2007 August archive at RunawayJim.org

Archive for August, 2007

More on Cox High Speed vs. Verizon FiOS

Published on August 30, 2007 in Internet and Technology. 0 Comments

A friend of mine pointed me to this article from the Consumerist. Basically, it says that Verizon replaces the copper phone lines with the fiber optic cable. This means that your phone line will not work in the event of an extended power outage as their battery backup will only last 4 hours.

So, I have a question now… after getting another answer from a co-worker about FiOS being better than Cox because it’s a direct line that isn’t shared. Anyways, my questions is this: Will Verizon rip out the copper even if I do not have my landline phone service through them?

I do question some of the comments in the Consumerist article. I am not a fanboi of anything, but many of them seem to be FiOS fanboi’s. They make suggestions like “use your cell phone during an outage” (which would work so long as the cell phone was charged) or “people think 4 hours is a short period of time”. Come on now. Is Verizon, the big bad phone company that people loved to hate (and I still take issue with their wireless division and the ridiculous pricing and packages that cost more than any other carrier, though I still have them because they have the best service and good customer service), all of a sudden a god because they offer fiber to the home? Yet the competition hasn’t brought prices down as Verizon is charging just as much as the other providers and the only people who really care about fiber to the home (vs. cable or DSL) are geeks because the non-geeks just see the marketed speeds (which are the same for both my Cox High Speed Internet and Verizon FiOS) and the prices (which are again the same for me, though Cox offers me a $10 discount for having all 3 services from them - phone, cable, and internet - and now an additional $10 discount for signing on for 18 months, most likely to keep me from switching to FiOS when it’s introduced).

Well, this geek is still not 100% convinced that FiOS is worth it. Maybe if I notice a decrease in prices and the competitors actually duke it out (though Cox did offer me a decent discount, making my whole package less than it’d be with Verizon, not to mention Cox’s landline phone service is less expensive than Verizon’s). I guess we’ll see what the future holds in about 17 months when my Cox contract ends (around the same time my Verizon wireless contract ends).

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The future of Eagle Square

Published on August 29, 2007 in Providence and Urban Issues. 3 Comments

I don’t really have a whole lot to report on the meeting. It was actually what I worried it would become, more of a bitch-fest against “gentrification”, though that term was not used. Here’s my notes and thoughts on the whole thing.

The city council was represented, as was Feldco (the developer that owns Eagle Square), the city (through the director of planning), and Shaws (though Supervalue, the company that owns Shaws, was not). The councilwoman who represents that ward was very much upset with Shaws for pulling out of this and would like to work with the community, the developer, and Supervalue (who has full control over the lease of the property) to get something there that the people want.

Thus, the discussion tended to stay towards what we want to see there. Different options were tossed around. The councilwoman mentioned Trader Joe’s (which is a hot topic around here, but would be ideal). Other thoughts were a flea market, though one does exist only about a block away, an indoor mini-amusement park (like something in, I think, Seekonk), though I don’t see that going over so well, an indoor open market similar to Reading Terminal in Philadelphia or some market in Boston (Hay Market or Quincy Market). I am not sure about any of those because for it to succeed, it would have to draw people at least 6 days a week. Most flea markets are only open on the weekends and a lot of these open markets in other cities only have limited hours, such as weekends only. If whatever goes in this space is not open at least 6 days a week, the other stores in the complex will suffer.

Because Supervalue has full control, I have no doubt in my mind that whatever goes there will be something that benefits them as they will likely be taking a loss on the rent. I do hope it will be something worthwhile. I would like to see some sort of market, whether or not it’s a supermarket, I am still somewhat undecided. I would like to be able to get my groceries closer to home, but if I can get fresher produce, baked goods, deli meats, and cheeses, that would be great too.

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Eagle Square grocery store meeting

Published on August 29, 2007 in Providence and Urban Issues. 0 Comments

I’ll be at a meeting/session/thingy about the future of Eagle Square in Providence. I won’t go into too much of the history of it (in part because I am not very knowledgeable on that), but it used to be a series of old mill buildings in the Valley neighborhood on Atwells Ave. between Eagle St. and Valley St. Many of the buildings were torn down before the residents got the city to step in and the developer used the original buildings for the rest of the project, but a large parking lot, strip mall, and a big box space replaced the buildings that were demolished. It’s that big box space that this meeting is about.

The space was a Shaws supermarket, a decent one (at least by my standards). It had wide aisles, decent produce, and lots of ethnic foods (and it was rarely out of the items that I would be looking for, unlike the Shaws in North Providence). Earlier this summer, Shaws announced the closing of 2 under-performing stores in Providence - this one and the one on North Main St. I have never been to this store and seen it jam packed, but I always attributed that to the size and spaciousness of the store, as well as always having more than enough registers open (which many grocery stores don’t do). I have also never seen the store completely dead, unless I went later at night. Unfortunately, what’s done is done and the store officially closes at the end of this week. Unofficially, the store started closing 2 months ago when they started actually removing stock from the shelves rather than let it get bought out and simply not re-stock. I have been in the store twice since they started removing stock. The first time I realized I need not go back, the second time was to see if I could get any good deals (but they didn’t have any closeouts unfortunately).

This meeting tonight is about the future of that space and what the residents of the area would like to see there. Serving the surrounding neighborhood is a Price Rite in Olneyville Square. They might be cheaper, but they don’t have all the same stuff a regular supermarket has. One option that was mentioned was to split this space and put in a low price store (like Price Rite, Sav-A-Lot, Price Chopper, etc) and try to get a Trader Joe’s in the other spot (the store of Trader Joe’s moving to Providence is a long one and apparently they don’t want to be here without parking, which this space has plenty of). That would have the benefit of the good produce and items that Trader Joe’s has (at really good prices, much better than Whole Foods and many times even Shaws) and the low cost of the other store for the regular grocery items. I’ll report about the meeting later tonight after it takes place.

If you want to go (and if you live in the neighborhood or the city, I think you should try to go):

When: Tonight, August 29 at 7:00 pm

Where: Providence Public Safety Complex Auditorium (1st Floor), 325 Washington St.

Information posted to Urban Planet

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Beer used to cool CPU

Published on August 28, 2007 in Technology and Beer. 0 Comments

While reading Beer Advocate today, I came across this article regarding a test that the guys at Tom’s Hardware performed to determine the best liquid coolants. The results are the best part. Molson Canadian came in second place!

Tom’s Hardware Video #1 - Standard Coolants

Tom’s Hardware Video #2 - Unconventional Coolants

InfoWorld also covered the story.

The guys are BA asked how a “real beer” would do. My guess is that a beer with a higher alcohol content would provide better cooling because alcohol makes a pretty good coolant. So to answer their question, a real beer would probably score higher than Molson.

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BeerRiot.com

Published on August 27, 2007 in Technology and Beer. 1 Comment

A friend of mine just introduced me to BeerRiot.com. It’s a beer rating/recommendation site. It’s actually quite cool. Basically, you give beers a rating of Like, Shrug, or Dislike. It compares your ratings to those of other users and gives you recommendations for beers that you would probably like. After spending a little time on it going through all the beers I could think of (some which I had to add myself because they weren’t there, meaning they probably didn’t count much towards my recommendations), I checked the recommendations. Apparently, I really need to try Dogfish Head’s 120 Minute IPA as that’s by far the top recommendation according to this site.

I’m occasionally active on Beer Advocate, reviewing beers when I have the time to really think about what I’m drinking and posting on the forums there. This site is a bit different. It doesn’t seem to give overall ratings, at least not to the extent that BA does, but it does give you a recommended list of beers to try. I found that pretty cool, so I’m going to seek out some of the beers it listed I think. Hopefully, Nikki’s will have most of them.

Also cool about the site is that it uses the Yaws web server, which is designed for dynamic-content web apps. As I don’t know much about Yaws, I’ll let you read up on it and learn more about it. So far it seems pretty neat.

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Trey Anastasio - The Horseshoe Curve (semi-review)

Published on August 27, 2007 in Review, Phish, Trey and Music. 0 Comments

I had purchased Trey Anastasio’s new album, The Horseshoe Curve, and took a listen (along with the 5 song EP that came with it). I was excited when I read about it being an instrumental album, much like Seis de Mayo. Unfortunately, it wasn’t what I had expected. I would really like to see Trey get more into classical-type music. While I like the funky beats of the new album, I was hoping for something a little more refined. I have only listened to the album twice now, but I will be listening more. I will admit that I do like it the more I listen to it, but I was hoping it’d be something a little different than it is. I am very happy that Trey has dumped the major record labels and started his own label. Now if only the other 3 will follow him.

I would really like to see Trey transcribe some of his instrumental Phish songs for orchestra. I loved what he did with “Guyute” and would love to hear orchestral versions of “Divided Sky,” “You Enjoy Myself,” “David Bowie,” and “Fluffhead.”

UPDATE: Interestingly, a day after posting this, I received my daily Google Notification about Phish and saw a review of this album. It didn’t give it high marks, but it’s pretty much exactly the same way I feel about the album.
Review from The Music Box

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Dennis Kucinich for President in 2008

Published on August 27, 2007 in Politics. 0 Comments

I’m not normally a political person. Because of that, you’ll very rarely see political statements here. However, the United States government is having some issues. While anyone but Bush would be great right now, especially if it were a democrat, I’ve got some very mixed feelings about the current democratic front-runners, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. They both make me feel that there won’t be a whole lot of change, regardless of the rhetoric they’re feeding us. Because of that, I am supporting, as the title of this post states, Dennis Kuchich in 2008. He’s the only one running for president who voted against the war in Iraq and against the constant funding of the war. He’s also the only one who supports full marriage rights for gays and lesbians. The others have tip toed around that subject saying that they support civil unions, but not marriage.

So, I urge anyone who cares about your future and the future of this country to vote for Dennis Kucinich in the primaries and for president. Vote for change, vote for peace, vote for sustainability. Even if you disagree with me that he’s the right person for the job, at least vote.

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Verizon FiOS vs. Cox High Speed Internet

Published on August 26, 2007 in Internet and Technology. 12 Comments

Verizon FiOS is coming to RI and Providence. It’s already available in some areas. People are excited about it; however, I’m not convinced. What it does is bring in competition, which is always good. In a discussion with my fiancée’s brother, he explained to me that the benefit to FiOS is in the upstream speeds, with upstream speeds up to 2 Mbps. He went on to say that upstream speeds for most cable internet services is around 256 kbps. I was curious, knowing that Cox had been increasing their speeds for a while, and decided to check out what Cox offers. In their basic package, priced the same as the basic FiOS package (about $40 per month), Cox High Speed is 5 Mbps downstream and 2 Mbps upstream. In other words, it’s exactly the same as FiOS.

Now I’m left wondering what the benefit to switching would be. FiOS is not yet available at my apartment. I also recently received a letter from Cox saying that I could save $10 per month on my bill if I signed up for an 18 month contract. I already have Cox Extended Basic cable (I can’t afford an HD TV and I don’t need a million channels, so no need for digital cable) and Cox Digital Telephone (yes, I still have a landline, but it’s cheap, it prevents marketing calls on my cell, and it’s practically free with discount I get for having all 3 services).

I could drop the landline phone and switch to FiOS for internet and cable, but that will depend on the price and availability when my 18 months are up with Cox (which is about 17.5 months away). I have no issues with Cox and have found their customer service and tech support to actually be quite helpful.

So, given the same speeds for FiOS and Cox High Speed Internet, what are the advantages to switching to FiOS?

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Sidewalk dining…

Published on August 25, 2007 in Walkability, Providence, Food and Urban Issues. 0 Comments

This has been a pet peeve of mine for a while. I enjoy going out to eat, and on a nice summer night, there’s nothing like sitting outside while eating. That pleasure vanishes when your dining “room” has suddenly become someone else’s walkway. I live in Federal Hill about a block from Atwells Ave, the dining Mecca of Providence. The street is lined with restaurant after restaurant. The sidewalks on Atwells Ave are not the extra wide sidewalks found in super pedestrian cities like New York or Boston. They’re regular old Providence city sidewalks. If I had to guess at the width of them, I’d say about 6 feet or so from the building to the curb. The restaurants have decided that they need to attract tourists with their “outdoor dining”. That means that tables have been setup on these already somewhat narrow sidewalks to accommodate the diners. Some tables are round, some are square, some are two-tops some are 4 tops, some are setup square to the building, others are setup more diamond shape. These tables end up taking up about 4 feet of the space on the sidewalk, that’s two-thirds of the room, 66% of the space to walk. Now, on a night like tonight, with humidity near 90% and temps in the 80’s, you’d think that people wouldn’t want to eat outside. That is except for the fact that it’s “quaint” to eat out side. You get the lovely ambiance of the cars driving by, the guys giving cat calls to the girls crossing the street, the cars parked on the sidewalk, and the pedestrians, remember the pedestrians, this is a city after all, bumping into you because they have to dodge the valets flying in and out in front of the restaurants and the sandwich board signs in front of every restaurant advertising that they have valet. That brings me to another point… are these signs even permitted to be there and do all the restaurants really need valet? There’s a strip with 3 restaurants - Siena, 242, and Opa - each of which with their own valet and sidewalk dining (and these are the worst offenders with taking up too much of the sidewalk).

In an urban environment on a street that attracts so many pedestrians at all times of the year, especially the summer, the tables and the sandwich boards should not be allowed. The restaurants on Atwells Ave do not need the outdoor dining to attract customers. They simply need to be open, especially in the summer. There is no shortage of people who want to eat and on a night like tonight, every restaurant on Atwells was packed to the brim.

Note to anyone who has an interest, outdoor seating, while important to the tourists, does not belong on narrow sidewalks. Take a lesson from Trinity Brewhouse. They have a “deck” attached to the building with outdoor seating. The building is set back a bit more from the street than anywhere on Atwells. If Atwells were bigger, it’d work, but it’s not. The outdoor seating is not attracting anyone, and the only people eating out there are doing so because it’s the only option. It might give you a few more tables and a few more customers, but it kills the flow of pedestrian traffic and I’m sure the customers aren’t overly happy with pedestrians bumping into them while they’re dining.

And for the valets, there needs to be a central valet stand for each block on Atwells, not one for each restaurant. The restaurants can pay into it somehow, but they cause more problems with traffic and the people who work the valet don’t give any regard to traffic laws.

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Does Bit Torrent make you a server?

Published on August 25, 2007 in Internet, Software, Technology and Music. 3 Comments

There’s a current thread on the NYCheads email discussion list (which can be found at Google Groups, for those of you in the NYC area who want some decent music discussion, though it tends to revolve around NYC and jam bands and the like) regarding OptOnline’s and Comcast’s TOS prohibiting you to be a “server”. The issue that started was Comcast banning Bit Torrent because it makes your computer a server. Some feel that peer-to-peer software does not make your computer a server, though Comcast, and most ISP’s, would probably disagree with that. Though the discussion is still fairly young, and I’m sure more people will add their 2 cents to it, I added mine…

P2P represents a grey area in the client/server relationship. I’m going to start off with the normal P2P apps (the original Napster, Gnutella, KaZaA, BearShare, etc). These types of applications work in a way very close to the normal client/server relationship. One user logs onto the P2P network, searches for a file name/song/artist/whatever, and is then presented with a list of computers logged onto the same network that are sharing said file (or files that come up in the search). The user searching then finds the file he wants and chooses to download it. In this type of relationship, the user’s computer is the client and the computer that is hosting the file is very clearly the server. What makes this slightly grey is that the host’s computer can also be acting as a client in downloading other files from other users on the network. However, that does not break the normal the client/server relationship because a client is initiating the download of a file.

Enter Bit Torrent… All ideas of the normal client/server relationship with regards to P2P have changed. The grey areas have become greyer and the lines between client and server have been severely blurred. When a computer connects to a torrent, it starts downloading bits and pieces of the file, not necessarily in any particular order, from all the other computers connected to that same torrent. However, it then goes and sends bits and pieces of that file to the other computers connected that don’t already have those bits and pieces. This is all tracked by well… a tracker, which is a server that notifies the computers connected to the torrent that the file exists and keeps track of which computers have which parts of the file and how much of the file they have. The lines get blurred with whether or not the computer is pushing out the file, or uploading it to the other computers, or if the other computers are downloading it. The initiation of the downloading/uploading is less clear than in the case of the standard P2P software, making it unclear whether or not your computer has become a server while connected to a torrent.

From the standpoint of the ISP, Comcast and OptOnline in this case, but certainly not limited to them as Cox also has rules against running servers (which I was able to do for the longest time and one day they just started blocking ports, yet don’t advertise that they block those ports), you are most definitely running a server no matter what kind of P2P software you are using, assuming you are sharing files, which Bit Torrent does by default. From the standpoint of the end user, you are not running a server because you are merely uploading those files (or bits of files) to others and not actually running the server. The idea being that with Bit Torrent, it’s a mutually agreed upon situation and the initiation happened at the same time. Regardless of which side you believe, Bit Torrent has blurred the lines of the client/server relationship and has certainly made things lots of fun for network administrators. The one great thing about Bit Torrent, and its biggest strength, is that it represents exactly what the internet was created for… sharing. If people didn’t share, the internet would not have been a success.

For more discussion like this and for some pretty good music discussion, check out NYCheads. I’m still a member, though I have moved away from the NYC area (not that I was every really in it, but I was much closer before).

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