in contrast to 2006 (kinda miss my black wheels, but those weren’t the originals either):

First impressions with the new parts:

• I noticed there was no gritty feeling when rolling the bike backward when I wheeled it out of the basement. I’m guessing this was due to the bottom bracket being replaced. I hadn’t really noticed it too much before, but definitely notice the new smoothness.
• The new cables and housings make a big difference in braking, but an even bigger difference in shifting. Probably this has to do with the new chain/cassette/chainrings too, but shifting seems instantaneous now – like I’m literally pushing the chain onto a different gear when I click the shifter levers. There’s no hesitation whatsoever, even with 8-year old front and rear derailleurs.
• My bike is silent. I notice it most when going through the bike tunnel above I-5 or when riding close to cars on my right. Usually I could hear the buzz of the chain on the gears reflected off objects as I peddled, but now there’s nothing to hear.
• I’m a little surprised it was so easy to spend the same amount of money in upgrades/repairs as I spent on the original bike. Soon there will be no original parts left except the frame…

• Two new chain-rings (lower and middle gear)
• Two wheels: mavic open-pro rims w/ shimano 105 hubs
• New chain, new cassette
• New cables, housings
• New bottom bracket

I actually just got it back, but haven’t ridden it yet. ooh the anticipation!

Tax cuts give Republicans an opportunity to distribute economic benefits through the tax code the way Democrats distribute them through appropriations, and the exaggeration of the supply-side effect gives them an opportunity to pretend like those benefits are cost-free.

Its not a particularly insightful sentence, but it resonates with me in the same way that Yglesias’ frequent posts on judging the conservative movement by their actions and not their rhetoric do. Republicans like handing out benefits too, but their favorite method is hypocritical. I remember being surprised while reading it that this is the first article I’ve read debunking the supply-side argument. It’s a little distressing to me that there is such a low signal to noise ration in politics, but also that substantive critiques are hard to come by.

I didn’t post about it at the time, but J and I took a trip to Utah at the end of March. We hung out in Logan, UT for a bit. It was my first time in northern Utah, so we took the scenic drive back from Salt Lake. There was a delicious lunch at the Red Iguana (amazing mole sauce), a walk top of the salt lake city library (pretty cool building that has a curved ramp built up to roof garden), and a brief visit to the olympic park where we saw some bobsledders practice at close range (being a bobsledder looks both fast and bumpy). In Logan we went cross-country skiing, ate some food with fry sauce, took a hike in the canyon, forgot to play ping pong, inspected Mormon temples from afar, frequented hot springs, and made yam tacos. Finally we left Utah and then flew south to Vegas. First to hang out in Red Rock Canyon, see E, R, and some other peeps on their climbing trip, and second to rendezvous with B.

Vegas plans included a tour at the atomic testing site and an excursion to a tiny town south of Death Valley called Tecopa, where we swam in pristine natural hot springs. You can’t bring cameras (or cell phones, even) on the tour due to ‘classified information/security concerns’, but you do get to see a lot of artifacts of the program. Initially testing was done above ground, and countless structures were built to measure the effects that an atomic blast and the subsequent radiation would have on infrastructure and buildings. Bomb shelters were tested, as well as elevated railroad tracks, bank vaults, houses, bunkers, and quite frequently, soldiers and manequins. It was impressive to see the I-beams for the elevated rail bent into a huge arc above our heads. The wider beams (although incredibly thick)were dramatically bowed, unlike the narrower beams, some of which were still perfectly straight. It’s all about surface area facing the blast, apparently.

The things that stood out most for me were the incredible size of the site (860,000 acres, roughly), the fact that it was still litered with decades worth of artifacts (you could drive for miles and see a tower or a crater from a nuclear blast), and the general drabness of the facilities. Lots of ‘teamwork’ posters and comment boxes for reporting unsafe procedures, invariably branded with a corporate logo from some military-industrial consulting organization. It felt like a totally different world.

Without further ado, some pictures:

1. the dpi is lower than the iphone, and the pixels are noticeable. For example, the font on the New York Times website looked a little jagged in portrait mode. (same for the iBook reader) I switched it to landscape mode, and the anti-aliasing looked better. But still, I don’t think it’s quite as high as it should be for a device you hold close to your eyes.
2. the keyboard is fine. in portrait mode, it’s fine; in landscape mode, it’s great. I could definitely see composing an email on it – the typing sound effect is pretty good as far as feedback is concerned – even though you have to peer under your fingers to check your alignment every so often.
3. using the maps application was pretty fun. being able to use gestures on a larger screen is satisfying, to say the least, and i think the multiplier on the pinch/pull gestures has been increased to make it seem snappier than the iphone.
4. I’d love to mess around with brushes or some other drawing app on this device.

1. Forecasting: The postal service is counting on bulk mail taking up a higher percentage of mail in the future than it has (even) in the past. The author makes the point that this forecast is very unlikely to end up being accurate. Internet advertising is cheaper and more targeted, and so the postal service should focus on delivering mail that actually is wanted. Since fuel costs over time will rise, and since advertising doesn’t rely on paper as a medium (and therefore isn’t guaranteed to require the postal service in the long run) the postal services strategy of promoting bulk mail is flawed.
2. Number of deliveries/week: There’s no reason the postal service needs to visit every house 6 days a week. I find this to be a pretty compelling argument to begin with – mail is a variably high latency medium – but consider how much more this would be true if no one got any bulk mail. What percentage of mail is actually worth receiving, and how frequently does one actually need to receive it? Consider what would happen if mail only got delivered on demand. The savings in fuel costs alone would be impressive. The author pointed out that this is one of the primary ways UPS and Fed-Ex save money; they only deliver mail people actually are paying for, so they don’t have to drive around to every house every day, wasting time and fuel.
3. Medium vs. Message: Of the first class mail that one receives, how much of it actually needs to exist in physical form? The author makes the point that much of the mail we receive starts out in a digital format, is printed on paper, sent out physically, and then opened, just to be thrown into the trash. This is certainly true for bulk mail, but even true for a lot of first class mail. There’s really no reason we need to receive much of it in a physical format. The trend clearly is moving in the direction of digital media — think e-bills, statements in PDF, automatic billing, netflix on demand, etc. — and the postal service should align itself with this shift. Over time there’s no compelling reason why we will have more paper mail than we have in the past.
4. Hybrid digtial mail systems: The author mentioned some systems in place (Switzerland, perhaps?) that involved a secure online service for citizens to view their mail. Basically letters are opened and scanned automatically for viewing. If they are needed, they can be delivered physically. If not, they can be securely discarded.

I have to admit that I find the current system fairly depressing and frustrating. It seems like such an obvious waste of resources that doesn’t even primarily meet the needs of the public good for which it was originally intended. I suspect that over time other countries will appropriately price the delivery of mail and will leapfrog our system. Much of the media that gets delivered via the postal service doesn’t actually need to be printed on physical medium. Most of the mail I receive goes directly into the recycling, and of the few pieces of mail I receive that are important, most of those could easily be emailed to me. It reminds me of trying to apply for an apartment in Seattle and needing to mail a letter overnight because a fax machine / email attempt didn’t work. It amazes me that this transition isn’t happening faster.

Americans receive 55 percent of the world’s total mail volume

After all, almost every piece of paper mail delivered today started out as an electronic file that was converted to paper, delivered through an energy-intensive and polluting process, and in some cases even reconverted to an electronic document once it arrived at a place of business. Why go from digital to paper only to go back to digital? Why not skip the paper stage altogether?

the other day i got my red rocket blaster in the mail. it’s a pretty powerful air blower that i was hoping to use to get some dust off my camera’s sensor. i think i at least moved one smudge to a different part of the sensor, but it didn’t quite live up to my expectations… so i’ll be continuing to take pictures with a wide aperture, which seems to work just fine.

Hanging out in Kerry Park was lots of fun. I got there early and chatted with some other amateur photographers. One of them had a fancy lens and new Canon he had me look through, recommended a website, and exchanged flickr information. The other gave me some tips on my tripod technique (keep the neck part of the tripod as close to the body as possible to minimize vibrations). Both had Minnesota connections.

Second, Rizal Park:

Rizal Park didn’t have nearly as many people but was equally pretty. I’m still little frustrated by all the dust that’s sitting on the sensor of my camera, so I bought a ‘rocket blaster’ blower (seriously) to try to get rid of it. Hopefully that does the trick for the next time around.