Author Archives: chitowngeorge

Dec 20 2010

Batch #50

It’s Been a While

Wow. It’s been so long since my last post here I forgot my password! I am involved in a new music project, so hopefully I’ll have more to write about as things progress on that front. In the mean time, I thought I’d end the dry spell with some beer news.

Batch #50

This past weekend I racked* my 50th batch of beer. I didn’t notice the milestone until I logged the batch into the spreadsheet I use to keep track. Had I realized, I would have tried to do something special for this batch. As it was, it just ended up being a basic porter thrown together with left over ingredients from previous recipes.

Oh, well. It should turn out to be a decent beer, at any rate.

Batch #49

The batch before the 50th, however, turned out to be an amazing beer. I brewed a Bourbon Barrel Aged Porter. It was based on the Norther Brewer Bourbon Barrel Porter recipe, with some minor modifications.

The “barrel aging” is faked, of course. You take oak chips (or cubes) and soak them for a few days in a top quality bourbon (I used Maker’s Mark, as the recipe suggests), then add the wood and bourbon to the beer in the secondary fermenter.

The beer came out great, the best thing I’ve done in a long time. (This was welcome after this year’s Vanilla Porter did not turn out that great.) I took some to a holiday party last Friday and it was universally praised by all who tasted it.

Maybe I’ll hang on to this recipe for the 100th Batch milestone. That is, if I don’t miss that one, too

*Transferred to the secondary fermenter.

Sep 26 2010

What Apple Should Do With the iPod Classic

This is something I’ve been thinking about a fair bit lately, so I thought I’d share my thoughts here. After all, it’s been over a month since I posted anything. (I blame Twitter – most quick thoughts end up get whittled down to less than 140 characters now, whereas I used to expand on those thoughts. This definitely warrants more than 140 characters.)

Earlier this month Apple announced the new iPods. Before the event, some of the tech blogs wondered if we’d see the elimination of the iPod Classic. Of course, that didn’t happen. There’s still a market for the device, and it still makes money for Apple. I find myself squarely in the target demographic for the iPod Classic. Some people care about storage capacity more than running apps and whatnot. We’ve already got iPhones for apps, some of us don’t mind having a separate device for music.

I have a large collection of music in my iTunes library. My iPhone only holds 16GB. Sure I could have gone with the 32GB one, but it wouldn’t have been enough. My 80GB iPod Classic is full, so there would be really no point in a 32GB iPhone for me.

It’s not just the size of my collection, either, but the fact that I have many files that are in either Apple’s lossless format (ALAC), or at least saved at much higher bitrates than what most people use for their digital music. These files take up much more room than the mp3s most people listen to (and sound much better, as a result).

So, I, and people like myself, are the target for the Classic. People who have large collections of music in higher quality formats.

And, when I say my iPod is full, I mean I have to be selective about the music sync to my iPod. I was hoping this month’s iPod announcements would include either a price drop on the existing models, or larger capacity iPods. Neither of these things happened.

So now, if I decide to upgrade my current 80GB model, my only option is 160GB. That’ll do for now, but I know myself; I’ll keep adding to my collection, using higher quality formats, and that 160GB will fill up in no time.

I’m sure you see the point I’m getting at: If people like me are the target demographic for the larger capacity iPods, then Apple should increase the capacity, and they should keep doing this every year as storage technology advances.

What’s more, Apple needs to revisit the capabilities of the current iPod Classic. I don’t mean by adding apps and whatnot, but rather improve what it already does. What do I mean by this? I have files in my library that I can’t even play on my iPod because they are a higher resolution than what it supports. According to the spec page for the Classic, 320 Kbps is the highest it supports*. This is fine for most people, but I’ve got high-def ALAC files that are up to 2800 Kbps. I can’t even load those on my iPod.

Also, I don’t understand why Apple hasn’t added FLAC support to the iPod. Yes, ALAC is technically equivalent to FLAC, but FLAC is the preferred format for higher-quality audio files. Although, both Livephish.com and Livedownloads.com both now offer ALAC as an option, but they’re the exception. People who trade live recordings (legally) tend to use FLAC. There are tools, of course, to convert FLAC into ALAC or AAC, but it’s a pain to constantly have to do this.

I’m glad Apple didn’t discontinue the Classic, as some people predicted. But, I would love to see some updates to the beloved model. So, Apple, do us a favor: Update the Classic with higher storage capacity, support for higher bitrates, and FLAC support.

Sincerely,

Your customers who still buy the iPod Classic.

*The support page only lists bit rates for AAC and MP3, but not for ALAC. The Classic may support higher bit rates for ALAC, but I can’t find anything that says what the max is. I just know it won’t play (or even sync) 2800 Kbps files. Also, it occurs to me that the bit rate might not be the problem, it could be the sample size and sample rate (which, for the files in question is 24 bit/96kHz). Either way, it would be nice if the iPod Classic support high-def files.

Jul 30 2010

South Pond at Lincoln Park Zoo

The other day I arrived early to pick up Carrie from work and had some time to kill.  I decided to go for a walk and check out the newly rehabbed South Pond at Lincoln Park Zoo (the Pond is not actually part of the zoo, it’s part of the park, but LPZ is responsible for it now that the rehab is done).

If you’re unaware, the pond just went through a major rehabilitation project to turn it into a more natural habitat.  You can read a little more about the project here: Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo.

At any rate, they did a magnificent job.  Walking around the pond, the feeling is of being far away from the city, except you have the magnificent skyline as the backdrop.  It’s a wonderful experience.  Some of the indigenous plant-life that was added has not fully grown out yet, but when it does it will add to the allusion of being a million miles from nowhere.

If you’re in the city, or coming for a visit, it is definitely worth checking out.

I took some photos while I was there.  You can head over to my Flickr page to check them out: South Pond at Lincoln Park Zoo.

South Pond at Lincoln Park Zoo

Jul 13 2010

It’s almost here…

This morning I noticed the scaffolding had been taken off the front of the building under construction at North and Halsted.  The logo on the front of the building was covered with a black cloth/tarp, but it was easily discernible.  I didn’t have enough time to get out my iPhone and grab a picture before the light changed (I’ll try tomorrow).

It won’t be long now.  Does anyone know if there’s a scheduled opening date yet for the new Apple Store?

UPDATE:

New Apple Store

Managed to snap a pic as I was driving by today:

Jun 7 2010

“Old Guy” Moment

This is one of those “You Know You’re Getting Older When…” posts.

So, I finally bought a new (well, used) car*.  On Saturday, I went to the bank to get a loan.  While I was going through the steps with the banker, at one point she asked for a second proof of ID, like my debit card.  But, what she actually said was “bank card”, and for a moment I thought she meant my bank ID card.  My first reaction was thinking “I haven’t had a bank ID card in, like, twenty years”.

Of course it only took a second to realize what she meant, and when I did I laughed a bit.  So, I had to tell her why I laughed, and then had to explain that some banks used to issue ID cards so that you could identify yourself to the teller when you went to the bank to get money out of your account.

Suddenly, I realized I was the old guy explaining how things used to work in the olden days before ATMs.

*I’ll post about the car later this week (or next) after it gets delivered.

Jun 2 2010

Steve Jobs at the D8 Conference

Some great video highlights of Steve’s talk at the All Things Digital D8 conference on a variety of subjects.  Must watch/read for any Apple fan, or anyone even slightly interested in the state of technology today and where it’s headed.

Steve Jobs at D8

May 25 2010

Thoughts on Mobile Flash

So, the big story/controversy/hub-bub in the tech world right now is mobile Flash.  Everyone knows Apple won’t allow Flash on the iPhone due to its poor performance.  Now, Flash has been shown running on Android.  It was buggy and slow, and turned the entire browsing experience in to a painful mess.

Now, many geeks have been clamoring for Flash, even though it’s a dying technology, and have been bashing Apple for their hard-line stance against Flash.  “At least give us the choice,” seems to be the rallying cry.  Apple is taking away their choice to run (and write) Flash.  These same geeks are defending the horribly running Flash on Android saying that you can turn it off.  At least you have the choice.  You can run it when you want to access sites like Hulu, but turn it off for regular browsing.

Here’s the problem, and this is why this is bad for Android and Google.  The average user (you know, the target demographic if you want these devices to actually be profitable) could care less about Flash.  What’s more, and here’s the key, they won’t know how to turn it off.  Only the geeks who think there’s a need for Flash in the future of the mobile web will know how to turn it on and off.  The average user will be stuck with it (because it’ll be there by default).  The average user won’t have the choice, so all they are going to see is how painful it is to surf the web on their Flash-running Android device.

What’s worse is they’re not even going to know that Flash is the problem.  All they’re going to see is how slow and buggy their web browser is.  Then, they’re going to look over at their iPhone (and iPad) using friends, and see them browsing the web with no problems, and still getting Hulu through the iPhone/iPad app that will certainly come out in the near future.  Then, they’re going to wonder why they didn’t just get an iPhone in the first place.

This is the part the geeks, and by extension the tech websites, don’t seem to get.  Apple could care less if the geeks flock to Android, with feelings of false superiority just because they can run Flash, as long as the average user (the majority of their customers) have a flawless, “it just works”, experience with their iPhones.  They’re not going to let the vocal minority’s hollering stand in the way of that.

Let Google and Android market to the geeks, we’ll see how well that works out for them and mobile Flash.