A Blog by Sheil

Hipstamatic Sucks

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 23:32:00 -0400

I posted a while back about how much I hated Instagram. Turns out I was misinformed. Instagram isn’t the target of my dislike: it’s Hipstamatic.

I spent.. no.. wasted $4 on Hipstamatic and two filter/camera sets today to test out the software. It’s really dumb. The filters are taken to the extreme… to the point where I’m convinced that people who use it don’t understand what art actually is. It reminds of me HDR photography and how some amateurs bump up the saturation in their photos to ridiculous amounts because it “looks cool.” No, it doesn’t look cool. It looks like you don’t know what you’re doing.

At least Instagram’s filters are much more subtle (see http://goo.gl/mSSJz). So yes, maybe I should issue a revised statement: Instagram isn’t the problem, it’s Hipstamatic.

Chief Operating Officer of Operations

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 11:37:44 -0400

Chief Operating Officer of Operations:

Jim Rowan is taking on the expanded role of COO, Operations and will continue to be responsible for manufacturing, global supply chain and repair services.

So Rowan’s title is now the Chief Operating Officer of Operations. Yep, this company is doing great!

Apple and the future of tablets

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 08:52:00 -0400

Apple and the future of tablets:

If you agree that the main source of growth in consumer technology over the next few years will be in tablets, you should take a look at John Gruber’s article from yesterday.

A big question people have been asking is how to measure tablet market share, particularly because Android doesn’t disclose Android sales outright. They disclose shipments, but that’s only the number of tablets that have been sent to stores, not actually sold to customers. Apple’s shipment numbers can be substituted for sales simply because they’ve sold every single tablet they’ve shipped.

So using some wonky (but pretty clever) math, Robert Synnott estimated on Twitter that there are about 1.35 million tablets (135 million Android devices multiplied by 0.9% using Android’s 3.0 “tablet” operating system). Apple disclosed on Tuesday that they’ve sold 28.73 million iPads. Do the math, and that means Apple is a 95.51% market share. That’s a practical monopoly.

I’m not saying that there isn’t room for a competitor to jump in and take market share away from Apple, but who would it be? Google clearly isn’t successful so far, and based on their roadmap, it doesn’t look like they will be anytime soon. Microsoft is so far away from a real tablet strategy that you can pretty much count them out (at least in the short term). And then there’s… no one else.

Coupled with favorable supplier contracts due to their ridiculous cash horde, Apple seems poised to keep holding that tablet market share steady or even (this sounds crazy) grow market share over the next few years. That means that once again, I posit that the third largest corporation in the world (by market cap) is also still one of the fastest-growing corporations in the world. And trading at only 15.3 times earnings, it’s a value company too. Buy this now.

Nothing is more humbling about technology than watching someone who doesn’t understand...

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 10:51:00 -0400

Nothing is more humbling about technology than watching someone who doesn’t understand computers try to use a computer. Doesn’t matter how smart you are or how great your engineering is: if a regular person can’t use your product then it’s an utter failure.

Apple's earnings

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:19:00 -0400

Looking for a stock pick? Buy Apple. 125% net profit growth year over year and the second largest firm in the world is still a value company at a price to earnings under 20. Q3 top and bottom revenue figures higher than 2010’s holiday season (typically Apple’s most profitable quarter), so you can expect 2011 to be an absolute blowout (especially with a new iPhone coming out in late September/early October).

Not only that, but the consumer tech industry’s largest growth segment at this point are tablets, and Apple retains a practical monopoly over the market (and continues to stronghold that position with favorable agreements with suppliers). Ever wonder why Apple’s iPads have aluminum backs and their competitors’ tablets don’t? It’s because aluminum is expensive, and Apple’s supplier agreements keeps costs down and product quality high.

Quote me back on this post in six months and tell me I’m wrong.

Instasheil

Sat, 19 Feb 2011 11:57:12 -0500

Instasheil:

I started a new project a few days ago which I’m calling Instasheil (creative, I know). It’s a new Tumblr blog featuring photos I’ve taken with the Instagram app on my new iPhone. Yes, I know I’ve spoken out about how much I hate Instagram and Hipstamatic before, but the fact is that Instagram makes sharing photos on Facebook and Tumblr so damn easy, it’s hard not to use it.

I used the built-in filters in Instagram the few first days I used the app, but I’m finding that taking a photo with Camera+ (a much more powerful photo app) and then posting it with Instagram works much better. Instagram would have butchered photos like this, but using Camera+ and Instagram together allows me to keep the integrity of the original shot, while still sharing it on Facebook and Tumblr.

Hopefully, the ease of taking and sharing photos means I’ll be taking a lot more of them, something I’ve been trying to do for years. Keep watching that blog for updates.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog wrote today that January 8th marked...

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 16:27:28 -0500

The Unofficial Apple Weblog wrote today that January 8th marked the tenth anniversary of iTunes. Wow, what a decade it’s been. From this video, you can see a (much larger) Steve Jobs talk about the application that lets you “rip” CDs (a concept that people over thirty apparently don’t understand) to your computer.

It’s funny to think that this was such an advanced piece of software back then. It’s also weird to think about a time without the iPod. Makes me feel very old.

“Girls Like You” by The Naked and Famous from...

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 21:07:00 -0500

“Girls Like You” by The Naked and Famous from Passive Me Aggressive You

Here’s typically what happens when I discover a song by a new band:

Hear new song on website/radio.
Enjoy new song.
Tell all my friends about new song.
Ignore the rest of the songs on the band’s album completely.
Be completely surprised when the band releases a “new single” that’s as good, or better, than its first.

This happens all the time. Why should I be surprised that a band is capable of producing more than the one good song they’ve already released? That’s why in 2010, in addition to seeing more concerts, I resolve to listen to a band’s entire album once I hear them put out a great single.

I gave this a shot with The Naked and Famous, a band that I first heard on Sirius’s Alt Nation. In their first single, Young Blood, they sounded a lot like a cross between MGMT and Passion Pit, while still maintaining an original sound. I listened to their entire album Passive Me Aggressive You while at work the other day to see if there were any other decent tracks to be found.

To my surprise, the entire album is really impressive. Start to finish, The Naked and Famous has a seriously great album with thirteen catchy and fun songs. Here, I posted the last (and longest) track from the album, “Girls Like You”. Another great song is track one: “All of This”.

I’m going to try my best to keep listening to full albums by new artists and if I discover any new, “hidden” songs deep in an album that haven’t been released as singles yet, I’ll be sure to post them here.

“Folsom Prison Gangstaz (Easy E vs. Johnny Cash)” by...

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 19:08:00 -0500

“Folsom Prison Gangstaz (Easy E vs. Johnny Cash)” by DJ Topcat from Best of Bootie 2010

I love December. This month brings many great things: Christmas presents, New Year’s parties, and best of all, the annual Best of Bootie mix.

For the uninitiated, Best of Bootie (in this case, Bootie stands for “bootleg”) is a mix of the year’s greatest mashups, all smashed together into one eighty minute dance track. It was started in 2003 by A plus D, two DJs out of San Francisco, and has become one of the internet’s (and my) most anticipated annual events. Previous years have showcased some incredible mashups, including Party & Bullshit (in the USA) (Notorious B.I.G. vs. Miley Cyrus) in 2009, If I Were a Free Fallin’ Boy (Beyonce vs. Tom Petty) in 2008, and Going Back To Dani (Notorious B.I.G. vs. Red Hot Chili Peppers) in 2006.

Best of Bootie always seems to follow the same pattern every year: a group of very danceable tracks at the beginning of the mix, and a group of crazy, strange, and absolutely amazing tracks towards the end. This year is no exception. The standout track in my eyes comes courtesy of DJ Topcat from Seattle who mashed up Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues with Easy E’s Luv 4 Dem Gangsta’z. It sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it does (fantastically), and it somehow makes Johnny Cash sound even more badass than before.

To download Best of Bootie 2010, as well as all the older Best of Bootie albums, visit BootieMashup.com.

About a month ago while on a vacation in San Francisco, my...

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 23:16:00 -0500

About a month ago while on a vacation in San Francisco, my sister and I were driving in a car with our cousins when we heard Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” on the radio. My sister pointed out that the song sounded exactly like Perry’s other single “California Gurls” (why does she have to spell it like that?), and to prove the point, she sang “California Gurls’s” chorus over the chorus of “Teenage Dream”. Sure enough, it sounded exactly the same.

But how close were the two songs exactly? I decided to try to splice the songs together and see how it sounded.

The result is the snippet featured here. “California Gurls” plays in the clip’s left channel, while “Teenage Dream” plays in the right. I cut out the choruses of both songs, put them together into a new audio file, and adjusted the tempo so the songs played at the same rate.

While it’s not as perfect as I had hoped, it’s clear the songs sound very similar. The beginning and end of the choruses sound particularly alike, thus proving my sister’s point that the songs are indeed almost carbon copies of each other. And yet, people still bought both songs. Pop music is indeed amazing.

It’s worth pointing out that Pink’s new single, “Raise Your Glass”, follows this exact same musical pattern. Hey, no point in fixing what ain’t broke, right?

Update: Probably worth pointing out that both songs’ choruses start exactly 45 seconds into the song and last for almost exactly 15 and a half seconds. The tempo change I had to make was very, very minor.

What to Get a Hacker for Christmas In the eighties, people who...

Sun, 05 Dec 2010 00:05:39 -0500

What to Get a Hacker for Christmas

In the eighties, people who used computers all wore mustaches.

Ridiculous Mashups That Don't Suck

Sun, 21 Nov 2010 22:57:22 -0500

Just made this mashup mix on 8tracks. I discovered the site today while hunting for new sources of music, and I really like it. The idea of 10-song, human-created mixes is great because it forces people to really hunt for the best songs in their collection. Plus, since it’s human-created, there’s a touch of emotion that Pandora can’t even begin to emulate. Very cool site.

Bonnaroo 2011: June 9th - June 12th

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 17:11:23 -0500

Bonnaroo 2011: June 9th - June 12th:

And so it begins. Presale begin Black Friday at noon. Bonnaroo, here I come.

“TRON: Legacy (End Titles)” by Daft Punk from TRON...

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 23:56:00 -0500

“TRON: Legacy (End Titles)” by Daft Punk from TRON Legacy: Official Soundtrack

Someone requested this song on X1FM a few days ago and upon hearing it, my mind was blown. Daft Punk makes the end titles to Disney’s TRON: Legacy sound like the background music to a gigantic drug-infused hipster robot dance party. Seriously, the track is amazing, and it single-handedly made me want to watch the movie (even if it’s just to hear the song again during the credits).

Hawk-Eye in tennis: Why it's broken and how to fix it

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 23:46:00 -0400

A friend and I have been arguing about the topic of Hawk-Eye in tennis for years. For those who may not know, Hawk-Eye is a computer system developed by Hawk-Eye Innovations Inc. that accurately tracks the movement of a ball. It’s used in tennis at all major grand slams to assist chair umpires and linesmen in making correct line calls. A player has the ability to “challenge” a point or a serve, which brings up the Hawk-Eye screen in the tennis arena. The screen shows the trajectory of the ball, where the ball landed, and whether the call should be in or out. It looks like this:

I loved the system when it was first introduced. I believed that it got rid of bad line calls forever and assured fans that incorrect calls were not made in matches, keeping the matches fair. My friend (a true tennis conservative), on the other hand, argued that the system ruined the game. He said that Hawk-Eye took the “human” aspect of tennis away and instead made it robotic. Players disagreed about Hawk-Eye as well. Roger Federer famously argued against the use of Hawk-Eye in the 2007 Wimbledon Championship. A forehand by his opponent, Rafael Nadal, looked long to Federer, Nadal, and the chair umpire, but Hawk-Eye stated that the ball was in by one millimeter. Federer responded:

“How in the world was that ball in? Shit. Look at the score now. This system is killing me.”

A paper written by Harry Collins and Robert Evans in Public Understanding of Science called “You cannot be serious! Public Understanding of Technology with special reference to `Hawk-Eye’” attempts to answer whether Hawk-Eye, as used in its current state, is good or bad for the game of tennis. It states that the technology currently has two main problems:

Tennis fans do not properly understand Hawk-Eye because Hawk-Eye fails to account for a margin of error.
There are two types of errors: random errors, which Hawk-Eye corrects, and systematic errors, which it does not.

Here’s an explanation of each:

1. Hawk-Eye fails to account for a margin of error
Hawk-Eye Innovations Inc. acknowledges that Hawk-Eye isn’t perfect and tells fans it has an average error of 3.6mm. Assuming that the distribution of the system’s error measurement is normal, one can calculate a standard deviation of 4.5mm. Then, given a 95% confidence interval, one can say that 5% of the time (one time out of twenty), the measurement error is greater than 9mm and 1% of the time, the error is greater than 11.7mm. This is actually far beyond the acceptable error rate as stated by the International Tennis Federation (page 20).

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. One bad call out of a hundred is still pretty good. The problem lies in the way Hawk-Eye is presented on television (and, consequently, how fans understand how Hawk-Eye works). Collins and Evans make the important distinction between a tool that serves as a “decision maker” and one that serves as a “decision aid”. Umpires and line judges in tennis are decision makers; they call a ball in or out. There’s never a “90% in” call; it works only one way or the other. Hawk-Eye, on the other hand, can sometimes be wrong, as just demonstrated. As a result, it’s possible for a ball to be 90% in and 10% out because of the system’s margin of error. It’s not a “decision maker”. It’s a “decision aid”. On television, however, fans never see Hawk-Eye as a “decision aid” since the very idea of a margin of error or confidence interval is left completely undisclosed. Because fans see only one solid “in or out” mark on the Hawk-Eye replay, they may incorrectly assume that Hawk-Eye is right all the time.

2. There are two types of errors: random errors, which Hawk-Eye corrects, and systematic errors, which it does not.
Collins and Evans also point out two different types of errors that exist in sports: random errors and systematic errors. Random errors are the ones that occur completely by chance. If a line judge’s vision was obstructed for a point and as a result, they made an incorrect call, that’s something that happened randomly. It’s not easily repeatable, and it wasn’t the line judge’s fault that they made the bad call. Hawk-Eye serves as a great tool to help the line judge make the correct call. It shows them the point, they can be sure of the correct call, and they can move on.

Systematic errors, on the other hand, are ones that humans will make every single time they are encountered with a close call. Federer’s call from the 2007 Wimbledon final is a perfect example of a systematic error. The ball was called in by one millimeter, a distance that’s entirely too close for a human to call correctly by themselves. Without Hawk-Eye, they’d make the call incorrectly every time, because the distance required to make the correct call is too close for a human eye to pick up. People aren’t robots, and we’ve accepted that there are certain limits to how a person can make a correct call.

So now that we’ve discussed the two main problems with current Hawk-Eye technology, what’s the proper way to implement Hawk-Eye in tennis?

The Solution: The Automated Decision Principle
Collins and Evans suggest the Automated Decision Principle as a way to incorporate Hawk-Eye into the current game of tennis, while keeping spectators aware of its flaws and still preserving the game’s aspect of human error. First, the inaccurate nature of Hawk-Eye can be compensated for by keeping fans aware that it’s not perfect. This can be done simply by overlaying a shaded area on the part of the line that is subject to error, as the authors have shown below:

The line would be adjusted based on the velocity and angle of the ball (a complicated calculation that neither I, nor the authors, are capable of making). The line judge makes their initial call, and after the ball is challenged, the shaded area would indicate the margin of error on Hawk-Eye’s call. The umpire would then be able to decide whether the call should be in or out.

That leads to the next part of the solution: treat Hawk-Eye as a “decision aid,” not a “decision maker.” Based on the shaded area showing the margin of error as described above, the umpire would have the ability to call a point in or out. Thus, even though a ball may technically be in, according to Hawk-Eye, the umpire may call it out because its margin of error leaves it within the zone of it being a systematic error. That is, if a line judge called the ball out initially, and the Hawk-Eye replay shows a margin of error indicating that the ball may be out, the umpire may still call it out. In this case, the call in the Federer-Nadal match likely would have stayed out because the umpire would have indicated that the call was within a human’s error range.

That said, Hawk-Eye is not completely useless technology. In the case of a random error, such as a line judge’s view being obstructed for a call, the line judge could call for a Hawk-Eye replay. This would assure that the call was correct when the error was determined not to be a systematic one. The chair umpire could also ask for a call of a Hawk-Eye replay if he or she sincerely believed that a line judge messed up a call (chair umpires can already overturn line judges’ calls on court, so this is not completely out of the ordinary).

My Two Cents
Collins and Evans propose a really great solution to a complex problem of Hawk-Eye in tennis. By using Hawk-Eye as a “decision aid”, instead of a “decision maker”, it allows the useful technology to stay an integral part of tennis while still respecting the role human error has to play in the sport.

One comparison I haven’t heard since Hawk-Eye was introduced is that to how replays and challenges are treated in football. In football, if a team wishes to challenge a ruling on the field, they may do so by throwing a red challenge flag. Officials then take time to review a replay, searching for conclusive evidence that the on-field call was incorrect. That phrase - conclusive evidence - is extremely important. It states outright that replay is to be used to correct random errors, not systematic ones. Officials make a call, and the call is blatantly wrong, it’s overturned. If it’s too close to tell via replay, the call on the field stands.

Collins’ and Evans’ idea for incorporating Hawk-Eye into tennis address this problem head-on, and include an additional piece of information - the call’s margin of error - to give fans additional assurance that the correct call was made. Rules for replay in tennis already seem to be set in stone and they don’t seem to be changing anytime soon, no matter how much Roger Federer complains about it. It’s a shame they were implemented incorrectly, but it’s good to know that a better solution does exist - if officials ever want to give it a second chance.

The NBA cares… clearly.

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 10:09:00 -0400

The NBA cares… clearly.

Joystiq's Xbox Kinect Review

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 08:40:00 -0400

Joystiq's Xbox Kinect Review:

For all the talk of revolutionizing the Xbox 360 experience and making gaming more natural/accessible, it’s bordering on absurd how broken Kinect is when it comes to something as simple as working in your home.

Ouch. Kinect requires at least seven feet of space (in other words, your living room needs to look something like this) in order to work. If you don’t have that space, according to Joystiq, “Kinect will just not work right.”

According to the distance chart from HDGuru.com, that means you need a minimum TV size of at least 41 inches if you’re playing in 720p or 58 inches if you’re playing in 1080i.

But then, of course, you have the issue of the coffee table. Eight feet from your TV might be where your coffee table is positioned, so you might need to add another one and a half feet to correctly get Kinect working in your living room. You’ll either need to move the table or get a bigger room (and possibly a bigger TV). Sounds like a lot of work for buying a video game device. In short, as Joystiq’s review says, “Still want to take a chance? Be sure to keep the receipt.”

Side note: I still don’t understand how first-person shooters like Call of Duty will work on this thing. I have a really good feeling that they’ll require additional controllers (last time I checked, you need a “gun” to shoot with). If that’s the case, Kinect will be exactly like the Playstation Move. So much for that competitive advantage.

Update: ArsTechnica echoes the point I made about using Kinect in games that require fine control, like first-person shooters:

I get the uneasy feeling that we’ve already seen most of what the hardware can do in terms of games, at least until Microsoft admits defeat with the lack of buttons and creates games that use both the Kinect hardware and a physical controller. Notice how many games mirror each other, in a thin selection of genres. How many times are we hitting balls coming at us with our hands and body? How many fitness and dancing games do we need?

P2P traffic decreasing - the Hulu method works!

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 08:18:00 -0400

P2P traffic decreasing - the Hulu method works!:

The most interesting statistic from Cisco’s study:

Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing is now 25 percent of global broadband traffic, down from 38 percent last year.

I guess that proves what everyone already knew: if media companies offer their content online through distribution networks like Netflix and Hulu, people will stop pirating that content. Of course, I knew this a while ago by way of the extensive research I performed years ago (randomly asking friends).

This doesn’t necessarily mean completely ad-based networks like Hulu are profitable (it generated a profit in 2010, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will stay profitable). However, I would assume that even losing a little money while consumers watch media the legal way is much better than the piracy route.

Instagram

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 22:22:00 -0400

Someone please explain to me why Instagram is so popular. TechCrunch reported last week that the service crossed 100,000 users in six days, but I don’t understand why.

For those of you don’t know, Instagram (with its super-hip www.instagr.am domain name) is a photo-sharing app for the iPhone that allows you to take a photo, add a filter to it, and throw it onto Facebook quickly and easily. Here’s a photo taken by one of the founders of Instagram. Hipsters are calling it addictive. I call it stupid. By using Instagram, people who normally take crappy photos can continue to taking crappy photos, but then hide them behind a cliche filter and feel good about themselves. Think the lomo filter is super cool? Too bad it’s been copied by a ton of other programs already.

The photos generated by these stupid “instant” photo apps are quickly becoming the new Myspace photos (you know, the ones that everyone hates. If you haven’t used one of this apps yet, don’t start. You’ll be way ahead of everyone else.

“Ghosts ‘n Stuff” by Deadmau5 from For Lack of...

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 23:44:00 -0400

“Ghosts ‘n Stuff” by Deadmau5 from For Lack of a Better Name

This is pretty much the exact opposite of music I’d say I enjoyed a year ago, but after hearing that Deadmau5 put on an incredible show at Bonnaroo, I knew that if I got the chance again, I’d have to see them. As luck (or fate?) would have it, I won tickets to Voodoo Fest from X1FM (yet another reason I love that station), and Deadmau5 is playing on Halloween night.

From what I heard at Bonnaroo, his music setup is insane: enough bass to make your whole body shake. At ‘Roo, I was practically dancing in my tent half a mile away from his stage. Like I said, I normally hate techno music, but if you can’t rock out to Deadmau5, something is seriously wrong with you.