Philip Greenspun’s Weblog

Google has offices for its developers in Silicon Valley, New York City, Paris, various spots in Asia, but nothing in Boston.  In theory Boston has a lot of good software engineers, most of whom are happy to work for lower salaries than those paid in Silicon Valley.  It might be easier to retain workers here in Boston due to the fact that a wage slave can afford a family-sized house if he or she is willing to live in an unfashionable suburb.

Google has obviously decided that right now we’re looking at some combination of (1) not enough smart people live in Boston, (2) most of the good people in Boston would be willing to relocate to the land of strip malls and traffic jams, (3) there aren’t any small companies worth acquiring in Boston, and (4) Google is having enough trouble digesting growth that they can’t handle geographic sprawl.

What do folks think?  Should Google be in the Boston area?  If so, what should they specialize in and where should the office be?  If not, should we be depressed that we have nothing to offer an innovative software company?

Full post, including comments

Commenters have been talking about how it is worth spending extra $$ to have a Macintosh instead of a Windows machine, or, more likely, in addition to because one still needs the Windows machine.  The implication is that money is infinite that there is nothing better to spend it on that a high-style personal computer.  So what would I buy in the next month or two instead of the Mac?  (We can call this “the straight guy’s dividend” — money that one saves by not having to invest in a fancy wardrobe and an iBook.)

• an Infrant 1 TB network-attached storage (NAS) device to hold my music collection and photos (700 GB in RAID 5 so you’re protected from a hard drive failure)
  
• a Canon EOS 5D full-frame digital camera and 24-105/4L image-stabilized lens (both just announced; finally we have a reasonably light almost cheap full-frame digital camera that lets one’s wide angle lenses be truly wide), not sure about the lens actually because f/4 is kind of slow and will make the viewfinder dim even if the L quality is very good
  
• maybe a brand-new liquid-cooled silent PC, as long as I’m shuffling files around (Sony VAIO seems to be the only major-brand liquid-cooled silent PC; does anyone know of another?  The VAIOs are supposed to be kind of flaky and hard to deal with due to custom drivers.)  Though maybe it is better to wait until there is a stable release of Windows Vista available (anyone know when beta 2 is supposed to be ready?) and do the reinstall of the apps only once.
  
• a Sonos whole-house music system
  
• a Gigabit Ethernet switch to complement the NAS box and all of its clients, including the Sonos (which brand of switch is best these days?)
  
• a Zen Vision from Creative to show off photos when I’m walking or driving around — also good for backing up CF cards though lames out when it comes to displaying Camera RAW format images
  
• Samsung CLP-510 color laser printer, only $300 at the local Microcenter
  
• exercise machine that controls video games from http://www.powergridfitness.com/ and an Xbox to go with it

(There are other toys that would be nice to have, e.g., a Eurocopter EC120, but I’ve excluded them from this list due to the fact that they cost a lot more than a Macintosh.)

Would these be more or less fun to own than a Mac?

Full post, including comments

Just downloaded the new Google sidebar software and am playing with its Weblog aggregation features.  It installed and started doing useful things within about 2 minutes.  Yet another impressive showing from our former classmates and students.  In other computer news, Dell is now offering laptops for $499.  These aren’t nearly as good as IBM’s $599 laptop in some ways (only 1/4 GB instead of 3/4 GB; no built-in wireless; on the other hand it does come with a CD burner/DVD combo drive) but it is nice to see the $500 threshold cracked. 

[One wonders if it is a good time to short Apple stock.  A Macintosh is not only 2X the price of one of these IBM or Dell laptops but it can’t run any of the software being put out by the world’s most innovative software company (Google; all of their stuff has been Windows-only so far).  If MP3 jukebox prices start to fall and iPod-like devices become a commodity like all other portable music players, it might be “game over” for Apple shareholders.]

Full post, including comments

If you want a free T-shirt, free parking, free snacks, (from Children’s) and a free lunch (from me), come to Boston Children’s Hospital today around 12:15 pm and we’ll all donate blood together.  The blood center’s Web page has directions, a phone number for questions, etc.

Full post, including comments

I’m about 200 pages into 1491, a new book by Charles Mann about the civilizations of the Americas before the Europeans and European diseases came in.  The book is very interesting for

• its discussion of the Indian tribes in New England and how their conflicts played into the hands of the English


• the history of an advanced society in Norte Chico, just north of Lima, Peru, dating back to around 3500 B.C. and possibly earlier, all based on research from the last 30 years or so and much of it based on research from the 1990s


• the texture of Indian life that comes through


• the texture of the debates among scientists trying to piece together the histories of these almost-extinct cultures


• lots of great maps, photos, and illustrations

Highly recommended to all residents of and visitors to the Americas.

Full post, including comments

The disposable laptop computer is finally here:  IBM (Lenovo) Thinkpads are $600 with 3/4 GB of RAM, wireless networking, and a 14″ display.  I’ve always liked the Thinkpads because of the TrackPoint, the little red button in the middle of the keyboard, which I find much easier to use than the trackpads standard on most other laptops.  Thinkpads are also remarkably resistant to dropping and other abuse.  The only thing that one could say against this configuration is that it doesn’t include a CD/DVD burner.  So the price of a decent laptop is now converging with the price of an expensive cell phone.  I wrote about this possibility about one year ago: http://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2004/09/09.  Will people still want to pay $1000+ for a laptop that they will have to guard from theft and impact when they could just buy a Thinkpad for $600 now and replace it two years from now for $450?

Full post, including comments

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday.  In our current era of real estate speculation and McMansions what could be more appropriate than to celebrate land theft and gluttony?  In 2005, however, a few of us have decided that perhaps we can get our 7000 daily calories without the biting cold weather and familial sturm und drang.  Where?  Mexico.

The plan is the following:

• fly into Guadalajara on Sunday, November 20 (I might be alone in this town; I’m coming from helicopter school and cousins in Los Angeles)
  
• catch a bus to the UNESCO World Heritage city of Guanajuato on Tuesday, November 22 where most of the group (4-8 friends; not sure yet) will assemble
  
• hire a couple of big taxis or catch a public bus to the gringo heaven of San Miguel on Nov 23 or 24
  
• return home from the Leon-Guanajuato airport (BJX) on the afternoon of Tuesday, November 29

None of us have ever been to any of these towns so we’d be grateful for tips in any of the following areas:

• things to do and see in the various towns
  
• interesting English-speaking residents
  
• good hotels
  
• houses to rent in San Miguel (might be nice to have a big house to sleep 8 people complete with a staff to cook and clean)
  
• a driver with a van and/or guide we could hire in San Miguel
  
• language teachers in San Miguel

Please add your suggestions to the comments or email philg@mit.edu.  Thanks!

Full post, including comments

The server for www.greenspun.com is just about dead.  Fortunately this comes at a time when one of my nephews, last name of “Greenspun”, is reaching his 11th birthday.  I’m planning on shutting down the outsourced online community component of greenspun.com, which is these days better handled by Yahoo! Groups, and replacing the whole server with a family Web site.  The question then becomes where to get it hosted and what software to run.  I want the 11-year-old punk to administer the service; I will keep my own content primarily on http://philip.greenspun.com

It would be nice to have the following:

• email for the family, e.g., python-the-cichlid@greenspun.com to forward wherever
  
• places for family members to create personal Web sites, in the pre-Weblog days I would have said that these would be subdirectories off the root
  
• RSS feeds to which interested friends can subscribe; it would be nice if someone could say “I want to see new stuff by Benjamin and Harry but not from Philip” or “I want to see everything new”
  
• easy to upload and update content in various formats (text, photos, sound, video) by young family members using Web browsers alone
  
• long-run potential for doing some scripting and database programming (though this will not be an online community-style site; the Internet is too full of spam these days to make that worthwhile at a family level)
  
• if there is scripting it should be done in some tools that are likely to be popular in 2015 or 2020 when we are likely next to examine the server
  
• an annual cost of under $250 (Uncle Philip needs to save up for his turbine-powered helicopter)

Where to host this and what software to run?

Full post, including comments

I would like to listen in my car to some of Doug Kaye’s IT Conversations and perhaps other podcasts and audio streams from the Internet.  The car has a Pioneer stereo with a fantastically horrific user interface (all faceplate and bouncing lights display; a handful of tiny buttons; the factory Toyota system was much better but it is no longer being made and the 1998 original is dead) but thankfully an AUX input and the ability to play MP3-encoded CDs.

What is the best way to get podcast items into the car?  An MP3 jukebox of some sort?  Burning CDs every now and then?  If an MP3 jukebox is the right way to go, which one makes the most sense given that a big part of it will get wiped and refreshed every week or so?

[Please don’t suggest an iPod.  I have used friend’s iPods and find the user interface to be confusing compared to the Creative MP3 jukeboxes (they have more buttons).  Additionally, various commenters on http://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2005/07/16 thought that I might be gay and therefore it seems unwise to appear in public with anything made by Apple.]

[Resolution:  I bought a 1 GB miniSD card for my Motorola MPx220 mobile phone and I burned an MP3 CD that does in fact play in the car.  I still can’t figure out MP3 music CDs.  Is there a standard format for a playlist that you also burn onto it?  If not, how does the average player figure out in what order to play the tracks?]

Full post, including comments

http://philip.greenspun.com/photography/exhibits/newport-jazz-festival-2005 contains some photos from last weekend’s Newport Jazz Festival.  Enjoy!

Full post, including comments