The Generalist

Espresso and Cappuccino References

A good friend just bought an Expobar Office Control on my recommendation, and asked for some tips to get started. This is about the 4th friend I've directly influenced into getting a serious home espresso machine, so I figure it'll save everyone some time if I put in one place the better reference material I've found over the years. If you find anything else, feel free to leave it in the comments.

The basics:

Whole Latte Love does a great job of explaining the basics of how to make espresso. (They've been great over the years as a retailer of espresso machines; between my dad and I we've bought more than a handful from them.)

If you learn well by reading, these three articles should be all you need:

The Golden Rule - explains the key aspects of an espresso.
The Ritual of Making Espresso - step-by-step instruction on how to do it right.
The Art of Frothing Milk - hint: it's not about "froth" at all. A quote:

"I can tell you only that, once you’ve tasted [microfoamed milk], you’ll never again voluntarily settle for plain ol’ hot milk. Microfoamed milk is luxuriously textured but it is not what you would call thick. It pours slowly, more like a premium white interior latex paint and less like a yogurt shake. Call it oozy, soupy, or gloopy. Call it mucilaginous, if you absolutely must. What do you say we call it velvet chiffon?"

I'll add more in a bit...

Housing and Taxes

The stock market is still all over the place, and who knows where the housing market is headed - all I know is I owe a ton of money to the US Treasury and California's Franchise Tax Board. To steal an inappropriate exclamation from WaMu, "Woohoo!"

If the stock market is down to 1997 prices, and assets are highly correlated - as this current bubble bursting has proven - then it follows logically that house prices should also retreat to 1997 levels. If you own a home, I'm sure you're already moving the mouse cursor to the button marked "x" to close this window, but bear with me for a minute. Or, just close it. See if I care.

The "good" news ("good" being a relative term in this context) is that according to Case Schiller, some markets are already back to 2000 levels. Redfin and CalculatedRisk, among others, have highlighted this in recent posts. In my native Bay Area, this has been particularly acute in the less distinctive suburbs, while more established areas - Pacific Heights, Ross, Piedmont, etc. - have been largely immune. Or so it would seem - but for the inventory that's been out there for 180 days in some cases.

I think (and this is where if you own a house you should make for that "x" - and fast) the regions that have been spared the downturn are going to find that the pixie dust wears off with time. Oversupply in exclusive locales isn't the major concern - posh suburbs have restrictive building regulations, little spare land, and a precisely 0% chance for a 50-unit condo building springing up in 2009. It's something much, much more difficult to compete with: the true substitute.

Nobody is thinking, "Do I live in a newly built community in Benicia for $200,000 or a mansion in Pacific Heights for $1.9 million?" But, a lot of people compare a 2-bedroom single family unit in Benecia to, say, a 2-bedroom single family unit in Martinez, where the price was just cut by a little more than the prices in Benicia. And those looking in Pinole might look at a similar unit in Benicia because it's just a little cheaper than it was before, and Pinole hasn't seen those price cuts yet. But now because the buyer bought in Benicia, Pinole asking prices go down. And then a house in El Cerrito never gets an offer because Pinole looks a little cheaper. And on and on until Rockridge is one step from San Francisco, and the softening market there lures city buyers who were looking for a 2 bedroom in Pac Heights but realized that Rockridge was a great alternative - and just as short a commute to downtown (without having to deal with the 30).

Not so suddenly Pacific Heights is actually tied to Benicia. It isn't that John Q. Buyer is comparing them directly; rather, it's a cascade of comparisons, where each individual comparison results in the softening of markets that started in the exurbs, in oversupplied new construction, eventually hitting the storied shores of the city's tawniest neighborhoods. Is Danielle Steele worried? No. But you're not Danielle Steele (Or are you? Ms. Steele, if you are reading this, please leave a comment).

Hello, 2000 prices. Go away, taxman.

On junk mail and credit cards... and UX

At work I'm always watching our user experience (UX for the tech crowd) get better. Tweaking, redesigning, constantly focused on making the site more trustworthy, usable, efficient, etc. So I was shocked to find literally the other side of the UX coin: http://Optoutprescreen.com.

Optoutprescreen is the phishing-like site set up by the major credit reporting agencies, Experian, Equifax, TransUnion, and Innovis Data Solutions where consumers can opt-out from getting credit card solicitations. These "firm" offers of credit are not only a huge risk to consumers who spend too much and can't resist borrowing more, but also are an open door to identity theives, where someone could easily open a credit card in your name and destroy your credit (how? everything they need is right there in your trash! one place, one envelope!).

Congress recognized this danger and, after much lobbying (on both sides - which shows how bad this is for consumers, that this law actually passed over the cries of the credit agencies) the Fair And Accurate Credit Transactions Act went into action in 2003, revising the Fair Credit Reporting Act to require a way for consumers to opt out of receiving these unsolicited credit offers that's included in the soliciations.

I've never actually opened one (I feel that because it's a felony offense to open someone else's mail, it's better to leave the envelopes sealed in the trash - not that an identity theif would care that much) so I've never seen this. But I stumbled on it today from the DMAChoice website, where you can opt out of receiving junk mail - catalogs, ValuePak (whatever that is), etc.

It looks like a scam. They ask for all of your information - date of birth, social security number, it's ridiculous. Why do they need it? They just need your name and your address! But, they've clearly figured out that the sketchier and more illicit this site looks, the less likely you are to put this key information in. You'll "abandon"  - and the credit offers can keep coming.

I'll admit to being skeptical when I found the site, but I clicked through from DMAChoice.org which is a well known site for the Direct Marketing Association, with clear branding, a good user experience, and obvious ties to real companies. So I realized what optoutprescreen (what evil genius came up with that URL, anyway?) was doing - purposefully trying to sketch me out of opting out, and I ignored it.

Still when I sent it onto my wife, she was horrified by it and asked if it was a forgery - apparently, other people have too. Just take a look at wikipedia.

Amazing what kind of bad UX smart people can create when they're motivated by evil.   

TicketMaster Shenanigans

Wow. Basically proving that you can always pay more for the same thing, according to the Wall Street Journal, TicketMaster has been "scalping" its own tickets and pretending fans were doing it.

To me this proves two things:
1. Some people just like paying more, and
2. Some people have no scruples

Surely there was a more honest way for TicketMaster to gouge the 160 rich people who like Neil Diamond and wanted to pay $1,000 to see his show?

Killer iPhone App article

Worth checking out, because of some great tidbits on iphone app usage and free vs. paid apps. Go Andrew Chen for finding this, and for the guys at Pinch Media for putting it together.

http://andrewchenblog.com/2009/02/19/great-iphone-preso-on-appstore-retention-curves-pricing-strategies-engagement-metrics-etc/

Reflections on CodeWarrior

I've been working hard at TripIt, since day one - more to do than there's time for, really. Barely even enough time to decide what to do, there's so many interesting, productive things to get done. Which is awesome. But today, I found myself leaning back in my chair, feet up on my filing cabinet, reading... for fun. It was about 11:45 AM.

This midday interlude would probably not go down well in any workplace, especially in one where the person engaging in it sits in the physical center of the open-plan office, the only spot where literally everyone can see him (and his monitor) without so much as moving their eyes. So I can only guess that my choice of literature - Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X 3rd Edition - must explain why most of the staring wasn't from the business people (who expect me to be productive) but from the engineers, who were shocked - shocked! - to find that the business people can read!

I do make a game of pretending that I understand something about programming. Mostly to feel like the thousands of dollars spent on the eight Dartmouth College computer science courses wasn't totally wasted (though, I'll be honest, I didn't get much out of CS 68 - Principles of Programming Languages). But I do enjoy programming - I've been doing it since I was about 10 (when I learned BASIC) and it's sad that today the only programming I do is in Excel - if you can call it that. I think back to those nights spent in front of the white glow of CodeWarrior and wonder... will I ever be as entertained/captivated/held hostage as I was by those lousy bugs?

So, when Andy asked politely for his book back (because he actually gets paid to read that stuff) I realized perhaps I should get all set up so that the next time I steal it I can actually get something done. Xcode is now loaded on my work macbook, and hopefully - unlike my Ruby / MySQL misadventure (where I couldn't ever figure out why MySQL wouldn't boot up on my personal macbook, and eventually threw in the towel after only ever accomplishing the requisite "Hello, World!") I'm ready to roll up my sleeves again and get dirty. Not because I get paid to do it, but just because it's fun.

And even if it isn't fun, it'll be worth it to see the look on the faces of the TripIt engineers (who all sit behind me over my left shoulder) when they see the compiler going on my screen. Or, more likely, when they see me rebooting my mac just like I did four times an hour in college after writing to a memory block that wasn't meant to be written to...

TripIt!

In week 2, I'm exceedingly glad I joined the TripIt team. The product is awsome, this launch we're working on is going to be a game changer - travel will be more fun,  and more social, than ever. And I'll be able to compete at who amongst my highly competitive friends travels most.

Can't wait to see what comes next - and to make it happen.

Regret

Went to the San Fran Music Tech Summit today, on behalf of good ol' Audible Magic. Great conference - always thrilled to be there. Pity, all of those NDAs that I'm covered by, or I'd be able to offer some color commentary.

I went to the last conference they threw, also at Hotel Kabuki, right after I started at Audible Magic, and I'll admit - I had low expectations. Til it blew me away. When do you get to grab an unplanned lunch with someone from a company that just acquired another company, someone from the acquired company,  and be the third piece of the puzzle yourself? The sessions weren't bad, either.

Fast forward to today, and I can actually say I regret not going to a conference event. Usually I'm the guy who either flits in and out, or sits in the back pounding on his blackberry and/or laptop, totally oblivious of his surroundings, until cocktail hour (which, for anyone who hasn't figured it out yet, always starts about half an hour before they say it does on the schedule, if you're nice to the staff). But today was different.

I was captivated by the discussion between Fred Von Lohmann of EFF and Zahavah Levine of YouTube, and a few other people, on the subject of copyright issues in music law. It was awesome. You'd think that after this long in online media I'd know that stuff cold. I do. But I feel like most of that coldness came from today.

So what's to regret? Thanks to work, I had to peace out midday - halfway through the social networks and music panel, and it helped that it didn't seem great - but then again I only lasted for four minutes of it, and I was pounding away on the blackberry for 3.5 of them, until I realized I had to go anyway. So perhaps I judged too quickly. But the regret - the regret.

Tim Ferriss, who wrote "The Four Hour Work Week", was interviewed by Derek Sivers of CD Baby, after I left. Wish I had been there for that. I actually regret it.

I was reading about his diet... the slow carb diet. I happen to know one or two things about diets, and I'm in pretty good shape. Not insane shape, but pretty good shape. The knowledge he has of diets, nutrition, etc. (you've got to read at least a few of the 800+ comments to get a sense for the depth of it) is astounding. If he approaches everything in life with that kind of intensity (which he seems to) he's on his way to being downright wise. Like I said: impressed, and I regret not being there for it.

NewTeeVee Live

At the NewTeeVee Live, the conference on internet television and new media put on by Om and Liz over at GigaOm/NewTeeVee. Listening to AT&T's Group Vice President talk about their plans for the future in mobile and across devices. Very interesting.

Something about this crowd though... about 1/3 of them are on their laptops typinging away.  I'm pretty sure the guy at the table in the front is writing an article for NewTeeVee. Sorry I'm not writing something more useful... but I'm sure someone else is covering it.

Southwest and kids

The kids thing scares the daylights out of me. I can barely function in a "normal" relationship with jobs, athletics, activities, volunteering and the rest of it; how kids fit in baffles me.

That said, I noticed a post by Martin Bishop at Landor about Southwest, and it reminded me of a letter a co-worker sent and received regarding a recent change to Southwest's pre-boarding policy. (I agree in general that Southwest's claim to fame is treating all equally, or, at least, appearing to - I'm curious to see what Martin thinks of the new intercontinental all-business class airlines which are trying to mimic the one-class low fare program, but for business passengers - but that's a subject for another time).

My coworker has children, and he also flies Southwest religiously. He was horrified to find out that pre-boarding for families with small children was to end, according to early reports, as in some instances when away from a computer (at the in-laws) he can't print out boarding passes.  And with small kids, sitting together is important.

Being a passionate Southwest customer, he wrote a letter. And Southwest showed off, as usual, what an exemplary company it is and why it has one of the best brands - able to combine value and high-class customer service all the time, no excuses.

He received a prompt reply on nice company letterhead (not the typical United Airlines almost-as-cheap-as-newsprint letterhead) addressed to him, explaining the change. The pre-boarding policy for families would continue, it said, but families would be moved from before the A boarding group to before the B boarding group. The reason for this was primarily to speed up the loading and unloading of the flight, as families in the front rows take longer to get ready to leave, making everyone - especially efficient and rushed business passengers, stuck behind them - slower to exit the plane. He sits in the back of the plane normally, and there are always seats available after just A's have boarded, so for him it really means little will change. Also he pointed out that it offends him when traveling for work when families up front stall the whole process of getting off the plane, because they were selfish and sat up front, so he's actually a fan of the new policy.

Of course it makes excellent business sense as well. One of the reasons Southwest is so inexpensive is because (as of when the HBR case was written, at least) the company managed to bring aircraft turnaround time at the gates down to 18 minutes from - literally - hours, thus freeing up fantastic amounts of working capital. There were many aspects of this, from not transferring luggage to other carriers, not accepting luggage transfers, not having many connecting flights anyway (though that has changed), not having food service, not having beverage carts, not having sophisticated, overly complex computer systems with assigned seats and complicated boarding processes, having grounds crews clean planes on a more sane basis, etc. It all combined to drastically reduce turn around. And, if this change shaves even 1 minute off the turnaround time, it would shave yet another ~5%. Might even result in cheaper tickets for all of us.