Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/09/23/high-plains-couch-potato/
Watching "High Plains Drifter" via Amazon.com on the Roku, and on the laptop. On the one hand, the laptop can do high definition. On the other hand, it has to sit on my belly.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/09/21/chicago-architecture/
We were in Chicago this past Labor Day. Here are a few photos taken with my G2 Android phone . . .
Trump's Tower in Chicago
Marina City, a distinctive pair of residential towers built in the sixties.
The Merchandise Mart, once the largest building in the world, as seen looking South down Wells St, on the Chicago Architecture Foundation's model of downtown.
Under construction . . .
Shimmering Alleyway
Chicago Remembers: with its own Vietnam War Memorial
The profile of stairs leading down to the Vietnam War Memorial on the Chicago River are mirrored in the skyline.
The Old republic Building smiles at the sun.
Mei photographs the Bean, as all visitors to Millennium Park are obliged to do.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/09/19/gag-me-quickster/
Left a comment on the Official Netflix blog:
What I have always liked about Netflix is that it was a one-stop shop that knew what kind of movies I like to watch, and could make smart suggestions. Netflix had a huge selection and could send me just about any movie I could want. The streaming was a nice addition, but you lose a lot of control that you have on the DVDs like selecting aspect ratios or subtitles. Sometimes the instant gratification is nice but what was important wasn’t a red envelope versus a streaming video, it was that one way or another, Netflix would get me movies I wanted to see.
Then you decided that what I really wanted had little to do with movies or brand loyalty and everything to do with having a medium preference shoved down my throat.
If the streaming is such a fundamentally new business model start a new business and be done with it. Call it Streamstr. Partner with old-fogey Netflix and their stupid red envelopes so their retarded users can stream a few videos. Better yet, be the Netflix I knew and loved so many years: deliver movies I want to me. If I have to pay more for postage or more for some streaming movie that is really “hot” that is totally cool.
But what you are doing right now is some sort of bizarre unsettling brand seppuku. Why is such a great company working so hard to come up with new and innovative ways to scare away its loyal customers?
Netflix used to be about people watching movies. End of story. Movies. Movies. Movies. Its not about picking the winner between VHS and Beta, its about your customers and their love of movies and about your love of getting the movies to your customers. No nonsense, no bull, no false choices. And now? You’re tossing that advantage aside, and I am just as well served by your competitors.
Making the experience more complex for your customers is just plain dumb. =(
Good luck with your brave new spin-off model. It was a nice ride while it lasted.
-danny
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/09/11/squirrel-cat/
I heard a squirrel clomping up a tree. I looked and looked and couldn’t find him. But then I saw Maxwell was climbing higher than I had ever seen him climb.  He climbed as high as the second floor, hoping to sneak up on the Mourning Doves. The doves were wise to his approach, but he ascended and descended safely.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/09/11/911-ceremony-mountain-view-ca/
Tenth anniversary of the attacks. A bit difficult to recite the Pledge of Allegiance with that knot that still forms in the back of the throat.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/09/01/weekend-inspiration/
Weekends when the wife is not around I enjoy a visit to my favorite coffee shop. On this occasion while one patron was transcribing musical notation another regular started to work on the math of an idea about solar power generation.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/08/31/all-roads-lead-to-san-jose/
Monday afternoon I biked down the Guadalupe trail past the airport to San Jose Diridon Caltrain and rode a comfy baby bullet home to Mountain View.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/08/29/everyone-believes-in-dogs/
I have been writing most days at 750words.com. This is a little like Sy Safransky’s Notebook, as published in The Sun Magazine.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/08/25/steve-jobs-is-a-wise-man/
Personally, I am not fond of Apple products, but I can not help but admire Steve Jobs. I am enjoying a compendium of Steve Jobs quotes from the Wall Street Journal. This one hits close to home:
“The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament.”
I work for an Information Technology bellwether, which is both highly profitable and obsessive over maintaining its profit margins. Costs must always be contained. While we have a variety of interesting technology we are working to develop, we are presently completing our latest round of workforce reductions. I wish our leadership could be a little more like Steve Jobs:
“This is not a one-man show. What’s reinvigorating this company is two things: One, there’s a lot of really talented people in this company who listened to the world tell them they were losers for a couple of years, and some of them were on the verge of starting to believe it themselves. But they’re not losers. What they didn’t have was a good set of coaches, a good plan. A good senior management team. But they have that now.”
You know what John Chambers might say to that?
“The problem with the Internet startup craze isn’t that too many people are starting companies; it’s that too many people aren’t sticking with it. That’s somewhat understandable, because there are many moments that are filled with despair and agony, when you have to fire people and cancel things and deal with very difficult situations. That’s when you find out who you are and what your values are.”
Really, the whole collection is worth a read.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/08/10/san-jose-tube-map/
I am a fan of transit maps, but in San Jose, the light rail system is two lines and a little stub. There doesn’t seem to be much consistent bus service, either. Instead, San Jose is a city built around a set of highways. So I built this Harry Beck-style transit map of San Jose’s transportation system.
It is designed for printing on a sheet of US letter paper as a quick reference. I’m confident that a better resource would opt for a display of the major roads that comprise the irregular street grid, so you can see what flows to where, turning in upon itself and changing names along the way. I might even build a map like that, but for now, I just wanted to blow a mind or three by rendering highways as if they were a transit system in a clearly iconic fashion.
Incomplete interchanges have been omitted, and I’m sure there’s an error in there somewhere.
The fare? An automobile and a licensed driver!
Links: PNG: 3300×2550, PDF: 8.5x11in, Inkscape SVG (source)
Update 2011-08-19: Dixon Landing moved North of CA237, San Tomas spelled correctly.
Update 2012-06-26: For a future project, check out code by Andrew Godwin for his “Twin Tubes” map.
Update 2013-05-23: John Galantini has rendered a Tube Map using HTML and CSS, which is utterly amazing. For example, the little wheel chairs are a list of items, each representing say, the wheels, the back, the arm, all rendered using the CSS box model.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/08/03/heck-yeah-google-plus/
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/07/25/one-word-autonomous-cars/
I don’t have a well-structured argument ready to post, but here’s a little rant I just made on IRC:
Danny: Talking to a guy at Google, he suggested that the plan is to introduce autonomous cars into an environment with less restrictive regulations.
Danny: I think autonomous cars are just a matter of time. Possibly the majority of new cars in 20 years, hopefully a lot sooner. The safety issue will become “why would you want a car controlled by fault-prone humans?”
Response: I expect there will be piles of social and political resistance.
Danny: Well the biggest resistance might be taxi drivers. That’s an effing industry in India. But I could picture the military going for it. “The road is mined and full of ambushes, yet the the supplies must go through. We can pay mad money for insane truck drivers or we can send robots.”
Danny: What interests me will be the impact on public transit. I think if cars can pick you up at your house, car ownership will drop, and people will use inexpensive autonomous car hires as the “last mile” connection to high-density transit services.
Danny: . . . the autonomous cars will happen. I swear that industry is like the Internet circa 1989. I would love to get a foot in the door! If Google nixed that program they are effing dunces–Like HP telling Steve Jobs that the PC is just a little too “out there.” I would buy the effing Apple I Autonomous Car Kit and install it myself.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/07/19/saq-corporate-communication/
Q: “What would help make communications more clear, simple, and transparent for you?”
A: I come from a startup culture, where the Fearless Leader will once a week stand up an a table and enthusiastically explain what new deals and products are in the pipeline, in terms his Grandma would understand. Then we drink cool-aid.
Compared to that, most corporate communication is Kremlinology.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/07/14/cuddly-maxwell/
Maxwell cuddles up on the couch for a belly rub.
Usually he avoids me but Mei is out of town.
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/07/12/google-hangout/
Mei says hello to Sean, in London.
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