Interesting Reads: February 24, 2013

Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us

This must-read looks past the question of “who should pay for our health care?” straight to “why does it cost so much?” It’s a long read, but highly worth it. Fascinating and infuriating. – by Steven Brill – http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/bitter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killing-us/

High Debt and Falling Demand Trap New Vets

Coincidentally, this NY Times piece looks at the economics of veterinary medicine. – by DAVID SEGAL – http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/business/high-debt-and-falling-demand-trap-new-veterinarians.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp&

ECCC 2012: Star Wars Trilogy: The Radio Play – Official Video

It’s the Star Wars Trilogy like you’ve never heard it before! Join voice actors Billy West, Tara Strong, Maurice LaMarche, John DiMaggio, Kevin Conroy, Jess … – by – https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SBzRmWeC6Ds

The Loudness War

Avoid new CD remasters. Yes, you heard me loud and clear. Clarity is now something sorely lacking from modern CD releases. I am referring to the loudness war now prevalent in modern CD mastering. It’s a disgrace, pure and simple. – by – http://www.sharoma.com/loudness_war.htm

Interesting Reads: February 17, 2013

This week brings news of watered-down bourbon, an overly serious look at Star Wars, a great mashup of Sublime and the Beatles, and more. Enjoy for your Sunday!

How Will Maker’s Drinkers Really Respond to Watered-Down Bourbon?

Judging by the storm of protest surrounding the recent decision by Maker’s Mark to water down its bourbon, you’d think the brand is diluting its product with the blood of baby panda bears. – by Reid Mitenbuler – http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2013/02/makers-mark-watered-down-bourbon-scandal-foreign-markets-explanation-lowered-proof.html?ref=pop_serious_eats

Inside the Battle of Hoth: The Empire Strikes Out

How did the Galactic Empire ever cement its hold on the Star Wars Universe? The war machine built by Emperor Palpatine and run by Darth Vader is a spectacularly bad fighting force, as evidenced by all of the pieces of Death Star littering space. But of all the Empire’s failures, none is a more spectacular military fiasco than the Battle of Hoth at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back. - by Spencer Ackerman – http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/battle-of-hoth/

Apple loses Brazilian iPhone trademark ruling

Brazilian regulators have ruled that Apple does not have exclusive rights to use the “iPhone” trademark in the country. But the US tech giant has already lodged an appeal against the decision with the Brazilian regulators. – by – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21449890

COBOL will outlive us all

In the early 1980s, I was told that COBOL was going away and that I should quickly move toward other programming languages. Well, thirty years later, COBOL is alive and well and living in large companies everywhere. – by Eric Bloom – http://www.itworld.com/career/341879/cobol-will-outlive-us-all

Octopus’s Santeria (Beatles vs. Sublime)

Mashup of the Beatles-Octopus’s Garden and Sublime-Santeria by DJ Magnet. DJ Magnet’s web site: http://djmagnet.blogspot.com – by – https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=URCAaQbCsMA

Postcards from the edge

VOYAGER 1 has been beaming data to Earth since 1977. But members of mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in Pasadena, California, are as excited as ever. – by G.F. – http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/02/voyager-mission?fsrc=scn/gp/wl/bl/postcardsfromtheedge

Editorial : Nintendo’s digital content problem and how the Wii U is making things worse

The Wii U’s launch was a bit rocky, to say the least. Missing features, promised TV services and slow-loading, day-one firmware updates left Nintendo fans frustrated and disappointed. – by Sean Buckley – http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/08/nintendo-digital-content-problem-wii-u-ecosystem/

Riding with Uber

The omnipresent web, as accessed through our smartphones, has changed how we navigate the world. Meena and I just ordered dinner through Seamless, my phone blares an ominous warning — one I hadn’t heard since I was a kid — when bad weather will strike, and Yelp can find you a tasty meal in the most unfamiliar neighborhood. I was recently introduced to a web service that isn’t brand new (although not many people I know have heard of it), and it helps that navigation in a much more literal sense.

You might think that a private cab service might not be of much value to someone who lives in New York. For the most part, I’d agree with that. On any street corner, you can stick out your hand and have a cab in less than 60 seconds… most of the time. I know I can be a little Manhattan-centric, but some parts of the boroughs don’t see nearly as much taxi traffic. And if it starts raining, no matter where you are, forget it.

This is where Uber comes in. After downloading their app, you can see all the nearest cars that are available to pick you up, watch them move along a map toward your location, and pick you up curbside. They take you where you need to go, and when you arrive, you simply get out of the car. No fumbling with cash, no swiping your card for the third time because the machine couldn’t read it, no pleading that you’re just fifty cents short. The service automatically bills your credit card and e-mails you a receipt.

I recently had a chance to use the service. I was in Queens, a bit of a hike away from the nearest reliable cab I could hail. Instead, I hailed it through Uber’s Android app, received a text when the driver was ready to pick me up, and had a pleasant, easy ride home. The fare, admittedly, is higher than a yellow cab. A normally $22 cab ride turned into a $32 Uber ride, although the convenience makes it worth it. (I didn’t half to walk the half-mile to Queens Blvd. at midnight.)

If you live in another city, it may be even more worth your while. I know New York is kind of an outlier in how easily we can get cabs here, so if you live in LA or somewhere, this might be a good default option. Uber is currently in about two dozen cities, and I’m betting they have some interest in adding more.

A discount code helped justify that extra $10; in fact, it brought me right back down to normal price. If the bulkier price tag makes you a little wary, you can do the same. I have a referral code if you click right here that will knock $10 off a trip for you, and it’ll do the same for me.

I don’t take cabs too often, and I won’t switch to using Uber every time I need one. Especially in Manhattan, if you can’t take a train, you can take a bus, and if you can’t take a bus, there are those omnipresent yellow cabs. But sometimes, this be a really handy tool to have in my back pocket (literally). If you’re out this weekend, maybe give it a shot.

Interesting Reads: February 10, 2013

In my first post, I promised a linkdump to things that have caught my attention every now and then. Some of these go back a little farther than two weeks, but this is the first post of its kind on here.

Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math

If the pictures of those towering wildfires in Colorado haven’t convinced you, or the size of your AC bill this summer, here are some hard numbers about climate change. – by BILL MCKIBBEN – http://m.rollingstone.com/entry/view/id/29695/pn/all/p/0/?KSID=3b5cc94883247a0dd2e503d13fa71231&ints_viewed=1

New England Clam Chowder

The Food Lab over at Serious Eats discusses how to make a real award-winning chowder. - by J. Kenji López-Alt – http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/01/new-england-clam-chowder-recipe.html

A modern gaming ecosystem emerges, with Microsoft gone and Sony silent

CES is not a games show, as Sony CEO Kaz Hirai pointed out to us in our interview with him last week. That’s his reason for the dearth of PlayStation news at CES this year — the PS3 and Vita were hardly even mentioned at Sony’s press conference. – by Paul Miller – http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/17/3867152/a-modern-gaming-ecosystem-emerges-microsoft-sony

Not in my house: how Vegas casinos wage a war on cheating

“I think most people feel that if you can find a way to beat the casino, more power to you,” says Arnold Synder, his eyes, those telltale features, hidden behind a pair of black sunglasses. – by Jesse Hicks – http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/14/3857842/las-vegas-casino-security-versus-cheating-technology

Here Is What Happens When You Cast Lindsay Lohan in Your Movie

Lindsay Lohan moves through the Chateau Marmont as if she owns the place, but in a debtor-prison kind of way. She’ll soon owe the hotel $46,000. Heads turn subtly as she slinks toward a table to meet a young producer and an old director. The actress’s mother, Dina Lohan, sits at the next table. – by Stephen Rodrick – http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/magazine/here-is-what-happens-when-you-cast-lindsay-lohan-in-your-movie.html?hp&pagewanted=all&_r=3&

Cadaver stem cells offer new hope of life after death

Dead bodies can provide organs for transplants, now they might become a source of stem cells too. Huge numbers of stem cells can still be mined from bone marrow five days after death to be potentially used in a variety of life-saving treatments. – by Jessica Hamzelou – http://www.newscientist.com/mobile/article/dn23034-cadaver-stem-cells-offer-new-hope-of-life-after-death.html

A Wider Umbrella

Until recently, I’d been using trappleton.com as a place to hold only my photographs. That wasn’t bad, but I’ve been working on several projects recently, and not all of them involve photography. I figure this makes a better place to keep all my updates central, whether they have to do with my photography or something else.

In that same vein, this makes a pretty reasonable place to keep links to my existences elsewhere on the web, like on Tumblr (with my friend J Crowley), Instagram, and Twitter. Along with projects I do and my own personal internet hub, I’ll post interesting links once a week or so. Usually, this’ll be a single linkdump post, but if I find something that really grabs my attention I might write about it.

I don’t have much of a plan for this past that, which is a recipe for failure in a lot of books — but that said, I’m not looking to monetize my audience growth through SEO or anything. For now, I’ll leave you with a link to the old blog, where you can find my photos from last summer’s trip to India, which I feel is some of the best work I’ve ever done.