Month: October 2004

QTN™: John Harvard’s Provision Ale

It feels odd reviewing a beer that’s been available for less than a week, but I’m not complaining. John Harvard’s Provision Ale is so new, it’s not even on the beer list yet. When we picked a growler of it up a week ago, it was a day old. And it’s impressive. A dark, dark ale, almost black, it has a nose like a stout—malty, almost sweet—but an ale’s mouthfeel—light-bodied, malt balanced out by hops (and alcohol). I’d love to see an ABV or BU measurement on this ale, but I’m guessing both of them are pretty high. This is good stuff, and I hope it enters the regular rotation at the pub.

For more information about the style, check out this Michael “Beer-Hunter” Jackson article on Old Ale and check out the paragraph next to the second pull-quote. Basically, Provision Ales were meant to lay down, hence the high hops and alcohol content.

VP debate, part II

Interjected question: how will the administration go after Osama in a second term? Cheney completely refuses to answer the question, slipping in hits on the Kerry/Edwards defense record as he does so. Edwards redirects to the Veep’s distortion on the “global test” question. Cheney makes an interesting comparison between El Salvador in the 80s and Afghanistan today. Edwards brings up Cheney’s support for lifting sanctions on Iran and North Korea.

The moderator gives Edwards an opportunity to clarify the “global test” remark from the last debate. He says, “For America to lead…it is critical that we be credible. It is critical that when America takes action, they [our allies] can believe…that the word of the President of the United States is always good.” Right on, John.

Next question: “Will the US be in greater danger from terror attacks if John Kerry is elected?” Cheney claims that Kerry and Edwards were swayed by Dean’s anti-war platform. Edwards hits Cheney for hypocrisy on the weapons systems issues. Halliburton enters the fray, but Cheney reiterates on the flip-flop point—and to be fair, Edwards didn’t hit it well.

Edwards is doing a pretty good job of pointing out places where the US could internationalize. Cheney hits weakly on the “wrong war, wrong place, wrong time” point, and makes an interesting point about the casualties of the Iraqi allies.

VP debate, part 1

With the opening question, Cheney comes out swinging against the Kerry campaign’s positions, trying to make the case and sounding reasonably cogent despite speaking a mile a minute. Edwards responds, sounding less than solid—“Iran” for “Iraq,” though he corrects himself. On the rebound, Edwards attacks hard on the connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda with no chance for response.

Follow up question is a hard one: Would Saddam still be in power if Kerry had been in power? Edwards reiterates the point about subcontracting the hit on Osama to the Afghani warlords. Response: “I have not suggested that there is a connection between Iraq and 9/11.” Oh really? How about a year ago? How about this week?

Veep debate drinking game

Whatever would we do without Wonkette? Just in time, she’s posted a Vice Presidential Debate Drinking Game. Highlights in the bonus round:

  • Edwards calls himself the “son of a mill worker”: Chug a bottle of moonshine.
  • Edwards refers to Cheney’s six deferments: Have sex without using birth control.
  • Cheney mentions “family values”: Do a shot with your gay daughter.
  • Cheney refers to Edwards’s lack of foreign policy experience: Look for a WMD.
  • Edwards talks about “fighting for people just like the ones I grew up with”—sip expensive drink while thinking nostalgic thoughts about the people you grew up and their Budweisers.
  • Cheney tells Edwards to go f___ himself: Watch him try.

Economics of the Long Tail in the Blogosphere

It appears the most interesting article in the last print edition of Wired is now online. “The Long Tail” talks about movie and music consumption in terms of the power law (i.e. there are a few very popular releases followed by an infinitely long set of steadily less popular ones), but explores the economic implications of being able to provide immediate access to everything, not just the most popular releases:

What’s really amazing about the Long Tail is the sheer size of it. Combine enough nonhits on the Long Tail and you’ve got a market bigger than the hits. Take books: The average Barnes & Noble carries 130,000 titles. Yet more than half of Amazon’s book sales come from outside its top 130,000 titles. Consider the implication: If the Amazon statistics are any guide, the market for books that are not even sold in the average bookstore is larger than the market for those that are (see “Anatomy of the Long Tail”). In other words, the potential book market may be twice as big as it appears to be, if only we can get over the economics of scarcity. Venture capitalist and former music industry consultant Kevin Laws puts it this way: “The biggest money is in the smallest sales.”

The same is true for all other aspects of the entertainment business, to one degree or another. Just compare online and offline businesses: The average Blockbuster carries fewer than 3,000 DVDs. Yet a fifth of Netflix rentals are outside its top 3,000 titles. Rhapsody streams more songs each month beyond its top 10,000 than it does its top 10,000. In each case, the market that lies outside the reach of the physical retailer is big and getting bigger.

When you think about it, most successful businesses on the Internet are about aggregating the Long Tail in one way or another. Google, for instance, makes most of its money off small advertisers (the long tail of advertising), and eBay is mostly tail as well – niche and one-off products. By overcoming the limitations of geography and scale, just as Rhapsody and Amazon have, Google and eBay have discovered new markets and expanded existing ones.

But that’s not all. You can extend this to Clay Shirky’s infamous “Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality” article. Shirky posited that online, the most famous bloggers get attention—incoming links—in something that looks like a power curve. But by extension of the principle of “the long tail,” once you get over the idea that there is a scarcity of attention online, everyone else’s blog looks more and more valuable. Why are there blog entries for just about any search you can do in Google? It’s not a bug. The individual voices of bloggers, even if they think they’re writing for no audience at all, can provide an infinite amount of interesting and valuable insight, provided someone helps you find it (that’s Rule 3 of the “long tail” phenomenon).

That’s why the most valuable services for blogs haven’t been authoring platforms—you can write a blog in Notepad and FTP it up, or you can choose from probably about a hundred different platforms written with varying degrees of professionalism—but services like Kinja, LiveJournal, Feedster, Technorati, feeds.scripting.com, and of course Google itself that help you find the valuable and interesting content.

Around the ‘sphere

Other stuff:

Checking in with the Mothman

I’ve finally gotten around to posting Jim Heaney’s one-year-after-the-trail catch-up letter, in which he reflects on the people and places he saw on his through-hike of the Appalachian Trail, updates us on the whereabouts of some trail buddies, and finally reveals the origin of his mysterious nickname. If you’re just entering Mothman territory, you can find his other letters here, or read the full story on one gargantuan page.

Pega luna, Manny!

Cool new music of the day: Joe Pernice’s “Moonshot, Manny (Pega luna, Manny),” written for the Red Sox as they enter the playoffs. Lyrics here; story here. The song, which Joe expects to have a short shelf life (though I’ve already seen the Boston Globe say it should be played regularly in Fenway), is available only via download, and only with a donation in the amount of your choice to First Night Boston.

Oh, and apropos my previous rant, it’s available in AAC or MP3, your choice. No word if the AAC is protected or free, but at least you have a choice.

Stolen music, Mr. Ballmer? Or sour grapes?

Three years ago, I was enraged to hear Steve Ballmer, the not-quite-statesmanlike CEO of Microsoft, call open source a “cancer.” Tarring a development practice that’s resulted in some really good software—as well as the viral license of the GPL—with a very broad brush when Microsoft was trying to win the hearts and minds of developers to a new development platform struck me as foolish at best and stupid at worst. I was reminded of the comments, which Microsoft has since backed down from, when I read today’s “iPod-users-are-pirates” comment:

We’ve had DRM in Windows for years. The most common format of music on an iPod is “stolen”…

My 12-year-old at home doesn’t want to hear that he can’t put all the music that he wants in all of the places that he would like it.

Steve, where I come from, we call a statement like that condescending, inflammatory, and probably libelous—in short, fighting words. Speaking as an iPod owner who carries around 10 GB of both licensed music and tracks ripped from my own CDs, I also feel that much less inclined to investigate Microsoft’s digital music offerings if that’s what you think of music customers.

As I recall, the Sony decision pretty much set the precedent that, once you pay for media in one format, you have the right to shift it in the form of a recording for personal use. So someone might want to let Steve’s 12-year-old that he does have the right to put his music where he’d like it, as long as (a) he didn’t steal the music file in the first place, and (b) he isn’t distributing it widely to other individuals.

And Steve, we have a word for your whine about having DRM on Windows for years. It’s called “ignoring market reality.” Windows Media isn’t stagnating while the iPod takes off because customers are thieves. If anything, it’s stagnating because the DRM in Windows Media starts with the proposition that customers are thieves.

(Via BoingBoing.)

Oh, my aching

The back pain from yesterday isn’t getting any better. It’s a good thing the gutters are done; I don’t think I could climb a ladder today, much less lift one.

It was at least a productive weekend. We now have:

  • A working dehumidifier in the basement, keeping watch over my books
  • A working garage door opener, thanks to the expedient of an extension cord (there are no outlets in the garage, at least not until the electrician gets here next week)
  • A formerly flaking eave (singular of eaves?) that has been scraped and primed
  • Clean gutters
  • An official place to keep the dogs’ leashes and our mittens (I cannot emphasize how happy that makes me—less the mittens than the leashes. We found a back-of-the-door ClosetMaid shelf system at Lowe’s that I installed yesterday)
  • Better light in the living room and the first-ever light in our so-far-only-used-for-storage third bedroom
  • And a new discovery: growlers from John Harvard’s Brew Pub. In the fridge we currently have a Pale Ale, their pseudo-Belgian Shakespeare’s Wit, and their new Provision Ale. Reviews forthcoming.

Also new: waking up to the sound of the radiators hissing as they got up to temperature. I finally got around to programming the thermostat, and it was nice to wake up to a slightly warmer house. Now I just have to fix my back.

Longfellow’s Wayside Inn

My aunt came into town tonight with a half-dozen relatives in tow— my first cousin once removed Esta and her husband Lou, my other first cousin once removed Barbara, my second cousin Beth… there are a lot of cousins at various degrees of removal on my mother’s side. We had dinner with them in Sudbury, at Longfellow’s Wayside Inn. Not quite as full-on traditional Yankee as Durgin Park, but close. It’s been a long time since I’ve been asked if I want mint sauce with my lamb.

I enjoyed it, though my back was screaming at me the whole meal. We had spent the day cleaning gutters, after spending part of yesterday on the ladder installing a security light, and on one of those trips up and down the ladder my back decided it had had enough.

John Robb on Kerry’s global test

John Robb thinks that Kerry lost this first debate, given that all Bush needed to do was hold Kerry to “tactical victories,” but he also provides much needed context for Kerry’s “global test” remark. At the time, I thought Kerry was just foolishly playing into right-wing paranoia about new world orders. It turns out that, according to Robb, he’s referencing part of Col. John Boyd’s “grand strategy” concept, the moral connectivity vector:

A key test of moral connectivity is proper conduct within alliances.  If a member of an alliance takes independent action that puts the other alliance members at risk, it needs to have a strong moral justification for that action.  If it fails that test, the alliance will melt away, and the independent actor will become isolated.

The post points to a fascinating article on Boyd’s strategic thought at Global Guerrillas. Thought provoking.