January 2010 Archives

Smaller bills are on the path towards bi-partisanship

Gabriel Weinberg

on January 31, 2010 3:18 PM

This is turning into a weekend of political posts. This morning I watched Meet the Press with David Axelrod and John Boehner. (I haven't watched that show in a while, really since Tim Russert died.) Anyway, it got me thinking...

Republicans didn't actually vote no on everything in 2009. Obama highlighted a few of those instances in his Q&A on Friday, and Boehner made reference to some today, e.g. Afghanistan, extension of unemployment benefits, credit card reform, etc.

The votes we hear most about, however, are health care and stimulus. And on those they did vote no.

Now Boehner today again reiterated there is broad disagreement on health care, but there is some agreement too, e.g. offering plans across state lines, various types of insurance reform, etc. Obama said basically the same thing on Friday, asking to come together on at least those issues.

One of the problems though, is that these areas of agreement become embedded in these huge 1,000+ page bills that include massive areas of disagreement as well as all sorts of other unrelated things.

A seemingly feasible tactic on the path towards bi-partisanship would be to make smaller bills that are limited to areas of agreement.

This is a completely different process, and I realize that, as well as the trouble that comes along with it. You will have Democrats saying they want to do everything together or nothing at all, for example. However, if it really comes to a vote, I doubt they would vote against it.

And think for a second if Obama and the Democratic leadership had taken this approach over the past year. You might have had twenty different "bite-sized" stimulus and health care bills. Republicans would presumably have voted for some of them, and at the very least, we would have had both a) something accomplished (on health care) and b) both parties working together.

Obama, Ryan, bi-partisanship and changing Washington

Gabriel Weinberg

on January 30, 2010 6:26 PM

I watched Obama's Q&A at the House Republican retreat. It's very long, but really worth watching if you want some insight into bi-partisanship in Washington. (The Q&A piece starts around 20min in.) Here's my summary.

It's clear (at least to me) that Obama desires bi-partisanship in some form, but has gone about it to date in an extremely sub-optimal way. I think there are two general approaches.

The first approach, which Obama has done, is to say we're in charge, and to those of you not in charge, if you have ideas, we'll hear them out, and include them in our plans. He reiterated this approach multiple times in the State of the Union and again during the Q&A session.

It's not lip service. You can tell he has been listening to some of these ideas. He is clearly angry that even though some are in incorporated into Democratic bills, Republicans have been voting against these bills. He sees the bills as compromises. And to some extent they are--Democrats have adapted their bills in effort to get some Republican support.

Yet consider the situation from the perspective of the Republican house member, Paul Ryan. Ryan had a completely sensible and constructive dialog with Obama in the Q&A session, which Obama acknowledged.

Congressmen Ryan illustrates a group of Republicans who are willing to work with Democrats. I don't know how big this group is, but it does exist. I watched several committee sessions this year on C-SPAN where Ryan et. al. offered amendment after amendment that were all voted down on party lines.

These were not all partisan amendments. Some were simply mechanical tweaks on bills, clearly thought out to help them operate more efficiently or provide better oversight opportunities for Congress. The message though was clear: we don't want any of your help constructing our bills; you Republicans will have to vote our bill up or down.

This brings me to the second approach to bi-partisanship: bring the other side into the bill construction process. Make them co-sponsors. Let them into the back rooms. Approve their amendments if they are reasonable. And instead of just letting them email their ideas into a black hole, let them work with you in real time to incorporate them (when appropriate).

Even if the end result is a very similar bill, you will have much more of a chance for Republican votes. Those Republicans willing to cross the isle and compromise like Ryan will have bought into the process and will have a real stake in it. More importantly, they will have something they can show their constituents. They can say this or that piece is mine--I worked with the majority party to get that for you.

The other approach just gives them a take it or leave it decision: an up or down vote on a bill they didn't help write, had no say in, and were actively denied participation in its construction. Even if their idea is in there in some form, it isn't really their idea anymore.

Back to Obama. I realize it's a hard thing as President to try to increase bi-partisanship in Congress, given that you aren't really in charge of it. However, it is clear there is a lot of indirect power.

Obama is now using that power to start to force the Congressional leaders of both parties to meet on a regular basis. And he himself is doing more things like this Q&A session. I think that is a great start. I still don't get why he didn't do this stuff from the get-go, but better late than never.

So I'm hopeful. I hope he also puts more pressure on lower members of Congress. In particular, I hope he helps Republicans with legitimate amendments to get those passed in committee.

I'm also a bit skeptical, though. In the Q&A, Obama kept going on about how both sides need to stop attacking each other and be constructive. The problem with this message is he keeps speaking to the audience (Republicans) as a solid block. I think that is his core mistake.

He is frustrated, and in his frustration he has written off the entire other side by retreating to his side entirely. Instead, he should pick off those people like Ryan willing to work together and promote them and their ideas.

Reaction to State of the Union

Gabriel Weinberg

on January 29, 2010 8:59 AM

Pundits seem to think Obama's speech was partially aimed at independents, i.e. the center. As someone who sort of fits that bill, here were my reactions.

What if. I liked a lot of the proposals that I think were targeted at my political demographic, e.g. zero capital gains taxes, more nuclear power, small business credits, budget restraint, etc. However, I kept thinking why didn't all of these thing happen over the past year, when they arguably would have had a bigger impact on the economy.

Then I got to thinking they are somewhat bi-partisan proposals, at least in recessionary times, so what would have happened if Obama had led with these last year? Of course it is an unanswerable question, but you have to wonder if he had done it would he had started off on a better footing and then would have been more able to achieve a real bi-partisan, or at least more bi-partisan health care reform outcome.
Too long. I realize most State of the Unions are super long, but it just seemed to drag on. I would love to see Obama or another president make a shorter, more themed speech as opposed to really ten different speeches on every major political topic. It seemed he was just trying to cover all the bases. The worst was at the end he threw in like three sentences on immigration with no proposals or anything. He might as well just said the word immigration, paused, and moved on.
Liked the casual parts. I really appreciated the parts where Obama's personality shone through. That is, you could tell some of it was his own words. It bothers me how speech writers are so prevalent.
Bi-partisan yet not at the same time. I thought the tone on partisanship was weird. He would call for bi-partisan effort and then 30 sec later attack people in a partisan way. And I thought some of his attacks were simplified to much in the same way he attacked the media for doing.
Supreme court thing was strange. The moment where he called out the Supreme Court and all of Congress basically jeered at them while they just sat there was strange, and I thought inappropriate.

Top user-generated comments about the Apple iPad

Gabriel Weinberg

on January 27, 2010 5:40 PM

I thought it would be interesting to see what the highest rated/voted reaction comments were about the iPad after its launch. I grabbed the top comments from the top front page stories on digg, reddit, and news.yc

Eight7: "Looks like basically an oversized iPod touch so far..." (788 diggs)

darkchild82: "Anyone else kinda disappointed with its near-square shape as supposed to a more wide-screen format? Edit: Also... anyone else think the name "iPad" is a tad too feminine?" (709 diggs)

madmatter23: "Seriously? The iPad? For anyone living in Boston, there won't be much of a difference between this and the "iPaaahd" (iPod)." (561 diggs)

bigsheldy: "2001 called, they want their tablet PC back." (495 diggs)

Forlack: "iPad = Large iPhone" (415 diggs)

Frankeh: Just yesterday I was looking at my iPhone thinking "Hmmm, I wish this thing didn't fit in my pocket." Then I looked over to my netbook and couldn't help but feel it would benefit from losing the keyboard and being made of 50% glass. F

nally apple gives me what I wish." (522 points)

Ineedmorelemons: "Anyone else not impressed yet?" (413 points)

rincew1nd: "
"Netbooks are just cheap laptops!" - Steve Jobs;
The iPad is an EXPENSIVE netbook!" - The internet" (277 points)
junkit33: "
My netbook weighs only 2 pounds, has the same screen size, and gives me a full keyboard. Plus it's a full blown OS that lets me do just about anything I want with it, including such basics as flash. Oh and it cost half the price. All you're getting with the iPad is a neutered computer and you're saving a half pound of weight. I
'm generally a fan of Apple, and I love my iphone, but they screwed the pooch on the iPad badly IMO." (215 points)

doctor_ship: "
What this device does is extraordinary. You can browse the web with it.
That's revolutionary." (201 points)

coffeemug: My dad, mom, grandma, and grandpa can watch videos, look at photos of their kids/grandkids, send e-mails to their relatives oversees, and read their favorite books on it, all without the need for a "computer-savvy guy" who has to teach them how it works, and fix it when it's broken. In other words, it's a logical conclusion of the personal computer revolution. I understand you need to run your Ruby scripts, but this product was designed for the 99% of the people in this country instead. You're not the target audience." (59 points)

zacharypinter: "Here we have a device that doesn't support USB thumbdrives, doesn't support dropbox (at least system-wide, I assume the dropbox iphone app would work), is unable to run ruby or any of my other dev scripts/tools, cannot install firefox or firefox plugins, etc. I do not want to see computing head this direction." (45 points).

RyanMcGreal: "No keyboard. Less space than a netbook. Lame." (35 points)

vitobcn: "After seeing the iPad, I wonder if the JooJoo (CrunchPad) will even make it to the market." (25 points)

timcederman: "I am surprised that many of the comments so far are the equivalent of 'No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.' I'm excited at the very distinct deviation this is taking from the keyboard/mouse/monitor paradigm in something other than a strictly portable device. I think the OS looks pretty damn good and I can't wait to try using one myself." (20 points)

The point totals are already old of course. Incidentally, I originally envisioned more sites for this post, and less comments per site, but I couldn't find any others!

I couldn't find a way to get the top comments out of Facebook. Tweetmeme retweets were all links and contests. In Newspaper/blog comments, it was not clear which comments were highest rated. Disqus/IntenseDebate didn't seem to aggregate anywhere. And Mixx/Buzz/other social news sites don't seem to have enough traffic to be useful. Did I miss anything?

Finally, I'm still planning on getting an iPad. My use case has been confirmed.

How-to fix skype video when party can't see the other

Gabriel Weinberg

on January 27, 2010 5:05 PM

This post is for anyone trying to use Skype video and having the problem where one party can't see the other. That is, audio works fine and video one-way works fine, but just not two-way.

I've had this problem a few times with my parents and it is really annoying. We could see them, but they could never see us.

The short answer is this issue has always stemmed from a firewall problem. As such, messing with firewall settings has always fixed it.

It took so long to fix (for us) because I didn't immediately think firewall problem because audio and one video stream worked fine. So I kept looking at Webcam settings and drivers, and things having to do with Skype itself. No help there.

You should have the firewalls on both sides open to Skype. Ideally, you should port forward specific ports for Skype to the relevant computers. Doing so will ensure zero relays and increase your chances of high-quality video working correctly, as I outlined in a previous post.

The quickest solution is to set the Skype computer as the DMZ in your router/firewall. I don't recommend this long term for security reasons, but it's good for testing.

Also, remember to also check any software firewalls, e.g. on your operating system (OSX, Windows, etc.). The problem can also lie there.

Finally, doing these somewhat complex settings on a remote computer like my parents' computer can be tedious. I currently use Crossloop for messing with their computer, which is free and is easy enough to download and use that they can do that part.

Google traffic spikes

Gabriel Weinberg

on January 23, 2010 10:59 AM

On a number of sites in the past few years, I've seen this curious search traffic pattern. And I'm not the only one.

Nothing had changed in the recent past before these peaks. There were no internal site changes and no additional external links.

These spikes did not happen at times where other Webmasters were reporting major Google index changes. (I wouldn't expect such anyway since they returned to normal after a few days.)

The sites get search traffic from a wide swath of keywords that cut across many categories. The traffic is spread pretty evenly across keywords and keyword categories.

When looking at the increase, including when it was happening, it was clear that rankings increased across the board.

From between two to four days (depending on the incident), the traffic jumped up and remained the same for a bit, and then dropped back down.

What is the explanation for this? Here's the latest Webmaster world thread.

The threads give a number of theories:

Google was testing some major change and the site benefited during that period.
The site was on the edge of some filter and for some reason passed it and then went back down.
Google specifically was testing this site to see its impact on user behavior.

There are others as well. Because there were no obvious internal or external site changes, and no related webmaster posts at the time, I'm inclined to believe the latter reason.

Of course, I don't know the real reason, but in any case I wish the traffic would stay at the higher rate :).

Goal: 100+ posts in 2010

Gabriel Weinberg

on January 20, 2010 11:47 AM

If you follow this blog, you probably noticed that recently the post frequency went up. There's a good reason for that: I set a personal goal to do 100+ posts in 2010, without any reduction in post quality.

I have long term goals to get more into writing and interviewing, and I see this shorter term goal as a path towards the longer term ones.

I've been keeping a Google Doc with post ideas, but I could really use your suggestions as well.

On the top right of my blog there is a section labeled Suggestion Box, which is powered by skribit, a service that promises to "cure writer's block!" I don't have writer's block yet, but I'm sure I will at some point.

So please suggest topics when and if anything comes to mind.

To get you thinking, my current blog categories (general topics) are thoughts, technology, startups, programming, sysadmin, and parenting. More specifically, I could easily blog more about these particular topics:

the Philly startup scene
aspects of being a single founder
startup accounting
startup formation
interviewing
SEO
search engines
investing
MIT
being a stay-at-home dad
Perl
PostgreSQL
FreeBSD
nginx
solr
memcached

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

A moment for bi-partisanship has opened.

Gabriel Weinberg

on January 20, 2010 10:32 AM

The election of Scott Brown puts Democrats in a tough spot. Instead of finding a way to push health care through Congress, how about instead offering an olive branch to Republicans?

Bi-partisanship has largely been absent from the health care bills, which effectively fueled the recent election. I'm sure there is plenty of blame to go around, so let's not dwell on the past.

I think there is a moment right now where a real bi-partisan bill could be formed and passed. Both sides (and the American public) agree health care reform is necessary.

I think the way forward is those C-SPAN televised health negotiations. Obama and the Democratic leaders should now offer to do those open-door negotiations. It might seem at first like too little, too late, but if they actually carry through with them in a meaningful way, I think it would have a high probability of turning positive.

Of course, this strategy requires an actual willingness to compromise that will result in a scaled down bill with new stuff added in. That's the reality of bi-partisanship!

My Apple Tablet (iSlate) Use Case: Baby Following

Gabriel Weinberg

on January 19, 2010 3:43 PM

I'm planning on getting a tablet this year, probably the upcoming Apple iSlate (or whatever it will be called). [1]

My primary use case is compelling and simple, albeit not for everyone: following a baby around the house.

Eli ikes to crawl (almost walk!) around the entire house most of his waking hours. Usually this crawling is accompanied with parental entertainment. Sometimes, however, he entertains himself.

When entertaining himself, he of course still requires watching, but it is more an out-of-one-eye thing. During these times, I routinely catch up on email, RSS, HN, Twitter, and Facebook.

I currently use my Android phone (G2) and sometimes my laptop (HP Envy 13). Each is far from ideal for this use case.

The phone is too slow and too small. It's a pain to visit sites, and even more of a pain to use to compose an email or comment. It's pretty good at reading things though, especially within a native app.

The laptop is too big. It attracts Eli, who wants to come over and bend it backwards or type on the keys. (I think that may have to do with it doubling as a video phone with his grandparents.)

You also have to keep taking the laptop off of standby and it too difficult to put down fast, which is sometimes necessary if Eli is about to get in to trouble.

I am hopeful that the tablet form factor will be all of the good and none of the bad. I envision it fast and easy to browse on. I imagine composing with its virtual keyboard will be less effective than a laptop, but still effective enough to not be annoying. And I believe it will be easy to put down quickly. I can't wait!

[1] I'm planning on waiting until it actually goes on sale, i.e. not pre-order. At that point, it's possible that there will be other options. This happened to me with the Macbook Air. By the time I went to purchase it, I instead opted for the Lenovo ideapad U110, which eventually became my wife's laptop when I recently replaced it with the HP Envy 13.

Baby Bath Hacks

Gabriel Weinberg

on January 17, 2010 10:37 AM

Eli is 10mo old. Here's the semi-unintuitive stuff we've learned with regards to bathing.

Babies are already clean. Eli doesn't really get that dirty, especially earlier on when he wasn't eating anything besides milk. Before he could sit up, he didn't so much like the bath, so we started doing it rather infrequently upon need, a little less than once per week. He gets dirty mostly around his diaper and mouth, which gets cleaned continually from baby wipes.
Get in the bath. Since being able to sit up, Eli has loved baths. However, he doesn't really like being anywhere by himself. Getting in the bath with him solves the problem and can extend bathing for a long time.
Fill the tub up only a few inches. When you get in the bath, you have a tendency to default to fill it up higher. But the higher you fill it up, the more unwieldy the baby becomes. If you keep it only a few inches, they can have fun and be stable at the same time. The problem is it gets cold quickly, which brings me to my next point.
Separate the bath into two sections. If you get in the bath, you can position yourself in such a way where the water is divided into two sections with your body being the separator. Then you can sit near the faucet and turn on the hot water to a drip. The results are you get to be in hot water and your baby can be in warm water, and you can regulate how warm it gets while remaining comfortable. You also get to guard the faucet, which can be dangerous.
Water bottles. Water bottles make great bath toys. Eli likes to chew on them and likes how the water flows over his hands when you pour them out. They also can serve as parent bath toys. If you get cold in the few inches of water, you can get a bigger bottle and keep pouring it on you from the hot water section. You can also use the bottle to wash off soap from the baby's hair.
Toy wall. Eli likes to rotate bath toys. One activity that keeps him interested and busy is to take the bath toys and line them up on the side of the bath, making a toy wall. He will pull them down, and then you can line them up again.
Toy biting. Eli also likes to bite toys. But he likes it even more when his parents bite them. He loves grabbing them from our mouth and then putting them back in. Fun.

Avatar: is assimilation of the natives bad?

Gabriel Weinberg

on January 14, 2010 7:36 AM

Like a lot of people in the US, seeing Avatar made me think of native American/European history. Yes, there were a lot of wrongs committed. And yes, a lot of it had to do with diseases.

On HN, bokonist started an interesting thread asking whether it would have been better to turn back the clock and not have ever interacted?

I think that is one legitimate, albeit unrealistic, logical conclusion of our modern moralistic sensibilities. hristov makes the point that a peaceful co-existence would have been possible, but in the same breath talks about assimilation.

Avatar sheds light on both possibilities. As a viewer you're almost screaming for the former where us Earthlings would have never set foot on Pandora. Yet both in the movie and in real life I think it just couldn't have happened that way. There are too many independent variables, i.e. people.

We're always going to have explorers, entrepreneurs, and frontiersmen among us. And society isn't going to stop them from interacting with new things. So while idealistic, I think these alternate histories are dream worlds.

Interaction is inevitable. And with interaction, some degree of assimilation is inevitable.

From the Avatar perspective, assimilation seems pernicious, as it would certainly mean the destruction of at least in part the Navi's day to day life, which is painted so majestically in the movie.

Imagine many peaceful human colonies with their modern technology and economy. Some Navi are intrigued and gradually some start to assimilate--have jobs, trade, etc. Is that progress or a destruction of culture?

Avatar paints the Navi as an essentially homogeneous group. And given that they are not human, I'll let it slide. So back to the native Americans.

As like any human population, native Americans have their own explorers, entrepreneurs, and frontiersmen. Some of these people want to assimilate. Some will have gone home at night wishing that they had been born into the European way of life, and visa-versa.

We like to think of these groups as homogeneous, but in reality they are from it.

Would we (Earth) show up in our universe's stats pages?

Gabriel Weinberg

on January 13, 2010 9:04 AM

I recently read The Black Hole War. This quote from pg 418 really got me thinking: "Out of every 10,000,000,000 bits of information in the universe, 9,999,999,999 are associated with the horizons of black holes."

As an apathetic agnostic, I don't think much about how our universe was created. Yet doing so is pretty hard to escape when reading this book.

Suppose the universe was created, but the creators are not omnipotent. For a bad analogy, consider the universe as a large computer program. They designed this system, perhaps one of many, and let it go.

Further assume that though the creators are not omnipotent they may be able to interact with our universe without obeying our laws of physics. That is, they can measure or get views into certain things without effecting anything.

Now if they have active interest in monitoring their creation, what will their stats pages look like?

If indeed pretty much all information is in black holes, would they even know there are bits of information out of black holes? If so, would they further know about life in the universe? And of course, would we (Earth) show up anywhere?

Update: additional comments can be found here (on HN).

Will single founders please stand up?

Gabriel Weinberg

on January 11, 2010 12:30 PM

I see a lot of single founder discouragement on the startup interwebs. I'd like to start offering an alternative viewpoint, and I'd appreciate it if other single founders would join me.

Single founders are indeed rare, but we're out there. The perception is that we are rare because we never succeed, but that isn't the case.

I think you don't hear much about us because:

We don't often get funding and the press/recognition that comes with it.
Entrepreneurs are discouraged from being single founders in the first place.
Most people, even most startup founders, aren't equipped to be single founders.

On the last point... I've seen a lot of posts lately on qualities that make good startup founders. I made the following list a while back when thinking about good co-founders:

Intellectual curiosity
Independent thinking
Analytical thinking
Likes to work
Works efficiently
Dedicated
Emotionally stable
Ability to focus
Responsible
Integrity
OK with no salary for a period of time
Shared financial/exit goals
Shared product areas
Compatible personality

The point is that a good startup co-founder is a rare breed of person. A good single founder is even rarer. You need pretty much the same qualities, but to a significantly higher degree.

For example, startups are an emotional roller coaster. With a co-founder, they can be up when you are down and visa-versa. When you are a single founder, you don't have to be up all the time, but you have to be up enough to keep going.

Basically you have to do everything yourself. There is no business co-founder and tech co-founder; it's all you.

Since most startup founders aren't equipped for this challenge, I think their knee-jerk reaction that it isn't a good idea makes sense (from their perspective). They can't see how they could do it, so they project that no one can. But that just isn't so.

There are at least three single founders on the HN leaderboard:

axod, Mibbit
cperciva, Tarsnap
epi0Bauqu (me)

There may be more. These are just the ones I know off the top of my head, glancing at the list.

Don't get me wrong--there are many great reasons to have co-founders, and I have had my share of them. But in some situations with the right person, founding a startup yourself does make sense.

What else do you want to know about single founders? I have some topic ideas but I'd love your suggestions.

Update: additional comments can be found here (on HN).

The Baby Observer Effect

Gabriel Weinberg

on January 10, 2010 10:02 AM

The observer effect in physics refers to how things can change when you observe them. That is, the very act of measurement can change the thing you are measuring.

The same thing happens with Eli, our 10mo old son. If you go into his room to observe him in his crib, and he is even slightly awake, it is pretty much disaster. He hears you, picks up his head, stands up, and starts crying out to you.

When we first looked at baby monitors, I thought video was a bit over the top, but we got one anyway. Now I'm sure it helps both him and us sleep a lot better. With just audio, we would check on him when we heard noises, even if these noises were just due to light sleeping or trying to fall asleep.

But with the video monitor, you can actually tell whether you should go up there or not. You can avoid the baby observer effect altogether.

This works great in the morning. When he is actually waking up for good, he sits up or stands up on his own. But when it is just a passing thing, he stays laying down.

The best use is when he is going down for a nap. It often takes five to ten minutes for him to fall asleep. And he pretty much always cries out right when you put him in the crib, regardless of if he is tired or not. And you're never quite sure if you have the timing just right.

The video monitor tells you whether he is really trying to fall asleep or just upset for getting put in his crib not fully tired. Without the video monitor, you can easily trigger the baby observer effect by going to check for yourself.

We just got back from a vacation where we didn't have the monitor and it was a lot more difficult. We ended up keeping the door cracked slightly and peering through, but that had its own drawbacks. More sounds get through the door in that position, sometimes it cracks open more and makes a sound, and you actually have to get up and go up there.

How My Technology Habits Changed in the Last Ten Years

Gabriel Weinberg

on January 8, 2010 8:04 PM

I'm still primarily Web programming in Perl and JS using emacs over SSH on servers I sysadmin. Beyond that, a lot has changed:

The Mobile Web. I got my first mobile phone in the summer of 2000, so I've been using mobile phones pretty much the whole time. A couple years ago I started browsing the Web on my phone, which made shopping trips with my wife much more bearable. And last year I upgraded to an Android phone, and now my browsing experience is much improved and I use apps too. I get email, weather, etc. pushed to my phone.
GPS. I remember writing down personalized directions and printing out Mapquest. Around 2001/2002 I started using MS Streets and Trips almost exclusively. Then in 2006 I got a Garmin nuvi, which I recently upgraded. Now I never think about directions beyond an address. And with the mobile Web I often look up addresses on the road.
DVR & Hulu/iTunes. I've always been into TV, but up until 2006 I was tied to the TV schedule. Occasionally we would record to VHS, but usually we'd try to be home on certain dates and times. Now I don't even know when most of my shows air and I hardly ever watch commercials either. When my DVR messes up or when there are three shows to record at once (hah!), I watch on Hulu or buy on iTunes.
Digital Music. I was into mp3s before 2000, but I still bought CDs up until about 2005. Now all of my CDs are in a closet--everything is in mp3s and I exclusively buy digital music.
Streaming Music. I started streaming my CDs to speakers via an Airport around 2003. In 2007 I bought a Sonos system, which allows me to stream my stuff as well as Pandora/Radio all around my house. At that time, I started using Pandora a lot, though I'm still not quite happy with it.
Satellite Music. We got XM maybe a year after came out, I think around 2004. We were heavily into for a while in the house, up until about 2007 when I started using Pandora a lot more through Sonos. Then I got it in a new car in 2007, and I switched to heavy car use. After the merger though my use has waned, mainly because the station I used to listen to most (Ethel 47) has since slightly diverged from my music tastes.
Skype Video. I was using IP telephony before 2000, but I only started using Skype Video in 2008. Now I use Skype Video all the time. I call my parents regularly so they can communicate with our son. I do my Traction interviews via Skype. And I've done various business meetings through it as well.
Server OS. I made a quick transition from RedHat to Debian to FreeBSD and I pretty much haven't looked back. I've installed a bunch of others (NetBSD, OpenBSD, Ubuntu, Chrome OS), but the only other one I've really been using lately is Ubuntu because EC2 doesn't yet support FreeBSD.
The Cloud. In 2000, all my stuff was local. Now, a lot is in the cloud. I switched to Gmail from Outlook in 2004. I still run my own servers, but I have EC2 backups.
Social Networking. Needless to say, I'm on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. I adopted the various social networks pretty much right when they came out.

What about you?

« December 2009 | Main Index | Archives | February 2010 »

January 2010 Archives

Smaller bills are on the path towards bi-partisanship

Obama, Ryan, bi-partisanship and changing Washington

Reaction to State of the Union

Top user-generated comments about the Apple iPad

How-to fix skype video when party can't see the other

Google traffic spikes

Goal: 100+ posts in 2010

A moment for bi-partisanship has opened.

My Apple Tablet (iSlate) Use Case: Baby Following

Baby Bath Hacks

Avatar: is assimilation of the natives bad?

Would we (Earth) show up in our universe's stats pages?

Will single founders please stand up?

The Baby Observer Effect

How My Technology Habits Changed in the Last Ten Years

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