Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

The point of podcasts

A few weeks ago, there was a bit of a disaster in regards to the podcast app on my phone. It seems I’ve lined up so many shows to the queue that the memory load completely overwhelmed the system, and the app refused to function correctly. Every time I scrolled to the list of saved podcasts, the app would crash. At first unwilling to accept the reality, I did everything I could to resuscitate the app, including multiple trials of restarts. However, it was not meant to be, and the only method to get podcasts functioning again was to delete and re-download it from the app store.

My preciously curated queue of podcasts was wiped clean.

I could’ve painstakingly put the list back together once again, but the lazy part of my being compelled me otherwise. The rationale is that ever since I started listening to podcasts during my commute, the upcoming list have been growing and growing, with no end in sight; what’s the use of constructing it again only to potentially lose it once more? Some of the scheduled shows have been on the queue for the better part of a year, so purging it wasn’t really that big of a lost, other than the mental blow to my obsessive compulsive tendencies.

The problem with online content is that there’s so much of it, the well goes forever down into an endless hole. Each week brings in new stuff, and like a dog chasing its tail, you simply can’t hope to consume it all. This is true no matter the medium, be it podcasts, videos on Youtube, streaming television, or even physical books (I’ve made a pact with myself to not buy another book until I’ve read every single one that’s currently on the shelves.) It’s easy to fall into the trap of attempting to consume everything, which explains how my podcasts list got to be long enough to crash the app.

And also why I listen to podcasts at faster than normal speed (usually at 1.5x.) The point became to devour as much shows as possible, rather than listening closely and maybe learn a thing or two.

The unfortunate circumstance with the podcast app crashing presented the perfect opportunity to start over, to remind myself what the point of podcasts is. These days I’ve returned to listening at normal speeds, and only putting a few shows on queue to avoid having to take out the phone to select a new one when an episode ends.

Making haste slowly.

iPhone 11’s new Night mode continues to amaze. I wouldn’t do prints with it, but for a simple capture, smartphone photography technology have advances a very long way.

Online news outlets should do pay-per-article

A great annoyance with regards to reading news articles online is when outlets block you from access because you’ve exceeded the free monthly limit, usually some absurdly low number, like the measely five free articles per month with The New York Times. Of course, there are various methods to circumvent the paywalls - of which I won’t state here - should you be really inclined to read an article. My guess is though for the most part, people simply give up and leave after encountering a paywall.

That’s not so good for spreading news and information, is it?

It’s for sure a tricky situation: proper journalism is something worthy of supporting, and we definitely should subscribe to these online periodicals so they can continue to report on news and investigate powerful institutions. That said, even the most ardent of newspapers supporters is likely to subscribe to only two: their local newspaper, and a national one like the aforementioned New York Times or the Washington Post. At one time, that was my system: I paid for the San Francisco Chronicle, and had a subscription The New York Times.

But that leaves coverage gaps for other online newspapers and journals. What if there’s an engrossing expose on Bloomberg? Or a food-review about the hottest restaurant on the Los Angeles Times website? If I’ve already exceeded the free articles allowance for a particular month, I am shit out of the proverbial luck. I don’t want to subscribe just to read specific articles, because I don’t have the money to carry so many news outlets, and also, these places tend to make it difficult to cancel. I had to call into customer service when cancelling my subscription to the Chronicle and the Times, having to sit through their lengthy attempts to retain me before successfully cutting cord.

To go through that just to read one article? No thanks.

It’s a mystery to me why don’t these newspapers create a system for people to pay-per-article: I’d gladly fork over 99-cent to read a piece behind a paywall. Connect the system with popular online payment methods such as Apple Pay or Google Pay, and make it easy to one-click accept at the paywall popup. These companies get the revenue, and I get to read the articles I want - it’s a win-win.

I won’t even charge a commission for this idea, so someone please run with this!

Musing on travel

As evident by this website, I quite like to travel. One of my absolute favorite activities is going to some mega metropolis over in Asia and enjoy being amongst cultures that I’ve an affinity for. It’s a credit to innovations in travel that I can fly to the other side of the globe and back for under a thousand dollars; similarly it’s allowed a tremendous amount of people to do that same. The world isn’t as connected as ever just via the Internet, but the democratization of air-travel has brought different cultures together, face to face.

The legions of travelers from China is well-known, and some would say infamous.

Of course, with advances usually come drawbacks as well, and the most acute in regard to mass travel is the overcrowding of famous tourist spots. For example, this Summer the Louvre museum in Paris had to shut its doors because the sheer number of guests caused security personnel to go on strike, overwhelmed beyond what they signed up for. What sort of “experience” is it really, to wait in line for hours to simply get in, then only to be led through like cattle to see for a fleeting moment the most popular item in the Louvre: the Mona Lisa? Museums are supposed to be places of airy openness; an environment created for quiet contemplation of the artworks on display. Sweating in line to take a selfie with a painting; the seems rather antithetical.

What’s the point of visiting when these famous landmarks get stripped of their original raison d'etre?

I had the same reservations at the Sensō-ji temple during this July’s trip to Japan. The place was packed with tourists, and the main walkway into the temple grounds is lined with many small shops hocking wares and food items to passersby. This is a Buddhist temple: hallowed ground for worship, associated with peace and quiet, and it’s turned into a busy commercial enterprise. About this I felt a tinge of sadness, and wondered what it would’ve been like before the advent of the airplane to visit temples like Senso-ji; we’ll never get that authenticity ever again.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arrogant enough to fail to see the irony that I’m part of the problem. In my defense - for whatever it’s worth - I don’t travel for the sake of putting it up on social media, hoping to gain glory from the praise of others on how awesome my life is. The vanity-driven project of ticking off travel destinations like a checklist to be showcased on instagram is not something I subscribe to. Personally, I hate lines, so waiting for hours to get into the Louvre is definitely not my cup of tea.

I’m not here to impugn how others travel, but rather it’s a self reflection. Going forwards I shall make more informed decisions on the places I visit, to ensure that I’m not exacerbating the problems of overcrowding.

Guess I’m not traveling to Venice anytime soon…

Good to a see a clean E28-era BMW 5-Series still on the road.

What did we do before?

I recently read about the utter nightmare situation for travelers into LAX: the airport decided to move the pickup location for taxis and rideshare cars away from the arrivals level and to a separate lot some ways away. LAX offers around-the-clock shuttle service to the new pickup lot, from where passengers can wait for their UBER or LYFT drivers, or get in line for the traditional taxi. It’s a move similar to my home airport, SFO: pickups for domestic travel have been moved to a nearby parking garage, though it’s less draconian of a rule than LAX as taxis can still pickup passenger at curbside.

Of course, the decision made by SFO has cascading effect for UBER and LYFT drivers as it created a brand-new traffic queue right out into the northbound exit of highway 101. The congestion problem created by the enormous amount of rideshare cars is still there, it simply moved to a different location - away from the terminals. I do wonder if if that was the original intent by SFO.

It’s no surprise then that the same situation resulted in LAX. A dedicated lot for rideshare may sound good on paper, but the sheer passenger volume is so great that UBER and LYFT cars and taxis are stuck in line for more than an hour just to get in the lot. As it is in SFO, moving the pickup point doesn’t really solve the main issue - too many people waiting for rides - other than punting it elsewhere. Again, maybe that is LAX’s goal: at least the terminals are nice and free-flowing, a sort of quality tax on passengers who rely on rideshare to take get them to their final destination.

Whether that seems fair or not is up to you.

This newfound malaise in our airports caused by the advent of UBER and LYFT asks the question: what did we all do before? The people hailing rideshare cars: did they take taxis before UBER was a thing? Or was it a combination of that and calling in favors from friends or family for a ride? Personally, I’ve always been the latter, even with the convenience of rideshare making it super easy to call my own ride. That said, the emergence of rideshare definitely shifted the passenger load from other modes of transportation, modes that previous have not caused the insane level of congestion we are seeing now. Taking rideshare is such an attractive option for travelers, but the existing infrastructure was not meant to accommodate essentially everyone calling their own taxi.

And what happens when UBER or LYFT - some would say inevitably - go bust? What are people going to do for transport now that we’ve all become accustomed to rideshare? Both companies are losing over billion dollars every quarter, with no prospects of profitability in sight. These companies aren’t necessarily too big to fail, but would they be too ubiquitous to fail? I think we’ll find out this answer sooner or later.

Best two months

The final two months of the year is my absolute favorite, mainly because as the weather turns colder (or stays cold, as is normal for San Francisco) and the sky turns dark earlier in the day, people tend to spend more time indoors. That means they aren’t outside in the neighborhood making a ruckus, which means I get to enjoy more peace and quiet time, which is just lovely. Indeed, I am that old man yelling at the clouds when the kids are playing out in the streets during the Summer months. Shut up!

You might notice the irony of someone living in a dense, urban city complaining about noise, and believe me, I am looking to change my living situation some time in the near future. What I really want is some place small out in the woods, where the only noise I can possibly hear is the wondrous sounds of nature. Whether that is ultimately doable or not vis a vis making a living wage remains to be seen, but it’s not like I can possibly afford to rent a place within the Bay Area anyways, much less talk of actually buying a house. It’s a very grim future when a six-figure salary is considered low-income in San Francisco.

But that’s a worry for another time.

Another reason why November and December are favored months has to do with my particular line of work. The standard schedule of a university calls for week-long holidays for Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Year, and as university staff I get them off as well. It would seem petty to be giddy about having fewer days of work, but even the most ardent of people who love their jobs - I would include myself in that pool - welcome extra days off to do other things, or simply relax. Thanksgiving break is when I collate the best photos I’ve taken during the year and put the top 12 into calendars of next year to give to my friends.

Christmas break, as usual, I am flying back home to China.

Finally, December is the best month because it’s the month of my birthday, though I don’t possess the vapid narcissism of some to celebrate the occasion of my birth for the entire month. I’ll be turning 32 soon, which isn’t quite as scary or stress-inducing of an age milestone as 30. I do wonder if there will be one like it before turning 40. Maybe 35? Obviously, I’m not yet ready to find out.

Let’s finish the year strong, friends.

Buying contact lenses shouldn't be this hard

America: land of the free, home of ardent individualism, and yet why on earth are we unable to buy contact lenses without a valid prescription? Do the rule-makers at the FDA think that I would willingly put an incorrect lens into my eyeballs? I’m really not sure what the prescription requirement is suppose to accomplish (no such laws exist anywhere else in the developed world that I could find), other than make the process of procuring contacts more difficult than necessary.

This wouldn’t be a problem if my insurance carrier covered yearly contact lens exams - mine only pays for one biyearly. Since prescriptions are only valid for one year, it puts me in a sort of limbo situation during the second year. What I usually do is right before the prescription expires, I reorder a large enough amount to cover me until the next exam that my insurance will cover. In years past, I’ve even gone as far as buying a two-year supply, just to avoid going in to see the optometrist.

Because the fact is, my prescription has not change at all for the past half decade, and given the option I much prefer to keep ordering the same contacts in perpetuity until that point when I can physical see a deterioration. As the cliche goes, time is money, and heading to the eye doctor requires a few hours that I would rather allocate towards something more important (like writing on this blog, haha.) It’s unfortunate then the laws in America is so strict; I mean, how and why exactly does an eye prescription expire anyways?

Nevertheless, the problem of not being able to order lenses online without a non-expired prescription became acute for me a few weeks back. During the procedure of switching to a new pair of lenses, I realized my reserve supply of contacts was not going to last me until the next eye exam. Due to health and sanitation reasons, I was adamant in not stretching the biweekly replacement cycle, so that meant I had to find a way to order contact lenses pseudo illegally.

Thanks to wonders of international commerce, it turns out shops in countries that don’t have the draconian restriction can and are willing to ship lenses to the United States. For sure there’s a comparative premium over the prices at online shops here in the States, but that’s a delta I must pay this time because otherwise I will run out of contact lenses. I placed an order with a Vancouver based company called Fresh Lens, and the product arrived yesterday correctly and as advertised.

A small crisis averted, I would say.

To be able to handhold a 3-second exposure on a smartphone is simply amazing.

I'm not getting the AirPods Pro

Okay, seriously this time: I’m not buying the new AirPods Pro.

At least not for the $250 dollar price the new Apple earphones command (I gave myself an out, didn’t I?) As someone who love and have waxed lyrical about the original AirPods, I’m just not seeing the value proposition in upgrading to the Pro, even though noise cancellation was on my wishlist of features to see in future AirPods. Well, Apple finally delivered that yesterday, and yet the hefty price-tag is giving me tremendous pause.

I already have a lovely - and expensive - pair of noise-cancelling headphones: the venerable Bose QC35, therefore yet another set of earbuds in addition to the two I have is very difficult to justify when the price is that high.

It’s not like we can trade in our first-generation AirPods for the new Pro, and barring that, what I am I suppose to do with them when the AirPods Pro arrive? In the Pro, you can turn off the noise-cancellation function, so it renders the original AirPods largely redundant. Maybe Apple should instate a trade-in program like the company does for iPhones. If I can get somewhere around $60 for my old AirPods towards the new Pro, I’d jump on that instantly. I refuse to treat electronics as disposable devices, and while the latest and greatest will always be enticing, I don’t have the wallet or the conscience (the lack thereof) to upgrade so cavalierly.

I also don’t want to play the game of selling old stuff on eBay (in my experience, the fees really kill the profit margin.) Besides, the only reason I wish the AirPods had noise-cancellation is because I want to use them on the typically loud bus. Now that I know how expensive the AirPods Pro are, there is no freaking way I am wearing them during my commute. Hate to say this, but some people are going to get robbed for their pair - especially in San Francisco.

So that’s about all the rationalizations I need to not buy the new AirPods Pro. I’ve no doubts I’m going to revisit this if and when my set of original AirPods die, though I have to say those things are quite robust indeed.

I’m not going to change my mind after a week. I swear!