Monthly Archives: January 2009

Review: The Economist

Reviews

A few months ago, I asked for suggestions for magazines to subscribe to. I got a lot of helpful suggestions, and subscribed to three: The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Economist.

Today, I’m reviewing the only one of the three that I’m disappointed in, and it’s The Economist. This comes as something of a surprise, because so many people (with the exception of Bryan O’Sullivan) recommended it.

Let’s start with a quote from the issue that found its way to my mailbox this week:

A crowd of 2m or more is making its way to Washington, DC, to witness the inauguration of Mr Obama. Billions more will watch it on television. [link]

Every issue, I see this sort of thing all over. An estimate, or an opinion, presented as unquestioned fact, sometimes pretty clearly wrong or misleading. For weeks before Jan. 20, and even the day before, the widely-reported word from officials was that they had no idea what to expect, but if they had to guess, they’d say that attendance would be between 1-2 million. In the end, the best estimates have placed attendance at 1.8 million.

Would it have killed them to state that most estimates were more conservative, and to cite the source of their particular estimate? That’s all I want, really, when they do things like this.

I knew going into it that the magazine (to American eyes) essentially editorializes throughout, and I don’t have a problem with that. But it engages in over-generalization far too often — and that’s just when I catch it. This was just a quick example from the first article I read in this issue; it’s more blatant other places, but quite honestly I’m too lazy to go look some more examples up at this hour. I do remember, though, them referring to members of Obama’s cabinet as if they were certain to be, back before Obama had even announced their pick, let alone their confirmation hearings happening.

One of my first issues of The Economist had a lengthy section on the global automobile market. I learned a lot about how western companies broke into markets in Asia and South America. Or at least I think I did. I don’t know enough about that subject to catch them if they are over-generalizing again.

The end result is that I read each issue with a mix of fascination and distrust; the topics are interesting, but I can never really tell if I’m being given an accurate story. It often feels like the inside scoop, but then when I have some bit of knowledge of what the scoop is, it’s often a much murkier shade of gray than The Economist’s ever-confident prose lets on.

Don’t get me wrong; there are things about the Economist I like. But not as much as with the New Yorker or the Atlantic, so I’ll let my subscription lapse after 6 months — but keep reading it until then.

Hope

Politics, Society

Our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. . . Our security emanates from the justness of our cause; the force of our example; the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

– Barack Obama, inaugural speech, Jan. 20, 2009

This, right here, is why, for the first time in my life, I actually feel good about an American president. Why I have hope about our government for the first time in years. Why I’m glad I used a vacation day to sit on the couch and watch TV yesterday.

On the occasion, once every 4 or 8 years, that is a celebration of American strength, power, and pride, we see our new president speaking of humility, of peace, of moral leadership, this is something remarkable.

Past presidents have used occasions such as these to speak of crushing our enemies, of wanting people dead or alive, of grand government promises that turned out to triple the national debt.

Obama spoke of extending the hand of friendship to anyone that would unclench their fist.

He spoke that we had kicked the can down the road too far, and now we’ve reached the end of the road. We have to stop thinking that we can have everything: low taxes, expensive programs, and a large military, simply by mortgaging our future.

And he leveled with us: we all are in this together, and all have to work to make it better.

Conventional politicians assumed it would be political suicide to say even half of what Obama has said. Yet he went out there and did it.

He was blasted during the campaign by people on both sides of the political spectrum for being just “words”. He’s the first presidential candidate that meant what he said about bringing Americans, and their representatives, together. The shock in Washington has he invited — gasp! — both an openly gay bishop and an anti-gay evangelical minister to give prayers was telling. It’s as if people were saying, “Wait, he really MEANT that?”

Yes, he did. Let’s hope he can pull it off.

And as Rev. Lowry concluded with his benediction:

With your hands of power and your heart of love, help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nations shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid, when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream. . .

Let all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen. (amen) Say Amen! (Amen!) Say Amen! (AMEN!)

Milestones

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It’s been quite the day.

This evening, Jacob had a new first. He requested I read him an owner’s manual for his bedtime story. Yes, I’m sure years from now, he will still remember how to operate a Motorola W376g cell phone. He had found the manual in its box and had been carrying it around, “reading” it to himself for days already. I can feel him following in my footsteps – I remember pulling the car manual out of the glove box on long trips and reading it. For fun.

So yes, Jacob chose an owner’s manual over nice children’s bedtime books involving caterpillars.

This morning, I set out on what would be a 43-mile bike ride – home to Wichita. It was about 28F when I left. I had been wanting to ride from home to Wichita for some time now, and finally found the right day. The wind was at my back (mostly), the sun was shining (I even got burned a bit), and the ride was fun. It took me about 4.5 hours, including the 1.5 hours I spent for lunch and other breaks. I didn’t take a completely direct route, but that was intentional.

This is my second-farthest ride in a day, behind the time I rode 55 miles in a day for charity. But it is the farthest I’ve gone in winter.

I was taking the bike to the bike shop for its free 6-month tuneup. So I even had the perfect excuse to ride it. I hope to ride it back home if the weather is cooperative.

As for the third milestone, while I was riding to Wichita, Barack Obama and Joe Biden were riding a train to Washington. I recorded it, and have been watching it this evening. Remembering all they said during the campaign, seeing how they act — it really does give me some hope in this country’s government, some hope that some important things will be accomplished in the future. One TV commentator pointed out that the Bush administration carefully avoided using the word “recession” as long as they possibly could, while Obama is trying as hard he can to be straight and direct with people about the situation. I appreciate that. What a milestone the next few days represent for the country.

Garmin Nuvi 500

Geocaching, Reviews, , ,

I’ve owned two different GPSs in the past: a Garmin GPS III, and the Garmin eMap. Both are based on similar underlying firmware.

This week, I did some research on more modern GPS units and decided to buy a Garmin nuvi 500. Here’s my review.

Overview

The Garmin nuvi 500 is one of only two models in the nuvi line that are waterproof. The nuvi 500 and 550 are both designed as hybrid units: useful both in the car and outdoors. The 500 includes street-level maps (they appear to be the same quality as Google) for the entire United States, detailed topographical maps for the entire United States, and a global basemap. It also includes a microSD slot (or is it miniSD – I forget) for additional maps that you can buy — anything from marine maps to other countries.

It also includes a default POI (points of interest) database containing over 5 million points: restaurants, gas stations, parks, hospitals, you name it. Most contain an address and a phone number in additional to the coordinates. Unlike GPS units that you find built in to some cell phones, this is all stored on flash memory on the unit: no Internet connection required. The nuvi 500 is a portable yellow pages, topographical map, and incredibly detailed street atlas all in one.

Car Use

The nuvi 500 comes with a car charger and suction cup windshield mount in the box. (It doesn’t come with an AC charger, but it can charge over USB.) It also comes with — yay — a user-replaceable battery. The windshield mount is very sturdy and I am happy to have one that isn’t permanent.

In the car, the device performs admirably. I have read some other reviewers that have compared its routing to other GPSs and found that the nuvi generally picks the same route as Google, and almost always a better route than other GPSs. If you deviate from the selected route, it automatically re-calculates a new route for you. It will show you the next turn coming up, and has either 3D or flat map displays.

There’s a one-touch “where am I” feature. It displays your current coordinates, some sort of street address suitable to read to someone (“1234 S. Main” or “I-95 exit 43” type of thing), along with buttons to show you the nearest police stations and hospitals.

The unit also features multi-stop routing. You can either tell it where all you’re going in a defined order, or tell it all your stops and let it create an optimal route. This feature works, but it your stops are close by (and involve some of the same roads), it may wind up skipping some stops thinking you’ve made your first one.

The speaker announces upcoming maneuvers, though it doesn’t have a synthesizer for street names. It’s also supposed to work with Bluetooth headsets, though I haven’t tested that feature.

I found the map quality to be excellent. It seems to be on par with Google (in fact, I think both use data from Navteq). I was surprised with how many country dirt roads and side roads it knows about — and of course, regular city streets are all on there, with one-way indications and the whole lot. In fact, the quality of coverage was so good that I was surprised when it missed roads or got things wrong. Out in rural areas, or small towns, this happens from time to time: it thought that an abandoned railbed was an unnamed road and wanted me to drive on it (it was clearly not drivable), and in some other cases also thought some abandoned roads were still drivable. I don’t think this is a device issue though; it’s an underlying data issue, and everyone else probably has the same problem.

Its arrival time estimates are quite accurate, and its interface is smooth and easy.

It has some optional accessories I haven’t tried, such as real-time traffic reports from wireless sources, boating mode, etc.

Outdoor and Geocaching Mode

Our other main use for the device is outdoor hiking and geocaching. It really shines here. It has special support for the GPX files from geocaching.com. The device supports “paperless caching”. Not only can it put caches on the map, but if you download the GPX file for your caches, you’ll also get the full description, hint (behind a separate button, of course), most recent 5 logs, and the like right there on your screen. You can also log your finds on the device, and upload a file from it to geocaching.com later to log them on the site. This is an incredible time saver over my old method: printing out a bunch of maps, downloading waypoints to the eMap, taking notes, then logging things later.

I found outdoor mode not quite as refined as the auto mode, however. It kept forgetting that I wanted to use an arrow as my current position indicator (the default hiking boots for walking mode didn’t provide an accurate enough direction indication for my tastes). Finally realized that saying “don’t ask me about the configuration” was the key to getting it to remember the configuration. It sometimes took a surprisingly long time to realize we weren’t standing still any longer.

On the other hand, the quality of the GPS receiver was amazing. It even got a strong signal in my house. And I wasn’t even sitting at a window. The topographical maps are a nice addition, and the breadcrumb mode is always helpful when geocaching and hiking, too.

My natural way of holding it meant that I accidentally turned it off a few times, because I had a finger holding it right over the power button. But it powers back up and re-obtains the signal quite rapidly.

The different modes (automobile, outdoor, bicycle, and scooter) are mainly different collections of settings: 3D map or flat, what indicator to use, to navigate off-road or along roadways, to ignore one-way indications or heed them, etc.

PC link

The nuvi 500 has a USB port. Plug it into the PC, and you see its internal flash drive, vfat formatted. You can upload and download GPX files there, store photos if you like. Be careful what you mess with though, because its built-in maps and system data are also on that drive. If you have the SD card inserted, that will also be presented to your computer when you plug the device in. Garmin has some Windows software to make it easier to upload/download stuff, but I haven’t tried it.

Annoyances

As you can tell, I really like this GPS, but there are a few things about it that annoy me.

The thing that annoys me isn’t actually the GPS itself, but Garmin’s website. I went to register the device online, but it wouldn’t let me because I don’t have the Windows-only browser plugin on my Linux machine, and it wanted to talk to the GPS for some reason. I went to send them a support request about that, only to discover — after I had typed in the request — that their “email us” form is broken in Firefox on all platforms. Bad show, Garmin.

The on-screen keyboard (it’s a touch-screen device with only one hard button for power) isn’t QWERTY layout; it’s alphabetical layout, and it makes me inefficient when entering data. I found myself logging my finds on the unit, but taking notes about them on paper because that was faster. Garmin has a feature listed on their website for a toggle between QWERTY and alphabetical layout, which they apparently offer on only their more expensive GPSs. What? There is no reason to not but that in all your firmware.

The device lacks a few features I was used to on my GPS III and eMap. It doesn’t support any kind of real-time position indication to the PC; all communications is just accessing stored data on the internal flash drive. I used to think that was a nice feature, but in reality, I haven’t used it in years. It also lacks the display of the exact location of each GPS satellite, though the incredible quality of its receiver means that I don’t really care any more. (I used to use that information to help figure out which window to put it by if in a car/train or something.)

It also lacks the level of configuration that was present in the settings screens on the older units. There’s no “battery saver” mode (sample every 5 seconds when going at a constant velocity instead of every 1) like the older units had. The sun and moon screen likewise is gone, but added is awareness of timezones; the Nuvi 500 can show you the local time at your present position synced up with the GPS satellites.

The compass is not the most helpful screen, though after some practice, it is functional. The documentation about it is confusing, but really the thing that was more confusing was this: in walking mode, the arrow that indicates what direction you’re walking in updates faster than the arrow that indicates what direction you should be walking in. Once I realized what was going on there, it was easier to use.

The compass does tell you what your bearing is, in degrees, but only when you are not seeking a destination. It will not tell you the bearing to the destination, though you can estimate it from the simulated compass face on the display. When seeking a specific point, especially through terrain with obstacles such as trees, it is useful to be able to use a compass for the final approach because a GPS unit can’t tell you which direction it’s pointed — only which direction it’s moving, so when you’re not moving or moving slowly, it’s not helpful.

I did some experimentation today with the compass screen, as well as my real compass, and was able to navigate to my destination rather precisely using the combination of them. That said, a more functional compass screen would still be better.

Conclusion

Overall, I’m very happy with the nuvi 500. It’s not the same as a top-of-the-line device in either the outdoor or automotive category, but on the other hand, it’s cheaper and more convenient than buying two devices with similar features. The geocaching features are excellent, the build quality is excellent as well. The system is stable and performs well. (Some other reviews worried about whether the case is solid enough; it seems quite solid to me.) I wish there were a faster way to toggle between 3D and flat map views, and forgetting about my walking mode icon is annoying, but other than that I have very little to complain about. Garmin’s geocaching features (found on this unit and several other in their lineup) is great.