Greedy Fat Cats

I've been a long-time reader of Penny Arcade and even been an Enforcer at PAX for the first six years of its existence.  I have a ton of respect for the folks behind Penny Arcade including Mike Krahulik, Jerry Holkins and Robert Khoo among others.  Today, Mike tweeted, "... Gamestop is a greedy fat cat that didn't do shit."  I have very specifically taken this quote out of context because I find the comment itself interesting as an indication just how much the Internet has changed things in our world.

When I was younger, the supply chain behind bringing a good (as opposed to a service) to market was pretty much assumed to be: manufacturer, distributor/wholesaler, retailer and customer.  Each step in the chain provided some benefit to the customer.  The manufacturer created the good.  The distributor or wholesaler was good at getting a certain class of goods from various manufacturers to tons of locations around the country or the world.  The retailer provided a clean, stable, safe and (sometimes) knowledgeable environment from which you could inspect, sample and purchase the good.  I would not have known about a great many computer games in my youth had my local Egghead Software not stocked them.

The role of the retailer has certainly changed significantly in the last few decades.

3D Printing Potential Boon to Miniatures Wargaming

I've been following the 3D printing scene for a little while, thinking that I'd really like to get my hands on one of those and do something really cool with it.  3D printers like the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic have the potential to be the beginning of something really special, I believe.  It's one of those ideas that I can't yet conceive of how it will revolutionize things, but I believe it will.  Perhaps this is how my parents felt when my dad was working with computers in the 1970s and thought that we should have a computer at home because they knew that it was going to be the future.  But I digress ...

Anyway, I've been on a "reduce all the things" binge around the house because I'm at the point in my life where I want things simple.  The problem here is that I've been a good American consumer and bought a metric crapton of crap!  (I think I've found a new state of George Carlin's classic stuff/crap dichotomy: When you no longer want the stuff you have, it becomes crap.)  I want to organize my house and one of the easiest ways to organize things is to reduce the number of things that need organizing by getting rid of the things you don't really need but are afraid to throw away.  Getting a 3D printer (one more thing) that will allow me to make things on demand (probably a whole bunch of things) is ... shall we say ... somewhat counterproductive?

So I've been able to resist the temptation to purchase one of these wonderful contraptions, so far.  But that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about what I could do with one of them, if I were to purchase one.  And then I saw on Twitter that someone had made a 3D terrain map of the Hudson Valley using a MakerBot.  Then it hit me, what if game clubs or game stores purchased MakerBots and started printing their own miniatures, terrain and so forth?

Currently, there are a couple ways to obtain or create miniatures suitable for wargaming.  One can purchase off-the-rack mass-produced miniatures.  Or one can create one-off or even small run miniatures using a resin casting method.  Resin casting generally provides lower-quality miniatures than mass produced ones, but are generally cheaper than their mass produced counterparts.  I would expect 3D printed miniatures to be more expensive than resin cast and possibly mass produced miniatures, but to have quality rivaling or even exceeding in some cases the mass produced miniatures.  The exact differences in cost and quality would require more research.

But think of the convenience!  What if I were a sculptor with some talent for creating miniatures models?  Or a 3D artist?  Perhaps I could sell designs that people with 3D printers could use to create their miniatures with?  Perhaps deals could be struck between the artist and game stores where the artist gets a percentage of every miniature printed by the game store?  Perhaps new miniature wargaming companies could sell designs with their rule sets so people could print the miniatures at home or take them into the game store to be printed for a modest sum over cost of materials?  And just think, for the people for whom the painting of the army is ninety percent of the fun of having a huge miniature army ... an endless supply of things to paint!

The mind boggles!

Trials and Tribulations with My New iMac

I recently bought a new iMac, making my conversion to The Dark Side complete. I got it almost completely tricked out. I was especially glad to get the SSD/HD combination. It's a 240GB SSD for the system drive and then a 1TB HD for whatever. The problem is that the way the system comes configured from the factory you would end up just using the SSD for everything unless you do some wizardry first. So I had to go and teach myself the wizardry through a couple failed attempts before I landed on what I believe, now, to be the proper solution.

Form 1: Default Configuration
The default configuration from the factory makes the SSD the main drive where everything gets stored.  The system, all the applications, all the user folders, everything.  The problems with this configuration are that I have a 1TB drive that is now useless and the SSD is only 240GB.  This is big enough for a while and may even be big enough if I wanted to really watch my disk usage.  But the whole point is that I don't want to watch my disk usage!

Form 2: Move /Users to HD

This is more like it!  So now I have the operating system, applications and such on the super-fast (but small) SSD and all my big fat user files like pictures and music and videos on the HD.  This is how I did it:

1. Create a Users directory on the HD (named "Macintosh HD 2" by default).
2. Copy the contents of /Users to the new Users directory.
3. Open System Preferences.
4. Select Users & Groups.
5. In the lower-left corner, click the lock to unlock and make changes.  (Authenticating as an administrator also, if necessary.)
6. Right-click on a user and select "Advanced Options...".
7. Where it says "Home Directory" click the Choose button and select the new directory in the new Users folder.  (This would be /Volumes/Macintosh HD 2/Users/[username] if everything is still on its defaults.)
8. Click Ok and repeat for the other users.

The problem I ran into with this configuration is that some stuff I use at the command line chokes on a home directory path that has spaces in it.  This led me to ...

Form 3: Delete /Users and Create a Link

What the link does for you is that anything that looks for "/Users/Foo" gets sent to "/Volumes/Macintosh HD 2/Users/Foo" instead.  But it is all behind the scenes and isn't the wiser ... so it doesn't have a chance to choke on the spaces in the path.  This is how I did it:

1. Delete /Users.  (Not a big deal because everything was already pointing to the other drive.)
2. Open Terminal.
3. Type the command: sudo ln -s /Users /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD\ 2/Users

The nice thing about this is now /Users and /Volumes/Macintosh HD 2/Users were essentially indistinguishable.  But then I read this article from MacWorld and learned of a weakness in my plan ...

Form 4: Abandon the Link and Go Back to Form 2

The problem with this plan is exposed in the final paragraph of the article.  (Good thing I read the whole thing!)  What happens if at some point the HD dies?  The system could still boot because the SSD is working, but it can't because it doesn't have a way to log in as any valid user!  But how do I take the advice and still keep my command line stuff from choking on spaces?  Rename the drives!  I renamed "Macintosh HD" to "System" and "Macintosh HD 2" to "Data".  Then I had to delete the link and recreate the /Users directory.  Here's how I did that:

1. Open Terminal
2. Type the command: sudo rm /Users
3. Type the command: sudo mkdir /Users

Then I went in and created a new administrator user called "backupadmin" and left their home directory in the default /Users location.  Any other real users I create will have to be migrated to the HD by hand, but I think this will work best in the long run.

Some Thoughts on Application Stores and Openness

In writing down my thoughts on why I switched to Mac from PC, I ended up composing a big rant on the difference between the iOS App Store and the Android App Store from what I hope is a rational cost/benefit perspective.  I wanted to post these thoughts separately to protect the flow of that other article and also because I think it is deserving of its own post.

I want to divorce this analysis as much as possible from the iOS App Store and the Android App Store.  So I will generically refer to a few different things.  There is the application store.  This is the store, virtual or physical, from which applications are purchased in order to be installed upon a device.  There is the user.  This is the person or party who owns the device on which applications will be installed and used.  There is the operator.  This is the person or party who owns, operates and optionally curates the application store.  Curation is the action of managing what is contained and ultimately sold from the application store.  When I speak of curation, I'm thinking of the kind that we see in the Apple application stores.  I know that the Android application store does remove applications and perhaps even proactively prevents some applications from being listed, but these are rather rare exceptions.

Who benefits from keeping bad apps out of an application store?  The user does surely because they can purchase apps without fear.  Does the operator benefit?  They might sell a few more applications because of the benefit enjoyed by users, but they also might not.  Curation, on the other hand, is a huge cost.  Each application and every update must be scrutinized by, presumably, both automated and manual processes.  So the operator of a curated application store must spend a lot of resources for a benefit enjoyed mostly by the user.

Who benefits from fewer apps in an application store?  The user benefits if the apps that are allowed in are of the same variety, similar cost and of generally higher quality.  The operator benefits if the apps that are allowed in somehow bring in more revenue than all apps would.  Again, curation is not free.  So, once again, the operator of a curated application store is spending a lot of resources for a benefit enjoyed mostly if not solely by the user.

Who benefits from an application store that will allow any application with as few restrictions as possible?  The user is taking the risk of downloading malicious applications.  The user has to judge quality for themselves using their own time and money.  The user has to be their own curator.  The operator of the application store benefits from allowing in all applications because they have an application store without the cost of curation.  The operator benefits because users and volunteers like security researchers will find the bad apps and notify the operator who can then take corrective action reactively.  In this scenario, the operator benefits from the users' and volunteers' efforts, does not incur the overhead of curation and possibly brings in more revenue because all apps has a chance of making more money than most apps.

One of the costs of curation is that good apps can be thought bad and not allowed in to an application store.  Or the operator can use curation as an excuse for barring good applications from the application store that might cost the operator something.  These can cost the user the enjoyment or benefit of the good app.  Mistakes and maliciousness, from the perspective of the user, are the costs of curation.  These can be minimized, if the operator is interested, but perhaps not eliminated.  (Maliciousness doesn't have to be systemic, it could be that an app reviewer sees that their old college nemesis submitted an app and rejects it to "get back at them.")

Overall, it looks to me like the majority of the costs of the curated approach are borne by the operator and the majority of the benefits are enjoyed by the user.  The reverse seems to be true of the uncurated application store.  Looking at it from this perspective, I'm beginning to have a new respect for the Apple approach to the application store.

Words to Live By

A story I heard somewhere ...

A vegetarian friend of mine told me that I'm not "evolved" because I eat meat.  He said people only started eating cows thousands of years ago because they were savages, they were barbarians and they didn't know any better.  People who eat cows now are not evolved.  What a bunch of bullshit.  People ate cows thousands of years ago for the same reason we eat cows today.  Because they are easy to catch.  We're not savages, we're just lazy.  A cheetah could taste like chocolate heroin, we'll never know.  Those little bastards are fast!

I love the idea of "tasting like chocolate heroin" and look for ways to work the phrase into casual conversation.

 

We Don't Need No Steenkin' Cable!

Back in March, I wrote a post about The Ultimate Set-Top Box.  I've been thinking a lot about it lately and the fact that I just don't watch much cable TV anymore.  Sure, when I'm bored I occasionally flip through the things on my TiVo, but it wouldn't be any huge hardship to choose something else like reading a book, playing a video game or working on a programming hobby project.  So the question is ... how much extra am I spending on a cable subscription that I don't need?

I did some research.  Actually, I did some digging because Frontier Communications made it very hard to find out this information.  I tried going through their website via my account to see if I could change my plan.  They would not allow me to deselect TV from my current plan.  I could add or upgrade services, but I could not remove anything.  I finally had to resort to logging into their website as a new customer and look up the currently available plans that way.  Still, they didn't make it easy because of the dizzying array of choices available.  But I was able to finally select just FIOS Internet without TV, without Home Phone, at my current speed rating.  Making this change would save me $30 per month.  It also turns out that the next higher speed rating might save me an additional $10 per month.

As Marco Arment recently pointed out in a podcast, $40 per month can buy a lot of TV or movies on iTunes (or Amazon or Hulu or [insert your favorite video service here]).  Approximately thirty dollars will buy you a full thirteen-episode season of Doctor Who in HD from Amazon Video-on-Demand.  A full season of House in HD will run you about $56.  iTunes runs slightly more at $37 and $60, respectively.  Remember, these are HD videos that are yours to keep (so long as the DRM continues to be supported) with no commercials or other claptrap getting in the way.  $40 per month is $480 per year or eight full American-style seasons in HD.  So I could still have the shows that I really do want to watch, in a format that may allow me more freedom to watch when, how and on which device I want to watch it, and possibly still save me money.

Now I just need to figure out how to break the news to my daughter ...

Making Your Own Tools

I remember reading somewhere that you aren't a real carpenter until you've made your own tools.  Not being a carpenter of any sort, I'm not sure if its true or not, but I've started to feel like it might be true for programmers.

More and more I've noticed that IDEs are becoming required to work with code.  And more and more, these IDEs have very similar, but not the same, features.  They all offer customization of one form or another, but what's more custom than something that works exactly the way you want it to, because you wrote it that way?

So I've set out on a quest to take the journey of my programming forefathers and write, to begin with, an editor and a language with its own compiler/interpreter.  Perhaps the two will be related, perhaps not.  Perhaps the language will be generally useful or maybe it'll only be the extension language for the editor ... or perhaps it will be nothing more than an experiment in language design and have no practical purpose whatsoever.  But I expect that once I get to a certain basic level of usefulness with the editor, it will become my sole text editor since I do believe in eating my own dogfood.

Since my platform of choice nowadays is the Mac, I have already started writing my editor as an Objective-C OS X application.  I started out with the code from the article: Building a Text Editor in 15 Minutes.  It has given me a huge appreciation for the underpinnings of OS X and gotten my editor almost all the way to that basic usability level I mentioned before.

As I move forward, I'll be sharing thoughts and discoveries from my journey here.  I hope you find them useful ... or at least entertaining.