Drew's View

The Internet, Coincidences, and a Friendly Wager

Warning: This is going to be a little confusing.

My name is Drew McManus. And I have a friend whose name is also Drew McManus. I live in Northern California and Drew2 lives in Chicago. (He has to be Drew2 since I was here first.) Try to keep that straight while I explain the rest.

Drew2 and I met through one of those weird Internet coincidences. And we've stayed connected on the web. (I still can't get used to the Facebook notifications that say "Drew McManus commented on your status.") Our paths have crossed online in a few different ways, and it's one of those amusing "it happened on the web" stories.

Drew2 is well-known in the orchestra world. Among other endeavors, he is the man behind the very popular blog Adaptistration. Since many orchestras are non-profit organizations, some of his readers are also connected to one of my ventures: Bring Light. The coincidences keep coming.

The latest way that our paths crossed: I had some hockey tickets to sell--specifically, seats to see the San Jose Sharks vs. the Chicago Blackhawks. I put the tickets up for sale on eBay, and posted on Twitter to let my friends know. Meanwhile in Chicago, Drew2 witnessed all this and this Facebook exchange followed:

So, the wager is placed. If the Sharks win, I get to display what little I know about the music world on Adaptistration. You can bet I'll be plugging Bring Light.

Go Sharks!

UPDATE: Drew2 has posted his trash talk here.

Abandoned Subway Stations Around the World

Infrastructurist has yet another great pictorial posted. This urban exploration is abandoned subway stations around the world. I'd love to explore some of these.

ARTICLE: Infrastructurist: Abandoned Subway Stations Around the World

How Many Types of Highway Interchanges Can You Name?

The always-interesting Infrastructurist blog has a great article on the various types of highway interchanges. Even though I grew up in Southern California, I had no idea there were so many of them. My favorite:

The Lofthouse: A roundabout over two grade-separated highways. Less expensive than than a stacked interchange, but also has much lower capacity.

ARTICLE: What’s A ‘Spooey’? A Field Guide To Freeway Interchanges, Part 1

(via BoingBoing)

The Abandoned Town of Centralia, Pennsylvania

Readers of my blog know I am fascinated by urban exploration. (See Detroit's Beautiful, Horrible Decline and Amazing Rooftops in NYC). Centralia, Pennsylvania is an all-but-abandoned town (Population: 9). The town sits above an underground coal fire that has been burning since 1962, leaking toxic smoke to the surface. Most of the buildings have since been torn down, roads are cracking and overgrown, and in some areas the forest is returning.

Wikipedia entry: Centralia, Pennsylvania
Photo Essay: Jet Set Tramp: Fire Down Below
Via Boing Boing

Memories of WWII

My old childhood friend Dave Hampton posted something fascinating on his blog: his Dad's old WWII diary. He posted scanned images of many of the pages in the journal. It's an amazing peek into the experiences of someone on the ground in Europe during the war, some of it courageous, some of i fearful, some of it mundane. All of it is fascinating.

Blog post: Dave Hampton's Blog: History and Memorial Day

Direct Link to the Scans: Dad's WWII Journal

The White House official photostream

The White House has an official photostream on Flickr. It's fascinating to browse through these photos--really a real-time record of history in the making.

One has to wonder, what is discussed when President Obama and former President Clinton meet in the Oval Office? One of my favorites shows Obama climbing under the Resolute Desk like John-John Kennedy did, while meeting with Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg. But perhaps the most interesting ones show the more ordinary moments, like Obama trying out different desk chairs.

By the way, what do I have to do to get a ride on Air Force One?

Ever heard of Photoshop?

You probably saw in the news that last week one of the 747 airplanes used for the President did several low-altitude flyby's of New York City while being trailed by two fighter jets. The intention was to get some publicity photos of the plane with the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan in the background. Somehow, it did not occur to anyone that some New Yorkers might find this unannounced activity startling.

Perhaps just as surprising, someone thought this was the simplest way to get the required image. The US spent $360,000 of taxpayer money on this photo opportunity. Skott Kelby, the editor-in-chief for Layers Magazine, Photoshop User magazine and the president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, spent less than two minutes creating this composite in Photoshop:

Skott has also made the following offer to the White House on his blog:

Rather than spending $360,000 somewhat foolishly (wink, wink), whatdayasay we work out a deal?

I’m trying to raise money for furniture and household appliances for an orphange in Kenya (run by Americans), and I’d be happy to actually take 90 minutes (or more; whatever it takes), and really do the compositing job right, and all you have to do is buy a freezer for around, say $360. You can keep the other $359,640 or give it to GM.

Sounds like a good deal to me.

A Magazine With a Puzzle Buried Inside

I've always been fascinated with complex and secret puzzles (see this earlier post), although I do not always have the patience to finish them. Watching the TV series LOST unfold has been a great pleasure. J.J. Abrams, one of the creators of LOST and Fringe, took over as guest editor of WIRED Magazine's May 2009 print issue. He filled the magazine with an intricate and partially hidden puzzle. One reader has it cracked:

Steven Bevacqua was flipping through the May issue of Wired magazine when he thought he started seeing secret messages. So he spent the next several days following the hidden clues he believed he’d found, using Morse code, alternative computer keyboard layouts and even electrician’s wiring codes to solve the covert brainteasers. Finally he was directed to a hidden Web site, from which he sent an e-mail message to a secret account. A short while later he learned that he was the first Wired reader to solve an extensive hidden puzzle embedded throughout the magazine.

Article: New York Times: A Magazine With a Puzzle Buried Inside

The Secret History of Paul Thomas Anderson

Paul Thomas Anderson (IMDB page) is my favorite movie director. Magnolia, Boogie Nights, and Punch Drunk Love all have spots on my list of my ten favorite films.

As part of their feature on the 75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century, Esquire Magazine profiles Anderson in the article The Secret History of Paul Thomas Anderson by John H. Richardson. Well worth reading if you are a fan of any of his films.

25 Things

This crazy "25 Random Things About Me" meme on Facebook is incredible. You know you've got something big happening when both TIME Magazine and the New York Times do a trend piece on it the same day.

The TIME piece (25 Things I Didn't Want to Know About You by Claire Suddath) is a tongue-in-cheek look at when sharing becomes oversharing, and also includes this amazing fact: "An estimated 5 million of these notes — that's 125 million facts — have appeared on [Facebook] within the past week."

The NYT article (Ah, Yes, More About Me? by Douglas Quenqua) goes a little bit deeper, exploring the value of the game as a writing exercise, and the fact that having a friend ask you to do it makes it compelling.

I've been fascinated by the meme since I saw the first one a few weeks ago. I must admit I read them all--even ones by people I barely know. When I finally got tagged and took the time to write my own, I found it to be a very interesting exercise. And getting the responses has been fun.

A Different Kind of Vacation Message

Danah Boyd is going on vacation for a month, and rather than the usual "I'm on vacation" email auto-responder, she has trained her email inbox to reject all email while she is away.

"I believe that email eradicates any benefits gained from taking a vacation by collecting mold and spitting it back out at you the moment you return. As such, I've trained my beloved INBOX to reject all email during vacation. The effect is very simple. You cannot put anything in my queue while I'm away (however lovingly you intend it) and I come home to a clean INBOX. Don't worry... if you forget, you'll get a nice note from my INBOX telling you to shove off, respect danah's deeply needed vacation time, and try again after January 19."

I'm not sure I could do this. I can't even go without checking my email.

(via Merlin Mann)

FedEx: Bad. Apple: GOOD! - A Tale of Two Companies' Customer Service.

My son had saved up his money and wanted to buy a new MacBook. He was switching from a Windows Vista laptop that had been having problems, and even after he had enough money, he waited longer for Apple to release new models. Once the new models came out, he was ready to buy. He got online, ordered the computer from Apple's online store, and waited.

Our past experience with ordering from Apple has been good. Even when you use the standard free shipping, the packages come remarkably fast--usually within a couple of days. Unfortunately, when FedEx came by with the package on Oct 21, 2008, just the second business day after the order, no one was home.

This is when the nightmare started.

When FedEx brings you a package for which a signature is required, they leave you a "door tag." It's a note that let's you know when the delivery was attempted, and that they will try again. Checking the tracking info online showed they came by and would try again the next day.

I was home all day the next day (the 22nd), and the package did not come. When it still had not come by noon on the 23rd, I called FedEx. They were very polite and apologetic and said they would "call the station" who would in turn call me back with more information. When a couple of hours passed with no call, I called again and was given a similar story. No one called back. At 5pm, I called FedEx a third time. They told me the station was now closed and there was nothing they could do. Needless to say, I was frustrated.

At this point, I thought it couldn't hurt to call Apple. I called their customer service line, and a nice gentleman named Wayne picked up right away. I explained the situation to him, and told him that I knew it was not Apple's problem, but suggested they might have more pull with FedEx than I. Wayne was genuinely concerned and told me he would look into it with his supervisor. He said if I did not have the shipment by tomorrow afternoon, they would get me a new one.

By the following afternoon, I had still heard nothing from FedEx. The phone rang mid-afternoon, and it was Wayne calling right when he had promised. He already knew I had not received the package, was dismayed to hear FedEx had never called me, and was ready to send me a new Macbook free of charge and even throw in a free iPod Shuffle for my trouble. I had it all the next business day.

The original package seems to have vanished. As of now, FedEx still has not updated the tracking info ten days later, and has never contacted me about it. Wayne at Apple told me not to worry about it--that Apple would take it from here.

Three phone calls to FedEx never yielded a response. A single call to Apple led them to go above and beyond the call of duty and fix a mistake made by someone else.

Now, which company would you recommend to others?

An Update on the Case for MMS on the iPhone

It seems I struck a nerve with my earlier post titled The Case for MMS on the iPhone. That post gets more than twenty-four times the traffic of the next most popular post on my site. Yesterday alone, it was viewed by over 500 unique visitors--that is a lot for my blog, especially considering I posted the article about a month-and-a-half ago. This post is an update, if you have not read the other one, you may want to do that first.

I've gotten a bunch of email on the topic (not all of it polite), as well as participated in lively discussions on other sites. This is clearly a hot topic. I thought I'd respond here to some of the comments I've been receiving and update you with some new info. The following are examples of the types of feedback I've gotten.

Response: "Shut up!"
I am always amazed at how some people seem to think that I should be grateful to Apple for the iPhone and that any criticism is some sort of heresy. One of the most polite examples is the person who said "complaining about this seems akin to getting your first teleportation device and complaining about the lack of trunk space." I just want to point out that comparing the iPhone to a teleportation device is nonsense. There are lots of other devices on the market that do phone, email, web browsing, and so on. I think the iPhone is the best of them by far, and so I bought one. That does not mean I should feel that I can't express an opinion on what I perceive as its shortcomings, nor does it mean I should be attacked for my position. Discourse is welcome, name-calling is a waste of time.

Response: "I don't use MMS, so Apple should not support it"
Just because you do not use MMS does not mean no one does. I personally never use GPS on my iPhone, but I don't disparage it. There are actually a lot of features I do not use on my phone (and it sounds like Apple is adding a bunch more stuff in 2.2 that I am not interested in.) But all evidence points to the fact that MMS is popular. When I wrote the original post, a quarter of US cellphone users had used MMS. Since then, AT&T has reported that MMS volumes in the third quarter were more than double 2007 levels.

Response: "Just email the photo!"
I explained this sufficiently in my previous post. MMS and email are two completely different things. If the iPhone did not have text messaging, no one would be satisfied using email instead. Besides, most cell phone users do not use email on their phones.

Response: "MMS is bad technology"
This comment has come from people who say that the MMS standard is poorly constructed or hard to work with or could carry viruses. To all this, I say "so what?" Much of the same could be said for email, but that does not make it any less useful or fun. Since when has Apple backed away from doing something because it was hard? And besides, virtually every other phone in the world supports MMS--this means is is both a widely-used standard and nowhere near impossible to implement.

Response: "No one wants MMS on the iPhone. You are the only one complaining."
This is simply not true. Since I posted my article, I've been contacted by many more people who agree than disagree. I've seen the same sentiment on other forums. Readers have pointed me to two petitions (here and here) begging Apple to add the feature. And a new site called pleasefixtheiphone.com allows users to vote for the features they want most. Picture messaging (MMS) has been in the top 5 every time I have looked. As I write this, it is in the #1 spot, just ahead of Copy and Paste.

I still think Apple and AT&T need to add MMS capability to the iPhone, but even short of that, there are smaller steps they should take to improve the terrible user experience their customers have with it. Is anyone at Apple or AT&T listening?

Silly Season in Politics

I just watched the evening newscasts on all three major networks, and they all had a segment about the distortions and outright untruths that have come out of the McCain campaign this week. It's actually quite remarkable.

An organization called Brave New PAC put together this video with some examples:

For a more non-partisan look at the facts, take a look at Reality Check from CBS News and the stellar FactCheck.org. Both do a great job of verifying claims from both campaigns.

The McCain campaign seems prepared to do anything to win. They have reinvented themselves as agents of change--completely lifting the messaging that has worked so well for Obama. They've chosen a VP candidate based on her political value rather than her qualifications. And they've chosen to play fast and loose with facts to mold public opinion. For now it seems to be working.

So, what is Senator Obama's response to all this? He continues to take the high road. While many have called for him to get angry and fight back, today he chose to use a quote from Abraham Lincoln: "If you don't stop lying about me, I'm going to have to start telling the truth about you." It remains to be seen which strategy will pay off.

This is the part of the campaign that I can't stand. I can't wait for the debates.

9/13/2008 UPDATE: This morning, the New York Times has a piece on this topic: McCain Barbs Stirring Outcry as Distortions accompanied by a chart showing the claims and the actual facts.

Tracking the Electoral College

It's that time again! In the final runup to Election Day (only a couple of months away!), I get obsessed with polling data and the electoral map. I've looked at a bunch of sites, and have returned to my old favorite: electoral-vote.com. I checked this site daily during the 2004 campaign. It is run by a semi-anonymous computer science professor. He takes all the latest polling data and updates the map every time a new poll is released (the site has more detail on the algorithm along with an assessment of its past accuracy).

He's made some improvements, both to the site and the algorithm, since 2004. He even now has badges you can use to display the current count:

electoral-vote.com is back on my daily visit list!

Fictional Restaurant wins a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence

Robin Goldstein pulled one over on Wine Spectator magazine. Robin was curious about how Wine Spectator magazine selected the winners of its Awards of Excellence for the world’s best wine restaurants.

Robin submitted an application for a fictional restaurant called "Osteria L’Intrepido," including a cover letter, menu, wine list, and the $250 application fee. Osteria L’Intrepido won the Award of Excellence, was published in the August 2008 issue of Wine Spectator, and subsequently got a call from the magazine's ad sales department.

Wine Spectator was clearly fooled by what could be called an elaborate hoax. But the facts remain that the magazine never visited the restaurant or verified the contents of their wine cellar. Perhaps most embarrassingly, the wine list Robin submitted included a reserve list comprised of some of the worst-reviewed wines from the magazine.

Unsurprisingly, the fake restaurant has since been removed from the Wine Spectator website and the editor has posted their side of the story.

Great News for Twitter, Great News for Pivotal

I'm a user and a believer in Twitter, the fun and entertaining short message broadcast service. With their continued growth and success, they've been having problems keeping their service available and reliable. I was very glad to hear they are bringing in my friends from Pivotal Labs to help modernize their system (VentureBeat article here).

Pivotal did the initial development for Bring Light (before we hired our own engineering) and I work closely with Pivotal Labs on some of my consulting projects. They are an amazing group of people--they personify agile development. I know they'll be able to help Twitter get to the next level.

More on The Big Word Project

I've written twice before about The Big Word Project (here and here).  Here is a new WIRED blog entry on the two students who founded the site.

How we Twitter

ReadWriteWeb has an interesting analysis of the methods people use to post to Twitter. I like Twitterific, but also use m.twitter.com from my iPhone.

Twitter is hard to explain

I love Twitter. You can find and follow me here. I also have my Twitter updates posted on the sidebar of my blog. One of the challenges with Twitter is that it's hard to explain. It's been my experience that once people "get it," they often end up loving it.

The people at Common Craft are great at explaining things, and they have taken a crack at explaining Twitter. Take a look: