• Skeptoid by Brian Dunning
• Skepticality (one of the first podcasts I ever listened to)
• The Skeptics Guide to the Universe
• Scientific American
• The Naked Scientists
• NPR Science Friday
• Stuff They Don’t Want You to Know (very amusing)

As many have pointed out, this is primarily due to the rise of Internet use for news, articles, etc. The big question, of course, is what happens to the newspapers? Do they simply move online and exist without the print infrastructure, or do they get torn apart completely by the niche content providers (i.e. blogs, etc.). If this were to happen, how do we replace the tried-and-true processes of a professionally run news organization with a loose federation of blogs and websites? Obviously I’m a huge fan of tech, the web, blogs, etc. but it’s painfully obvious that the vast majority of blogs simply don’t have the editorial capabilities of a newspaper.

It will be interesting to watch from the sidelines, but I suspect more bad news is in store for the papers before we turn the corner

PC World has a blog post up about the new phone but it sounds like there aren’t any real details just yet. You can sign up for an email to get news from Verizon as the launch gets closer. Let’s hope that this second wave of Android phones brings some new awesomeness to the smartphone market. I, for one, would love to get one if the execution lives up to the hype.

During an inflationary period, prices, wages, etc. all tend to go up. This has the effect of “cheapening” the dollar; what used to cost $1.00 now costs $1.50, therefore a dollar in the future is worth less than a dollar in the past. A side effect of this (or in our example, the primary motivation) is that debt incurred in past dollars can be paid with future dollars at a reduced cost. Let’s look at a simplified example:

Assume it’s 2007 and John works for a company that pays him $50,000 a year. By 2012 (post crisis) inflation has been underway for a while and prices have risen. John’s salary will rise as well, and while it may not rise as quickly as prices (a bad side effect of inflation), his nominal income is now $60,000 a year. Let’s also assume that John borrowed $1000 back in 2007 and now, five years later in 2012, he is ready to pay it back. Because of inflation the value of $1000 in 2012 will be less than it was in 2007 when John borrowed the money. So the net effect for John is that he can pay off old 2007 debt using cheap 2012 dollars; it’s a advantage to John and a disadvantage for the lender.

So lets get back to the US government and the massive amounts of debt they are accruing right now in 2009. Given the fact that the government can directly affect inflation through fiscal and monetary policy, why would they not pursue a strategy of controlled inflation? It’s an advantage to borrowers, both the US government as well as all of the individual borrowers who spent too much and saved to little. Unfortunately it’s a disadvantage for all of the people who saved their money, as well as all of the lenders (like China) who loaned the US a lot of money in pre-crisis times.

Any thoughts?

https://umdrive.memphis.edu/kmmrkman/www/podcasting.html

Sony 7506

My new pair of Sony 7506 professional closed-back headphones just arrived on the FedEx truck today (BSW is a great source for pro audio gear btw). I’ve spent a couple of hours listening to them and they’re definitely a major step up from the Audio Technica ‘phones I’ve been using. They should be great for recording and podcasting (which is nominally why I bought them) but I’m really looking forward to checking out more of my iTunes catalogue with them. I’d like to get a pair of open headphones like the Sennheiser HD595’s, but from what I’ve read they’ll probably annoy everyone else in the house that’s trying to sleep. The good news about the Sony’s (and most closed-back headphones in general) is that they do a great job of of isolating sound – what you’re listening to is almost completely inaudible to everyone else, and external noises are minimized. If you’re into music and/or want to check out some hard-core audiophile info try the Head-Fi forums. Of course if you do, beware the amount of money you’ll be tempted to spend on exotic audiophile gear!

Queen Mary

I just posted a new set of photos on Flickr. They were taken yesterday during a boat tour of the Port of Long Beach. The sky added a great dramatic element, as it was dark and overcast during the tour.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/nacuff/

Here’s an excerpt from a recent Charlie Rose interview with Nassim Taleb, author of The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness. It’s a very interesting perspective on how we got into our current economic mess.

To everyone here in the US, hope you’re all having a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

In lieu of upgrading to one of the new Macbook pros that recently came out I opted for an upgrade of my existing notebook. I purchased a Hitachi 320GB 7200rpm drive and had it installed by Mac Fusion in Long Beach, CA. The Hitachi drives have had consistently great reviews and so far it has performed flawlessly. It’s quiet, a lot roomier than the 120GB drive that came with the notebook, and slightly faster since it’s 7200rpm vs. the original 5400rpm Fujitsu. I would highly recommend the upgrade to anyone who does a lot of multimedia work on their Macbook Pro, but you do need to find an authorized Apple service provider to install it to avoid violating your warranty. Thankfully the new MBP’s have user-upgradable drives, so going forward it will be easier to get more space.

The website “PalinAsPresident” has a hilarious point-and-click tour that helps us imagine what Sarah Palin would do in in the Oval Office. Move your mouse around and click on different parts of the picture. My two favorites: the stock ticker on the computer screen behind her, and the dinosaur wandering aroud outside (also note the contents of the trash can). Don’t forget to click on the red phone, either.

First of all, the landscape of cheap video cameras has changed dramatically. The Flip Video Ultra is available at around $125 and has more storage in the same basic form factor. The original one appears to be widely available on eBay for under $100, and there are a bunch of inexpensive, small, flash-based camcorders in the $100 – $175 range available with similar features.

So here’s the update on my experience with the hacked CVS camcorder:

Pros

1. It worked; pretty well in fact. I actually bought a second one a couple of weeks later and hacked it too.
2. It turned out to be a fun thing to play with since I wasn’t afraid of destroying an expensive camera. The kids and I rigged up a cardboard and fishing-line harness for it and sent the camera skyward on a parafoil kite. The video could give you motion sickness in about 10 seconds but it was a really fun little project, and one we would not have done with an expensive (and heavier) camcorder.
3. The project itself was a lot of fun from a sheer DIY / geeky / hardware hacking perspective. Sometimes it’s just fun to take things apart, solder stuff together, play around with hacked firmware, etc. (if you’re into that sort of thing…)

Cons:

1. The software end of things left a lot to be desired, at least as of a few months ago. I have to hand it to the folks who made it all work – their kung fu is much stronger than mine. I wouldn’t have a clue how to decompile the firmware on one of those cameras and reverse engineer the security, encryption, etc. So kudos on making it work. However, documentation pretty much consisted of inconsistent forum posts scattered across two or three websites. Matching software versions to camera to forum-post-how-to, etc. was a much bigger pain than most people would put up with.
2. I already had the USB cable, the old Palm III cradle, the soldering gear, etc. If you didn’t, and had to purchase that stuff, you’d be halfway to buying the “real” Flip (or Aiptek, Vivitar, Canon, etc .) by the time you bought what you needed.
3. The video doesn’t easily lend itself to editing in your usual editing software. Since it was going to take a bit of research, transcoding, etc. I never even went down that path. I just grabbed stuff off the cam and whatever was there was fine.
4. I built a new PC and went to Vista. I thought this would be the death of the interface software, and while I did manage to get it working it just turned out to be more of a pain than it was worth.

So at the end of the day it was a fun project but in all honesty I haven’t even had the cameras out of the junk drawer in at least six months. However, it did make me think about shooting video in a different light, and I have ended up shooting a lot more of it in the last 12 months as a result of the project. Occassionally I’ll bring the camcorder along and shoot some “real” video, but more often than not I’ve just shot stuff using a point-and-shoot still camera. I’ve got a Canon G9 that does a surprisingly good job, and while I wouldn’t use it to shoot a feature film it’s just fine for little family movies. Plus it’s small, it’s usually with me whenever I’d want to shoot something, and it takes really great still photos (which almost no video cameras, especially the cheap ones, can claim).

So if you want a fun DIY weekend project the CVS camera hack is worth a shot, but if you’re actually wanting to get a reliable, functional video camera that you can depend on I would steer you towards spending a bit more and buying the real thing, or giving your point-and-shoot a try.

Sorry, hate to post political stuff, but really…