Daily Archive for September 5th, 2007

Boston v. Providence… one man’s opinion

Published on September 5, 2007 in Providence and Urban Issues. Closed

Ok, so somehow, the W Hotel/110 Westminster thread on UrbanPlanet has become a Providence v. Boston thread. It’s very unfortunate that this has happened. Since it’s off-topic for that thread, I’ll write about it here. Keep in mind that these are all entirely opinions and that I have never lived in Boston (though my fiancée used to and I have several friends who currently reside there, so I have spent a good amount of time there).

First of all, comparing Providence to Boston is comparing apples to oranges. Boston is 5-6 times the size of Providence. It’s a big city, while Providence is a small-medium sized city. Because of that, Boston has a lot more of everything. Also, when I’m referring to Boston, I’m also including Cambridge and Somerville (at least around Davis) because many people consider that “Boston”, even if it’s not Boston proper.

What I like about Boston… well, I’m not a huge fan of it, so this list is going to be relatively short. I like that it’s urban and most of it is walkable. I like that most of the neighborhoods are “full service” neighborhoods where you can either walk or take transit to everything you could ever need. I like that there is an extensive transit system, though I think it could be a lot better (hell, it stops running at midnight while the bars are open until 2, that’s just dumb for a city of its size). I like a lot of the architecture and the history. I like that it has a decent music scene. I think that’s it for what I like about it.

What I don’t like about Boston… traffic, traffic, traffic. Boston isn’t big enough or dense enough to warrant completely not needing a car, though many of the residents would lead you to believe otherwise. When visiting, it’s difficult to do so without getting there by car. The roads suck, the drivers suck, and the street layout really sucks. Yes, I know it’s old, but it seems like planning just didn’t happen then, like it did with New York. I don’t like the lack of diversity. I have never seen a city so large, yet so lacking in diversity… from the ethnic and racial breakdown to the types of people (walk through Harvard Square on any given day in the winter and 70% of the people will be wearing North Face jackets). I get bored there. I have never lived there, yet I feel like I’ve seen it all already.

Now onto Providence… Disclaimer though… I love Providence. Providence is a small, compact city with all the amenities of a big city (though transit could be a whole lot better, but see what I had to say about Boston’s transit) without the negative aspects (see Boston’s traffic issues). Providence has an awesome restaurant scene, probably the best in New England (yes, better than Boston’s). Providence has a great arts scene, though it tends to be more underground (which is part of the issue) and a great music scene (again more underground), yet many music venues have closed recently. Providence has tons of history, lots of great architecture, and a somewhat accessible city government (admittedly don’t know what Boston’s is like). Providence needs better transit, like cross town buses (I want to get from Federal Hill to Providence College without having to go to Kennedy Plaza). Providence’s government can also be more transparent than it is (though it’s not all that bad). Providence is a romantic city and gives me the same feelings I’ve gotten in cities like New York (which can also be very romantic at times). I have never felt that way in Boston, even after discovering the love of my life there.

I won’t get into the sports fans because… well… that’s just another issue that doesn’t need to be brought up (having grown up in southern CT, I am a New York sports fan and I’ve never heard “Red Sox Suck!” chanted at a concert or a Jets game, unlike what I’ve heard at concerts in the Boston area or Patriots games). But I’ll sum it up with this… Boston is a great city and an important city. Providence, however, has more to offer per capita and lacks all the things that make a big city annoying. Providence is not, never has been, and never will be Boston’s bastard child or suburb. While it was combined with Boston based on commuting data for the US Census, it still has its own metro area. I’ve heard Boston referred to as things like “the Hub of the Universe”. That’s just laughable. I’d like to see what New York, Chicago, LA, Paris, London, or Tokyo has to say about that. Of course, this is all based on personal preference, and only you can decide which is “better” for you. If you ask me, Providence wins hands down.

Now let’s just drop the whole Boston v. Providence debate until Providence has a population of 500k (which won’t happen unless the entire city of Providence turned into Manhattan).

So Apple announced some new stuff today…

Published on September 5, 2007 in Apple, Gadgets and Technology. 3 Comments

If you’ve been in a bubble today, at least in the technological sense, you wouldn’t have heard this, but Apple announced 3 new iPods today. I’ve said it before on here and I’ll say it again, I can’t stand fanbois. I am certain not one for anything (unless you count Phish, though they are certain not infallible like some people consider Steve Jobs and Apple).

The first “new” product is an upgrade to the iPod Nano line. It gets a bigger screen, the ability to play videos and comes in 8 GB or 16 GB flash memory. I don’t fully trust flash memory just yet. I’ve seen too many USB flash drives fail after many write/format cycles. I’ve also seen lots of people with iPod Shuffles that have died (both the original stick shaped one and the new square one). I have also known people with issues with their iPod Nanos. So I’m not sure that increasing the capacity of them would be such a great idea, especially since I know that it takes more power (and really, who needs 16 GB of music on them all the time?).

The next “new” product is a new iPod Classic. It’s a hard drive model and comes in up to 160 GB. My thought on this is that Apple is just trying to win people over by saying “we have a 160 GB portable music player” when no one will ever have a need for that. The only good thing about it is that it brought the prices down on the other models.

Finally, they released the iPod Touch, which is similar to the iPhone with a touch screen (for all the people who didn’t want to switch to AT&T to get an iPod/Phone/wannabe smartphone). It also has Wi-Fi capability, probably because they were getting pressure as Microsoft already had that in their Zune.

Now, my thoughts on all this… who cares? I have an iPod Mini that someone lost and I picked up (though I did try to find the owner). I wouldn’t have one otherwise. I don’t use portable music players and haven’t since I stopped taking the bus to high school (back then, we had discmen). If I were to own a portable digital music player, it’d be something that was a bit more “open” than the iPod. I am not a fan of the iTunes Music Store, nor am I a fan of the fact that Apple won’t license their DRM to other vendors (like MS did with Plays-for-Sure, even if they didn’t make the Zune compatible with it). I just don’t like DRM (as you can see by my nice Defective by Design banner/button on the right sidebar). Because of that, I won’t buy an iPod or songs from iTunes. In addition to not liking DRM, I also don’t like the low quality of the compressed music files. You might say you can’t tell the difference, but I can, even on my cheap Aiwa bookshelf stereo (I’d probably also notice the difference on an iPod with a pair of halfway decent headphones, unlike the ones included with the thing).

So after all this, I might sound like I don’t like Apple. That’s only partially true. I don’t like Apple because Steve Jobs has had every opportunity to rid iTunes music completely of DRM (or at least to license the code to other media player manufacturers). However, Steve-o likes his litte iTunes/iPod lock-in. Do you blame him? No one looks at Apple the same way they look at Microsoft in the eyes of the anti-trust laws, though Apple has a borderline monopoly on online digital music sales and portable music devices. The reason for this? Because all those DRM’d songs you bought off iTunes can’t be moved to a device that is not an iPod. I don’t like being locked into a single device like that. It’s anti-competitive. I liked Apple’s computers when they were still using the PowerPC processors and I had hoped they’d lower their prices when they switched to Intel. That didn’t happen. Instead, they got sloppy with their hardware. I like MacOS X. I like it a lot. However, I don’t like it to the point where I’ll spend extra money on a computer with the same hardware in a machine I can get for at the very least a few hundred dollars less than the nice shiny Apple because it has a picture of a bitten Apple on it. I don’t like the Apple locks OS X users into using their hardware. I’m all about openness. Sure, I use Windows and it’s definitely not the most open operating system in existence, but neither is anything that Apple releases (and besides, eventually I’ll have installed Ubuntu Linux on my machine here, but I just need a bit more time to myself when work isn’t as crazy).

That’s the end of my rant. Apple announced some shiny new stuff. The fanbois drooled, while the realists rolled their eyes.

There’s some decent comments on the BoingBoing Gadgets posting regarding the announcement.

Continuing down my 12 pack mix…

Published on September 5, 2007 in Ale, Beer and Review. 2 Comments

Today’s beer was Post Road Pumpkin Ale from Brooklyn Brewery. It was very pale/amber ale-ish. There wasn’t anything really spectacular about it. It had a very slight pumpkin spice taste to it, but it was barely noticeable. There was a slight hops presence to add a little bitterness and flavor, but it had a pretty malty character to it. It was good, but about average. That was my first, of what I assume will be several, pumpkin beers this fall. I had only one last year and I want to say it was from Gritty McDuff, though it could’ve been Smuttynose. Whichever it was (I’ll be getting one of each of those this fall), it had a lot more pumpkin presence to it and was extremely good. Of the Brooklyn beers I’ve had, this was the lease impressive and most average. Next time I get beer, I’ll be sure to get a few pumpkin ales and maybe an oktoberfest or 2 (though I’m not as big a fan of the oktoberfests/marzens as I am of a good pumpkin ale). Tomorrow’s beer will likely be a brown ale (continuing with the Brooklyn beers I picked up).