jameswharris

How Internet Pricing Influences My Buying Decisions

You can go out at night and see a movie for $10. Watching a movie a night would cost $300 a month.

If you like to own and collect movies, you could buy DVDs and Blu-rays for the same amount of money if you shopped for bargains, ending up collecting 365 movies a year. But if you’re buying a new movie every night to watch, when would you re-watch anything in your collection? Ownership ain’t what it used to be.

Then there’s cable TV. For $80 a month, 24×7 movies, don’t worry about going out, shopping, collecting or shelving.

But for $7.99 a month can join Netflix and get one disc out at a time, and if you watch them immediately, and live in a city with a distribution center, might squeeze in a dozen movies a month, paying 67 cents a movie. $15.99 a month you can get 3 discs out at a time, and probably cover having a movie every night of the month, getting your per flick cost down to 53 cents.

For that same $7.99 you can get Netflix streaming, and theoretically watch twelve 2-hour movies a day all month. $7.99 / (12 x 30), which is about 2 cents a movie, or a more realistic 26 cents a movie if you watching only one a night.

Of course, you could just steal movies on the net and pay 0 cents per movie, but hey, we’re not thieves.

In other words, the Internet makes things cheaper. But does it improve our lives and society to let people watch a movie for 26 cents?

In 1965 I became a record addict, and averaged buying 2 to 4 albums a week until I found Internet Pricing. In the old days I bought LPs, and then CDs. At it’s peak I was spending $200-300 a month on music. Now I spend a flat $9.99 a month at Rdio and get access to over 20 million songs. Internet Pricing strikes again.

My wife and I used to subscribe to the local paper and over twenty magazines. Except for a couple e-magazine subscriptions on my Kindle, I no longer subscribe to periodicals and read stuff off the internet for free.

I’d like to get The New York Times, but at $15 a month is too expensive to what I’ve got accustomed to from Internet Pricing. For $18 a month I get Netflix streaming and Rdio, or tens of thousands of movies, television shows, documentaries, and a couple million albums. So why would I pay $15 for a single daily paper? Why isn’t there a company that charges $7.99 a month to read all newspapers from around the world?

Next Issue charges $15/month for access to 107 magazines. That’s the same price The New York Times charges for 1 newspaper. Sadly, none of my favorite magazines are available through Next Issue (The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, New York Review of Books, Scientific American, Smithsonian, Harpers, Discover, New Scientist, Sky & Telescope, etc.)

See, I’ve been corrupted by Internet Pricing. At one time getting The New York Times for $15 a month would have been a tremendous bargain. Now, I feel it’s too expensive when I compared other content I buy off the Internet. My innate sense of pricing was also distorted by reading the NYT for free online for years, and the fact there are many good newspapers from around the world that are still free to read online.

Would we have a more vibrant economy, with more jobs, if the internet didn’t exist?

I’ve been corrupted by Internet Pricing in other ways. Last month I wanted to buy an issue of Harper’s Magazine to read one article. But I just couldn’t let myself spend $5.99 to read one article. However Harper’s is tempting me. For subscribers to their paper copy, they give access to 163 years of back issues on the internet. I can get a year sub to Harper’s at Amazon for $15. See how Internet Pricing is disruptive? $15 for one month of the NY Times, or $15 for 163 years of Harper’s Magazine for a year. The New York Review of Books recently offered me 10 issues for $10 that included 50 years of online archives. The Rolling Stone also has a similar deal for $19.95 for a 26 issue sub and a complete run of back issues online. I don’t want paper copies of anything, but I do want access to complete archives. However, they won’t sell me just the archive access. Those savvy magazines publishers have figured things out, sell their old technology at normal prices and give Internet Pricing for free. I took the $10 deal, and I’m seriously considering subscribing to magazines again if I get their complete archive.

I go into a bookstore now and it kills me to pay list price for a magazine. I’ve been corrupted by Internet Pricing. Now I might just be a cheapskate, but what if I’m typical. How is being corrupted by Internet Pricing affecting people across the world. What is its impact on GDP?

JWH – 9/23/13

Homestead Air Force Base Library (1962-1963)–Aching for Photos

If you have photographs of the old library at Homestead Air Force Base before it was destroyed by Hurricane Andrew, please send them to me ( jameswallaceharris symbol outlook point com ).

My friend Linda and I had breakfast last Monday and somehow we got on the topic of the first books we remembered. We were both born in 1951, but she grew up in Memphis, and I grew up in Miami. Neither one of us could remember the first actual book we owned, but Linda remembered discovering libraries in the third grade, and I remember finding them in the fourth.

We both figured we had children’s books when we were little, but we can’t remember them, but it was discovering libraries that turned us into bookworms.

I have vague memories of school libraries before discovering the Homestead AFB Library in 1962, when I was ten. And I have fleeting memories of one other base library, but I can’t remember where it was. Maybe New Jersey. My father was stationed at Homestead Air Force Base in 1962 and 1963, and then after he retired, we returned to live near Homestead, so I got to use the base library again, while in the 8th grade.

I still remember so many books I found at the Homestead AFB library. I have many memories roving up and down the bookshelves, but what I would really love is photographs from inside and outside of that library. My mind aches for some kind of validation to those memories. I have no idea what the outside of the building looked like, and I’m guessing it was pretty small. The check-out desk was in the middle of the building, just as you came in the door. Going right led to a small wing holding the kids and young adult books. Going left held the adult books and a small nonfiction section. If memory serves, going left from the entrance, and then turning right just as you went into the room, was the science fiction section, which I didn’t know about in elementary school, but was a major discovery in junior high!

Straining my brain I’d guess that the science fiction section might have had no more than 6-8 shelves of books. It wasn’t huge, but it was gigantic to my impressionable mind. Going left, rather than right led to several sections of metal shelves in the middle of the room that held the nonfiction books. I loved looking for books about space travel, fighter jets, astronomy, oceanography, maps, etc. I loved this library. It depresses me to think all of this was destroyed by a hurricane.

For a long time now I’ve had this fantasy that someone would create a database of all the photographs in the world so people could share them. I envision going to the site and putting in a location and date, and seeing all the pictures taken that was closest to that date and location.

Did anyone ever take pictures of the library at Homestead Air Force Base? They could be lying around in drawers, totally neglected, or even been thrown away, now decomposing in a dump. How many photos were ever taken at the base in 1962 or 1963? And how many people like me wish they could see them now? Am I the only one?

Google and Bing found me a few photographs, but I’ve got to say their search capabilities stink to high heaven. No matter how I phrased the search I’d always get photographs from other air bases, or even totally unrelated images. But I was able to dredge up a few photos that validate some of my wispy memories.

Homestead Air Force Base was a rather compact site. The flight line was is the major feature of the bottom right quadrant. My father worked on the eastern end. I remember hearing there were twelve B-52s stationed at the base at the time, with almost a hundred fighter planes. At the far eastern end of the flight line they had a couple each of F-102s, F-104s, and F-106s. Most of the planes were F-100s. I remember seeing one F-51 on the field, and heard Airmen saying it belong to a doctor.

I believe the library and the base theater were on a road that paralleled the flight line. For all I know, I was riding my bike somewhere in that photo. I road my bike all over the base during those years, going to the library, theater, base exchange, or along the road near the flight line. Hearing the B-52s rev up to fly was powerful.

Our base house on Maine Avenue didn’t look as fancy as this one, but it was the same design. A duplex with a doubled shared carport in the middle. Housing on the base was by rank, and my father was a NCO. Kids of officers lived in nicer houses closer to the center of the base. But I loved our house, and have many fond memories living there.

In October of 1962, President Kennedy came to visit the base, just after the Cuban missile crisis. If my memory serves me, the Homestead Air Base Elementary let us kids off the the afternoon to go see the President, but me and my friends skipped JFK and went fishing at the rock pit, which I believe is the dark rectangle at the upper right quadrant of the aerial view above. I’ve always regretted that I didn’t go see the President, but hell, I was ten, and waiting for some old guy to drive by in a big car didn’t sound like fun. Going fish did. I’m sure many of my classmates are in the photo above.

These four photos are a pretty skimpy haul for trying to recreate the past. For all I know, the library might be in one of the two pictures of JFK, but the only landmark I really remember is the red and white checkered water tower. How many people in these two photographs were holding cameras that day and snapping pictures? How many people took family pictures in their base homes? How many people took pictures at work with their friends?

Nowadays reality is so well recorded because everyone carries a camera built in their cell phones, but back in 1962 people only took photos on special occasions. My family had a camera, but we could take a year or two to use up a 12 picture role of film.

If by chance, you’re an old Air Force brat and have some photos of Homestead AFB, please contact me at ( jameswallaceharris symbol outlook point com ).

JWH – 9/19/13

What’s the Relationship Between Memory and Profession?

I’m wondering if how much we can remember is related to what we become in life. Generally we think the careers we pursue are selected by interest, the ability to conceptualize the work, and talent. But what role does memory play? Does the ability to remember details accurately influence what we choose to do in life? Could engineers, surgeons, mathematicians, composers, physicists, become who they are without good memories? Could actors and singers work without the abilities to remember lines and songs? Could salesmen and politicians succeed without remembering people’s names. How well could people in law enforcement do their jobs without a knack for remembering faces and cases? Isn’t becoming a lawyer all about memorizing precedents and laws? Well, what about absent minded professors? Maybe to remember all the important facts of their discipline it’s vital to forget all the piddling practical things?

I can remember all the things I wanted to be as a kid, and looking back I can see I never had the memory skills to do those things. I became a programmer when I failed at being a scientist. And I’m only a so-so programmer. I have a certain knack for programming, but that’s because I can remember commands and algorithms to a degree. If I could have mastered mathematics I would have liked to have been an astronomer, or robot designer. My fantasy careers were to be another Robert A. Heinlein or Bob Dylan. I have great difficulty holding plot ideas in memory, and the only song I can remember is Happy Birthday, and I usually flub the 4th line.

Our whole K-12 educational philosophy is to prepare individual children to know everything that an ideal adult should know – as if everyone should be the same. We expect kids to memorize a body of knowledge we consider essential for a well rounded citizen, when in fact, everyone specializes, and everyone has varying levels of brain processing powers. Some people are Intel i7s, while others are Motorola 6502s.

The hot topic in education right now is the Common Core State Standards. The initiative’s mission statement says:

The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.

Currently, the Common Core standards focus on mathematics and English language arts, which is also what the national standardized tests cover. In other words, this initiative is a massive effort in coordinated memorization. By focusing on the Common Core standards we can evaluate students, teachers and schools through comparisons. The assumption being if kids in school A rank higher than kids in school B, then teachers and administrators are doing a better job in school A. But what if everyone learns the same standards equally well, but one school does better than another? How much education comes from outside of the school? Does growing up in a well-to-do family confer more opportunity to learn? Or what if some kids have better parents or mentors that push practice and memorization? Education isn’t just about the particularly facts we learn.

There are only so many facts we can stuff into our brains. We grind through our school years cramming for tests, but how much of this essential knowledge is really essential later in life? In last month’s Harper’s Magazine Nicholson Baker wrote “Wrong Answer: The case against Algebra II” – not available online, but nice summarized at Popular Science as “Should Math Really Be A Required Subject?” Baker pleads for us to abolish the Common Core State Standards for Algebra II because few people use it later in life, and many students suffer from studying it. But isn’t that true of most of what we studied in school?

What if pushing memory skills helps with careers? Advance math requires remembering years of previous mathematical techniques. Most of what you learn in school can be studied days before the test, but not advanced math. Passing Algebra II reflects great memory skills.

How successful in life we become is determined by how much we can remember. Kids who master Algebra II go on to become scientists, engineers, economists, doctors, lawyers – whether or not they actually need advance mathematics or not. The ability to remember and process complex concepts correlates well with success in many fields – and I think it’s because it reflect memory skills.

Also in the news was the Bullitt County 1912 Eighth Grade exam, that made 2013 smart people feel stupid. Not only could I not pass this 1912 test, but I doubt I could pass any 2013 Common Core tests. I read lots of books and consider myself reasonably educated, but if I had to rate my intelligence by tests then I’m a dummy. I love pop culture, but do miserably at trivia games. Facts just don’t stay in my head, and I think that’s true of a lot of people.

I’ve read dozens of books on the history of physics and cosmology, yet I doubt I could talk about this topic in anything but the vaguest way. I often write blog posts stuffed with facts that I hope to retain by writing about them, but never do. Some bits of information do stick, but I have no control over what facts get filed in permanent memory and what don’t, and whether or not I can recall the stored facts in a timely manner.

What I do is consume knowledge and shit out the solid facts, maybe digesting a bit of their nutriments, and I hope I become a bit wiser overall. My opinions will change but I can’t substantiate my beliefs with regurgitated references. My love of information is more akin to binging on sweets.

Knowing this makes me wonder why we spend so much money and effort forcing children to pass tests regarding knowledge they don’t retain. Obviously, a good education leaves a lot of knowledge sticking to the ribs of their brains, but a surprising amount gets immediately discarded. I do remember a fair amount of arithmetic but damn little algebra, geometry, trigonometry, statistics and calculus. My guess is the old adage, “use it or loose it” applies. So anything I learned fifty years ago that’s still in my head is there because I’ve had to use it. So why not build an education system focused more on doing and less on testing?

Now that I’m retiring next month, I hope to study math again. I’ve always regretted not working harder at learning math, and I’m wondering if I use it again, will some forgotten aspects magically come back, or will I have to memorize the old facts all over again? My guess if I work at it for a year I’ll develop some skills I currently don’t have, but if I stop working at it, those same skills will quickly disappear. Whether or not I’ll find some hobbies that actually need math skills is another matter. I’ve always wanted to program some computer animation and that does take math. If I apply the math, I might remember more, and for longer.

Sure, I might discover I hit a math barrier quickly. I might not have the memory skills to go very far this second time around, but I am going to take a different approach. It won’t be to pass tests.

Are our minds more like a hard drive where we store files, or like a computer program where we load information into memory to process? We generally think of memory and mind as one, but what if that’s not true? Is my personality reflected in how I react to experiences, or how I remember them? Recently I fell in love with the song “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” sung by Joan Osborne. Do I love that song because of who I am, or because of the 1966 Jimmy Ruffin version of the song imprinted on my brain for life as a mood memory and listening to the new one stimulates that old memory?

Even after playing this song over a hundred times recently, I can’t remember the words, nor could I hum the melody. However, something has been recorded in my brain that remembers the mood of the original song. Hearing the Joan Osborne version pushes the same button in a deeply emotional satisfying way.

What’s weird, I’m obsessed with the song right now, but in a few weeks I’ll have completely forgotten it – until the next time I hear the music. Even when I want to preserve a memory, to hang onto a cherish feeling, I can’t. I supposed if I sang the song myself every day it would eventually become a part of me. And that might explain why I forget so much – I’m constantly consuming new songs, new books, new movies, new television shows.

There are limits to memory I can’t overcome, but I could master more facts if I was willing to narrow my consumption of new data. I’m a hummingbird flitting from one flower to the next, with no memories of the last. Maybe if I tasted fewer flowers I’d remember more of them?

If humans were robots and we stored our memories in mechanical devices, we’d still have limitations, even if we could consciously control what we retained. I’ve always read about people with eidetic memories in awe. In my mind, they must be a superior species. Obviously, we’re all different when it comes to how many facts we can maintain at our fingertips. We’ll never be robots, and most of us will never have photographic memories, but who we are is defined by our limitations of memory, and not what we remember.

I believe my hobby is blogging now because of the limitations of my memory. I can look up facts and quotes on the internet as needed. If I could remember lyrics, chords, notes and melodies, I’d be playing music as my hobby. If I could hold a lot of entangled concepts in my mind, I’d probably be writing novels. If I was good with trivia I’d spend more time with my wife going to trivia games. If I had a great memory, I’d probably be programming with languages that have large libraries of powerful functions. I’m really amazed at the synergy between my poor memory and using Google with writing blog posts. Even the length of the post is hitting the wall with how much I can conceptually handle at once.

I believe our memory abilities define what we choose to do. But I also believe that the limitations of my memory confines me in explaining this. I hope my memory power at least hints at what I want to say.

JWH – 9/17/13

Adorate Deum at 4 a.m.

I’ve discovered the perfect time to listen to mystic chants of the middle ages – at 4 a.m. with headphones – on those mornings when insomnia strikes. Having a choir of men or women sing in monophonic Latin while it’s pitch dark and my consciousness drifts between dreamland and here is a serene musical experience. I can understand why monks like to get up early to chant.

I’ve been on a classical music kick lately, ever since I bought sixty classical records from the Friends of the Library bookstore. What got me to jump back in time over a thousand years though, is buying How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition from The Great Courses, taught by Professor Robert Greenberg. Now I didn’t pay the $349.95 at The Great Courses site, but $9.56 to Audible.com. Many of The Great Courses are now available at Audible.com for just one credit each. Credits run $9.56-$15.95 depending on how many you buy at once, but at those prices it’s worth joining Audible.com just to buy these audio lectures. This one from Dr. Greenberg runs 48 lectures, and he has many more focusing on specific eras of classical music and composers.

I’ve never really liked classical music, except for a few rare pieces, but always assume I could get into classical music through study. We’ll see. My general impression was the older the music, the less likely I would like it, but strangely enough I’m really digging the music of the Middle Ages. Who knew. Dr. Greenberg starts with what little we know about music from classical Greece and works forward in time, explaining how music evolved. I’m finding his lectures totally fascinating.

Because I subscribe to Rdio ($4.99/mo. for computer streaming, $9.99/mo. mobile devices) I have access to an almost unlimited supply of classical music. And I’ve discovered that Rdio has Naxos recordings which has a huge section devoted to Medieval music. Naxos also has a nice Introduction and History of classical music, including a service that lets subscribers stream music from over 5,000 CDs for $19.95 a year. A free subscription lets you play 25% song samples. I prefer Rdio because I can build playlists.

Exploring music covered by Dr. Greenberg with Rdio, is very exciting and stimulating. It’s very hard to put into words how this music makes me feel, but I shall write an essay about that soon.

I’m quite surprised by the music of the middle ages, especially with learning about the various developments in polyphony. The plainchants I present here are monophonic, where the singers sing just one note a time. As Dr. Greenberg illustrates, every century produced radical changes in music. It rapidly gets complicated and sophisticated. Right now I’m digging the simple stuff like you hear here. It going to take me a long time to work my way through the next thousand years.

JWH – 9/12/13

An Alternative to Obamacare

In physics scientists seek to solve the mysteries of reality through mathematics, but if a solution involves a complicated convoluted mathematical equation, it’s generally assumed to be wrong. Often the right solution involves a simple elegant equation.

Healthcare in America is complicated, bureaucratic and expensive. I’m wondering if there’s a simpler solution to Obamacare. To be upfront, I’m a liberal and believe all people have a right to quality healthcare.

To simplify the problem to its most elegant equation I’ve wondered if we shouldn’t take a totally different approach to subsidized healthcare. I think the federal government should just build and run free hospitals and clinics. Instead of creating a complex reimbursement system, they should just hire doctors and nurses and provide absolutely free healthcare to those who don’t have insurance.

Today, most hospitals ask if you have insurance, and if you don’t, they send you away. These free hospitals would ask, and if you do, they’ll send you away.

The federal government should build a free HMO type system that works to bring down the cost of healthcare. It should use every trick in the book to save on costs, while maximizing preventive heath measures. Employ no remedies that aren’t effective. Tell all patients that their information will be used for statistical and scientific studies. This system size should give it clout to get cheaper drugs and equipment.

Much of the cost of healthcare is the bureaucracy to maintain it. If the government learned to build efficient hospitals and clinics, that hired medical professionals at salaries scaled to reward cost effective productivity, this system could compete with the commercial healthcare systems and help bring down the overall costs of healthcare.

We could keep all existing healthcare systems and just phase in this idea as an experiment. The new system should not contract with private contractors to do the job. The new system should aim to be minimalistic as an experiment in efficiency. The idea could be started by finding locations in the country with extremely high uninsured population and opening a hospital to test its impact. Be scientific. Don’t build the second hospital until the lessons are learned from the first.

Innovate with technology. Instead of having people wait in waiting rooms, use texting or phone messages. Develop online prescreening questioning. Push the concept of home medical monitoring. Create convenience shops for collecting blood, doing x-rays and other simply diagnostic procedures. Use computers like IBM’s Watson to analyze medical charts and test results, or even prescreen patients. Develop a universal healthcare record system that allows patients to record health diaries and drug use, along with any daily home monitoring, and their diet and exercise habits. Test the theory that diet can improve many medical conditions.

This concept should be an experiment in lowering healthcare costs. Do everything possible so that all money spent goes directly to actual healthcare and as little as possible to administrative costs. Start small and build on success.

JWH – 9/8/13