Of record labels and protectionism

So, Touch & Go has effectively ceased operations, which really sucks. This article paints an accurate picture of the impact and awesomeness of Touch & Go. It also compares Touch & Go to Dischord.

One point the article does not address is how Touch & Go responded to the digital music revolution. I can recall being frustrated on several occasions trying to legally purchase digital music released by Touch & Go. It was basically impossible to find Touch & Go music in a legal digital format.

Compare that with Dischord’s policy of basically putting everything up on every legal digital music distribution service (emusic, downloadpunk, et al. - although at one point those 2 services were pretty much the only game in town). Now that there’s evidence that pirates and customers are the same thing, I’ve got to wonder if policies adopted by record companies in the spirit of protectionism actually damaged their businesses. I’d say it did, but the truth is probably more complicated than this.

Awesome FAIL

This is so unbelievably FAIL, that I’ve got to record it for posterity. Unlike my last Time Warner Cable rant, I’m not at all angry, even though it did waste about a half-hour of my time on a Sunday afternoon. I’m more amused than anything.

I haven’t used the old PayXpress system in a while because it was just sorta weird and broken. It’s been so long, I’ve forgotten exactly how. But I got an email that their new system is extra-special shiny, so I went ahead and registered.

I did the usual: created a random strong password. After I registered and paid my bill, I logged out, with the intent of saving the login form in 1password. But, for some reason it wasn’t working. So, I used the username and password reminder options. The username looked fine. But the password had been downcased. WTF?

I copied and pasted the password they sent me into the form. It didn’t work. I double checked and tried again. Here’s the message I got:

You have exceeded the maximum number of failed sign-in attempts. As a result, online access to your account is temporarily disabled. To reset your password, please go to the Sign In page and click the “Forgot Password” link. To retrieve your Username, please go to the Sign in page and click the “Forgot Username” link. Follow the easy on screen instructions to receive your username or password.

So, what, you’ll send me the same password that I’ve been trying unsuccessfully, so that I can attempt to login to an account I’ve been locked out of?

FAIL

Writing and software development

I’m reading Stephen King’s On Writing and, as I expected, noticing some pretty direct parallels to software development. Here’s one: write the first draft with the door closed and the second draft with the door open. Translation: write the first one for yourself, and once you’ve got the gist of the story, rewrite it so that anyone can read it and feel like they own it.

In software, we call the second and subsequent drafts refactoring. So, to use King’s door metaphor, a software developer should crank the first one out, using code of his choosing. Once that first revision is complete, step back and look at it from the maintenance programmer’s perspective. Consider who the next person to look at this code and write it for them. Of course, we don’t crank out entire programs before we consider refactoring. We keep the cycles small, but the close door/open door metaphor stil works. I like it.

I’ll hopefully post more thoughts about this the further I get into the book.

Stories from the past

This story and some great comments posted over at Signal vs. Noise reminds me of a story I wrote about my grandparents for a journalism class in college. I won’t go into detail here, maybe later.

A couple things stand out: ask old people questions about the war, the depression, whatever. When I did that assignment for my class, it showed me a side of my grandfather that I had never seen. He died soon thereafter and I was really grateful for the experience of interviewing him. Also, when you get someone who lived through WWII to start talking about it, you realize how much those few years defined their life. I have had the experience filtered for me through my grandfather, an American serviceman, and my grandmother, a Japanese citizen. While my grandfather’s stories were entertaining and had a happy ending (he lived to tell them) my grandmother essentially won’t talk about it. She’s let out bits and pieces of it to various family members, but for the most part she won’t go there. Too much pain.

Auto Bailout

I’m sitting here listening to some “experts” debate a potential Big 3 auto bailout. Here’s why we need to nix this whole idea and let the chips fall where they may.

I’m in my mid-thirties. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a negative opinion of American cars. Not because they were American. That’d be silly. It’s because they suck. I remember my father agonizing over the decision to buy our first Japanese car: a 1982 Honda Accord. I also remember that after we bought it, we loved it. We’d say, “is it running?” after we turned it on, because it ran so quiet. It was fuel-efficient, problem-free, and cheap to maintain. You know what my family has done ever since 1982? We’ve bought Hondas. Too many to recall. In the mid-nineties I had a Ford Explorer for a few years. It’s the only car I’ve ever driven that I didn’t like. It’s also the only American car I’ve ever owned.

I’ve got 2 Hondas in my driveway right now. One has 114K miles and one has 175K miles on it. They both run like champs. I change the oil, keep up with regular maintenance and they reward me with reliability. They’re both paid for. I feel like I’ve gotten great value out of these cars.

So, when the Big 3 tell us their big plan is to release a hybrid electric in 2010, when the Japanese automakers are already there, it just reinforces my negative opinions. They tell us to give them tens of billions to play catch-up. No thanks. They’ve had close to 30 years to play catch-up and they’ve done nothing but fall farther behind. Releasing a hybrid vehicle in 2010 is going to do nothing to change my opinion. If the Big 3 can survive and make reliable cars for a number of years, then my opinion will change. But a single car just ain’t gonna do it.

Now, I do feel for the many people who would lose their job if the Big 3 collapsed. But, you know what? Nobody gets a job for life. Nobody gets to rest on their laurels. In my business (software development) if you rest on your laurels for even a couple months you’re gonna get burned. These people can expand their skillset. I’m sure they’ll get nice payouts that give them a cushion. Those that take advantage of that time to improve themselves will be fine. Those that sit on their ass waiting for a job just like the one they had are not going to be fine. I’ve been laid off. It sucks, but you get resourceful and you bounce back. That’s the American way.

Tops 2008-12-02

• Wife’s semester ending soon.
• Merb Day around the corner.
• Learning new technologies.
• Andrew Bird.
• Graylyn growing out of social anxieties.
• Hockey playoffs start tomorrow (for me).

Top Few 2008-10-05

• Trader Joe’s frozen pizza
• Earplugs and solitude
• NHL season around the corner