Gizmos Grabowski

Music From Rhapsody "Very Limited"

RealNetworks is boasting through a press release headline:

RHAPSODY LAUNCHES “MUSIC WITHOUT LIMITS” INITIATIVE ACROSS WEB...

I checked it out, and found it very limiting, for it works only for potential customers in the USA. Real Networks is limiting its customer base to 0.05% of the world's population. That's limiting.

When I checked it out, I found another limitation: there is no way to search for genres or labels.

• I like music from ECM, but it is impossible to locate it on the Rhapsody MP3 store.
• I like jazz music, but when I searched for "jazz," only albums with "jazz" in the title showed up.

One more limitation: most jazz "songs" can be purchased only as part of an album. Those 99-cent tracks suddenly cost $9.99 or $19.99. 

Rogers: $128 per Video Clip

Canada boasts some of the highest cell (mobile, handi) phone charges in the world. How high? Here's how high:

One of our phones is with Rogers, and they email customers a monthly unhelpful newsletter, filled with Tips on how to spend more. In this month's issue, they list data roaming rates -- downloading things like ringtones and podcasts when outside of Canada.

Helpfully, they segregated their roaming data charges into two categories:

• Great services to use while travelling.
• Services that will cost you more.

Under the "will cost you more" list, they have:

Video Clips -- $128.00/clip (2.56MB)

(2.56MB is roughly a couple of minutes of video at cell-phone resolution.) By way of comparison, if my ISP charged the same $50/MB rate for data downloads, I would be paying $3 million a month for my 60GB/mo Internet connection.

So, never, ever again complain that your cell phone service provider is overcharging you. No one overcharges like a Canadian cell phone company!

Email Saves Time

A study came out last week deriding email as a time-waster. It purported to show that interruptions from email cost companies hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Two points why the study should be ignored:

1. Hundreds of millions is a tiny percentage of the global economy. I wager that the cost of interruptions from fellow employees is worse.

2. Email is efficient, compared to what it replaced: the telephone conversation. Twenty-five years ago, I worked as an engineer, and kept track of all phone calls I made -- for record keeping and legal purposes. After some months, I discovered that each phone call took 20 minutes: the time to place the call and reach the target, make the call, and afterwards record the call in the log book.

Contrast that efficiency (3 phone calls an hour) with emails: dozens an hour. Email is inherently more efficient over telephone calls for two reasons:

* Emails are self-documenting.

* Emails are asynchronous: unlike receiving a phone call (synchronous communication), I can respond to an email when it fits my schedule.

NanoMaterials like Asbestos: No Kidding

Engaget's Nilay Patel reports that "mice injected with certain lengths of nanotubes developed lung problems similar to those caused by asbestos."

No kidding.

When nano materials were first excitedly proposed several years ago, they were predicted to solve all sorts of mankind's problems -- kind of like embryonic stem cells are to be our salvation from the inconvenience of disease and death.

At the time, I worried that extremely small particles would become a health hazard. I had the experience of working in very dusty conditions (potato farming) and in high pollution areas (aluminum smelting). I knew about the asbestos crisis in Quebec mining towns.

Really small particles are nasty for the breathing parts of our bodies.

I'm glad to read that science is starting to back up my hypothesis.

The Relative Price of Gas

Yesterday the price of gas in my home town in southern Canada rose to $1.319 per litre -- the highest price ever.

In Germany, they are getting upset with the amount of taxes on gasoline: $1.50 tax with gasoline costing about $2.75/litre.

I'll convert those numbers to US gallons:

While Americans get upset that the price might soon arrive at $4/gal, I'm paying about $5/US gal. Much of the difference is the higher taxes, including the hated GST (VAT) tax imposed on top on other gasoline taxes -- a tax on tax.

In Germany, it is the equivalent of $10.40/gal, of which $5.70 is taxes. There, German consumers understand that the best way to lower the cost of gasoline and diesel is to cut taxes, and so are starting to make a fuss.

And I think that Norway has the most expensive (er, most taxed) gasoline of all countries.

A year ago I was in Mexico, and tried to determine the price of gas there. All gas stations are run by the state monopoly, so there is no need to post prices. Each station had multiple young people servicing vehicles, so it was a bit awkward for me to walk up to a pump and stare that the display. And I had to convert from pesos to dollars. Despite all that, it seemed to me that gas cost about 16 cents a gallon.

Painting the Planet Green

I said to my wife the other day, "We should paint our car green.

Then we can tell people, we have a green car."

When Corporate Renaming Goes Bad

Back in 2002, I was excited at the prospect at using the Internet to help me get the lowest price on the new car I was planning to buy, a new Honda Odyssey minivan. But, I ended up being disappointed, for in Canada there was little advantage in going-Internet for car buying -- at least new cars.

(Used cars is another matter: In the last year my son used Web sites to narrow down used car dealers with potential second-hand cars, without needing to physically visit each place of business. In both cases, he ended up with a car he wanted in his price range.)

I did sign up with one site, AutoWeb, that allowed me to get online quotes from three dealers. I think it cost me $35. Wasn't worth it: I ended up getting the best price by haggling with the salesman, even after he declared that Odyssey prices were firm -- nevertheless I paid $1350 less than sticker.

All this long intro just to point out that AutoWeb has changed its name. Now, AutoWeb is a very good name; instantly, it tells you what it's all about: automobiles on the Web.

The new name is a groaner:

Trubiquity

I s'pose it's a combo of True and Ubiquity. The name change came about following AutoWeb's purchase by Secorex. Secorex. I can see why they didn't like a straight-forward name like AutoWeb.

Chinese Cars Crash Against American Safety Standards

Geoffrey York writes in yesterday's Globe&Mail that "China stalls North American auto move." Much of the story is about companies like Cherry saying that it will take at least four more years before their cheap vehicles are available for sale in the USA and Canada.

The excuses: The USA is the world's toughest market; more time is needed to set up the dealer network; cars need to be built of sufficient quality for the American consumer; the Russian and Asian markets are exploding.

Left unsaid is the real reason: safety.

Chinese car makers were ready to enter the European market last year, and then their poorly designed cars hit a brick wall: crashtest dummies reported that humans would not survive when European agencies safety-tested the imported vehicles. The German test organization reported that Chinese cars were the worst that they ever tested.

It occurs to me that this is related to human rights. Western countries that respect the rights of humans to life, liberty, etc., build cars differently from countries whose rulers are so disinclined.

Earth Hour Earth Year

Let's do the math on Earth Hour:

Turn off all lights for one hour. Assume ten light bulbs would normally be on, each 100W. Total savings = 1 kilowatt-hour per household. In our area, this would reduce the next electrical bill by 8 cents due to the annual event.

Here is a more practical approach:

Replace the ten light bulbs with compact florescent bulbs, each consuming 13W. Assuming lights are on 4 hours a day, the annual savings amount to 1,270KWhr, reducing the electrical bill by $101 a year.

The problem with Earth Hour is that it can give participants a false impression. Turn off lights for one hour a year, and they think they are making a difference. They do not. It's the trap of feeling good about doing something immaterial, rather of doing something that makes a difference.

Instead, make it Earth Year, where your home's energy reduction takes place all year around, and is reduced further each year. We replaced our washing machine with one that uses about 11x less energy. LED lighting is replacing CFLs. Work at home.

T5

There is an old joke about the first fully automated airplane flight. As the plane takes off, a recorded voice explains to passengers how this airplane has no pilots, and that "...nothing can go wrong... nothing can go wrong...nothing can go wrong..."

The chaos at the opening day of Heathrow's $4-billion Terminal 5 reminded me of the joke. Earlier in the week, the press were given a tour. BAA (british airport authority) reps boasted how computers would run everything, from getting luggage to passengers before passengers arrived at baggage claim, to targeted ads via giant electronic boards. The computers would run everything, and nothing could go wrong.

As I read of the marketing boasts, two thoughts came to my mind:

-- the initial baggage disaster when Denver airport first opened.
-- that this building was designed five years ago, and things have changed a lot since then.

Complex systems create complex problems.

This Is London has photos and description of all that went wrong, starting with the two-hour lineup of employees trying to get into work but (1) having insufficient parking; and (2) being frustrated with the new computerized work check-in system.

This is why I always avoid Heathrow when travelling to Europe. Not that established airports are any better. Take the train from Amsterdam to the airport. Upon arriving, you enter a huge hall with zero signs directing you to your departure gate.

And sometimes things go right. I once had ten minutes between flights in Denver. I raced through the airport, got on board, and was resigned to my luggage not making it. As I looked out my window, I saw a baggage cart pull up with my suitcase on it.