Unnecessary redundancy that is not needed

Why is organizing photos a baffling ordeal?

If you know me, you know that I like to take photos. I have two cameras, one of which is compact enough to fit in my pocket so that I can capture rare or interesting things at the spot. I know that people often wonder "when can I get your pictures?". Organizing photos is a demanding task for me. It's not just a simple matter of transferring files from the memory card to the hard drive. There are many other little tasks, and I will explain why

Photos

Exif

JPEG files produced by digital cameras usually contain Exif metadata (data about data). What it records includes a number of things such as time, aperture, shutter speed, orientation, and other camera settings.

Orientation

While taking photos with portrait orientation, Canon cameras still store the photo in landscape orientation, but flip the orientation information in Exif. As a result, not all software recognizes this method of orientation. Photoshop, ACDSee, Firefox, and IE don't recognize Exif orientation. So for maximum compatibility, I have to rotate these photos manually. There are many software that can do this. But most destroy or partially destroy the original Exif information. The only one that does not, at least for Canon-camera-captured photos, is Canon's own ZoomBrowser application.

Timestamp

As I said, Exif includes timestamp. The file system, NTFS in my case, also records timestamps. NTFS records the timestamps in UTC internally, and displays with user's time zone setting. When I change my system's time zone, the timestamps on my file system appear to shift as well. But this is not the case for the timestamps in Exif, as it is part of the file. I leverage this difference to indicate where the photo was taken, at least in what time zone. I make sure that the timestamp in Exif is the local time where the photo was taken, while the NTFS timestamp is in the time zone of my system. But wait, why am I telling you this? How does this impact my organizing photos? Rotating photos changes the NTFS timestamps. So I have to correct the NTFS timestamps after rotation using ACDSee.

Videos

Canon cameras capture videos in Motion JPEG, a compression scheme that doesn't really compress much. Therefore, videos must be recompressed. And my choice of codec is Xvid. Here are the steps that I must perform to convert MJPEG to Xvid.

• Extract the audio (wav file) from the original video
  
• Convert the wav file to mp3
  
• Encode the video with Xvid as the video codec, and the mp3 as audio
  
• Inspect the quality of the new video (watch two files side by side)
  
• Validate that it is indeed encoded with Xvid and mp3
  
• Restore the original time stamp
  
• Delete the old copy and rename the new copy

Publishing

There are thousands of websites that provide photo service. But I'm not satisfied with any of them. The problem? Size and scale. These websites usually shrink the image size. If the size can be preserved, then most likely they limit your upload capacity. If you know me, then you would know that size and completeness is a big deal to me. There are no free online solutions for 9GiB of 8600+ files. What better place is there than my own hard drive? So I used JAlbum to generate HTML and thumbnails, then I host them with Apache. This process is also time consuming (computer time). I'm looking for alternatives.

Text description

People often ask me why I don't add text to the photos. I could, even with the complex process described above. But it's not the action of adding text that takes most of the time. It's the time spent on deciding what to write. If I were to write anything at all, I must look up the right references, provide background stories, and most important of all, write them in both Chinese and English. I tried this with my trip to Paris and England. And it proved to be a time consuming task as well.

Since it is a complicated process, it is best for me to accumulate the photos for a while and do them in batch. I can achieve economies of scale by performing the same tasks repeatedly in a shorter amount of time.

Wikipedia has everything

Test card

Scale of large things

We often hear "project A will cost $X million" or "something will cost $Y billion" on the news. Do we really understand how big these amounts are? Studies show that a group of people would spend a lot of time to decide how to spend a US$3000 budget, and relatively less on a multi million dollar budget. The reason is simple: we know how big US$3000 is. For your convenience, I've compiled a table of large monetary values. While I was doing this, I realized that the number of units sold is also a frequently mentioned figure on media. So without further ado,

Monetary

Source	Date	Thing	US$	TW¥	CN¥
IMF thru Wikipedia	2006	Nominal GDP of the World	48.25 tr.	1559.77 tr.	356.82 tr.
IMF	2006	Nominal GDP of the U.S.A.	13.19 tr.	426.58 tr.	97.59 tr.
White House	2007	Outlays of the U.S. Federal Government	2.78 tr.	89.85 tr.	20.55 tr.
IMF	2006	Nominal GDP of the P.R.C.	2.64 tr.	85.50 tr.	19.56 tr.
IMF	2006	Nominal GDP of France	2.25 tr.	72.81 tr.	16.66 tr.
HM Treasury	2007	U.K. Government expenditure	1.20 tr.	38.70 tr.	8.85 tr.
IMF	2006	Nominal GDP of the R.O.C.	364.56 b.	11.79 tr.	2.70 tr.
IMF	2006	Nominal GDP of Singapore	132.16 b.	4.27 tr.	977.42 b.
IMF	2006	Nominal GDP of Vietnam	61.00 b.	1.97 tr.	451.12 b.
Forbes	2007	Bill Gate's net worth	59.00 b.	1.91 tr.	436.36 b.
Yahoo Finance	2007	Microsoft's revenue	54.07 b.	1.75 tr.	399.90 b.
Directorate-General of Budget, Accouting and Statistics, Executive Yuan	2007	Outlays of the R.O.C. central government	51.46 b.	1.66 tr.	380.62 b.
Yahoo Finance	2007	Microsoft's gross profit	40.43 b.	1.31 tr.	299.02 b.
Yahoo Finance	2007	Amazon's revenue	13.15 b.	425.14 b.	97.26 b.
IMF	2006	Nominal GDP of Brunei	11.56 b.	373.77 b.	85.51 b.
Apprentice 505	2006	Cruise line industry	10.00 b.	323.30 b.	73.96 b.
NY MTA	2007	Total operating budget of NY MTA	9.72 b.	314.09 b.	71.85 b.
Apprentice 504	2006	Americans spend this much on cereal	6.00 b.	193.98 b.	44.38 b.
IMF	2006	Nominal GDP of Madagascar	5.50 b.	177.78 b.	40.67 b.
Department of Budget, Accounting, & Statistics, Taipei	2007	Taipei government expenditure	4.39 b.	142.05 b.	32.50 b.
Yahoo Finance	2007	Amazon's gross profit	2.46 b.	79.53 b.	18.19 b.
Washington Metro	2007	Budget of 2007	1.89 b.	61.14 b.	13.99 b.
IMF	2006	Nominal GDP of Eritrea	1.16 b.	37.50 b.	8.58 b.
IMF	2006	Nominal GDP of Liberia	614.00 m.	19.85 b.	4.54 b.
Yahoo Movie	1997	Cumm. gross of the movie Titanic	600.79 m.	19.42 b.	4.44 b.
Yahoo Movie	2004	Cumm. gross of the movie Shrek 2	441.23 m.	14.26 b.	3.26 b.
Reuters thru Wikipedia	2007	Official list price of Airbus A380	319.20 m.	10.32 b.	2.36 b.
Taipei MRT	2006	Revenue of Taipei MRT	311.78 m.	10.08 b.	2.31 b.
Yahoo Movie	2003	Cumm. gross of X2: X-Men United	214.95 m.	6.95 b.	1.59 b.
NY MTA	2004	Long Island bus operating budget	100.60 m.	3.25 b.	744.04 m.
Department of RTS, Taipei	1988-2006	Per km cost of high volume lines (Taipei MRT)	89.58 m.	2.90 b.	662.51 m.
IMF	2006	Nominal GDP of Kiribati	70.00 m.	2.26 b.	517.72 m.
Taipei MRT	2006	Pre-tax profit of Taipei MRT	31.55 m.	1.02 b.	233.34 m.

Unit

Source	Start	End	Thing	Unit
ITWorld.com thru Wikipedia	2001/10/25	2006/1/15	Windows XP	400.00 m.
Sony thru Wikipedia	2000/3/4	2007/9/20	PS2 Worldwide	120.00 m.
Wikipedia	2001/10/23	2007/10/15	All iPods	119.00 m.
Sony thru Wikipedia	1994/12/3		PS	102.49 m.
Wikipedia	1983/7/15		NES	61.79 m.
Motorola thru Wikipedia	2004/11/8	2006/7/18	RAZR V3	50.00 m.
Nintendo thru Wikipedia	1990/11/21		SNES	49.00 m.
gamecubicle.com thru Wikipedia	1985/9/13		Super Mario (All-stars excluded)	40.24 m.
GameDaily Biz thru Wikipedia	2000/10/26	2007/9/13	PS2 US	39.10 m.
Nintendo thru Wikipedia	1996/6/23	2005/3/31	Nintendo 64	32.93 m.
Wired thru Wikipedia	1988/10/29		Sega Genesis (Mega Drive)	29.00 m.
Xbox.com thru Wikipedia	2001/11/15	2006/5/10	Xbox	24.00 m.
Nintendo thru Wikipedia	2001/9/14	2007/9/30	GameCube	21.66 m.
ownt.com thru Wikipedia	1988/10/23		Super Mario 3 (All-stars excluded)	18.00 m.
Punch Jump thru Wikipedia	2005/11/22	2007/9/30	Xbox 360 Worldwide	13.40 m.
Nintendo thru Wikipedia	2006/11/19		Wii	13.17 m.
GamePro thru Wikipedia	1998/11/27		Dreamcast	10.60 m.
IGN thru Wikipedia	1998/4/1		StarCraft	9.50 m.
GameDaily Biz thru Wikipedia	2005/11/22	2007/9/13	Xbox 360 US	6.30 m.
Sony thru Wikipedia	2006/11/11	2007/9/30	PS3	5.59 m.

Note: Using the following exchange rates
US$ = TW¥ 32.33
GB£ = US$ 2.03947
US$ = CN¥ 7.396

Vegetables

Year 1997
People: "You eat vegetables!? I didn't know you eat vegetables."
Me: "Yes, I do."

Year 2007
People: "You eat vegetables!? I didn't know you eat vegetables."
Me: "Yes, I do."

Year 2017
People: "You eat vegetables!? I didn't know you eat vegetables."
Me: "Yes, I do."

Bracket

I think brackets should be used in regular writings, where appropriate. For example, in the article "Free My Phone" that I posed earlier, it says

• breaking the link between (the producers of goods and services) and (the people who use them)
  

If the brackets were omitted, it could be interpreted as

• breaking [the link (between the producers of goods and services)] and (the people who use them)
  

which is wrong.

Let me give another example that is more relevant to our daily life: "Combo meal includes beverage, desert, soup or fries". Which one is it?

• (beverage, desert, soup) or fries. (3 or 1 item)
  
• beverage, desert, (soup or fries). (always 3 items)
  

Let me give yet another example from a computer game

• red (wolf meat). (the meat is red)
  
• (red wolf) meat. (the wolf is red)
  

In fact, Civilization IV has adopted the use of brackets when appropriate to describe tech tree prerequisites. For example, fiber optics requires "computers and (plastics or satellites)".

Free My Phone

One day I read this article written by Walt Mossberg, the principal technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, on October 21, 2007 about the ridiculous cell phone market system in the U.S.. The original article is here (contains video). For your convenience, I've added Wikipedia links here.

---

Suppose you own a Dell computer, and you decide to replace it with a Sony. You don’t have to get the permission of your Internet service provider to do so, or even tell the provider about it. You can just pack up the old machine and set up the new one.

Now, suppose your new computer came with a particular Web browser or online music service, but you’d prefer a different one. You can just download and install the new software, and uninstall the old one. You can sign up for a new music service and cancel the old one. And, once again, you don’t need to even notify your Internet provider, let alone seek its permission.

Oh, and the developers of such computers, software and services can offer you their products directly, without going through the Internet provider, without getting the provider’s approval, and without giving the provider a penny. The Internet provider gets paid simply for its contribution to the mix: providing your Internet connection. But, for all practical purposes, it doesn’t control what is connected to the network, or carried over the network.

This is the way digital capitalism should work, and, in the case of the mass-market personal-computer industry, and the modern Internet, it has created one of the greatest technological revolutions in human history, as well as one of the greatest spurts of wealth creation and of consumer empowerment.

So, it’s intolerable that the same country that produced all this has trapped its citizens in a backward, stifling system when it comes to the next great technology platform, the cellphone.

A shortsighted and often just plain stupid federal government has allowed itself to be bullied and fooled by a handful of big wireless phone operators for decades now. And the result has been a mobile phone system that is the direct opposite of the PC model. It severely limits consumer choice, stifles innovation, crushes entrepreneurship, and has made the U.S. the laughingstock of the mobile-technology world, just as the cellphone is morphing into a powerful hand-held computer.

Whether you are a consumer, a hardware maker, a software developer or a provider of cool new services, it’s hard to make a move in the American cellphone world without the permission of the companies that own the pipes. While power in other technology sectors flows to consumers and nimble entrepreneurs, in the cellphone arena it remains squarely in the hands of the giant carriers.

The Soviet Ministry Model

That’s why I refer to the big cellphone carriers as the “Soviet ministries.” Like the old bureaucracies of communism, they sit athwart the market, breaking the link between (the producers of goods and services) and (the people who use them).

To some extent, they try to replace the market system, and, like the real Soviet ministries, they are a lousy substitute. They decide what phones can be used on their networks and what software and services can be offered on those phones. They require the hardware and software makers to tailor their products to meet the carriers’ specifications, not just so they work properly on the network, but so they promote the carriers’ brands and their various add-on services.

Let me be clear: Any company that spends billions to build and maintain a wireless network deserves to be paid for its use, and deserves to make a profit and a return for its shareholders. Not only that, but companies like Verizon Wireless or AT&T Inc. should be free to build or sell phones or software or services.

What Is Needed

But, in my view, they shouldn’t be allowed to pick and choose what phones run on their networks, and what software and services run on those phones. We need a wireless mobile device ecosystem that mirrors the PC/Internet ecosystem, one where the consumers’ purchase of network capacity is separate from their purchase of the hardware and software they use on that network. It will take government action, or some disruptive technology or business innovation, to get us there.

To my knowledge, only one phone maker, Apple Inc., has been permitted to introduce a cellphone with the cooperation of a U.S. carrier without that carrier having any say in the hardware and software design of the product. And that one example, the iPhone, was a special case, because Apple is currently the hottest digital brand on earth, with its own multibillion-dollar online and physical retail network.

Even so, Apple had to make a deal with the devil to gain the freedom to offer an unimpaired product directly to users. It gave AT&T exclusive rights to be the iPhone’s U.S. network for an undisclosed period of years. It has locked and relocked the phone to make sure consumers can’t override that restriction. This arrangement reportedly brings Apple regular fees from AT&T, but penalizes people who live in areas with poor AT&T coverage.

Apple has also, so far, barred users from installing third-party programs on the iPhone, though the company announced last week it will open the phone to such programs early next year. (Web-based iPhone programs–those that run inside the Web browser–have been available from day one.)

These restrictions have rubbed some of the luster off the best-designed handheld computer ever made.

A few other “smart phones” sold primarily to businesses have been freer of carrier restrictions on third-party software and services than typical cellphones. But even these handsets, such as Palm Trēos, Windows Mobile devices, and BlackBerrys, have been partly crippled by carriers in some cases.

As a technology reviewer, I have met with multiple small companies that had trouble getting their programs onto consumers’ phones without the permission of the carriers; getting that permission often requires paying the carriers. Sure, there are some clumsy workarounds that can evade the carrier barrier, but it’s nothing like the ability small software companies have had for decades to offer their products for installation on Windows or Macintosh computers.

We also need much greater portability of phone hardware. Because the federal government failed to set a standard for wireless phone technology years ago, we have two major, incompatible cellphone technologies in the U.S. Verizon Communications Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp. use something called CDMA. AT&T and Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile use something called GSM. Except for a couple of oddball models, phones built for one of these technologies can’t work on the other. So that limits consumer choice and consumer power. If you want to switch from AT&T to Verizon, you have to swallow the cost of a new phone.

But the problem is even worse. The government didn’t require the CDMA companies to include a removable account-information chip, called a SIM card, in their phones. So, unlike people with GSM phones, Sprint and Verizon customers can’t keep their phones if they switch between the two carriers, even though they use the same basic technology. And, the government allows the GSM carriers to “lock” their phones, so a SIM card from a rival carrier won’t work in them, at least for a period of time. Techies can sometimes figure out how to get around this, but average folks can’t.

The carriers defend these restrictions partly by pointing out that they subsidize the cost of the phones in order to get you to use their networks. That’s also, they say, why they require contracts and charge early-termination fees. Without the subsidies, they say, that $99 phone might be $299, so it’s only fair to keep you from fleeing their networks, at least too quickly.

But this whole cellphone subsidy game is an archaic remnant of the days when mobile phones were costly novelties. Today, subsidies are a trap for consumers. If subsidies were removed, along with the restrictions that flow from them, the market would quickly produce cheap phones, just as it has produced cheap, unsubsidized versions of every other digital product, from $399 computers to $79 iPods.

The Federal Communications Commission is selling some new wireless spectrum that will supposedly lead to fewer restrictions for technology companies and consumers, but it’s far from certain that the carriers, with their legions of lobbyists and lawyers, will allow such a new day to dawn. Google Inc. is making noises about trying to bust open the cellphone prison, with new software and services, but that’s no sure bet either.

Remember Landlines?

We’ve been through this before in the U.S., though many younger readers may not recall it.

Up until the 1970s, when the federal government intervened, you weren’t allowed to buy your own landline phone, and companies weren’t able to innovate, on price or features, in making and selling phones to the public. All Americans were forced to rent clumsy phones made by a subsidiary of the monopoly phone company, AT&T, which claimed that, unless it controlled what was connected to its network, the network might suffer.

Well, the government pried that market open, and the wired phone network not only didn’t collapse, it became more useful and versatile, allowing, among other things, cheap connections to online data services.

I suspect that if the government, or some disruptive innovation, breaks the crippling power that the wireless carriers exert today, the free market will deliver a similar happy ending.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.

Indomie Mi Goreng

Indomie Mi Goreng has a MySpace page! (Scroll down to see two people eating 4 packs each.)

Hypercorrection

I have a tendency of hypercorrection with language. For example, "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put!" (no preposition at the end of a clause). Since English is not my native language, real examples are best illustrated in Chinese.

One example I can think of in English is the refusal of using redundant acronyms, such as "PIN number" and "ATM machine".

Picky eating kids

When kids (say 5 to 8) are picky on the dining table, parents usually say "Did you know? Many people in the world don't even have enough food…". And the kids would say "Then we should give them what I don't want to eat". Does this sound familiar? The reason that this repeatedly happens is because kids think in this way

Some people don't have enough food → this is a problem → the solution is to give them food → I happen to have some I don't want

But the adults think like this

Some people don't have enough food → what if I was in that position …

The missing link is "what if I was in that position". Most kids of age 5 to 8 cannot put themselves in others' shoes and think. This is a proven fact in psychology.

In fact, parents make exactly the same mistake in this scenario. Parents do not think "what if I was a 5-year-old…"