how we can replace the paper book industry with the ebook industry. I wish I did, because I’d be in good position to make a lot of money.
Best Buy electronics recycling comes to Columbia Heights!
Via Gizmodo, our new local Best Buy in Columbia Heights is part of the free electronics recycling test.
Starting June 1, 117 stores in the Baltimore, San Francisco, and Minnesota markets are inviting customers to bring in no more than two (2) units per day, per household, for recycling at no charge. Customers can bring items such as televisions and monitors up to 32”, computers, phones, cameras, and other electronics devices and peripherals in for recycling.
This is really great for DC residents, because while the dump does take electronics to be recycled, my one experience there ended with a never-ending line that I soon abandoned. And now the old and busted computer sitting in the trunk of my car can finally have a new home!
Bill Simmons is fired
I read Bill Simmons for a long time. He’s written some funny articles, and his nomination of Bo Jackson as the greatest video game athlete of all time is absolutely right. And he was cool, years ago, when the Celtics, Red Sox, and Patriots all sucked. He’d talk about his beloved local teams now and then, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t ignore. But when they started doing well, it became quite clear that he would be better off writing for the Boston Globe and not something national. Well, maybe he wouldn’t be better off, but we would. He couldn’t go a paragraph without mentioning his teams. And I actually used to like the Pats and the Sox – my grandmother spends a lot of time in New England, so she got to root for both teams a bit, and since they were both terrible for a long time, I was happy to root for them when they weren’t playing the Orioles or Redskins. And then they got good. You, Red Sox fans, are some of the most annoying in all of sports. Some of you, the real die hards, are okay. But most of you have been waiting years, not for your team to be as good as the Yankees, but for you to have the excuse to be as annoying as Yankees fans. It only took one World Series victory to turn you from lovable underdogs into Yankees fans who wear red. But back to Simmons. He had an internship contest that my brother entered. He went to great lengths to explain how he was going to choose the winner, and then ignored all his rules and chose someone who simply aped his style. I stopped reading him completely a few years ago. I just got tired of him talking about his favorite teams all the time. I’d stop reading an article as soon as he started to gush about a Boston team, and pretty soon there wasn’t much for me to read. Many of you may have read this article, which I did not, but apparently it’s not flattering to the Celtics. The wife directs me to this response from Celtics Blog.
From here on out: Stop It. Just Stop. We no longer want you talking about our team publicly. You’ve lost all credibility with Celtics fans. All of it. Don’t bother with some lame and dumb reverse jinx excuse to explain your writing. And really, spare us the joyous article after we do win the title. None of us want to hear about it from Showtime Simmons. Enjoy rooting for Kobe, we hope you’ll be happier sitting next to Diane Cannon, just don’t tell us about it.
I hope he takes it to heart. He has to decide if he’s really a fan, in which case he should write for a Boston area publication and love his teams no matter what, or he can be a national columnist and pretend he cares about other teams in the league (Aside from, apparently, the Lakers). And speaking of the Celtics (The one team from Boston I still like, because the wife loves them and I never had a basketball team I cared about), I actually agree with Mike Wilbon for the first time in a while – the offensive foul on Paul Pierce that they called on his late three point attempt was absolutely awful. I’m glad it didn’t end up affecting the outcome, because it was just terrible. Tayshaun Prince jumped in the air and landed on Pierce while he was shooting and somehow it’s an offensive foul? Crazy. Anyway, I’m looking forward to game 1 on Thursday. Unlike Simmons, I actually want the Celtics to win, and think they can do it. It’ll be tough – LA is a great team. But it can be done, and it can be done by the Celtics. Edit to add: An LA fan thinks that Simmons sucks, too.
Security Theater is getting literal
The European Union’s Security of Aircraft in the Future European Environment (SAFEE) project uses a camera in every passenger’s seat, with six wide-angle cameras to survey the aisles. Software then analyses the footage to detect developing terrorist activity or “air-rage” incidents, by tracking passengers’ facial expressions…
This is SUCH a good idea. I can’t wait until they implement this and they start diverting flights because stoned idiots on the way to Amsterdam are making faces at the camera, or maybe someone who’s agoraphobic is sweating and tense. This will be even better than detaining infants who have names on the terrorist watch list.
At least it isn’t the United States this time. I’m comforted to see that we don’t have a monopoly on totally absurd security theater.
There was discussion at the birthing class of bringing breast milk in your carry-on, and how TSA had initially banned it with their ridiculous no-liquids rule. I think they first amended the rule to allow breast milk if you had the baby with you, and then again to allow it without a baby. That way, women on trips away from the baby who were faithfully pumping and storing the milk for their return would be able to do so.
First, I think it’s good that they allow this – it’s much more of a big deal than I realized before the wife got pregnant. But second, if breast milk is safe on the plane, then SO ARE OTHER LIQUIDS. It is utterly insane to think that six ounces of shampoo will cause a plane to crash into the White House, but a long weekend worth of breast milk is totally safe.
Anyway, I wish the terrorists who hate our freedom would try a plot involving things I don’t like. Maybe they could hatch a plot to put bombs in wheelie bags and drag them around the city! That would be great! Then maybe we could ban those stupid things from getting in my way when I’m walking to work. And I wish these terrorists would have a little concern for MY feelings and MY needs. Selfish jerks.
Birthing Class
We went to our second birthing class today. I continue to feel ridiculous carrying a pillow down Columbia Road. Last week, someone wanted to buy the pillows from us. This week someone asked us if we were on our way to a pillow fight. He did congratulate us when I told him why we were carrying them, so there’s that, but still. Class today was about nutrition. It was a lot of stuff we already knew, and the wife is already doing most of the things that the instructor recommended, but it’s nice to get the reinforcement. The solo husbands from last week both brought wives this time. I imagine the class is more interesting with a partner.
Help Firefox set a world record
Download Day 2008 is coming. We’re just not sure when. They’re trying to set a world record for software downloads in a day. Since you should be using Firefox 3 as soon as it comes out, this is a great opportunity. In case you haven’t tried Firefox, it is light years ahead of Internet Explorer. Even IE7, which Microsoft put out to implement a bunch of functionality that’s been in Firefox and other browsers for quite some time, is a steaming pile of crap compared to Firefox. Anyway, join in. It’ll be fun to watch the Mozilla Foundation’s servers melt with the download traffic.
My happy hour was a success
A couple weeks ago, I started planning a happy hour for the Columbia Heights Forum because people were starting to argue a bit too much, as people tend to do on forums. I figured it would be more friendly if people met each other in person. So the happy hour was last night at Wonderland, and it was pretty cool. I met a few people I “know” from the forum, and we had some local blog coverage (The Heights Life has a picture of our group at that link). There was a bit of discussion about making these meetups a little more regular, so we’ll see what happens. There are still a few forum regulars I’m dying to meet in person. Edit to add: In the comments to the Heights Life post, there is a discussion EXACTLY like the discussions that prompted me to plan the happy hour in the first place. People get angrier discussing things on the internet because you can’t see a person’s face, you can’t hear the tone of their voice, you can’t get the non-verbal cues that tell you what the person is really saying. And it’s anonymous – it’s much easier to hate someone you don’t actually know. So I think it’s kind of amusing that the post about the happy hour generated exactly the sort of discussion that the happy hour was supposed to prevent.
Maybe Metallica finally gets it
Ethan Kaplan, the VP of technology at Warner Bros. Records, just announced a new website for Metallica that makes it look like they’ve finally decided that music plus internet is not necessarily bad. The site looks like it’s trying to build a community of fans by giving them some free stuff, deals on merchandise, and promoting the new album. It’s too bad I’m not still fourteen and eager to buy anything Metallica produced. It’s funny that the crotchety old guys who wanted to kill the entire internet when people first realized they could download music illegally are now near the front of the pack of major (Okay, it’s questionable if Metallica counts as “major” these days, but bear with me) bands embracing a “I can make more money by giving away non-scarce goods to promote the scarce ones” business model.