Mechanical Turk

Amazon's Mechanical Turk (mturk.com) is a web service I've used, many times, over the years. It perfectly fulfills a hole left by craigslist.org. Criagslist is specifically designed to enable two people to meet for work, fun, etc. Mechanical Turk, on the other hand, is designed for paid work to be done that doesn't require two people to meet (the work is done anonymously).

I've used Mechanical Turk to record news articles for podcasts, answer survey questions (like every lean startup entrepreneur should do), transcribe letters, edit photos, beta test websites, etc. Today, I used it to hire a worker to split a continuous live recording into individual tracks for $2.00 (plus a 50¢ tip).

Getting Results

The key to getting results on Mechanical Turk is to set an appropriate payout and head off any potential miscommunications with detailed, yet simple, instructions.

Here's the description I used for today's task.

I have a (approx.) 1 hour (62 MB) M4A raw, live recording from my jazz jam sessions that needs to be sliced up into individual tracks (songs):

• Download this file: http://my.account.s3.amazonaws.com/JazzJamMay2015.m4a
• This file contains about six jazz jam sessions separated by applause, pauses, speaking, and breaks in the music.
• Split up the music file up into multiple tracks at the end of each session. A jazz jam session ends when you hear the applause or no music is playing (not to be confused with applause after a solo while the music contiues playing).
• When possible, each track should have a few seconds of lead in before the music plays and a few seconds of applause at the end. Discard the remainder of the applause, pauses, speaking, silence, etc.
• Each track shall be saved as a separate file either in M4A or MP3 format.
• Each track filename shall be named JazzJamMay2015Track1.mp3 (or m4a), JazzJamMay2015Track2.mp3, etc.
• To complete this HIT and get credit, either e-mail the tracks to myaccount@gmail.com or provide a link to each track where I can download the tracks.
• No need to enhance or further compress the tracks, once they've been separated. Audio quailty shall not be compromised.
• Note: Don't worry that the opening of the first song is cut off.
• Questions? E-mail me at myaccount@gmail.com or use Mturk.

Apple Pencil

Yes, when the iPhone was introduced by Steve Jobs, in 2007, he panned the stylus since the iPhone used a touchscreen. Now, Apple's announced the Apple Pencil which is a stylus for the iPad Pro, seemingly reversing Steve's original convictions, and some news sites are harping on that.

There are two points to take note of. First, Steve's changed his stance (publicly) on other features Apple shipped. For example, he pointed out that no one wanted to watch video on a tiny iPod Classic screen, and then he allowed video playback in a future iPod.

My second point is more salient in that, early PDAs required a stylus just as today's computers require a mouse or trackpad. And, now, just as a creative person would buy a Wacom pen tablet, so will they buy an Apple Pencil. Optional, yet empowering.

What did I think of the rest of today's keynote?

Blogging On a 1928 Underwood Typewriter

Last month, I blogged about tweeting on my "new" 1928 Underwood typewriter.

Today, with too much time on my hands, I moved up from tweeting to blogging on the typewriter. That was painful and unforgiving. Looking back on what I typed was even more painful since it's a hardcopy and it reads like it was written by a writer with 25 IQ points less than I have. It's no wonder there were no bloggers 100 years ago. ;^D

As the old-timers will point out, I didn't use the requisite two spaces after each period. But, after all the flack they've received for continuing to use two spaces after a period, when writing e-mails, they deserve to have some fun at the expense of us "mono-space kids."

Writing can hardly get more real-time than typing on a typewriter.

Twitter Removes DM Limits

The key to good customer service: Be respectful.

Twitter is all about 140 characters. At least it was, until a couple weeks ago and that could be a problem.

The 140 character limit was driven by the 160 character limit of SMS. A 140 character tweet, preceded by the, up to, 15 character Twitter username along with punctuation fits perfectly into an SMS text. (The reason SMS is limited to 160 characters is an interesting story in itself.)

For the most part, tweets are public which anyone can see; no Twitter account required. On the other hand, a Twitter direct message (DM), which's limited to 140 characters, is always private. Originally, a DM couldn't be sent to any random Twitter user. The recipient has to be a follower of the sender to limit unsolicited, spammy, DMs. A smart decision.

With so many other communication channels to choose from, DMs weren't nearly as popular as messaging on other platforms such, as Facebook and other mobile apps.

The Perfect DM Application 

Over the years, though, I found the perfect application for Twitter's DMs: Customer service with "Big" companies (think: oligopolies).

Why can't we, as consumers, e-mail a tech support question to our ISP, phone company, etc? The answer is obvious: because Cox, AT&T, etc would be inundated with e-mail manifestos, tirades, and diatribes.

However, with more and more "Big" companies using Twitter, the drama of a public customer/company battle could escalate into a PR nightmare. Enter the Twitter DM.

Over the past few years, when I've had a problem with Cox, AT&T, and GoDaddy, I've used Twitter DMs to get ahold of their customer service department without drama or waisting my time navigating an interactive telephone menu.

The process is simple: Send a respectful tweet to the corporation's customer support Twitter account:
"Hi, I'm having a problem with my service. Could you follow me so I can DM you?"

These companies have active social media customer support personnel, so it usually takes only five or ten minutes, during business hours, before they've followed me. In many cases, they'll immediately DM me, before I've even noticed they started following me.

For this to work, you need a reproducible problem. With Cox, my connectivity, which is typically 100+Mbps had dropped to less than 100Kbps. I DM'd them a screen shot of the slow bandwidth with a note that I've restarted the cable modem and other steps I took to troubleshoot the problem. They're responses have typically been, "We're seeing the same issue. We can have a technician out there, tomorrow, between 8am-noon, noon-4pm, or 4pm-8pm. Which works best for you?"

Now that is amazingly quick and simple. This entire interaction might take place over the course of 30 minutes, but I actually spend less than five minutes documenting my troubleshooting steps and DMing the CSR.

This technique can work for complicated support issues, too. GoDaddy consolidated my domain names into a single account, but the DNS for some of the domains didn't transfer, which I discovered the next day when incoming mail was bouncing back to the senders. I explained the issue all within 140 characters. They quickly responded that they were on it, as they reinstated the backup copies of my DNS.

Concerns

So, that gets to my concern. Twitter has removed the 140 character limit in DMs which could mean CSRs might be reluctant to continue using it if they begin receiving long and unreasonable messages. And I'm wondering what Twitter will gain by making this change. Of course, they could always switch back to the 140 character limit and use e-mail when needed, as GoDaddy and I did.

Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but I feel like removing the 140 character limit is the equivalent of showing up at a haiku conference and saying, "Hey, everyone, instead of doing 5-7-5, we're going to do 7-5-7 so we have more content."

Yes, I'm a customer service snob. But I've been on both sides of the fence and I give as good as I expect.

Too Perfect To Fly Casual

Today seemed like the perfect day to go flying, sunny and mid-70s. It turns out it was too perfect to fly casual.

It was unusual when I taxied up to the runway and there was only one plane ahead of me and none behind as I did my runup. I figured they'd be a lot of pilots looking to take advantage of today's weekend weather. But it turns out I was ahead of the rush as we departed on a 25 minute flight from Montgomery Field to Palomar Airport.

As I entered Palomar Airport's traffic pattern, the control tower asked me to make a right 360°, meaning they had a lot of planes in the traffic pattern. A standard rate 360° turn takes two minutes. After completing my turn I proceeded downwind for a minute or two when the airport tower asked me to repeat the maneuver. There were some mountains less than a mile to my right and higher than me that I kept an eye on since my navigation system kept giving me terrain alerts.

After my second 360°, the tower controller had me continue downwind a few more miles before turning base to make my final approach. One 360° means the airport traffic pattern is congested, two 360° turns tells me they're very busy. But it all worked out.

Flying Home

Flying back to Montgomery Field was even more congested. The busiest airspaces are designed as Class B, also known as bravo airspace, surrounding the most active airports. San Diego's Lindbergh Field and the Marine Corps' Miramar Air Station, both surrounded by bravo airspace, are eight miles apart. About halfway in between these two airports is my home airport, Montgomery Field. Getting in and out of Montgomery Field, without going through bravo airspace, requires a little finesse. Two alternatives are to ask for a clearance into the bravo airspace or to request an IFR clearance. An IFR clearance is like having a second sets of eyes (air traffic control) looking out for my well being; but it also means I'd have to follow their flying instructions which isn't always the most direct route.

When I reached the outer edge of the bravo airspace, I began orbiting the Del Mar Racetrack as I tuned in air traffic control. It was virtually impossible to get a word in edgewise. The air traffic controller was continually giving instructions to the airlines flying into and out of Lindbergh Field. After a long several minutes there was a pause. I asked for clearance into the bravo airspace and she immediacy said, "Unable." I continued to orbit for a few more minutes, hoping she'd call me back, but that never happened.

I began heading back to Carlsbad so I'd be in a less busy area as I dialed in a new air traffic control frequency and requested an IFR clearance to get me into Montgomery Field. Air traffic control issued me my clearance, gave me a heading to fly, an altitude to climb to, and a new frequency to switch to. It seamed that the air traffic controller and I were the only two people on this frequently. The same was true for the next frequency I switched to. Those were good signs that things were not busy where I was being routed to as I began my approach to Montgomery Field.

The last air traffic controller began lining me up with the runway about eight miles from the airport. Normally, from this point, it's smooth sailing to touch down, especially since the weather was clear. Once I was lined up I tuned in Montgomery tower to let them know I was approaching the airport. The tower asked me if I could cancel my IFR clearance and fly VFR. This seemed unusual, but I told her that I could do it. She then told me to make right 360° turns. Next, she told about six aircraft, on the ground, waiting to take off, to hold their requests for six minutes until she cleared out the inbound traffic.

As I completed my first 360° the tower cleared me to land where I could see a line of planes, leading to the runway, waiting for their departure clearances. That's when I realized the reason for the congestion at Montgomery Field was due to the fact that the airport has three runways and two were under construction. Usually, the two parallel runways at the airport are in use, simultaneously. With the beautiful weather bringing out private pilots, like me, and every plane vying for the same runway, it made flying a bit more exciting. Unlike driving, flying alway yields new learning experiences.

Random Thoughts on Randomness

Here's a random thought on randomness...

In a typical state lottery, like California's Powerball, a player chooses five or six combinations of numbers between 1 and 59.

So, how likely is a lottery's winning set of numbers to be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6?

Surprisingly, it's no more or less likely than California's most recent Power Ball winning numbers: 3, 13, 17, 42, 52, 24. Random numbers are random numbers. While 1, 2, 3, etc doesn't seem random, it's no different than any other combination with non-patterns. Don't forget, since we're dealing with pure numbers there's solid mathematics behind it.

The Medium is the Message

The medium is the message. Sometimes that medium is specific, like an advertisement or newspaper, and other times it's general such as a person or environment.

Leaders who pride themselves on not being politically correct are entertainers since they've forgone the actual issue to choose form over substance. We have an expectation that respected politicians, who are to be taken seriously, will be politically correct; hence the plain English description: politically correct. While this phrase is usually used as a pejorative, it can also connote tact. And tact, coupled with good intentions, are the lubricants of human relationships.

Instead of creating problems, we need more leaders who can solve problems. And, sometimes, we need leaders who know how to follow – in other words, we need leaders who are team players, not dictators.

RIP Apple Online Store: 1997 – 2015

It brings a tear to my eye that Apple shut down the Apple Online Store, yesterday.

When I worked at the Apple Online Store, almost a decade ago, it fell under Apple's Engineering department. More specifically, the online store fell under Eddy Cue who also oversaw the iTunes Music Store, as it was originally called since it initially only sold music. That changed, about half a dozen years ago, when the online store moved out from Engineering, into Apple's IT department (IS&T).

Of course you can still buy Apple hotness at apple.com, but there isn't a separate tab for the store. Instead, you add items to your shopping bag, directly from a product's marketing page.

I've always enjoyed telling people about my experience at the Apple Online Store. Before each of Steve Jobs's Keynote speeches, we'd turn off the store then Steve Jobs would take the stage and announce the new products we, the store software engineers, didn't even know about. After he walked off stage we'd turn the store back on under a huge load. Most customers would skip the marketing pages for the new projects and immediately go to the online store and add the new products to their cart to see the prices, configurations, and order ship times. I learned some important load balancing and stress testing lessons while working at the Apple Online Store, especially for scaling servers and writing fault tolerant code.

Does this change make sense? Of course. Looking back, I ask myself why it wasn't this simple in the first place. Probably because this was how it was done in the 1990s. Now, without an explicit store, each product's marketing page is where you browse and the shopping bag has become the checkout portion of the old online store. At first, I was wondering where I'd find accessories. It turns out those are under each of the respective product tabs (Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Watch). So, it all works out. As Apple grows bigger and bigger, streamlining and simplifying processes pays the company dividends.

Underwood Typewriter

A century of keyboarding.

I've been looking to acquire a working mechanical typewriter since I saw one for sale in Annapolis, last year.

A few months ago, I added my name to a waitlist at a local shop that receives typewriters, from time to time. A couple weeks later, I got an e-mail from the shop about one they had, but, by the time I got there, it was gone. Earlier this week, I received another e-mail that three were in stock, so, yesterday, I biked over to check them out.

"Dear Mom,"

Antique mechanical typewriters are not cheap, especially if they're in working condition. I fell in love with the first one I saw, today, and bought it. It was manufactured in 1928 by the Underwood Typewriter Company which produced the first widely successful, modern typewriter. When Underwood was in its heyday as the world's largest typewriter manufacturer, it was turning out typewriters at the rate of one per minute

In the Internet age of instant gratification, real-time is a big deal. Surprisingly, it doesn't get anymore real-time than pressing a key and seeing a character appear on paper, instantly. Obviously, mechanical typewriters are too real-time, and unforgiving. Perhaps my keyboarding skills have deteriorated, but I am overly conscience of making typos as I press each key.

I took my new toy home last night and wrote my first typewritten note. Today, I sealed it in an envelop, put a stamp on it, and mailed it to my mother. It has been decades since I last did that.

After mailing the letter, I couldn't resisted using my typewriter to send out a tweet.

Tweeting with a typewriter.

Tijuana Manufacturing for Kickstater

Wire harness manufacturing.

This past week, I took a group business tour of a few manufacturing factories in Tijuana, Mexico. The tour was part of the San Diego Inventor's Club and Kickstarter Meetup that I've helped coordinate for the past year and a half.

We visited a few different factories that specialized in textiles, injection molding, and electronics. Two of the factories looked as I expected. But one looked ultra-new and high tech with impressive security. After checking the bus's undercarriage for bombs, this high security facility, which required all employees to back into their parking spots, carefully reviewed everyone's paperwork. A few people were denied entry, since their paperwork wasn't in order. 

The key purpose of this tour was for members of our meetup to establish connections with companies in Tijuana who could make the products they're fundraising for on Kickstarter. The idea, rather than outsourcing to China, is to explore nearshoring opportunities in Mexico.

What made this a no brainer for our group of two dozen is that the Tijuana EDC arranged for our transportation, tours, and lunch. 

Leadership Observation

Back in the U.S.A.

I made an interesting group observation at the end of the tour. Our tours went smoothly, but crossing the border back into the United States is always dicey in terms of how long it will take. It can take less than 30 minutes or it can take three hours, or longer. Our bus dropped everyone off at the border crossing building and it took us less than 30 minutes to walk across the border. Then we waited on the American side of the border for our bus for more than an hour. At first, we weren't sure where our bus was until we walked up to an overpass, to peek into Mexico, and saw our bus sitting idle, awaiting inspection. 

At this point, we had had a long day after spending 12+ hours on the bus or on tours. This is when a few people's patient was starting to wear thin and I noticed the difference between the true leaders, the followers, and the "not a team player" people. In the corporate world, leaders are managers and followers are individual contributors.

Career individual contributors focus inward, since they aren't responsible for any direct reports, while managers focus outward. True leaders set the example and don't needlessly complain, "Where the hell's our bus? It's stuck at customs? This is ridiculous. Don't you think this needs to be fixed?" We've all seen it before, it's useless complaining from high maintenance people which makes the situation worse.

This minor observation is one I take for granted given my formal leadership training and experiences. But a little stress, put on people when they're tired or hungry, brings out tantrums. Stress Can Make You Behave Like a Toddler is a perfect description. Fortunately, for us, mob mentality worked in our favor since most everyone was a strong leader and they didn't bite the hook cast out by the complainers.

There's a new joke: Before marrying someone, you should sit them down in front of a computer with a slow and intermittent Internet connection to see how they behave.