Bloated Files at Conde Nast

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Once the New Yorker came to it’s senses about offering subscribers access to the iPad digital version as part of their print subscription I downloaded the New Yorker app. After suffering through the klutzy registration process I settled in to see what it looked like to read one of my favorite magazines on an iPad.

When I clicked on the download button I saw that the file was 117 MB. This is big enough for a short movie! What are they doing at Conde Nast? Are they sending me the PDF that they send to the printers? Even on my relatively fast cable Internet connection downloading a file this size is several minutes. Today, I downloaded the Wired Magazine app only to discover that the free issue was 320 MB!

Unless I am grievously in error it is hard to understand how apps dedicated to delivering magazines to iPads could possibly require this much data to fill such a small screen.

Curious in Hudson.

Mid-Hudson Cable and Internet Service in Hudson

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Last week a story appeared in the Register Star, “Mid-Hudson turns down $3.5M in stimulus money“. This followed by two days Sam Pratt, always at the ready with in depth commentary, who wrote about the continuing failures of Mid-Hudson and the troubled life of a wannabe rural internet user in his blog posting, “MH Cable: Not tapping that grant after all“. Mid-Hudson Cable always gets a rise here. I posted the following comment at Sam’s article:

I sympathize with the troubles of those just beyond the reach of high speed Internet. Clearly bringing high speed access to everyone in the county is an important issue. However, the troubles of Mid-Hudson as an Internet provider go beyond their sluggishness at extending service.

I live right on Warren St, in the middle of MH’s most densely populated area, and their service level has been poor. They have never lived up to their advertised speeds. When we had 5 MB/s service it never ran better than 4 and the average over hundreds of data points was 3.6. I had technicians come to investigate. They pronounced my equipment to be up to snuff and left commenting “The advertising says ‘up to 5 MB/S’, it never gets there.”

Since I use the Internet for both my business coaching and web development work I felt compelled to cough up $5 more a month to get the 10 MB/S service. Now I get 7 MB/S until the evening when it slows down, as it did before, when all the other users come on line.

I believe that the contract between the city and MH is ending in 2013. Time to get ready to fight for some real service level standards that can be enforced. Or, let’s find another provider.

Mid-Hudson Cable continues to practice misleading, deceptive advertising practices with its pitch of “blazing speeds” upto 5 MB/S. The upto is Mid-Hudson’s bit of clever marketing. They never have delivered  close to that level of service.

Seen in Hudson on a Morning Walk

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A few images from a morning walk.

I have taken hundreds of pictures of fire connections. Not sure why. Recently I have only added to this collection when I see a new use for them. Sometimes this is people perching on them. Sometimes they are holding up coffee, beer bottles, candy wrappers….

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The City of Hudson clearly doesn’t believe in modern chemistry. Can’t think of the last time I saw so many dandelions.

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My favorite stairs.

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Maybe this is just part of a seasonal business’s normal cycle, but??
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I know that this is a worn out topic here in Hudson. Nevertheless, I remain amazed at the bad taste of the county government to litter one of the best parks in the city with all of these signs. Why have a ark if you don’t want people to loll in the grass? Is the only purpose of this park to be a prop for war memorials? Why did they so proudly tout that a local builder had replaced the roof on the gazebo when it is almost never used? Strange thinking.

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Bunnies and Eggs and Other Things Eastery on Warren St.

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Karen and I were taking a constitutional up Warren St this past Easter Sunday and noticed that despite the lack of the over the top  decorations that seem to accompany every holiday in our country, Easter was not lost on Warren St.  Merchants and residents just do up Easter here with more restraint, even delicacy.

Apologies for all of the reflections from the glass. I am not that much of a photographer.

[Show picture list]

Getting things (Up)right in Hudson Signage

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The city has been busy with its Spring cleaning. On a recent jaunt up Warren St. I was pleasantly surprised to see two eyesores in the Sixth St. Park at least brought upright and cleaned. The map of the city (mislabeled “directory” earlier) looked so much better that I first thought that it is new. But, on examining the photo from a year ago I have concluded that the glass and map have simply been cleaned.

Amazing what a little housekeeping can accomplish. I now am dropping my muttering about the need to tear down these as a sad commentary on our sense of civic pride. They may not be the most graceful public amenities but at least now they look as though someone cares.

Kudos to the folks at DPW!

before after

April 2, 2010 Park Signage Hudson

April 2, 2010

April 21, 2011 signs upright Hudson NY

April 21, 2011

April 2, 2010 city map Hudson NY

April 2, 2010

April 24, 2011 city map Hudson NY

April 24, 2011

Etsy.com Comes to Hudson

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The rumors about etsy.com locating a new office in Hudson have been floating about for some time. Yesterday, Rob Kalin, the founder of etsy.com, placed this notice on our local business listserv.


Hi all,

Please allow me to humbly introduce myself. I know many people here already, and hope to know many more. I’m the founder & CEO of Etsy (www.etsy.com), which I started 6 years ago in my apartment in Brooklyn. My family is from New York (from Tarrytown up to Syracuse), and I’ve spent many a night in a lean-to amongst the Catskills.


Etsy currently employs 175 people, most of them in our Brooklyn office. As we continue to grow, it makes a lot of sense to me to open up an office in Hudson. I love the town, we found an incredible building (thank you Chris at the Cannonball Factory, and Theresa at Keystone for helping), and as everyone here knows — better than I do, I’m sure — there are so many great people. Denis at 711 is helping us with desks, too.

I started Etsy to create opportunities in the world — for myself, for small business owners, for people who make things, people who find things, and more. I love that we are be able to bring jobs to Hudson. Right now we’re working to get things setup. (As of this email, the building doesn’t even have heat! But that’s happening quickly.) Our plan is to start with customer support positions, and grow from there.

Etsy HQ will remain in Brooklyn, and I hope to grow our Hudson office to 50 employees or more. Jobs at Etsy come with a salary, benefits (medical, dental, vision) paid for in full by the company (including family plans). We’ll be posting actual job descriptions soon. If someone you now is interested, feel free to email me directly.

Our plan is to grow things at a measured pace, so we’re not really broadcasting anything yet. This email is probably the most public statement I’ve made so far. I’m happy to answer any q’s via email, and thanks for reading.

I hope to see you ’round,

Rob


This is great news for Hudson. How do we get the word out to more entrepreneurs in Brooklyn about the opportunities for them in Hudson?


Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black People in America from the Civil War to World War II

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Slavery by Another Name by BlackmonThis book brings to light the extent to which the Jim Crow laws were in fact part of a totalitarian system of government that ruled the South for more than seventy five years. How these laws came to be called Jim Crow by historians instead of  “a system of racist oppression and exploitation” is a mystery. The fact that historians and school textbook writers  adopted this term,which is derogatory in its basis, points to a shameful lack of focus on the facts of life in the South during the period between 1876 and roughly 1965.  Worse it aided the systematic cover up of the actual functions of these laws and their impact on African-Americans. If the word Apartheid had been invented earlier this would also be a useful term.

The research and the writing is compelling. Blackmon has a website devoted to the book and the production of a documentary movie on PBS that will air in 2011.

Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black People in America from the Civil War to World War II
Author: Douglas A. Blackmon    Publisher: Doubleday, $29.95 (512p) ISBN 978-0-385-50625-0

A Suite of Plugins to Enhance Your Web Reading Pleasures

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The other day I posted information about Readability, a great bookmarklet that strips away unwanted web garbage and presents text is a very reader friendly style. Since then I have come on two more web services that aid those interested in finding and reading some of the more interesting stuff on the web. The first, Instapaper,  adds to the ease of bookmarking interesting web material for later review. The second, LONGREADS, is a growing database of pieces on the web that are longer than the sound bite format that now dominates the spare real estate of web screens and the even sparer attention spans that seem to predominate these days. I have now put these three together on my web browsers and on my iPod Touch. These are my suite of web reading tools.

Instapaper screen grab

Instapaper provides you with a tool to bookmark interesting web material that you would like to review later. Unlike bookmarking material in your browser, these bookmarks live in the Web cloud and therefore are accessible to you on whatever device you happen to be using. As you bump into interesting material ion the web you simply click on the “Read Later” button in your Bookmarks bar to save it. Later when you are ready for some serious reading you bop on over to your Instapaper page and there are all of your items. Instapaper allows you to organize these in folders and also download in various formats for reading on Kindles, iPads, and so on.   See the screen grab to the left for a flavor, then go to Instapaper to set up your account and download the bookmarklets to install in your favorite web browsers.

OK. Now its time to make the reading experience more pleasant and productive. This is where Readability fits in.

I stumbled on this wonderful tool and want to share it. One of the frustrations of the Web is the enormous clutter of many web pages. This seems especially true of the magazine and newspaper style sites which feel compelled to have blizzards of sidebars, advertisements, and all sorts of other junk. Worst of all are the sites where there are moving Flash animations constantly distracting your eye from the content you might be trying to read.

Along comes this great bookmarklet. Readability from ARC90. Rather than use a lot of words, here are a before and after screen grab. You can guess which is which. Go to Readability and copy the bookmarklet to your browser tool bars. Then, try it out on this posting and see how much easier it is to read in text automatically sized to your needs and without the two sidebars present here.

Web page before using Readability bookmarkletReadability-afterLONGREADS is a site that catalogs longer articles available on the web. You can search by length and keywords. It is a perfect closer  to this suite of tools devoted to improving reading on the web.

Making the Web More Readable – the Readability Project at ARC90

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I stumbled on this wonderful tool and want to share it. One of the frustrations of the Web is the enormous clutter of many web pages. This seems especially tru of the magazine and newspaper style sites which feel compelled to have blizzards of sidebars, advertisements, and all sorts of other junk. Worst of all are the sites where there are moving Flash animations constantly distratcing your eye from the content you might be trying to read.

Along comes this great bookmarklet. Readability from ARC90. Rather than use a lot of words, here are a before and after screen grab. You can guess which is which.

Web page before using Readability bookmarkletWeb page after using Readability bookmarklet

The Warmth of Other Suns – Isabel Wilkerson

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Warmth of Other Suns - Isabel WilkersonIsabel Wilkerson’s book, The Warmth of Other Suns – the epic story of America’s great migration, ((New York City, Random House 2010)) creates  whole new planes of awareness of our history.

This book startled me to a new understanding of how encompassing and pervasive the Jim Crow laws and social rules of the South really were. Without much thinking on my part, I have always equated Jim Crow with images of separate water fountains, lunch counters, and schools, along with denial of voting rights. Included were images of lynchings and mob violence. Wilkerson’s work brings to life the real depth of the American system of Apartheid. These laws and social rules were so extensive as to lead to separate break times in factories so that whites and blacks would not even use a stairway at the same time.

This is the story of the six million African Americans who left the South for the North and West of the US between 1910 and WWII. Wilkerson builds her narrative of the main courses of this migration through the stories of three people leaving three different parts of the South, venturing to the three main destinations, NYC and the northeast, Chicago, and Los Angeles over three decades (teens through 40’s). Her overall research included interviews with over 1,200 people.

The stories do not end with the escape from the South. Wilkerson follows the stories as they unfold in their new environs. Here the transition from the oppressions of the South to the new realities of the north and west. No surprise the escape from the South did not mean an instant escape from racism institutionalized or otherwise. This part of the story is more familiar to a Northern urbanite.

This book, along with Douglas Blackmon’s Slavery By Another Name – the re-enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to WWII ((NYC Doubleday, 2008)) are compelling additions to understanding the history of racism in the US. Both are must reads.