Blog

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

I'm not getting the 16-inch Macbook Pro

Let’s note for the record that I have - thus far - uphold my pledge to not buy the AirPods Pro.

So trust me when I say this: I am not buying the new 16-inch Macbook Pro that Apple announced yesterday. Not that I don’t want to, because let’s face it who amongst us techies wouldn’t want the latest and greatest from Apple - or any other company. My personal obstacle preventing me from buying the 16-inch Mac laptop is that I am currently typing this on a 2019 edition 15-inch Macbook Pro, which I had just bought a few months ago. It would be highly reckless to get the new 16-inch unit and then have to figure out some way to offload this still very fresh 15-inch, for presumably a considerable loss of the original $2,300 I paid.

Don’t let the Porsche fool you: I can’t make cavalier money moves like that.

At least internally the 16-inch Macbook Pro is largely the same as the now discontinued 15-inch version: it retains 9th-generation Intel processors, though graphic power gets a slight bump thanks to updated chips from AMD. You can now spec memory up to 64 gigabytes and hard-drive space up to 8 terabytes, which is quite insane on both counts. A videographer can literally import and edit 8K content right on the laptop, with no need for external Thunderbolt storage. Apple isn’t messing around with the ‘Pro’ designation, though you’ll just have to ignore the fact the webcam is still has a paltry 720P resolution. I guess Apple thinks professionals aren’t frequent users of video conferencing.

The biggest point of contention with the current era of Apple laptops is the wildly unreliable ‘butterfly’ keyboard, and in response Apple has finally switched back to the ‘scissor’ mechanism in the 16-inch Macbook Pro. If you like typing on the latest magic keyboards that comes bundled with iMacs (I don’t) then Apple says you’re going to enjoy a similar experience on the 16-inch laptop. This change is a mix for me, because I absolutely love the tactile feel of the butterfly mechanism, though I can understand the frustration of users from the standpoint that no matter how great it feels to type, a keyboard is utterly useless if it malfunctions frequently. I clean the deck of my 15-inch Macbook Pro religiously to hopefully avoid the fate many owners have succumbed to.

The one feature I am truly jealous of in the new 16-inch Macbook Pro - not the physical escape key or the massively better sounding speakers - is the return of the ‘inverse-T’ arrow key layout. For as much as I love the butterfly keyboard, the placement the arrow keys is the worse ergonomic design Apple has ever produced. The full-height left and right keys make it frustratingly impossible to use the arrow grid by touch alone. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve mistakenly hit the shift key thinking it was the up arrow. Future owners of the 16-inch Macbook Pro are a lucky bunch indeed.

Sadly I’ve still got a few more years yet with the 15-inch Macbook Pro. God willing the butterfly keyboard doesn’t fail on me.

Quick thoughts on Disney Plus

The much-anticipated streaming platform from the House of Mouse - Disney Plus - finally launched yesterday, and as expected from the biggest entertainment company on the planet, the interface is slick, and playback is super smooth. There’s no hiccups to speak of so far from my perspective (it worked perfectly with Chromecast), though from what i can gather on twitter, other folks are experiencing momentary hang-ups and unresponsiveness due to the sheer demand for Disney Plus.

I guess even the biggest entertainment company on the planet can’t stress-test its platform properly before a launch.

Due to it being a normal work-day yesterday, I haven’t had the time to really delve into the enormous amount of content on Disney Plus. It’s wild to see the entire back catalogue of The Simpson - 30 seasons of it - available to stream; imagine binge-watching through all of it - surely whatever life you previously had will no longer exist. The complete seven seasons of Boy Meets World - the seminal sitcom of my childhood - is also available, which means i can finally delete my downloaded bootlegs (surely the statute of limitations have expired by now).

Similar to what MP3 did for music, it seems people are entirely willing to trade visual quality in return for convenience and ease of use when it comes to streaming. I for one can dig the minimalism of having one device to access all the TV shows and movies there is to offer, even if a high bitrate blu-ray version does look magnitudes better on a properly setup 4K TV screen. Indeed, the quality of streaming is “good enough”, much like how MP3 sound quality is good enough to forgo the hassle of swapping CDs for every album you want to listen.

And also like music, the future of television (and maybe even movies) is streaming, though I wonder how our respective internet service providers feel about the immense amount of bandwidth it’s increasingly using - especially once most of the content switches over to 4K resolution. I have a monthly soft-cap of 1 terabyte with Comcast, so that’s going to be a problem down the road because it streaming 4K for one hour requires 7 GB of data. Hopefully Comcast will make the consumer-friendly move and get rid of data caps altogether, but then again, this is Comcast we’re talking about.

Late last night I watched the first episode of The Mandalorian, the Star Wars series that’s headlining the Disney Plus launch. Not having watched any Game of Thrones, it is my first exposure to this new generation of TV shows with production budgets equal to major studio films. It’s quite amazing to see such quality and scale on the television screen, and The Mandalorian is rather impressive so far. The upcoming Marvel shows have movie-like big budgets as well, and it seems the defining line between television shows and theatrical films is quickly blurring.

Exciting times. I’ve subscribed to other streaming platforms before, but it looks like Disney Plus has and will have the goods to keep me hooked for a long time.

Look at these people lining up to buy dim-sum when other shops in Chinatown offer largely the same quality.

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.