WATCHING:
Lawless
Starring: Jason Clarke, Guy Pearce, Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Jessica Chastain

A story about Moonshiners in Appalachia before/after Prohibition, this was a (sadly) pretty boring movie.

Yes, there’s the one holdout, the crooked government official (Guy Pearce, in a very androgynous role) and so on and so on.

Just not that much fun.

The soundtrack – on the other hand – is great. Movie? Not so much.

All movies

My iPhone (4s) seems to be sucking battery power like never before.

Not quite sure why.

Have to track down when iOS6.0.1 went in, or if it’s something else (all Wi-Fi, dropped to 12% battery life in less than one day with NO use. Eep!).

It’s always something…

Could it somehow be related to the iTunes 11 installed recently? Hmm…interesting thought…

OK, the new iTunes came out yesterday, and – like just about everyone in the world – I downloaded and installed same.

After only a night and (part of) today, I can say this: Hey, it doesn’t suck!

I’ve long been a believer that iTunes has gotten bloated and begun its decline into sluggishness. It’s trying to be too many things to too many audiences: playing music, accessing iTunes store, synching iPhone or iPad and so on. This is a common refrain even among the Apple faithful, so don’t take this comment with a grain of salt.

I consider iTunes Apple’s to be the Mac company’s equivalent of Microsoft Outlook – a pig of a program that used to be so useful. (Side note: I bought a new computer – Windoze – about six months ago. I still haven’t set up any of the Office programs I purchased [the full boat], including Outlook. I’ve yet to miss any of these.)

Yet iTunes still works – and the new version is a better version of iTunes, unlike Outlook 2010, which is — to me — a steaming pile of crap compared to Outlook 2007.

Yet, at bottom, iTunes stills needs a total overhaul, but at least Apple appears to making an effort to release a better version of a troubled program, as compared to Microsoft: The geniuses at Redmond keep piling features/confusion on with each new release of Outlook.

That’s why I’m a little skeptical of articles like Farhad Manjoo’s Slate.com article titled (cleverly) Won’t Someone Take iTunes Out Back and Shoot It? Sure, he makes the same points I’ve made above, but without the grudging acknowledgement that this new iTunes is an improvement over the last. Yes, iTunes needs to die (but be replaced…how?), but it’s not in the cards to kill it right now.

I think that once the whole touch vs. desktop dust settles, there will be a more compelling reason to build a new codebase for iTunes (or two/three apps) that can be leveraged by all computing devices. Until that time, I don’t see a radical change in iTunes.

Update: I forgot to mention: What did iTunes cost you? Yeah, it’s free (yes, a revenue driver, but still).

I put a code freeze in place at this domain because I transferred to a different host.

For the most part, I’m all done.

Got this blog transferred over (WordPress => WordPress, much better than a previous Blogger.com => WordPress move), got my CGIs in place (mainly my gallery) and have all CRON jobs pointing to new directories etc. on the new littleghost.com.

Whew!

This was a lot more work than I had anticipated, but there were no deal-breakers. Just a lot of blood, sweat and swearing… Some things are still a little wonky, but – for the most part – I’m good to go.

FYI – I’m now hosting at ipower.com, and I’ve been pretty happy with them. I moved my other major domain, geistlinger.com to ipower.com a year or two ago, and was satisfied enough to move this domain. Their online chat, in particular, has been very helpful.

Onward!

I’ve been in a code freeze mode lately, as I’ve been in the midst of moving my domain to a new host.

What a pain in the ass.

Moving the static HTML is trivial; the CGIs that I still have (yes, mock me! – but I don’t want link rot) were a little more challenging, and last – but not least – is the WordPress (my blog’s engine) transition.

The blog transition was a chore, but I’ve moved from a 2.x version to a 3.x version, and the updated WordPress is way more advanced (almost too advanced, but that’s another post).

Next: Actually transferring the domain from Host A to Host B (I have the new host set up under a different DNS).

Fun fun fun …..

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Today was the last day of mowing for the year, I’d guess – and while the grass was a little long, the mowing was mainly to mulch up leaves. I usually do this once a year just to get some leaf matter into the soil.

From this point on, it’s raking until the trees run bare.

As I was mowing today, I noticed some maple leaves – not from our maple, but I believe from the tree of our backyard neighbors – with black spots on them.

The more I looked, the more I found. I’m guessing this is either some sort of fungal infection or – possibly – an insect issue. The former is the most likely, but many of the black spots on the leaves appear to have a perforation at the center, so it could be emanating from an insect bite/larvae.

Not really a surprise, as the weather this past year has been decidedly un-foliage friendly: A mostly mild, low snow winter kept the water table down and didn’t allow plants to harden off properly; the summer was hot and very dry. Only now – in late September through October are we getting the water large trees, especially, need to thrive.

Stressed out trees are susceptible to various types of injuries, including pests and fungi.

Hope the neighbors’ tree is not permanently damages; a few years ago they had to take down a huge elm that completely changed their backyard (and gave us more light, which was good). Time will tell…

Like a bird on a wire,
Like a drunk in a midnight choir,
I have tried, in my way,
To be free

I took this picture of a Peregrine Falcon on the power lines in our backyard in May of this year, the connection to the Leonard Cohen song didn’t hit me until just now, when the song (“Bird on a Wire”) rolled through my iTunes.

The falcon is a frequent visitor here, as we have a very popular bird feeder that must – to a falcon – look like an Old Country Buffet.

Photo via iPhone and morphed via Camera Awesome (which I like better than Instagram, but I’ve always been a rebel…)

Here’s evidence of a kill by a falcon in the winter of 2007:

The peregrine – like all raptors – is a fierce-looking bird (check out the eyes), but what’s with the Big Bird yellow feet? What evolutionary advantage does that give this, or other, falcons/eagles? Always seemed weird to me.

(Just did some look-ups: What I’ve been calling/seeing as a Peregrine Falcon might just be a Cooper’s Hawk. Hmm…I just don’t know that much about such…)

Update: Long story short: After consultation with a raptor (hawks/eagles/falcons and such) expert, this appears to be a Cooper’s Hawk. Wow, I have to relabel a bunch of pics and so on…but I applaud the veracity call! Thanks to Lindsey and her dad.

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Subtitle of this entry: An I just a Luddite or is the new only partly better than the old??

As the main pic shows, I finally broke down – correction, the CAR broke down – and so a new car was purchased. Second new car of my life; the first (bottom photos) lasted 15 years. Will this new one last the same amount of time/miles? I doubt it.

To be fair, the 97 Escort (the green machine, bottom) had a lot of work done on it outside of the scope that I’d consider normal wear and tear. Brakes a couple of times; full brake-line replacement; full exhaust-line replacement (on top of a couple of muffler replacements; expected), rear-coil replacement (I’ll still never understand that one); radiator replacement.

And this was a car with – at the time of death – had only 67k miles on it.

Do I believe that this new car (top; burgundy replacement) will last 15 years, even with normal maintenance and repair? And factoring in the possible/probable occasional WTF expensive fix?

I honestly don’t.

Today, almost everything is built to last for a shorter period than its predecessor, and – to be fair – in some ways that’s a good thing:

• Especially with anything electronic, technology is moving so fast that by the time you buy X, an improved X is cheaper/faster/better than what you bought. Think computers, smartphones and so on. Many – not all, agreed – want to get the best and the fastest sooner rather than later. Why pay $Z*2 that’ll last five years for something you’ll want to replace in two years? Make it cheaper (price/quality) and everyone wins.
• Innovation is moving so quickly in many areas that it’s great that prices (and quality) are dropping. We can now buy solar panels, have a cell phone (physical; ignore the carrier issues), have LEDs for nightligts and so on. Again, a lot of this is wrapped up in electronics, but that’s just because I’m a computer dork. If I were in fashion, I’m sure I’d have tales about how haute fashion was more quickly getting to the masses and so on.

On the other hand – there’s always another hand, ja? – I don’t agree with some of the “short-lived” products I’ve purchased lately:

• Recently replaced a dozen or so year old microwave with a new one. Yep, faster, but the latch on the door – from day one – is flimsier than the one on the old micrwave’s even after a decade+. Weak link.
• We replaced the stainless steel Cuisinart coffee maker. Except, whoops, for the same price, it’s not stainless steel. It’s plastic that looks like stainless steel. Same coffee maker – a good one – besides this, but a step down.
• DVD players – each one I’ve purchased over the decade (three of ’em) have each been better than the former; each has cost approximately the same as what it has replaced; each has lasted for a lesser period than its predecessor. *Sigh*
• Home wireless phones (i.e. for a landline) fall into the “technology is moving fast” category, but also into this bucket – there really isn’t, for most folks, a need to replace same more than once a decade or so. Sure, some advances, but we’re not talking computers: Just some good stuff, that really won’t blow your hair back. Or – if it does – buy same. It’s inexpensive, and, yes, it’s also cheap, in the low-quality, short life sort of way. We replaced a cordless phone after about 12-13 years, and the replacement is a set of cordless phones (really can’t get anything else). Nice to have the multiple phones; nice to get off the 2.4Ghz band (so no wireless network issues), but the phones are crappy. And they were rated as highly as any other phone on Amazon. Whatever…
• (Fill in your own blank….)

Some longer-lived products that I’ve run across in the last few years include high-end digital cameras (yes, the newer one is better, but not exponentially), Allen/hex wrench sets and thumb drives (lots of issues with thumb drives; but they form the new sneaker-net).

Click thumbnails for larger image

When Romy and I went to the Naperville art fair earlier this month, we did the art fair and then did the River Walk – the path along the river.

As we headed west of downtown, we popped up near the aptly names “Quarry Lake” (hmm…wonder why it’s there??). While we were wandering around the lake, we saw – slightly to the west – a large tower.

What be that?

It turns out to be the Millennium Carillon (in Moser Tower). Click the link if you’re interested in specs/history; suffice to say that’s it’s one of the largest carillons in the world with a six-octave range, and that it was built to commemorate the new millennium.

We wandered over – it’s a sorta impressive structure, just jutting up in the middle of nothing – to see what was there.

There appeared to be tours of the tower. Let’s give it a shot!

I expected it to be somewhat of a tourist trap, a $15/per person charge or whatever.

I checked it out – $3/per person, last tour of the week starting in about 10 minutes!

I’m in.

There is an elevator – but only to the gallery level (about a third of the way up): After that, you have to take the stairs up to the top observation deck. We hoofed it the entire way. Gravity is a bitch! (Question: How did they get all the bells etc. above the gallery level without an elevator? Big-ass cranes, I assume…)

It was fun to see all the bells – the largest weighing in at about 32 tons (eep!) as well as the clavier that one uses to “play” the bells, using fists on mallets and feet on foot pedals. When I attended Cornell University, I was able to watch a mid-day performance on the McGraw Tower chimes (technically not a carillion), and let me tell you: Playing the bells there appeared to be a cardiovascular workout. Playing 72 bells – vs. Cornell’s nine or so – as in the Moser Tower, I can’t even imagine.

The view from the top was pretty…meh – no pic for same because, well, meh. This is Illinois, the view from a second floor window is almost as impressive. We gots a flat state, at least this part of it (Chicagoland area).

Still – for $3, why not take the tour? This was one of those fun, stumbled-upon finds. We didn’t go to Naperville for this; we’ll never do it again, but it was an unexpected, interesting diversion.

I recently purchased a 12-port, powered USB hub – because you can never have too many USB ports!

I ordered it from monoprice.com, as I’ve had good luck with them many, many times – if you buy cables from anyone else, you may as well be flushing money down the crapper. Good stuff, and cheap.

So, I got the hub, hooked it up.

Almost immediately, a problem: Any shift of the hardware would make the power flicker in/out or just out. And this is a device that one’ll be nudging a lot, plugging in/removing USB devices.

Not good.

The problem is that the power connection to the hub – on this particular unit – is poorly designed/manufactured. The power connection is a female, which slides over a male prong that is housed in the hub. But the fit isn’t snug: There is wiggle room both in the male/female connection and, most problematic, in the hole in the hub the female end plugs into.

Disaster.

I bent the male plug, which fixed the problem, but … for how long?

I wrote to monoprice.com (and yes, I did point out my long history with them), and very shortly thereafter received an email saying they were shipping me a new unit, and providing an label to ship the bad unit back.

Nicely done!

Sadly, I got the new unit, and it’s a product design flaw. Same “lack of tightness” issues. I’m going to return the new one (the old one has been working fine since my “fix”).

So – kudos to Monoprice for acting so quickly and decisively to address a customer concern.

And a wag of the finger to Monoprice for selling this flawed a product. Monoprice 12-Ports USB 2.0 Hub, MG_HB2012

Well, yesterday Romy and I went to the Naperville Art Fair, which is a yearly event on Naperville’s Riverwalk – a series of parks/paths along the DuPage River in the midst of the downtown area.

I’ve never been to this art fair – one of the bigger ones in the northern/western Chicago burbs – and, to be honest, I’ve never been to Naperville. I’ve heard a lot about the town, especially about the riverwalk, but never been.

Naperville seems to be doing something right: There is a mix of the old and new buildings in the downtown area, and the parking is easy to get to and free. The riverwalk, in particular, is genius. I saw a before and after picture of the river’s edges, and, well, so much better now. Nicely done.

Overall, Naperville seems to be making an effort to woo folks to the downtown area – parking, riverwalk, plantings – that are not inexpensive but may be loss leaders. Even during the crazy day of the art fair (a big deal), the town seemed accessible, prices not jacked up and so on.

Smart.

What follows, in no particular order, are some impressions of Naperville or the Naperville Art Fair.