This has had the predictable side effect, of forcing most traffic off of the bridge that is most convenient for me to take to work. Which is what I was really hoping for (it’s always good to be able to head home from work, whenever one wants…as opposed to when traffic dictates that one should use the roads). Yet, I find myself avoiding the toll when possible.

I find this behavior curious; as I think that the toll is a really good idea…AND I even voted for it (with full knowledge that I would be one of the people paying it). My financial situation hasn’t really changed; I am perfectly capable of affording the toll. Yet, I’ve taken the bus plenty these last few weeks…or since the toll varies based on what time it is, I’ve been all too willing to work a little longer / play basketball a bit more…OR in one case, when I realized that I had left the gym at 10:50 (11:00 is toll free time) and was moving too quickly towards the bridge…prematurely exit the freeway and wait several minutes in a local Windermere parking lot.

I wonder if this will keep up; or if I’ll revert to my old ways of driving most days in the near future.

Furthermore, why am I suddenly hesitant to pay the toll?

I suppose I am guilty of the rules are for everybody but me syndrome. I mean, sure the people who use the bridge should pay for it to be rebuilt…..well, except for me of course…I should be get a shiny brand new bridge at no cost to myself. Wouldn’t everybody like a free bridge to drive across? YOU BET THEY WOULD!

While not a super big deal; I think most people (myself included) require a period of adjustment after change occurs in order to develop a new “routine”. It will be interesting to see how that works for me and this new bridge…with my work, basketball, and teaching commitments.

Today’s exciting edition: Compact Parking Spaces.

In Theory: it sounds like such a good idea. Well, some cars are smaller than others…and parking lots / structures can only be so big. If we have normal sized parking spaces, everybody can park….BUT if we make some parking spaces slightly smaller for the smaller cars…we can have more parking spaces, and more people can utilize our parking lot.

In Practice: people will park wherever they can in order to minimize their walking distance. The average person is lazy, and doesn’t particularly care about anything but themselves–…and making their lives easier. So in a world where the pick-up trucks, sport utility vehicles, mini vans, and other tank like automobiles; are reaching all time popularity. Any one of these vehicles is one mostly full parking lot away from barely cramming into a compact spot.

What’s the big deal? A parking spot is a parking spot, right? No! In this case, it’s actually not an entire parking space. While there may be enough room to safely work your Jeep Supreme Wrangler, into one of these compact parking spaces; using your doors comfortably is often a tight squeeze! But let’s go on…because it’s not just their own comfort that the non compact car compact parker is effecting. In order to fit their car comfortable away from the non compact car; the next car will need to be off center from the space ( do you see where we are going here?). The net take away is that several spaces are rendered non optimally used. It gets worse if there are multiple non compact cars in a row.

What can we do? It’s not even enough to dedicate yourself to parking in optimal spaces for your vehicle. No, no….we must just get rid of compact parking spots and deal with being able to park fewer cars in our lots.

At this point, it becomes a simple client / service problem. Cars become clients, parking lots provide the service. Like a web server servicing web requests; there are only so many clients it can service comfortably before it becomes overloaded and starts failing. Parking lots have similar thresholds….would you watch a streaming video; would you use a service if it provided a sub optimal experience? Like would you pay $5 to “rent” a movie on the internet, if the moving streamed so poorly that the experience of watching it was as bad as you could imagine? No! Of course not.

Interesting film on the evolution of banking; I don’t know enough about the topic to say whether or not I agree with it. However, it’s amusing…and very strongly biased.

If passed; it would allow all places that sell food items to sell liquor (they can currently only sell beer and wine), and apparently Costco is pushing super hard for it (they may have set a record for money contributed to a campaign cause). Being from California, this is nothing super radical for me. I remember when I first moved here, and after a few years attempted to buy some liquor…at least the guy at QFC was nice, as he explained the Washington laws on the issue .

I’m not sure that I remember the last time an issue was this “hot” politically.

I’m also not sure I’m going to vote on it. A very similar measure was on the ballot a year ago; and I didn’t agree with how the funds from the sale of alcohol were going to be allocated…so I voted against it (as did the majority of people). Strange, but true. When I fill out my ballot (probably this weekend), I’ll do adequate research and probably vote against it again.

I’m a big fan of the do a bunch of research, turn in my ballot…watch as nothing ever changes approach.

However, this is still “just” a game…as with every game; there are players who are better than others. It turns out that the top ~30 players have found a way to profit off of this game. On sites like, www.ow3d.tv, they just broadcast themselves playing the game (usually with insightful commentary) and people watch them. Periodically they show ads; I believe that they make ~$1 for every 1000 people they show ads to or something like that. As I type this post, (just before noon on a weekday)…there are currently: 26,870 people watching these streams.

They have found a way to make money playing video games!

Growing up, one always hears how if you’re talented, you can accomplish anything….and if you’re talents are appreciated then you can be compensated for those talents. For most things…like mathematical ability; or work ethnic…this makes no sense. For things like video games; I always just kinda figured that it made no sense.

I’ve been proven wrong….professional video gamers have been around for about just under 15 years now. However, in order to be a “pro” back in the day…you had to be good enough to win tournaments. I didn’t think that the margins were there; early on with expenses for travel + lodging + food, and what not. Now I feel there is a fair amount of sponsorship money going around. Hardware companies that cater to gamers (aka…the best gaming keyboard, or mouse, or monitor, or headset) donate money for expenses; in order to plaster their logo all over the place. All of this seems to be a pretty natural evolution.

Outside of this, these gamers are still making money…while sitting at home, in their gaming layers; practicing.

What’s next? Who knows?! However, if it’s possible for Joe ordinary to become a gamer…who’s to say that online streams of people napping / watching TV won’t become the next big thing. I feel that this has proved that people will watch anything on the internet if they are able to find it even the slightest bit interesting.

We all come into the world, and are faced with a bunch of preconceived ideas of how things work. It’s really, really easy to just kind of accept that this is how things are. In fact society as a whole tends to resist changes away from these beliefs.

As an example here, take the life blue print that society lays out for us:

1) Get born.
2) Live with parents / go to school till your 18.
3) Either find job, or go to college.
4) Find Spouse.
5) Get married.
6) Raise kids.
7) Retire

I think the movie, “Office Space” may have said it best here:

“Michael, we don’t have a lot of time on this earth! We weren’t meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about about mission statements”

Anyhow…this is deviating from the topic, I had in mind…which as usual, tends to be more technical. The future is coming:

In the future…things are different; and I’m not talking about flying cars or other madness. We are on the cusp of abandoning physical media.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/27/editorial-apples-officially-over-the-optical-drive-for-better/

That’s huge, since physical media has been with me persionally since the 5.25 floppy disk. Yet, Apple believes that they are not necessary.

Similarly, software companies are no longer charging for software. This is mind blowing…I’m not just talking about ads in software (that just means that the advertiser is paying for your software use instead of you). I’m talking about, software being completely free. Two examples come to mind (they just happen to be both games): League of Legends and Age of Empires Online. Both games are totally free to install and play…however, the user gets the option of paying for premium content. It’s essentially asking the user how much they want to pay for software with $0 being a perfectly valid option. It’s what Microsoft did with Windows XP (Home or Professional?)…but for games.

Sometimes it’s obvious what the future will bring…like when I first saw internet streaming of movies / tv shows…I knew it was the future, and that physical media was on the way out. I didn’t see well produced quality software being made available at no cost to it’s users.

This was before the “we’re splitting the business” email / blog post from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings.

I say it all the time…but there is a right way, and a wrong way to do almost anything…it seems that wallstreet agrees with me. This isn’t the right way to do this.

So while I’m still rocking Netflix; I’m now looking at their competitors when I hear things…Amazon Prime, Hulu…first one to make a significant value offering will get my business.

Anyhow, this week Netflix announced that they would be doing two things, each of which would effect my $15 (2 DVD / unlimited streaming plan):

1) Separate the two services (mail order DVDs, and streaming).
2) Increase the overall cost both services from $14.99 to $19.98 a month…a resulting change of ~30%

I’m not special, and all of their customers received similar emails…which has lead to quite a bit of overwhelming negative feedback. From thousands of disgruntled customers who believe that Netflix is evil or greedy….or something along those lines.

Truth be told, $15 a month for the service is an outstanding deal…there is a reason that Netflix single handed put Blockbuster out of business….it’s that the service offered a comprehensive compelling reason abandon the traditional video store. When Netflix first started sending DVDs in the mail; they charged their customer $6 per DVD (I think it was $4 for the rental and $2 for shipping). While there was a niche market for such things; it wasn’t super popular until the unlimited movie plans came into play.

Then as almost an after thought; they added streaming. Streaming was more of a novelty when it was first introduced, the catalog was extremely limited and the American public hadn’t proven that watching movies / tv shows on their computers was something that they were willing to do. So, Netflix went to work enticing the American clientele…solving the limitations of the streaming product. Through a series of deals with content license holders, new content would appear (and then disappear), but the overall content catalog got larger. Netflix made deals with electronics producers, such that devices that connected directly to TVs could steam Netflix content. The most compelling reason? All of this was made available at no additional cost.

Naturally, this could only go on for so long. It’s probably safe to think of all of this as Netflix Streaming Beta…now that it seems that it’s feature complete and ready for “prime time consumption”, which is fine…but the seedy underbelly is that by all of this; Netflix’s core DVD business is not as attractive as it used to be (and maybe all of this is part of Netflix’s master plan). I think that $8 for unlimited streaming isn’t evil…but $12 for 2 dvds at a time is not super compelling for the ~3.5 DVDs that I go through a month.

So what are my options (I’m not sure that increasing my DVD throughput is an option ).

1) Pay 30% more per month…not a fan of this approach, but maybe its the best option?
2) Drop Netflix entirely
Kind of a fan of this one, as I’m a fan of voicing my displeasure with my dollars. The Hulu online platform for my xbox is similarly priced (although not as comprehensive).
3) Drop DVDs, pay $8 a month for streaming only; then use a combination of RedBox, Hollywood video, and Xbox video rental / purchasing for my DVD movie needs.

What shall I do? Not sure…further thought is requited.

We tend to hold on to things for long times in my family…like we had a 1986 Toyota Camry that we kept for ~20 years (we also had a dog that we kept for 20 years)…..throwing things out is just not something that is done.

This means that for some things tend to stick with me for a fairly long time. For this particular example, I’m mostly talking about short sleeved t-shirts. While pants and long sleeved shirts tend to get worn (and eventually frayed); and in a state where it is no longer desirable to wear them….I’ve discovered that for me t-shirts; just don’t get like this.

Furthermore, I’m not dramatically differently sized than I was in high school. This means that I have had virtually no incentive to recycle older clothes out of my rotation. I have however, divided my shirts into two collections. Once that I’ll wear to the gym, and ones that I’ll wear during other times. (In practice its actually a bit more complicated than that, as there are shirts that I wear to sleep….undershirts, etc, etc….I’m sure you can appreciate the complexities, dear reader).

Soooo….what’s the big deal? Well, this its not like I’ve stopped acquiring new shirts I get random Microsoft shirts from work; and I did just order some new “funny” ones from the internet….so I’ve ended up with this massive collection of shirts (like seriously, I have 3x as many gym shirts as I need).

I know that the right thing to do is to donate a collection of them to various clothing recyclers in the area; but I’m not sure that I want anybody else in Seattle to be rocking the Fred. C Beyer Grad night 2000 t-shirt! Alternate plans could involve boxing shirts up and putting them in some sort of storage; but that doesn’t seem particularly natural either….I think in the end, I’m just going to have to bite the bullet, get rid of some shirts…and live happily ever after. But its hard

I’m a big fan of doing things the right way, and I think I’d like to give most people the benefit of the doubt that given a choice to do things the wrong / right way…they’d pick the right way.

However, things get more interesting…because some times doing things the right way is expensive. Expensive doesn’t always mean money (although it can)…some times expensive means time….or otherwise costly. So then some times given an opportunity to take a cheaper shortcut; people go for it.

It’s like stealing from a grocery store. There is a certain percentage of people who will never ever steal; everyone else may or may not. Then there are those that don’t really believe in organized society; etc, etc. Anyhow, we’re kinda deviating from the point here.

Doing things the wrong way, tends to have various short term benefits….but almost always has long term negative side effects. Mostly because usually what happens is that someone will come along; and be forced to do it the right way.

I’ve been pretty abstract and vague on to this point…mostly because I think that these principles tend to be true in most circumstances. However, I’m thinking about a very specific circumstance when I write this post.

In this case, I’m the guy who has come along…and discovered that a whole bunch of shortcuts have been made; and that I’m the guy who has to pay the cost for such things. Well, not all me…but this is my post; and I can over dramaticize if I want to

Like everything else, there is a right and wrong way to go about fixing things. In my case, I happen to be special because the people who have caused this situation are still rather close to it.

So the wrong thing to do; would be to come out of nowhere….tell everybody who is still close to said situation, that they suck…and all their work hasn’t been thought through, etc. While I’d still be right, I probably wouldn’t make many friends…and it would probably create more tension / apprehension / etc / etc. Although, the length of unhealthy time duration would be shortened. People tend to be uneasy in times of flux / uncertainty .

Or the other approach is to Build a Church….building a church is like building anything else. You start with a few pieces of wood, you build a wall…and you move on. The reason that its a Church; is that I’m going to try and convert people to my cause as I do this. So I’ve started small refactoring / rearchitecting things to be more robust….adding Unit Tests (can you tell I’m talking about software development yet?). I’m going to keep doing this; and get everyone else to do the same things….and sooner or later; this mountain of wrongly done project won’t be so bad anymore.

I’m hoping that this will have the effect of a small pebble cascading down the mountain, gaining mass and momentum; and causing an avalanche. Well, we all have dreams.