Kevin's random thoughts - Home

Doing the math, cont'd

2008-08-21T19:36:00Z

Not sure if John Gruber noted this jackassery or not. Writing on ars technica, Joel Hruska manages to stop just short of a Jackass-of-the-Week award, but nonetheless veers deep into irrational anti-Artie-MacStrawman-ism.

Hruska's analysis of the fact that Apple's average selling prices are higher than the rest of the market starts off well enough:

Desktop PC average selling prices (ASPs) have scarcely changed in the past two years, while laptop ASPs have fallen 21 percent, probably in part thanks to rising demand and steeper competition among vendors. Mac desktop ASPs, on the other hand, have actually gone up by 7.7 percent, while laptop ASPs have dropped by just 3.8 percent. Apple, in other words, is bucking conventional wisdom, and selling computers that are significantly more expensive than the average unit shipped by the likes of Dell, HP, or Lenovo.

...and turns back from the brink for a moment of insight...

This would normally be the point at which any Mac vs. PC discussion veers off into a heated debate over hardware specs, manufacturer build quality, and acerbic commentary on the more dubious characters in one's family history. I'm rather explicitly not going there. Instead, I'd like to draw attention to a different facet of the situation. ... Apple is clearly picking up steam without significantly reducing its ASPs. It's even happening while PC ASPs, particularly notebook ASPs, are dropping.

The current situation implies that Apple may be drawing high-end notebook sales that would have otherwise gone to Dell, HP, Lenovo, or the other major players in this space.

...before veering off into warrantless-conclusion-land:

Apple has clearly created a value proposition that customers are willing to pay a substantial premium in order to possess. [emphasis added]

I think he's right that Apple is drawing higher-end (not just top-end, but mid-range too) notebook sales away from other makers, which makes his conclusion all the more senseless. As has been demonstrated already, comparably equipped Macs sell in the same price range as their Windows-preinstalled counterparts. If it's true that Apple's sales are coming from customers who would have otherwise bought $1000+ Dell or hp laptops, those buying Macs are not paying a premium.

How many Episcopalians...

2008-08-21T17:47:00Z

How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb? [grin]

Sixty of 95 congregations have exchanged their incandescent light bulbs for compact fluorescents (CFLs) so far this summer in the Diocese of Ohio’s “How Many Light Bulbs Does it Take to Change an Episcopalian?” campaign to reduce its carbon footprint.

“That’s 5,431 bulbs,” reports intern Andy Barnett.

So extrapolating from the average number of bulbs per congregation, and dividing the number of Episcopalians (active baptized members) in Ohio by the total number of bulbs, that's...

29,400 members ÷ 8600 bulbs = 3 members per bulb

3: One to call the electrician, one to mix the drinks, and one to talk about how much better the old one was. (from BeliefNet)

Dibs on shaking martinis!

Doing the MPG math

2008-08-19T22:58:00Z

Suppose you had a household with two cars, and each car needs to be driven 10,000 miles per year. One car consumes 34 MPG, and the other car consumes 18 MPG. Since gas is expensive, you want to replace one car. Because of utility constraints, you have two choices:

Replace the 34 MPG car with a 50 MPG car — a 16 MPG improvement

Replace the 18 MPG car with a 28 MPG car — a 10 MPG improvement

Which car replacement would save you the most gas?

... When you run the numbers, replacing the 34 MPG car with a 50 MPG (a 16 MPG improvement) car saves you 94.1 gallons per 10,000 miles, whereas replacing the 18 MPG car with a 28 MPG (a 10 MPG improvement) car saves you 198.4 gallons per 10,000 miles — more than double the savings.

... a textbook case for how common wisdom can fail the common person.

From this blog post (h/t MAKE blog).

It's an interesting point, and a problem that's avoided by the metric measurement of gas mileage in L/100km (volume over distance). What we really care about is either (a) how much gas we're really using for the distance we need to drive, and thus how much money we're spending on it; or (b) how much particulate matter and noxious gas we're putting in the air. Both of these are related to the volume of gas used.

Even so, the example above presents something of a false choice. Utility constraints, yes, but replacing an 18 MPG car with a 34 MPG car is still better than replacing an 18 MPG car with a 28 MPG car. Using the right grade gasoline and driving for better mileage also help, no matter what vehicle you drive.

No, really, everything is an expression

2008-08-19T22:26:00Z

I just had a realization about Ruby that others coming from C, Perl, Javascript, PHP, etc. may not have quite grasped yet: In Ruby, since everything is an expression, semicolons are allowed within parentheses. That means parentheses effectively create a statement block (though not a new scope, and not a block in the Ruby sense of a first-class procedure object).

>> ("foo"; 42; :coolness)
=> :coolness

The above evaluates the values "foo" (a String), 42 (a Fixnum), and :final (a Symbol) in that order, and returns the last one. In Lisp, this would be a progn (Common Lisp) or begin (Scheme).

I've made use of this behavior before, I think, without really realizing the implications of it. In Perl, for example, you can use a bare block to group statements together. But you can't even apply a statement modifier to such a grouping. The following is a syntax error:

{             
  print "foo\n";
  exit(254);
} unless open(FOO, "foo.txt";

...leading to such idioms as:

print "foo\n" && exit(254) unless open(FOO, "foo.txt");

In Ruby, since everything is an expression, you can use statement modifiers on a parenthesized expression, like so:

>> (f = open("hello.c"); f.read) if File.exist? "hello.c"
=> # contents of hello.c

You could even use a compound expression as a conditional test (in a statement modifier!):

>> "non-empty file" if (f = open("hello.c"); !f.eof?)
=> "non-empty file"

Doing the math

2008-08-18T18:13:00Z

Someone out there did an extensive price comparison between the MacBook and comparably-equipped laptops from Dell, hp, and Sony (h/t daring fireball). I thought I'd post here a similar comparison I did between comparably-equipped desktop machines from Apple and Dell back in 2002 (originally posted to a slashdot comment). These numbers were drawn directly from the respective companies' online stores at the time.

Dell Dimension 8200

Pentium 4 1.7GHz
256MB RAM
40GB HD (no 60GB available)
3yr ltd warranty/service plan
Windows XP Home
15in flat panel LCD (analog connector)
64MB Geforce2 MX
DVD-R/CD-RW drive
Dell Jukebox, Image Expert 2000, Standard Dell Movie Studio bundle
Microsoft Works 2002
Price: $2,209

Apple iMac SuperDrive

G4 800MHz
256MB RAM
60GB HD (no 40GB available)
3yr AppleCare Protection Plan [apple.com]
Mac OS X and OS 9
15in flat panel LCD (digitally connected)
32MB Geforce2 MX
DVD-R/CD-RW SuperDrive
iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD
AppleWorks 6.2 Price: $1,948

Difference: $261

The Media's fault

2008-06-10T20:26:00Z

I've mostly refrained from comment, even in my face-to-face life, about Scott McClellan's book, because the only necessary summary was tweeted (twit? twitted?) so wonderfully when the book came out at the end of last month (thanks daringfireball). But the maddening stream of defensive self-congratulation by members of the media can't stand unchallenged.

Well, actually, it hasn't. While I have no truck with Scott McClellan blaming the media for letting the administration start a war about which my views have been clear since before it started, neither should the media be so quick to congratulate themselves for their coverage:

A majority of Democrats in the House voted against the authorization of force... There were also huge antiwar demonstrations, which received stunningly little coverage.

Some of which I helped organize in my admittedly tiny little college town. It's not ultimately the media's fault we invaded Iraq—rarely is the media fully to blame for anything we try to push off on them—but as usual, they bear the responsibility for giving a louder voice to those in power and ignoring all others.

Food security

2008-06-09T18:38:00Z

For the second year, my lovely partner and I have signed up for a CSA share. We were mostly happy with last year's, but they seemed to pick everything just a little too late; the produce we got was often a little too large and a bit bitter. This year we've signed up with the Turtle Creek Farm, and our first box came on Friday for pick-up at our favorite co-op. So far, as expected, there's a lot of spring greens, including some tasty-looking spinach we'll be having tonight (probably as a salad). All of it looks really good, and the family running it seem really friendly.

Below the fold: our garden, companion planting, locavores and kitchen gardeners

We also have our own garden going, a 5 x 20 ft. plot that I started a couple years ago. This year is the first time we've managed to get the thing planted in time to have some real success with it. The long, cold spring helped us in that regard—it gave us more time to buy seeds and plants and get them into the ground. Currently planted:

Three mounds with corn, to be joined by beans and squash
Six tomato plants, companion-planted with two Thai basil plants
One half-row each of butterhead lettuce and spinach
One row of onions (though I'm pretty sure these won't work)

This evening I'll be planting the other half-row each of spinach and lettuce, so that I can harvest them incrementally. I'll also be planting the beans and squash to join the corn.

Meanwhile, I'm following the pursuits of similar-minded folks around the country via the Locavore Nation blogs. I've also been regularly reading the Kitchen Gardeners International site for tips, and by the end of the summer we'd like to be able to can our extra produce.

Haitian hospitality

2008-06-04T20:34:00Z

[This is the piece I wrote for our monthly parish newsletter about the trip. There will be more to come about Haiti.]

In the United States, the only things we hear about Haiti are that they're either starving or rioting. Certainly Haiti is deeply in need of our help, especially as the worsening worldwide food crisis affects the people there most strongly, but the wholeness of Haiti cannot be reduced to such a simple description. From the moment we arrived, we were shown overwhelming hospitality. At the guest house in Leogane, we were greeted by a beautiful and tasty dinner of rice, beans, fish, and vegetables, the work of Fenide Deravil and her helpers at the guest house.

After the service on Sunday, we were again shown the utmost hospitality by Joseph Laborde, the lay leader and school administrator at St Philippe et St Jacques, and his wife, who invited us to their home for lunch. We sat on their front porch and chatted about his hopes for his son Jonas, who is currently a teacher at the school but also attending university in Port-au-Prince.

And finally, Fr. Kerwin Delicat and his family were the most gracious of hosts throughout our stay in Leogane. They translated for us, had us visit them at their home repeatedly, and even took us to the beach at Jacmel one fine afternoon. The culmination of their hospitality, though, was the evening we spent with Kerwin+, his wife Rholcie and daughter Kercie, his brothers Carlo and Roosnel, and his aunt Celecia. Rholcie and Celecia prepared a wonderful meal for us, and Carlo even gave us a little musical entertainment (with vocal help from his brothers).

This is how we build a true partnership, and I'm looking forward to the opportunity to show Kerwin+ and Rholcie the same hospitality when they come to visit us.

Nou pralé en Ayiti

2008-04-17T16:07:00Z

We heard from our hosts in both Port-au-Prince and Leogane on Tuesday that it's safe again, so we're leaving on Saturday as planned. I've created a new section in case you want to follow just my posts on Haiti. It's likely all I'll be posting from now until we get back.

Meanwhile:

"The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV tank with ethanol will feed one person for a year," [Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization author Lester] Brown says. "And what we are seeing now is the emergence of direct competition between the 860 million people in the world who own automobiles and who want to maintain their mobility while the 2 billion poorest people in the world simply want to survive."

(via NPR)

Also, the AIDG out of Boston has collected a good set of eyewitness accounts from the protests last week.

Haiti is starving (updated)

2008-04-14T13:30:00Z

Update: if you read only one thing about Haiti, read this: Haiti, Reaping the Whirlwind

For the past several months, my lovely partner and I have been planning a trip to Haiti. Our parish has a partnership with a parish there, and we're part of the group that works on the partnership. We're meant to leave on Saturday, but as you might have (but probably haven't) heard in the news last week, people are in the streets protesting and, in some instances, rioting.

Funny thing, what happens when people are starving. Eighty percent—four-fifths—of the people in Haiti live on less than US$2 per day, and many of those are in so-called abject poverty, living on less than US$1 per day. The cost of food in developing countries worldwide has as much as doubled in the past year, and in Haiti, many people are literally subsisting on cookies made of dirt.

If you're a praying sort, please include the people of Haiti in your prayers. If you're an activist type, call your congresspeople at the state and national levels. Here's some further reading to help you raise awareness:

Google News search for Haiti
HAITI: Economy forces poor to eat dirt
IMF warns rising food prices may spark more riots like Haiti
Biofuels a factor as global food riots spread to Haiti

If you're a charitable sort, consider donating to the UN World Food Programme mission in Haiti. It would take US$96 million to fully fund the WFP in Haiti, of which they have only received 13 percent.

That's all for now. If we go, I'll blog from the island if possible (there is at least e-mail access there).

Apache's trailing slash and proxying to RESTful apps

2008-04-09T19:52:00Z

I have a somewhat odd case with the Web app I just deployed today (no, not Rails, it's Merb!). I have a RESTful Documents controller which needs to receive POST requests on /documents. I also have a documents directory in the public document root. The whole thing is hosted behind Apache with mod_proxy_balancer, and mod_rewrite to let Apache serve static files (all as described on the Mongrel site).

So when I would POST to /documents, Apache in its (normally quite useful) wisdom decided to rewrite it to /documents/ and (worse) to change the request to a GET. This is because of mod_dir, which provides the DirectoryIndex directive and the (less well-known) DirectorySlash directive, which defaults to On. So to fix it, I just set DirectorySlash to Off for the documents directory, and bingo, it works.

Now, if I needed directory indexes on the subdirectories of the public/documents/ directory, I'd have to work around, but this is fine for my current setup.

It's its!

2008-02-18T17:34:00Z

It's a shame that the English language has had its writers in the current generation so poorly trained as to confuse the usage of "its" and "it's". Since I recently had to retrain my well-educated partner, via much repetition, to use them properly, and since I've seen such misuse this morning in two articles written by otherwise intelligent people: here is the proper usage of "its" and "it's".

"its" is a possessive pronoun.
"it's" is a contraction of "it is".

See the first sentence of this post for an example of correct usage. Anywhere you see "it's" (with apostrophe), mentally replace it with "it is". Do that several times and you'll start to cringe when you see the wrong usage, just like I do.

Learning humility from science and religion

2008-02-12T22:15:00Z

From the Episcopal Café:

…in essence, both Galileo and Darwin were using science to claim that humankind is not at the center of everything. Our earth is not at the center of God's creation, and our species is not at the center of God's creation.

Isn't this what Lent is supposed to teach us? "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return," many of us heard on Ash Wednesday. Lent is supposed to remind us of humility. The opposite of humility is hubris, to be so self-obsessed as to think we are at the center of everything.

So good. Both Galileo and Darwin were confronted with a church power structure that took Scripture literally, thereby missing the point: "The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it." Not ours to do with as we wish. Not the property of the power structures that oppress.

If I claim to act by God's will, I think I need to go and learn humility better.

textutil: OS X command-line tool of the week

2008-01-15T21:23:00Z

$ textutil -convert rtf 'Business Plan.doc'
$ ls
Business Plan.doc  Business Plan.rtf

omg d00d! Command-line conversion between proprietary and open-source formats!

$ textutil -convert doc 'Live Free Or Die.odt'
$ ls
Live Free Or Die.doc  Live Free Or Die.odt
$ file Live\ Free\ Or\ Die.doc
Live Free Or Die.doc: Microsoft Office Document

man textutil for more details. Other supported formats (besides the demonstrated RTF, MS Word, and OpenOffice) include plain text and HTML. It can also display document metadata (including of Word documents) and convert documents from one text encoding (UTF-8, ASCII, KOI-8, ...) to another. Whee!

I hated DRM before it was cool

2007-11-21T20:55:00Z

From some random ZDNet-employed tech pundit:

Apple goes to great lengths — usually through its digital rights management technologies (what I call C.R.A.P.) — to tightly control the relationship between its software, its hardware, and, in the case of the iPhone, the relationship of both to carriers and the Internet (God forbid you should attempt to acquire new audio online for your iPhone — music, ringtones, etc — through anything but the iTunes Music Store).

Just the latest in a long string of Apple hatred (and now litigation) based on their "FairPlay" DRM system. Apple can't be exonerated of their complicity in the foisting of DRM on us consumers, but let's review the facts.

Apple does not force you to use DRM-crippled music either in iTunes or on the iPod. In fact both products were capable of using the de facto industry standard (though unfortunately patent-encumbered) MP3 format before FairPlay existed in the market—i.e., before the opening of the iTunes Music Store.
Apple themselves sell non-DRM-crippled tracks through their own music store.
Apple is neither the only, nor the worst company to use DRM.

I happily use an iPod and iTunes (and a Mac). I have never paid money for a single DRM-encumbered track from the iTunes Store (though I do own a few such tracks via gift cards and Pepsi caps). I've been an eMusic subscriber since their plans included unlimited downloads. I find it unconscionable that the RIAA could sue a family into oblivion for simply depriving them of potential (that means neither real nor certain) revenue to which they (and the courts) think they have a right.

But why is it suddenly cool to hate Apple for using DRM (based on utter fabrications), and not actually support ditching it entirely?

And if you hated Bush before it was cool, see here.