Beach Haven

This post was originally published in January of 2016 on another platform:

Innovation is often defined as the introduction of new things or methods (see http://dictionary.reference.com). Another way one could think of innovation might be combining existing things or methods and using them in new ways; case in point, parking meters.
 
This is a topic I really had not thought about in a very long time, if ever. For more than twenty years we have lived in areas where there are no parking meters. On occasions when we went to visit a city where they have meters we would just park in a parking lot or tower. If we did have to use a meter on the street there was nothing novel about them. Put in your quarter and be sure to add time before the meter went red.
 
Now that I work in downtown Washington DC and have more opportunities to park in the city my experience has changed. Generally I don't park at all since most days I ride the train into the city and walk from the station to NPR. When there is a reason for me to drive to work, I usually just park in the underground parking facility at the NPR building, but sometimes there are off-campus evening events that take me out into the greater parking world. Several of those experiences caused me to get to know the more innovative approaches to street parking metering that have evolved as of late. Those experiences caused me to look around on my daily walk between Union Station and NPR. The result is a recognition that some smart innovation, in the sense of combining disparate technologies, has brought the world of street parking meters a long way from the simple coin-op days.
 
The first step-up in metering technology I see looks deceivingly like the traditional coin-op parking meters. In fact they are backwards compatible (geek speak) in that they actually will take change if you so desire that payment method. What's new is that they have more apps (geek speak again) available. For instance if you don't have coins in your pocket you can swipe your credit or debit card. Additionally, set up an account on the city's metering web-app, and you can update the parking time with a simple text. No credit card required in your hand, just in the account. What I like about the texting version of payment is if you have to renew your time you don't have to leave your meeting, event, etc. to run down to the meter and add time. You just send another text with the number on the side of the meter and instantly you have averted the threat of a ticket from parking enforcement.

The electrical power to do all this is furnished through a small solar panel and the connectivity between the meter and the network is done via wireless. Just a few years ago all of these technologies would not have been available in such a small package as an average-sized parking meter. What a smart way to combine different technologies that were not developed for anything like this sort of application.

Another parking advance is even less hardware intensive. Instead of a block lined with individual parking meters, some locations have shifted to something akin to paying for a space in a parking lot. Somewhere within the city block a driver is trying to park on is a single kiosk. At that kiosk, as with individual meters, there are multiple ways to pay. The driver can park anywhere on the block, then interact with the kiosk through a touch screen or touch sensitive pressure buttons. Again the kiosk is powered by a small solar panel and interacts with the network by wireless connection.
 
I have seen two different versions of how a driver can show they have paid for their time via a kiosk. The first is what I think of as likely the earlier version. In this case the kiosk kicks out a small receipt on paper which the driver then places in the car dashboard. When the parking enforcement people come by they can read the receipt (typically with a bar-code reader) and determine if there is time remaining or if they should issue the bad kind of ticket. The negative to this version is, like the old coin-op or credit card swipe payment, a driver would have to physically go back to the kiosk and their car to pay for added parking time. On my motorcycle, the ticket is accessible to anyone walking by and another driver could adopt my ticket for their car.
 
What I consider the most advanced of all of these options is the kiosk that does not issue a receipt, rather it requests the license plate number on your car. Once entered, the parking enforcement people simply connect with the parking database and look up the license plate number to see if there is still time on the meter. Like the text option on individual meters, a text can be used to recharge this virtual parking meter saving the need to physically go to the space to recharge the time.

This new kiosk arrangement would have made Cool Hand Luke even more frustrated than he already was. You may recall the movie that starts with a Paul Newman, playing the drunken protagonist. He cuts off the heads of a bunch of parking meters. Then he sits down and waits for the police to come by and arrest him.

The remainder of the film is about his experience in prison. It is likely that the most well-known line from the movie happens when Luke is uncooperative with the prison guards. The lead guard (or maybe it was the warden, I don't remember) bellows out in a thick southern accent, "What we have here is a failure to communicate." The guard then proceeds to make Luke's life more miserable than it already is.

Drivers who park on city streets may view parking enforcement a bit like prisoners view prison guards. Unlike the prisoner and guard communication problem, these new parking technologies make for better communication between drivers and parking enforcement. Well, OK, if it's not better communication, at least it is easier communication.

This post was originally published in March of 2015 on another platform:

Back in the mid-2000's there was a buzz about a new technology threatening radio. It was called podcasting (a mash up of the words "iPod" and "broadcasting"). The way it worked back then was a person took an iPod (or similar device) and attached it to their home computer. They would subscribe to podcasts being made available from many sources on the Internet. The device would stay attached overnight with the computer running. The next morning the listener would unplug the fully charged device. Any of the podcasts with new content would be automatically updated. Any that had been listened to in previous days would be automatically deleted. A listener really wasn't restricted to overnight, but there was a requirement for the device to be hooked up with a cable for a length of time to allow the automated downloading and updating of content. The idea was popular among some circles, but usage remained fairly low. The dedicated device seemed more popular for music than for refreshed podcast content.

Then came the rise of the smart phone. Podcast software has been made commonly available on new phones. One difference between the iPod model and the smart phone model is availability of bandwidth. Cell phone bandwidth and WiFi signal coverage has been steadily rising and costs continue to come down. Smart phones are so prevalent now that I've seen reports suggesting that in North America there are more smart phones in use than there are people. With the growth of bandwidth, for a person to get access to a podcast there is no longer a need to hook up a cable and wait. The delivery can come to the phone through the same data paths used for talk, text, email and web surfing. By using the smart phone for podcast content, listeners only have to carry one device. Before they would carry a phone for talk and text, and separately they would carry an iPod (or other audio device) for music and podcast content. The dedicated media player has not disappeared, but with the rise of the integrated smart phone device they are clearly less popular than they once were. Just stroll down the technology aisle at your local store and check out the ratio of smart phones to pocket-sized dedicated media players.

Interestingly, the title of "podcast" has not changed even though those using an actual iPod to play the content are probably small in number. Even when the original model was first in vogue there were other devices (not just iPods) that could download and play the content. Apple did a good job out-marketing the competing media players and the name stuck.

Recently a number of organizations have gone down the path of creating podcasts again. I assume this rise of podcast content is associated with the ubiquity of smart phones. Two of the leading recent examples are Serial, produced by This American Life, and Invisibilia, Produced by NPR. Both of these shows have had downloads numbering in the millions. The recent popularity of podcasts has been so good that it is beginning to get the attention of sponsors. Ads are often embedded in the content.

There is some cross over between media delivery methods. For example more than 200 NPR stations have run Invisibilia content on the broadcast radio air. This American Life agreed to dedicate one of its regular weekly radio broadcast programs to Invisibilia content.

The effect of the rebirth of podcasts remains to be seen. There are many audio podcast content sites springing up all over the Internet. All reports I've seen show radio listenership on the decline while podcast listenership is on the rise. That said, the scales of these two media mechanisms are degrees of magnitude different. Radio listenership is many times higher than podcast listenership right now.

The measurements are not apples-to-apples. Radio listeners are measured in cume (cumulative audience, total number of listeners) and AQH (average quarter-hour, the longer people listen the higher the AQH). Similar to television, if a radio is on there is no way to know how many people are listening. For example, how many people are in the car while the radio is on and are they actually listening? If the family is running errands, several may have headphones on, listening to MP4's in the back seat for example. The numbers are also extrapolated from sampled listeners through polling services such as Arbitron.

Podcasts are measured in number of downloads. Downloading a program is not the same as actually listening to the program. For example if a person downloads the Serial series, but only listens to the first program all the episodes count in the statistics.

Regardless of any statistical errors in counting, what is important is trending. Any statistician will tell you that so long as something is measured in the same way consistently then any error is also consistent. That means the trends will be valid even if the data is slightly off.

One last difference to mention about podcasts. Since these are recorded files shared on the Internet, they are not broadcast over the airwaves. This means that podcasts are not subject to the same rules that content shared over the air is subject to. In the United States, broadcast content is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). I have not seen any sort of rating system for podcast content. It's not required that the content producer offer warnings about the nature of the content, though many do. Rough language and sensitive topics are not unusual in this arena. Much content may be created by people who do not follow journalistic ethical standards. Like much on the Internet, fact checking may be lacking. Some might argue that such standards are not followed on broadcast media either, but at least it is supposed to be. No such restriction exists for podcasts.

As I have experimented with podcasting I find an interesting dilemma. The podcast listening has begun to compete with audio books and radio for my commute and workout listening. I've become a microcosm of the phenomenon of media splintering.

This post was originally published in February of 2015 on another platform:

After nearly a year of doing nothing with this site, and continuing to be unhappy ​with the old bhaven.org site I went back to look at this SharePoint site again and remembered why I tried it out in the first place. A static website has little appeal. At work I've heard websites referred to as a "legacy platform" meaning the old way of doing things. It maybe so. I do participate in social media (FB, Twitter, etc.) except the content there is ephemeral. There is little to no constancy. I don't think a website is much better, but at least there is no technical objection to longer form and the data stays in place for as long as you leave it there and pay the host site provider.

The idea of old media is an interesting one. Five of our children made a choice to serve as missionaries for our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. For the girls this meant 18 months of almost no direct contact. For the boys it meant the same for 24 months. Before each of them left I asked them how they wanted me to write to them. I gave them the choice of either an email or a physical paper letter. Every one of them chose snail mail. You should understand that these kids are plugged in. They have been online their entire lives. They are digital natives in the truest sense. Yet, when they were going to be away and longing for a touch of home, they wanted something to show up in a physical mailbox. Each week my wife and I would set at a computer, type out our message from home, hit print, sign the letter, then stick it in an envelope and drop it in the mailbox for the postman.

This past week I was attending a conference for the North America Broadcasters Association in Toronto, Canada. Interestingly, in the conference bag that showed up at my hotel room I found a nice leather-bound 2015 journal. It has lined pages for writing and each page is marked at the top with an individual date, one for each day of the year.

One other experience I have related to this cross-media trend. I read books. I have lots of them I have read, and plenty yet to be perused. I also have commute time each day. Some years ago I got in the habit of downloading audio books and listening to them during my commute time. I still do. Interestingly I have generally listened to audio books that I have a physical copy of. If I don't have a physical copy, then before I finish listening I often buy a physical copy and put it on the shelf. I'm using the more modern act of listening to an MP3 or MP4 version, yet I still find myself wanting the good old fashioned version with words written on paper. I do actually read some books if they are for school or if I can't find an audio book version. In my post-graduate classes students can opt to download the digital versions of text books. Many take that option, but not all.

I'm not sure what it is that keeps us tied to older forms of media. Maybe it feels somewhat more permanent. I don't know. Much of the theme of the Toronto conference was about where the media of radio is going. We heard how online tools such as podcasts are threatening radio listenership. It's not new. Every time some new medium comes along the others feel threatened. Yet in this day of television, movies, video streams, etc. the theaters are still open on Broadway. We can stream all sorts of music, yet live concerts are still common place. Don't get me wrong. Ever-growing media options to those of us who consume it will likely mean smaller slices of the pie for each of the disparate media. It can be argued whether new media are growing the content distribution pie, or simply carving the pie into ever smaller pieces. It does seem, however, that old media stays with us in some evolved state regardless. Be it our need for the familiar, nostalgia, or a perspective of the quaintness of it, old media somehow continues to stick around.

This post was originally published in March of 2014 on another platform:

I use SharePoint extensively at work. I want to start understanding how I might use it to help our family stay better connected. For years I have managed a website at http://bhaven.org but ​have not updated or refreshed it in a log time. I'm hopeful that by using SharePoint I won't have to personally update the platform as in the past, but now I'll let Microsoft do it. If this gets me where I want to go I'll keep it up. The current space I'm working on is a public space. With time I'll decide how to manage the private space. Wish me luck.

For some years I built the Beach Haven website manually using ipower.com as a hosting site. Some years ago it got difficult with the limited tools I had at the time to keep up every time browser technology changed. I also wasn't able to separately create a mobile friendly version of the site. My solution was to use Microsoft 365, specifically the SharePoint tool. I am very familiar with SharePoint, and the small cost included a public facing site. I just pointed the bhaven.org URL to the SharePoint URL and built the site there. Problem solved, or so I thought.

I ran the site that way for several years. It was convenient, though the tools were a little limited. Then recently I got an email from Microsoft telling me that they would no longer support public facing sites in SharePoint. There was no other obvious option inside MS 365 that I could see.

Lucky for me ipower.com updated it's tool suite. So here I am rebuilding this website using "free" tools included with my ipower account. Their site hosting options are quite affordable and generous with email accounts and site storage space. Unfortunately, that means I will need to repost here the content I built on MS 365. This means for the next few weeks there will be a rush of old content. It will post here as if it was new. For context, I'll add a note in each post about when it was originally available in the MS 365 space.

I doubt anyone is really reading any of this stuff anyway. If you are, I'm sorry you are putting up with my less-than-interesting ramblings. Thanks for somehow finding at least something of value in the posts to burn your time on them. One advantage to this switch is that this tool is actually a blog tool. Unlike the other location, readers can actually comment. Knock yourself out.