A Random Walk Through Life

The advantage of cloud-based data storage is that you don’t have to worry when your own computer goes down.  You can switch to another computer and still get your data.

The disadvantage of cloud-based data storage is that you worry about some computer you never knew about going down.  And if you switch to another computer, you’re still screwed.

I got to test drive a Chevy Volt and was quite impressed. (Full drive report posted on the Volt fan forum.)

A Volt will be at the top of the list whenever I decide to go car shopping again.

Ah, a whiff of the dot-com bubble past…

Every businesses needs to focus on happy customers, but things may go a bit too far.  A business also needs to take care of its partners and suppliers.

Groupon offer tremendous deals for its customers.  In fact, possibly too good.  Apparently the businesses that offer groupons are happy with the quantity of customers that a promotion can pull in…. but the quality of customers is another matter.

Obvious in hindsight, since these customers are bargain shoppers, every one of them.  They’re here for their one groupon deal, and they’re gone.  Only a small percentage will like what they see and transform into long term repeat customers.

This is fine for some businesses that work based on infrequent sales, like a car dealer.  But some businesses are much more dependent on a loyal customer base, like a restaurant, and for them groupons haven’t always been worth the effort.

An unexpected variable was level of employee satisfaction with a promotion.  A Groupon will bring in a horde of bargain-seekers, which is a lot of extra stress for the employees of the business.  Based on the reported trend, the Groupon users come in to the business with a sense of entitlement, making them more difficult to deal with than the normal customer, plus obviously the tightwads tend to tip poorly.

I find this study fascinating from an armchair economist perspective.  It’ll be interesting to see if the Groupon concept can survive long term.

(Source, via this article.)

As far as computer publicity stunts go, IBM’s Deep Blue chess playing computer was hard to beat.  Seeing how the program was quickly dismantled after the publicity was played out, I assumed IBM was done with such stunts.

I was wrong. It turns out they’ve been working on a follow-up, one that is both more impressive to computer scientists and also has greater commercial value: a question-and-answer system that goes way beyond what we can get today out of a web search engine.

New York Times introduces IBM’s Watson, a computer that plays Jeopardy.

Talking to the Jeopardy contestants that had played against Watson, we see some echoes of chess players that had played against Deep Blue.  The same strengths of a computer… with some of the same weaknesses.

Human intelligence still holds the edge.  (For now…)

Calpico is a Japanese beverage that is available in many flavors, carbonated and uncarbonated.  I developed a taste for the original flavor as a child in Taiwan, remembering it as a rare treat in a glass.  The original format of the beverage is a concentrate sold in a glass bottle about the size of a wine bottle, wrapped in foil painted with the blue-on-white polka-dot pattern.

Within the past few years they have converted to a cardboard box container, which may be more environmentally friendly but is definitely more space-efficient.  I was disoriented the first time I tried to buy some after the switch - I was looking for the foil-wrapped bottles and completely missed the new type boxes.

Since it’s not carbonated, I can guzzle this stuff surprisingly fast.  A regular Calpico habit isn’t terribly expensive - certainly less expensive than a daily Starbucks habit - but it can add up quickly.  So I purchase it only occasionally.

But stepping in Uwajimaya (local market catering to Japanese audience) recently, I’m faced with a large display of their Calpico concentrate on sale at a 40% discount.

Calpico cheap?  Almost half price!  Give me two.  Actually, three.  Aw what the heck - give me a whole box!

Can one die of Calpico overdose?  I may soon find out. 

If I do, I die happy.

The Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum’s largest public display facility is the Udvar-Hazy Center just off of Dulles airport.  I responded to their call for fund-raising to build this museum, and Smithsonian promised to recognize all the doners with a physical thank-you on the facility grounds.  I have never verified this myself, but a friend who did visit took the time to find my name and snapped this shot.

(Click on the picture to see the Flickr gallery.  It has two more pictures, giving more context on where this stands.)

I’m amazed by the fact that they placed my name between two historically notable figures in aviation.

Rear Admiral Gentz had a long career in the U.S. Navy.  I’m sure his career has many accomplishments that elevated him to the rank that he held.  Unfortunately, when it comes to a note in the historical books, all people will read about is the end of said career.  He was in charge of weapons acquisitions programs during the most tremendously expensive and out-of-control weapons program to ever be cancelled.  The A-12 Avenger II program soaked up many billions of taxpayers dollars, and at the end the country got zero airplanes out of the deal.  As the top officer in charge, he was ordered to leave.

Dr. Christopher C. Kraft, Jr. is the reason why NASA has Mission Control to support its space missions.  It’s so obvious to us now that we don’t even think about it, but it wasn’t obvious back then, and he did think about it.  He was in charge of ground support operations in the infant U.S. space program, and he realized that it’s going to take way more to fly a spacecraft than it does to fly an aircraft.  "Ground support" is going to be way more than two mechanics and a fuel truck.  There are so many things going on at once, so quickly, that it isn’t humanly possible for the flight crew to do it all.  They need to be supported by a large staff of experts, who are only a radio link away for help.  He foresaw the need and got the whole Mission Control concept defined, set up, and running to support the Project Mercury missions.

During Project Mercury he did something I thought was even more amazing.  During one of the missions, the controllers on the ground made a technical decision that was then overruled by Washington D.C.  Engineers who know the systems like the back of their hands, overruled by politicians.  After this, Kraft set down concrete rules so that it would never happen again.  The Flight Director, the main controller in Mission Control, will always have the responsibility and final authority for crew safety and mission success.  Kraft was able to get Washington to butt out and stay out of decisions.

Telling power-hungry control freaks "No", and making it stick! That’s a tremendous achievement.

So let’s recap:

• Admiral Richard C. Gentz. rose to become the head of naval aviation acquisitions programs.  Noted in history as taking the blame for letting the A-12 program get out of control, wasting billions of tax dollars.
• Roger Cheng wrote a check.
• Dr. Cristopher C. Kraft, Jr. invented NASA Mission Control as we know it today.

I don’t feel my name belongs to be listed alongside these people, but hey, I’ll take it!

I just finished putting up my favorite pictures from the Mother’s Day weekend in San Francisco.  Click here to start the Flickr photo set.

There were good eats…

… fascinating walk across the Golden Gate …

… and some silly fun on wheels!

Good times. 

Famous car nut Jay Leno has cars.  Lots and lots of cars.  I’ve known that he keeps them in a large facility somewhere close to Burbank airport, but I didn’t know exactly where. Its location isn’t advertised. It’s Jay Leno’s private playground, after all.

For the curious fans, he runs a web site Jay Leno’s Garage to spotlight various vehicles.  But the virtual presence doesn’t really give away the physical location.  Occasionally there’ll be video clips of cars crusing nearby streets, but all I see are industrial buildings like those around the airport.

Burbank is my preferred airport when I visit Southern California, so I’m familiar with the area near the commercial airline passenger terminal on the southeast side.  Occasionally I would rent a car for my visit, which means hunting for a gas station to fill up the tank before I return the car.  One of these hunting trips that took me around the far side of the airport, where I saw a bright orange Lamborghini Gallardo turn on to the street ahead of me.  The Gallardo (MSRP ~$200,000) promptly left my rental Hyundai Accent (MSRP ~$15,000) eating its dust.

Was that Jay Leno?  I don’t know.  It might be him, one of his staffers taking a car out for a test, or maybe it’s an unrelated rich boy playing with his toy.  The northwest side of Burbank airport is for private jets and helicopters - people who can afford the Gallardos.  But I thought the Lamborghini might indicate Jay Leno’s garage is over there somewhere.

Today I stumbled across another piece of the puzzle.  This AutoWeek article "Jay’s Green Garage" talks about how the garage has taken on projects to improve its ecological performance on top of the raw torque and horsepower types of performance.  One of the projects was adding a rooftop solar array.  The article has a picture of Jay with his rooftop array, and behind them I see a runway (or at least a taxiway).  The garage isn’t just close to Burbank airport.  It’s on the airport grounds!

So I have two new pieces of information: It’s a building on the Burbank airport grounds, with a rooftop solar array.  I’m too poor to have my own aerial camera, but fortunately, I don’t need to have that kind of money.  It’s off to Bing maps and its "Bird’s Eye View" feature! 

Browsing the buildings around Burbank airport quickly pinpointed the structure.

It’s indeed on the northwest side of the airport, near where I saw the Lamborghini.

Adjacent to the building with the solar array is a densely packed car lot.  This is not Jay Leno’s car collection - his cars are pampered, not packed like sardines and left open to the elements.  I had a fair idea what this facility was, so I zoomed in looking for confirmation.

The best fit is the yellow section - two full rows (and then some) of taxicabs.  And next to them - rows of black-and-white police cars. As soon as I saw the taxicabs next to the cop cars, I knew I was looking at Studio Picture Vehicles.  One of the early (possibly the very first?) company that went into business providing studios with cars for their shows.  There was an article about them in Car & Driver many years ago, describing all the automotive-related services they provide.  Need taxicabs?  Drive them off the lot, bring them back when you’re done.  Need a rare classic?  They’ll track one down.  Need a reproduction you can crash in your movie?  They’ll fabricate one from scratch.  Bizzare car request they can’t handle?  They know people who can.

The orange Lamborghini I saw might have been a vehicle they arranged for some Hollywood project.

(I would venture to guess that Big Dog Garage being next door to Studio Picture Vehicles is not a coincidence.)

On a (relatively) more down-to-earth note, Jay Leno isn’t the only car guy that needs space for his toys.  Few can afford an enormous facility on the grounds of an airport, but lower-end options are available for the less well-heeled.  Searching around my area, I found one about 40 miles away.  Not very convenient, and I doubt it’s really within my price range anyway, but it was fun to poke around.

The business is now going by the name "GaragePlus", and the URL http://www.garageplusstorage.com.  This is all well and good, but I was sad when I realized that they probably chickened out from using a much more distinctive name.  At various places through the web site, I found references to a different URL that now directs to the same site.

http://www.OwnAManCave.com  (Insert Tim Allen manly grunts here.) 

It is sexist and politically incorrect, still I think they should have stayed with that name.

There was a charity event on the University of Washington campus recently, something involving a lot of very nice cars parked out on the area of campus called "Red Square".  I enjoyed the pictures, but this one stood out.

I believe this is a Lamborghini Diablo.  It’s a very nice car, and it costs about as much as my car plus my home.  There is also the very obvious custom paint job on this car. 

On this very nice Italian car.

I realized that’s why I got hung up on this picture.  If I were to cover a car with the American flag, I would choose an American car.  Like maybe the Chevrolet Corvette, which I consider the flagship of American sports cars.

Yeah, that’s more like it.  (Found this using Flickr search for "American Flag Corvette".)

The owner of the Lamborghini has every right to paint his car however he likes.  Furthermore, if he has that kind of money to throw around, he certainly doesn’t need to care one bit about my opinion.

But for me, it was weird to see the American flag represented by an Italian car.

National pride, or ethnocentric bigotry?  Hmm…

Random pieces of old-school fun.

(1) Wow, cars have really grown in size over the past few decades.  Here’s a picture of a Honda-focused track event.  Most of them are classic Honda cars of various sorts.  At the head of the right-side line is a modern Honda Civic.  I don’t think of the Civic as a large car… but the title of the page sums it up nicely: "New Civic Looks Like Godzilla Alongside Classic Hondas"

(2) In a trend going the opposite direction, computers have shrunk over the past few decades.  Somebody over at Lenovo decided to take a fun picture of an old 8" floppy disk on top of a modern netbook.

(3) What if space invaders look like… Space Invaders?  I’ve seen at least one previous take on the idea in a Futurama clip, but this short film Pixel looks much cooler.  The people who made this "New York invaded by classic computer games" short film has it in QuickTime version on their web site, and for those who have an allergic reaction to QuickTime, here’s one of many YouTube versions.