Grab bag of entertaining things I read this weekend:

* “TV remotes are super awesome”:http://gm.asm.org/index.php/component/content/article/48/313-the-most-contaminated-surfaces-in-hotel-rooms * “French beetle aircraft”:http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/8/3073654/french-beetle-coleoptere-aircraft. Jet fighters meet Dr. Seuss. We should let the French design all our weapons systems. We might not win the war but man would we look trippy. * “Desk optimized for doodling”:http://design-milk.com/my-desk-by-miguel-mestre/. This is not ridiculous at all, it is kind of brilliant. * “The top 100 young universities”:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/04/world/asia/whos-the-next-mit.html?_r=2. For all our entrepreneurship, should we be worried that the US is so under-represented? * “Our bugs control us”:http://thebrainbank.scienceblog.com/2012/06/01/we-are-not-alone-how-the-bugs-in-our-gut-influence-our-eating-habits/. If it was a strict democracy, our gut bacteria would outvote the rest of our bodies every time.

Scenes from the weekend on Lopez:

* “Heroes Die”:amazon by Matthew Woodring Stover. Very very good tale of a future extreme capitalist dystopia and a parallel world used as a source of entertainment. Caine, the protagonist, is an actor caught up in the system, starting to realize how corrupt it all is, and fighting for the respect and love of his partner. Good stuff. * “Redshirts”:amazon by John Scalzi. Cute if you grew up on Star Trek reruns, but not sure it is much beyond that. * “The Drop”:amazon by Michael Connelly. One of his Bosch series of detective novels. Solid, good character, some interesting LA politics, but not groundbreaking. * “The Dispatcher”:amazon by Ryan David Jahn. A 911 dispatcher takes a call, which turns out to be his long missing daughter. And then the thrill ride starts. * “The Stupidest Angel”:amazon by Christopher Moore. I’m not usually a fan of farce but this was pretty fun. A sweet Christmas tale, turns into a “Death at a Funeral”-style romp, and then zombies show up. * “Wrong Man Running”:amazon by Alan Hruska. A man finds himself under suspicion for a series of horrific crimes committed on all the women around him. And since he suffers from frequent blackouts, he may well be guilty. Or not. The main character has some ridiculous blind spots but still entertaining.

“Some super smart guys quoted in here”:http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/12/us-microsoft-hiring-interns-idUSBRE85B0L520120612 :)

I actually think the writer nails the longterm issue for Facebook and Google – do you want to spend your career stuffing ads in people’s faces, or do you want to build products that help them do something, that please them, that make them better at their jobs?

When I started my career as a consultant, I worked with super smart people, I was well paid, and I got to engage with senior people in industry, and this was all compelling. But ultimately, I came to view my work product as reports on a wall, that clients might or might not ignore. This massively undervalues the efforts of many consultants, but as a young professional, this is how I perceived it.

And so I took a huge pay cut and responsibility cut and moved to MSFT to work on getting computers into everyone’s hands, that was an exciting challenge and an exciting time. Young people today are just as hungry for a meaningful challenge, and I suspect ad serving is not that challenge for a lot of people.

…the harddisk was full and that caused all kinds of hell to break loose.

But really it was a sign – “Macbook Pro with Retina Display”:http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/ – ordered.

J is laughing at me – $200 for the extra 8G of ram, so $400 imputed price for 16G, and J just bought 16G for $80. I am a lemming.

* “ScaleXtreme Announces Support for Linux/Windows Server on Windows Azure Public Cloud IaaS”:http://www.bloomberg.com/article/2012-06-06/a.cUuxU7fDIw.html * “Apprenda Delivers Hybrid Cloud Solution for .NET”:http://www.prweb.com/releases/privatecloud/apprendaazurerelease/prweb9577961.htm * “AppFog to Develop Interoperability for Windows Azure Application Deployment”:http://www.marketwatch.com/story/appfog-to-develop-interoperability-for-windows-azure-application-deployment-2012-06-06 * “Opscode Announces Interoperability with Windows Azure”:http://www.bloomberg.com/article/2012-06-06/aNn0SfeJ5RnE.html * “Windows Azure allows StorSimple to deliver a best-in-class, cloud-integrated storage solution”:http://www.meetwindowsazure.com/Stories/storsimple

Hat tip to all the companies, to Microsoft Azure team, and to @frankartale for helping to make all this happen

In order of increasing strangeness.

* “A confusion of princes”:amazon by Garth Nix. YA space opera, kind of reminiscent of the tales of my youth or even back to John Carter books. * “By the Blood of Heroes”:amazon by Joseph Nassise. WWI and zombies. First in a series. Acceptable but there are better zombie books. * “Immobility”:amazon by Brian Evenson. A nearly invulnerable amnesiac wakes up in a post apocalyptic wasteland and tries to deal with the remnants of humanity. Hint: no one is really his friend. * “The Sorcerer’s House”:amazon by Gene Wolfe. I last read a Wolfe book maybe 20 years ago and at that time thought “wow he is weird”. Well he still is. * “1Q84”:amazon by Haruki Murakami. Childhood sweethearts reunite after 20 years of separation. Oh and she is an assassin, he is involved in a fraud, they’re fighting against a religious cult, some very strange supernatural creatures who might be good or incredibly evil are pulling strings, there is an extra moon in the sky, soulless doppelgängers are wandering around, and other strange shit.

Our freezer is making a funny noise. Until of course the repairman came yesterday, at which point the lying machine was on its best behavior.

Evernote to the rescue, I created a new note on my phone and made an audio recording of the groan and rattle. Now I have it saved for ever, can play it back at will, email it to the tech, etc. Next time my car makes a funny noise I’ll use the same trick.

There is probably some other way to make an audio recording on my Nokia Lumia but it wasn’t obvious, and the Evernote app is simple and gets the recording to the cloud immediately.

Some early reviews of the original Kindle were very dismissive, wondering why anyone would want to carry around a limited device with a goofy display. These tech-savvy reviewers predicted failure for Amazon, saying that people would prefer general purpose phones or tablets for reading. A lot of these reviewers were not actually heavy book readers tho.

Amazon has done just fine with Kindles. They focused on people who actually bought and read a lot of books. For book enthusiasts, the Kindle has been just fine, and heavy readers have no issue carrying around a device focused just on reading – it saves carrying around 4-5 books. And book enthusiasts spend a lot of money on books and can justify the expense easily. Long term, general purpose tablets may displace the hardware Kindle, but Amazon has played this well, and I suspect focused devices targeting enthusiasts will always have a place.

Two recent TV products are interesting – Simple.TV is a slick looking little box to receive and record OTA programming, won all kinds of kudos at CES. Aereo lets you watch OTA TV anywhere on any device, with no antenna or fuss. Aereo is getting a ton of press, less about the product, more about Barry Diller and tussles with broadcasters.

Neither of these products focus on people who spend money on TV – TV enthusiasts. People who like TV spend lots of money on cable subs, on TV sets, on premium channels, etc. Enthusiasts don’t want to spend less, they just want it all to work well and to be a great experience. SimpleTV and Aereo both focus on people who don’t want to spend any money on TV programming, who just want OTA content, which seems strange. Like creating an ebook reader for people who don’t want to actually buy books, who only want to download public domain free books – that strategy has been tried and it has failed. At least SimpleTV lets you watch TV programming on a TV. Aereo doesn’t even connect to a TV set unless you buy something from Roku or Apple or someone else. So Aereo is for people who want to watch TV, but not on a TV, and who don’t value TV programming enough to pay for it.

OK that is a little snarky, obviously there is demand for cord-cutting and these products will find some success. But you’d think someone would create a product aimed at people who like TV, who spend a lot on TV, who want TV on TV sets, and who also want some of the other features of Simple and Aereo – watch anywhere on any device. NimbleTV seems like it could be more interesting.

“Rich”:www.tongfamily.com asked me what setup I am using – here is what I have so far

* Zotac IONITX-S motherboard with Intel Atom D525 proc Nivida ION 512MB GPU. You can pick up at “Amazon”:http://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-Dual-Core-Intel-Wi-Fi-Motherboard/dp/B004V3X9D2 if you want it fast or there are cheaper slower options.

* 4G of DDR3 800Mhz FSB RAM. This is available many places, is super cheap due to modest speed of FSB.

* For a case I like the “open air techstations”:http://www.highspeedpc.com/ so I can get in and out easily. But these things are completely open, so not a great choice if you have an inquisitive cat or a toddler. Another open air case option might be the “Antec Skeleton”:http://store.antec.com/Product/enclosure-skeleton_series/mini-skeleton-90/0-761345-15127-6.aspx but whoa, a 90W power supply seems seriously minimalist

* I can find no clear doc on what kind of power supply these need (ie watts). I picked up a “20+4 pin mini itx supply”:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817148044 because that seems to be the right thing but I am a little concerned about being underpowered. UPDATE: in email with Zotac support, they suggested 112W for the board, sans hard disk. So throwing in the SSD and Ceton card, 250W seems like it should be fine.

* and the “ceton card”:http://www.amazon.com/Ceton-InfiniTV-Digital-Cable-Quad-tuner/dp/B003B4VLJQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1338408276&sr=1-1 for cable feed

* oh yeah I need an SSD, I am using the “Samsung 256G unit”:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147164 but I’d really like a 1T SSD. But those are crazy expensive.

This is something you learn when dog crap is accidentally sucked into yours, and you have to take it apart and thoroughly clean every part.

in case nothing tickled your fancy off my “prior list”:http://theludwigs.com/2012/04/hey-fathers-day-is-not-that-far-away-if-you-need-ideas-for-me/

* “Clothes Climbing Robot”:http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2012/05/21/robot-designed-to-climb-folds-in-clothing/. Ah how much fun this could be at parties. * “A nice Hasselblad medium format camera”:http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?atclk=Brand_Hasselblad&ci=16734&N=4259332394+4291420693 – hey they’ve cut prices! * More realistically, something to challenge the mind from “this list of book recos”:http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2012/05/summer-reading-list-curated-recommendations-curious-mind/ * Love puzzles, and really love “these puzzles”:http://design-milk.com/generative-jigsaw-puzzles-by-nervous-system/

Again I am running way ahead of the number of progeny I have.

* “All I Did Was Shoot My Man”:amazon by Walter Mosley. Great characters, but story felt a little slapdash. * “The Keeper of Lost Causes”:amazon by Jussi Adler-Olsen. Part of the now flood of Scandinavian author mysteries. A good disturbing tale and a character with promise. But something is off in the book, dialog seems particularly colorless and flat – few idioms, simple structure. I doubt Danes as a society are colorless and flat. It is possible the author chose this style for the protagonist who is somewhat repressed. But I am wondering if it might just be a poor translation. Knowing no Danish, there is no way for me to verify. * “You Lost Me There”:amazon by Rosecrans Baldwin. An introverted scientist finally comes to terms with his wife’s passing and his inability to really connect. Very compelling. * “Surface Detail”:amazon by Iain M. Banks. Another of his books set in his Culture universe, this time concerned with virtual environments and their abuse. I find the Culture series to be always entertaining. * “The Alteration”:amazon by Kingsley Amis. First of his I’ve read, a boy deals with his fate in an alternative world where the Reformation and Renaissance never really happened. An ugly world in many ways. “Alteration” is at play on many levels here.

Ok so I’ve had a chance to use the Lumia on an LTE network for most of a week here in LA.

The obvious good – data services are fast, it is hard to tell you are not on WiFi. This kind of speed is addictive, it is going to suck going back to slower nets in Seattle.

The downside – the battery drains fast. I was also using the phone a lot for nav so I’m not sure how much of my battery drain was due to LTE and how much for nav but the phone couldn’t last a day without recharge.

I also had to reboot the phone twice. Once, MSFT services quit working – bing search, Msft map app. Google worked fine, Nokia maps worked fine, but everything MSFT would just hang. Reboot fixed. (btw, the Nokia Maps app is much better than the MSFT maps app).

Secondly, at a location with so-so LTE service, where the phone kept dropping back to lesser data services and rates, the texting app hung. I could open it but could never type in text and the phone generally was unresponsive. Reboot fixed maybe but it may recur, the phone is feeling a little wonky again right now.

So how am I generally feeling about the device after a month+ of use?

* solid physical hardware, feels good and looks nice * generally solid OS with some nice design touches * some real problems with back button behavior. Most times the back button causes you to leave an app. Sometimes it causes you to go back in an app. And if you leave an app and then click on its home screen tile, the app restarts and forgets your place. So you have to learn to hold down the back button and use the task switch interface to get back in your app. This is all a pain in the ass. The back button shouldn’t sometimes quit and other times go back in an app. And reentering an app from the home tile shouldn’t forget where you are. Super annoying. * solid 3rd party apps when they exist * pathetic marketplace of apps – marketplace design and marketplace contents both are very poor

Heard “Dan Barry”:http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_T._Barry speak at USC grad this past week. What an amazing story. Was rejected by NASA for like 15 years running and refused to give up. Finally made it as an astronaut at age 37. An amazing tale of perseverance. If you ever have a chance to hear his story, it is worth it.