What makes this fun? A critical look at several board games.

November 29th, 2011 by Tom Alphin No comments »

One of the (few) things I love about the transition from warm sunny summer days to cool rainy fall days is the opportunity to play my favorite board games, and find new favorites. As I’ve gotten more into the hobby, I’ve continued to scour Board Game Geek for new games to try.  As I play more and more games, I’ve considered trying my own hand at making a compelling board game.  (Conveniently, a new avenue to get your game published has appeared: Kickstarter, which lets you market your idea and allow folks to commit to buying your product so long as you achieve the minimum dollar amount in investments.)

To aid in this process, I’ve started to look at the games I play with new eyes: trying to identify what makes each game fun.  (I’ve found that even games which I don’t prefer overall can have a design touch, or an interesting game mechanic that I find particularly fun.)

 

Settlers of Catan – the chance to win from behind…
As this was the first  Euro-style Board game I ever played, it seems fitting to look at it first.  While it may be an imperfect game which relies too heavily on the luck of the dice, it is definitely one of the few games I’ve played a lot where you can come back from pretty far behind and win.  This is achieved by recognizing that several elements of the gameplay are built on luck, and you can bet against the odds for a chance to win.

  • Building settlements on a couple unlikely numbers.  (If you are losing, why not bet on 4′s… If they are rolled more often than usual, you can grow when your opponents get nothing.)
  • Development cards.  They are rarely bad, and the chance of a Victory point card for just three resources is the best exchange rate in the game.

Not so great: Of the games I play somewhat regularly, Settlers is the least fun game to lose.  It’s too easy to blame “bad luck” for a loss, and it is possible to get cut off early in the game such that you know you are going to lose an hour before the game ends.

 

Carcassonne – simple core mechanics leading to an ever expanding game…

Carcassonne is ever expanding for two reasons: 1) outward growth, as each player adds tiles to the game board is the core game mechanic. 2) The simple core mechanics have led to nearly 20 expansions which add tiles and rules to the game, as well as numerous standalone games based on the same basic game mechanics.

I find an elegance in those games which can be easily expanded upon without breaking their essence – usually the core game mechanic that propels the game.

  • Carcassonne is easily expanded since you just add more tiles to the deck with new abilities and shuffle them all together.
  • Deckbuilding games (like Dominion) are similarly expandable, as the draw/discard pattern can be preserved while adding new cards to the mix.
  • Ticket to Ride can be expanded by providing new maps/routes while preserving the balance of collecting cards, claim routes to complete tickets and drawing more tickets.

Many of the other games I enjoy are less obvious to expand upon because the game is built on the ability to take multiple actions which have been carefully balanced against one another.  This is particularly true of popular “worker placement” games such as Agricola or Puerto Rico.  A rich expansion to either game is difficult to achieve without changing the game’s essence.  (Puerto Rico’s expansion have simply added building types and has little appeal, and “Farmers of the Moor” the only major expansion to Agricola added an awkward new type of action to make up for the new burden of heating your home.)

 

Race for the Galaxy – One game, many roads to victory…
Race is unique in many ways, notably the manner in which cards in hand are valuable both in the abilities they provide and their use as currency to buy other cards.  Race is also rather unique in that there are so many ways to win the game.  There are strategies that involve producing and consuming goods to get victory points, developing many of one type of card to maximize bonus points from the various 6-cost development cards, strategies to end the game quickly to prevent opponent from accruing too many points, all while using some combination of military, exploring or trading to fund your growth.

I’ve played more games of Race for the Galaxy than any other game we own.  This is due to the many ways to win, it’s strength as a two-player game, and the compact game size with no fixed board (which makes it easy to travel with).

Not so great: Race for the Galaxy also happens to have one of the most complex and cryptic set of icons of any game I’ve ever played.  This is why we have rarely played with more than two players – the game is incredibly difficult to teach and the first couple games aren’t much fun.  (The game would be a lot easier to teach if it had better icons and/or relied less on icons in favor of text.)

 
 

A few more noteworthy games:

  • Dixit – I’m having fun even when I’m losing…
    This is a game we just got, but so far I enjoy the beautiful artwork and the creative gameplay which rewards a clever player.  That said, it is nearly as much to see who scored points during each round as it is to win.
  • Dominion – Tipping point…
    I already mentioned Dominion as one of the great games when it comes to expandability, but my favorite element of the game is an invisible one…  In this game, there are two phases of play, but no clear distinction between them: building your deck, and acquiring Victory Points. The player who prepares the best deck and is able to shift focus to acquiring victory points at the right time wins.  If you switch focus too early, your deck will get diluted with victory points and lose effectiveness while others get more points overall.  If you switch too late, you won’t have enough time to get a winning score.
  • Galactic Emperor –  Political influence…
    This is the only “4x” (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) game I’ve played, but it had a noteworthy game mechanic that I really enjoyed.  When the “influence” action is selected, each player can place two tokens (and may buy a third) to conquer planets with political influence, or defend against the influence of other players.  The advantage of going last is significant, since you can defend against the political attacks others made, and take over other planets without contest.  You must exert your power with care, since everyone has roughly the same amount of influence. (2 or 3 tokens)

What’s your favorite game, and why?  Or, is there something about a game which you really like, even if the game isn’t that great overall?

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Day 1: Bike Commuting.

October 10th, 2011 by Tom Alphin 2 comments »

I’ve been riding my bike to work a lot this year, initially on my trusty old mountain bike, later on my new (and much more efficient) road bike.  Riding to work on a sunny day is a great feeling, plus you can turn a 15-20 minute commute in traffic into a 30 minute workout.

Bianchi Volpe

Getting Ice Cream (Molly Moons Truck, no less!) at the end of my first long ride. - This is the opposite of Bike Commuting.

I’ve also taken a number of long rides this fall, all on my new bike: The first one with Brendan around Mercer Island, across i90 down to Seward Park and back.  A second long ride was also with Brendan, from REI in Downtown Seattle to my house in Kirkland, mostly on the Burke Gilman / Sammamish river trails.  (and yes, the Lake City reroute sucks.)  The last one was by myself – from the house to Safeco Field for the Microsoft company meeting, also north around the lake.  Amy and I also enjoy riding bikes from Redmond to Redhook on the Sammamish river trail, a pleasant 10 mile round trip. (Admittedly, this is just a thin excuse to eat out and have beer for lunch on a day which isn’t going to be sunny in the mountains.)

 

Bike Commuting:

Riding to work on a sunny day and taking fun rides on the weekend are a lot of fun and a nice way to get some exercise, but they hardly count as bike commuting.  Bike commuting is something altogether different.  Bike commuting is riding to work when it is cold, raining and dark outside.  Needless to say, Seattle has an abundance of these days, and an abundance of Bike Commuters.  Let’s explore what bike commuting is all about.

Today was my first day as a Bike commuter.  

I got up, put my climbing gear and bike lock in one pannier, a change of clothes for work, shoes and lunch in the other.  After the extra few minutes it takes me to put on bike shoes, open the garage, get out the bike and close and lock the garage, I’m on my way riding up the hill.  The road was wet, but no rain, yet.  At about mile 2, I pass Google’s Kirkland campus.  (An enviable commute, yes, but why bother ride my bike at all for 2 miles of exercise.)  The Internet’s masters of primary colors torment me by turning the rain back on just in time for my hill climb up 68th/70th street.  Now I’m glad I have my gloves on, but I’m staying pretty warm with the workout.  I’m also noticing those wet leaves don’t have the traction I’d like.  Caution sets in.

Once across i405, the ride gets less steep, and after passing the Red Apple, it’s almost all downhill from here.  At the next intersection, by the Sixty 01 condo community, I have to decide: muddy and fast, or paved, annoying and steeper.  I choose muddy, turning right and taking the Bridle Crest Trail along the side of the Bellevue golf course.  Without fenders, the amount of mud thrown up by my wheels on this mostly gravel trail was impressive.  Now I’m really wet, even my toes are wet, but i’m just a couple blocks from work.  P.S. Thank you Redmond for installing metal access panels on the sidewalk.  They are insanely slippery when wet.

After my day of work, I needed to go to REI and buy a headlight for the bike.  I saw one there on sale I wanted to try, 150 lumens, charges on a USB port and on sale for around 50$ (from 100$ retail.)  Thankfully no rain on my way there or on my way to the climbing gym.  Thank you Redmond for generally good bike lanes.  (They should be! Their nickname is “Bicycle capital of the northwest”.)  After climbing with JK, we agree to get teriyaki at Yummy Teriyaki.  As I hop on the bike again, no rain, but it picks up a bit on my way there.  I was only a couple minutes slower than he was in his car – win!

Unfortunately, the ride home from Teriyaki was the worst stretch of my day.  1) I ate too much teriyaki – I was hungry from all the climbing and biking.  2) The rain intensified a bit, and it got quite a bit colder. 3) Worst of all, the ride from Redmond to Kirkland is horrible.  I could have gone way out of my way, but I really just wanted to get home – so I took the direct route.

Getting through Redmond on Redmond Way was easy.  On a flat, I can easily keep up with city traffic, and my front and rear lights made me easy to see. Going up the first section of hill was OK too, since I decided to use the sidewalk. (Probably a no-no for a “Real” bike commuter, but really, who wants to be squished on blind turns by cars going 45 mph.)  Next, there is a 1/4 mile section where there is no shoulder and no sidewalk.  There is a guardrail, and on the other side a mud and gravel “path” which is 6 inches wide with a significant side slope.  Failure isn’t an option, since you would fall down a big muddy hill into a drainage.  Thankfully, my bike has fatter tires than a normal road bike since it was built as a cyclocross bike.  After that, there is a nice section of generous sidewalk, followed by a motley arrangement of sidewalks, asphault chunks parking lots and gravel to get through Rose Hill.  After crossing under 405, iI was back on familiar turf, and had no problem getting home.  All said, it wasn’t that cold or miserable, and I did get a good workout in today.

 

In summary, based on one day of experience, Bike Commuting is all about:

  • Cold + Wet – If you aren’t suffering, it isn’t bike commuting.
  • Expensive – All the gear to make it reasonably safe adds up.  Rear Light – 25$, Front Light – 100+$, Bright Clothing, Fenders, Panniers, Rack, etc…
  • Saves Money – Yes, it is expensive, but if I ever pay off the costs of all this extra gear in saved gasoline and maintenance on my car, the savings are not insignificant. (~5$ day saved.)
  • Dirty – Water and mud flying every which way.
  • Smelly - By the time you get to work, you are dirty and wet, by the time you need to go home, your wet, dirty biking clothes stink.  (Showers at work are a reasonable mitigation.)
  • Slow – When you are tired and keep hitting snooze, bike commuting isn’t going to help you make that 9am meeting.
  • Free Exercise + Saves time – No gym membership required, plus you can fit a 30 minute exercise in the 15 extra minutes it takes to ride the bike instead of drive.
  • Eat more food – I love food, and I can eat whatever I want for lunch on the days I ride my bike.  (I feel like my metabolism is raised all day with just two 30 minute rides.)
  • Self-righteousness – When it comes down to it, after riding your bike to work on a crappy day, you just feel better than everyone else. (Look at all those lazy slobs in their cars!)  I’m pretty sure this is the primary motivation for most Bike Commuters, since the rest of the rest of the strengths and weaknesses barely balance out.

Disclaimer: While it would no doubt be useful to my (limited number of) readers to post a follow-up in a few months with tips and tricks, favorite commuting gear and an update on my progress, this is unlikely.  As evidenced by my sporadic blog postings, there is no guarantee that I will ever post a follow-up to today’s post on Bike Commuting.  I can’t tell you what my next post will be about, but it will most certainly not be about the ancient art of Bonsai Kittens.

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Major Update to the National Park Service Checklist app

August 10th, 2011 by Tom Alphin No comments »

I’ve completed a major update to my National Park Service Checklist application, adding the ability to view and record your visit to all of the sites in the National Park Service.  This includes the many National Monuments, Historic Parks/Sites, Battlefields, Recreation areas and more… nearly 400 sites!

I’ve also taken the time to introduce a new home screen, leveraging the horizontally scrolling “Panorama” control which are a core design pattern for the Windows Phone.  This makes it easy for users to see just those sites of a specific designation (ex: monuments) or region.  I show your progress against each of these areas, so you can see how close you are to visiting just the 58 national parks, or visiting every site in the National Capital Region.

As always, this is a free upgrade for existing customers.  I have kept the price low as an introductory offer, just 1.99$, although this may change as I have added so many new features in this update.

Download this app: If you have Zune app installed on this PC, or are viewing this page on your Windows Phone, visit http://windowsphone.com/s?appid=358c0575-ad86-e011-986b-78e7d1fa76f8 for a free trial, or to purchase this app.

Version 2.0 adds:

  • All of the sites in the National Park Service, totaling 385 sites.  (395 if you count park + preserve twice as the park service does.)
  • A bold new home page with photos for the most common designations, plus a page to view sites by region w/ an region overview map.
  • Dynamic “places” view to show all of the sites of a specific designation or region, plus progress (28/58 visited) and brief description of purpose of designation.
  • Progress indicator when loading the app and when viewing every park of a type or in a region.
  • A short description about each park service designation to help visitors understand how they differ. (Ex: historic park vs. site)\
  • Moved “learn more about the NPS” to a separate page to simply home screen.
  • Updated icons and loading screen.
  • (Trial mode is limited to viewing the 58 national parks, and recording your first three visits.)
P.S. This weekend we visited Channel Islands National Park, camping for one night at Scorpion Harbor on Santa Cruz island.  We had a beautiful day hiking to Smugglers Cove, and the next day we hiked out to Potato Harbor before catching our boat back to the mainland.  This trip, plus our July visit to Cuyahoga Valley brings me to 28 of the 58 National Parks (I’m almost halfway there, although we’re only visited 13 parks together.)

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Posted in Apps, National Parks, Technology, Travel

Introducing the ‘National Park Checklist’ app for the Windows Phone 7 platform

May 30th, 2011 by Tom Alphin 5 comments »

I’m pleased to announce my second app for the Windows Phone 7 platform.  The application follows in the footsteps of Fifty States app, offering a crafted application experience for tracking your visits to the 58 US National Parks.  As you may have seen in my earlier post about creating a National Park Checklist wall poster, I have incredible appreciation and passion for these protected lands which have been set aside due to their unique natural and cultural beauty.  I’ve created this app to help you engage with the parks more fully, track the places you’ve been, and inspire your next adventures.

Home Screen showing the parks you have visited. (Photo of Capitol Reef taken by me.)

 

New features in the ‘National Park Checklist’ app.

The National Park Checklist application was built using my Fifty States app as a starting point.  Since that application’s initial version 1.0 release, I have made many updates which set the stage for me to create a similar application for the National Parks.  In both apps, I now read the state/park data from an XML file, which makes it easier to do the initial data entry and to make updates should I want to add additional capabilities which require more data fields, or to simply fix a mistake in the data.  Along the same lines, I am now saving/reading user data to a defined XML schema instead of relying on the IsolatedStorageSettings API.  This allowed me to introduce a feature to “back up” your visits data.  I plan to introduce an option to restore the data soon :-)

I am particularly pleased with the visual styling I was able to achieve with the National Parks app.  I definitely drew inspiration from the National Park Unigrid System that is used in official park literature.  It relies on a bold black heading with white text on all materials, and aligning content to strict grids to ensure readability and consistency on literature which is folded.  I’ve incorporated photographs (taken by me and my wife) of many national parks. which provide a random heading for the home page, and provide context when looking at a specific park such as Haleakala (see below.)  I hope to get additional images for the remaining parks.

I also color-coded the National Parks by region to give users a way to break the insurmountable goal of visiting 58 disparate parks into more achievable goals.  The color coding was carefully selected to match the coloring used in the ‘Passport to your National Parks’ program.  I have owned a National Park Passport since ’92 and nearly filled several sections during several family road trips starting in ’93.  The program is a great way to motivate people to visit the parks and have a stronger connection with each visit.

 

Try it now…

If you have a Windows Phone 7 and would like to try my application, please click this link to Download the National Park Checklist application using the Zune Marketplace for Windows Phone 7.  If you like it, please rate the application and leave a comment on the marketplace.  This will help others find and enjoy this application.

As always, please send me an email or leave a comment below if you have questions, ideas, feedback or bugs for me.  Thanks!

 

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Posted in Apps, National Parks, Technology, Travel

Fifty States, my first Windows Phone 7 app

February 12th, 2011 by Tom Alphin 6 comments »

Many folks set aspirational goals such as visiting every continent, climbing every mountain over a certain height or running your first marathon.  A common goal of many Americans is to visit all 50 US States.

My first app…

I am proud to announce the availability of my first application, “Fifty States”.  It is a simple application to keep track of how many of the 50 US States you have visited.  I designed the application so you can record more than one visit to each state, along with the date and a short note about your visit.  It’s simple, but the app does one thing and I believe that it does it well.

List of the Fifty US States with a count of the number of states visited. Provide a date and short note for each visit

A learning experience…

While I work in the software industry, programming is not part of my daily job.  This was my first time programming in Silverlight, or C#.  There was definitely a learning curve, but I was able to create my app in the evenings over just two weeks.  I  started with the code samples in the SDK (Databound & Pivot were most instructive), leveraged online tutorials (31 days of Windows Phone 7) and asked questions on the developer community at http://create.msdn.com.  With all that I have learned, it would take a quarter of the time to do it again from scratch.

One of my goals was to create an application which could leverage one of the unique features of the Windows Phone 7 platform, the ability of the app developer to offer a single installable package that contains both the trial mode functionality and the paid application.  This is much easier for developers, as they do not need to create both a free version of their application and a separate premium paid application.  Windows Phone developers are free to decide how they want to limit the trial version.  Game developers might choose to only offer the first 5 levels, app developers might include advertising in the trial version or offer premium capabilites to paying customers.  I finally settled on my own trial behavior, which allows users to use all of the capabilities of the app for free, but limit them to record their first 10 visits to any combination of states.  I settled on the lowest price of $0.99, the app has a limited number of features at this time.  The Marketplace is flexible enough that developers can change prices at any time, for example I could raise the price due to additional features, but customers who purchase the application now would get free updates.

Fifty States Application Icon

I also made a nice icon for my application.  I wanted to create something which respects the stark iconography and bold colors of the Windows Phone 7 design guidelines, but I also wanted to create something that stands out on it’s own.  I settled with a custom white icon on a background of a red leather-bound book, to evoke the exterior of a high-end journal or travel guide.  I’m not sure if it works well or is too bold, but I welcome your thoughts.

I picked this project as it was something I thought I could do well and there was nothing quite like it available on the Marketplace.  I initially planned to simply create a checklist app with a single checkbox for each state, but that didn’t reflect the reality of travel, that you may visit one state many times before you visit your last state for the first time.  I am proud of my app, but also welcome  your feedback, any bugs you encounter, or any features ideas I should consider.  Please leave a comment on this blog with your thoughts.  I hope you like it!

Try it now…

If you have a Windows Phone 7 and would like to try my application, please Download Fifty States on the Zune Marketplace for Windows Phone 7.

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Posted in Apps, Travel

A Gaggle of Geese, a Tangle of Technology…

January 9th, 2011 by Tom Alphin 1 comment »

I love to travel, and I get a lot of pleasure out of having the right tools to enjoy my trip, and to document the trip in a variety of ways.  This Christmas, we went to New Zealand, and we wanted to bring our cameras, a phone, mp3 player, Netbook, and a GPS, but we ended up with a heavy tangled mess of adapters, wires, chargers and batteries.  I stuffed it all in a mesh bag to make sure I didn’t lose anything.

What went wrong in the Electronics industry to leave me in this situation, what can I do better next time, and will this ever get any better in the future?

Products, accessories, cables and Adapters required to travel with Technology.

The devices, accessories, chargers, cables and adapters we brought on our trip. (cameras & lenses excluded.)

What to bring?

Part of my problem is that each of the technology items I travel with are excellent at a single thing, so I end up carrying many single-use items like a dedicated GPS or a standalone MP3 Player.  What follows is a breakdown of the items I brought with me on our two-week holiday trip to New Zealand, and an assessment of  how everything worked out and how I might do it better next time.

Cameras: This  includes the cameras themselves, and a small collection of lenses we share between two cameras.  For this trip, we brought 4 lenses for our Canon Cameras: Canon EF-S 10-22mm F3.5-5.6 Wide Angle Zoom Lens, Sigma EF 30mm F1.4 Midrange Prime Lens, Canon EF 100mm F2.8 Prime Macro Lens, Canon EF 70-200mm F4L Telephoto Zoom Lens.  (The majority of our photos were taken with the 30mm Prime which is excellent and sharp, and the 10-22mm Wide which continues to be soft and disappointing.)

Beyond the Cameras and Lenses, we brought enough memory cards such that we did not need to download and reuse them on the trip.  (A total of 128gb in SD Cards of capacities ranging from 4-32gb stored in a sturdy Pelican case).  This was more than enough storage, especially due to poor weather which limited our shooting.  We also brought a spare battery for both cameras, and the charger for each camera since they are slightly different.  We also carried a lens cleaning pen, and a Mini USB cable to download photos at night.

Geotagging: Beyond the photos themselves, I enjoy GeoTagging almost all of my photos.  This associates an exact location with each photo, allowing you to see where each photo was taken on a map.  Since very few cameras actually include a GPS unit, the main way to do this is to carry a handheld GPS unit wherever you go which records your location every few seconds as digital breadcrumbs, called a Tracklog.  Later, a software program on the computer can compare the timestamp of each photo you took that day to the Tracklog to determine exactly where the photo was taken.  This works best with a high-precision GPS that has excellent battery life.  In my case, I use the Garmin GPSMAP 62s, which is extremely accurate, reasonably lightweight and also has the ability to show detailed topographic maps of your current location.  I made sure to download the high resolution Topo Maps for all of New Zealand before we left home, which prevented us from having to buy costly maps in preparation for our hikes.

Ofcourse, another device means additional accessories.  The Garmin GPS uses standard AA Batteries, which would be great, except I needed two batteries per day.  To achieve this knowing that we wouldn’t be able to charge them every night, I needed 6 batteries in total and a compact charger.  I use the excellent Sanyo Eneloop rechargeables to save money and I found an Eneloop-branded charger on Amazon that charges two batteries in 6 hours from a USB port.

Auto GPS: Beyond the Handheld GPS which recorded tracklogs and went with us on hikes and walking around town, we brought a dedicated Automotive GPS with “Routable” maps of New Zealand.  We learned travelling in the UK and Ireland that a GPS can save incredible amounts of time and frustration fiddling with maps and trying to keep track of where you are and where you are going.  We continue to use a 3 year old model, the Garmin Nuvi 200 because it still works fine and accepts current maps for all over the world.

It includes a suction cup mount to attach it to the window and as expected, it requires a proprietary car charger that plugs into a serial port.  It is particularly bulky, and frustrating as the device uses a USB port, but refuses to charge with anything other than the special charger.

Phone & Entertainment: Another set of gear came with us to help pass the time and serve other roles.  We each brought an MP3 player to help with the long flights and provide variety while driving.  I brought my unlocked iPhone so we could buy a SIM card if we liked to make reasonably priced calls.  Amy also brought her Kindle, as it is much more compact than the stack of paperbacks she used to travel with.

All four of these devices charge off of a USB Port, but all but the vintage iPod Shuffle  have proprietary connectors.  (The iPhone and Zune are inexcusable, but the Kindle should be commended for using the standard Micro USB cable.)

Laptop: To back-up our photos, entertain me on the flight, and watch a couple movies, we brought an Acer netbook computer which is extremely small, and I was able to upgrade it’s hard drive to a whopping 500gb.  I put 100′s of movies on the computer before leaving home including a couple of Christmas movies.  Even with it’s modest Atom CPU, it was able to play standard definition movies, browse the web or using Google Voice to call our families.  Backing up photos was a little sluggish as Adobe Lightroom does not do well on slower machines, and tagging/reviewing photos was almost unbearable.  A couple times I tried to develop a photo, but this was too slow to recommend.

The laptop was one of the worst offenders in terms of bulky accessories.  The Power Adapter is very large with an unnecessarily long cord, the extended battery gave us 8 hours of battery life but is very bulky and heavy, the mouse is nice to have but additional bulk, since it lacks integrated bluetooth we had a USB Bluetooth adapter, plus a Bluetooth headset and charger to make phone calls.

What happened?

There are a variety of problems at play here.  As noted, most small consumer electronics have settled on USB to charge, but at this point, each one uses a different cable to connect on the device end:  Kindle uses a MicroUSB connection, iPhone and Zune use a proprietary connectors, my old iPod Shuffle uses the larger standard USB connection.  The proprietary connectors are caused by the manufacturer’s desire to sell accessories that would not be practical with only the 4 wires contained in a USB Cable.  Accessories and replacement cables are likely profitable!  (Even the tiny bluetooth headset charges from the same 5V that the rest of these devices use, although it was sold with a bulky wall adapter which I cut off and soldered to a standard USB Plug.  That’s for a later article.)

As for the Cameras, Laptop and Handheld GPS, each has their own story.

It actually makes sense that the Laptop charger is reasonably large.  It likely has a large AC/DC converter, and this creates heat which needs to be dissipated.  As this laptop is an inexpensive netbook, they sure aren’t motivated to use the smallest or most efficient components, and I’m sure the unnecessarily long cable was inexpensive, and less customers are likely to complain with a cord that is too long than too short.  All that I ask is that they use a shorter cable from the wall to the adapter, since this is the heavier and thicker section of cord, or put the plug right on the adapter itself.

Why two cameras from the same manufacturer need a different battery is excusable.  My camera added video recording feature which can use a lot of power so they used a larger battery.  That said, there is no reason they couldn’t make a taller battery for my camera which uses the same connection to the charger as her older battery.  One less charger would be a tremendous savings.  Further, I would accept a slow charge over a USB connection.  Since both cameras include a USB port, they should offer the ability to trickle-charge the battery overnight when plugged in.  This woudl allow me to leave both chargers at home.  (I suspect this is not offered due to concerns of overheating the battery, a charging battery leaking inside the camera, or the few additional components they would need to put in the camera to make it work.)

The Handheld GPS is the most forgivable of the bunch.  It relies on standard AA batteries.  A built-in battery would be a mistake since you cannot replace it while on the trail, and proprietary batteries would be more expensive for customers and would likely still require a separate charger.  Again, I think it would be a great feature to allow slow-charging of the AA Batteries when connected to a powered USB source, but this is a little less expected of a niche product than a mainstream product like a camera.

Next Time…

In the long term, we may see the situation improve as the European Union has pressured phone manufacturers to standardize on MicroUSB chargers. (right in the image below)  I suspect that this will continue beyond phones to influence all consumer electronics devices (Mp3 players, bluetooth headsets, GPS devices, E-readers) as economies of scale should make it the cheapest charger on the market, or device manufacturers may decide that they don’t need to include a charger if customers already own one.  I can’t wait for the day where a single cable can sync and charge all of my devices!

If I can’t have a single cable which works for everything, a smaller step manufacturers can take quickly is to include shorter cables with their devices.  Most customers would be happy with a 12″ cable, and I actually got a cable of this length with a recent portable hard drive purchase. I would love to have even shorter 3″ cables for each device, but anything shorter than 2 meters is an improvement!

While I wait for more devices to follow the same standards, I have called out a few changes I can make next time:

  • Either buy a third camera battery and leave the chargers at home, locate a universal charger for multiple camera battery types, or upgrade one of our cameras such that they use the same battery and charger.
  • Leave the 4-outlet USB adapter at home.  It worked great for charging many devices off a single outlet, but I could just as easily charge them off the many USB ports on the laptop.
  • Replace the 4-electrical outlet splitter with a much more compact splitter.  It is really useful to turn one outlet into two, but creating four is rarely critical.
  • Upgrade to a slightly larger, more powerful laptop, and leave the second battery at home.  The soon to be released Lenovo x120e with a 11″ screen (399$) looks like a great option for less than half the price of the new 11″ Macbook Air.  I don’t need a second battery, since in-flight entertainment coupled with sleeping medicine makes a 13 hour flight turn into a movie with dinner, sleep time, then a second movie with breakfast.  (When we needed to use the laptop during the trip it was for short bursts of time.  We were able to recharge it in a hotel, backpacker or in the car before it was depleted.)  P.S. An Included bluetooth adapter would eliminate another dongle.
  • Consider leaving the MP3 player behind and relying on the phone for music.
  • Explore using GPS software on a smartphone instead of a dedicated Auto GPS.
  • Download travel guidebooks for the Kindle (or smartphone) and leave the paper guidebook at home. (If this works well, one of these Moleskine Notebook + E-reader cases would be a great travel setup.)

Overall, I am happy with the equipment we brought and the optimizations we made before we left home.  That said, this was a timely opportunity to review what worked well, what didn’t, what we used a lot and what we could have left at home.

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Posted in Reviews, Technology, Travel

It’s Electric! (boogie woogie woogie)

November 15th, 2010 by Tom Alphin No comments »

This month, we got the opportunity to test two of the front-runners of the race to build and sell a mainstream plug-in electric vehicle.  Both cars were designed  with different tradeoffs in mind, and each is being brought to market with a different strategy.  What follows isn’t a formal review, but my take on the cars based on very limited experiences with each vehicle.

Get familiar with this plug as it will charge your next car

Overview & Pricing:

The first car we tried was the Chevy Volt, an expensive (40,280$ – 7,500$ federal credit = 32,780$) 4-seater designed around a smaller battery back with a 40 mile range and a gas generator to extend the range several hundred miles.  It has a jellybean-shaped exterior which is very similar to the Prius and a spaceship interior with tons of bells and whistles that remind you at all opportunities that you are driving a “green” car.

Getting under the hood of the Chevy Volt

Today we participated in a test drive of the Nissan Leaf.  It is priced starting at a more reasonable 25,280$ (32,780$ before the 7,500$ federal credit).  It’s exterior is more “budget hatchback” than “Prius ripoff” but it still features the vertical column of clear plastic  on either side of the rear door which has grown to mean green.  The interior is more modestly appointed, with an interior that I found more familiar and much less distracting.

The Leaf is a basic-looking small car

The Leaf is the obvious winner as it is 7500$ cheaper. It also may be cheaper to maintain as it has no combustion engine and needs no oil changes.  The Leaf relies more on a high-voltage charging station in the home as it takes 20 hours to charge fully on 110 volt, versus 8 hours with the special charger.  With the smaller battery, the Volt doesn’t take as long to charge fully.

That said, it is impossible to predict the maintenance costs of a new technology.  (Both have comparable warranties on the battery system at around 8 years or 100k miles, which is good to know, but I expect more than 8 years of a car so only time will tell.)  On the pricing front, I understand but haven’t confirmed that these cars are exempt from state sales tax, which brings the effective cost of the car as compared to a traditional gasoline car down by another 2-3 thousand dollars.

Design Concepts and Marketing Strategies:

At it’s core, the Chevy Volt is a hybrid car like the Prius, with a slightly larger battery pack and the ability to plug it in to the wall.  It was presented cautiously, as a car with no weaknesses and the ability to drive 40 miles a day without using any gas.  They felt defensive about this design decision, and didn’t miss an opportunity to remind us that pure electric vehicles have a limited range.

The Leaf was designed from the ground up to be an all-electric vehicle for everyday use.  It was presented in today’s demonstration in a direct an unapologetic fashion.  They explained that most people can drive around town all day with a range of 100 miles, and if that isn’t enough, rapid charging stations are getting built on highways and at the places you shop.  I felt like the clarity of purpose made for a stronger position.

Interior:

Apart from the different power systems, each car took a different approach to the interior and overall driving experience.

I’ll say it up front rather than dancing around the matter: I hated the interior of the Volt.  It felt like a spaceship with a shiny white plastic center console with a massive touchscreen dominated with excessively “green” icons and menus.  Despite the shiny veneer, the buttons felt cheap with an incredibly annoying interaction design: The physical buttons which surround the touchscreen respond to touch, not clicking.  As such you cannot feel your way around the dash to change the station, since merely touching the button will change the station.  It was all made worse by the fact that I expect a car with a final cost of over 30k to have a refined, polished and professional build quality, like that in a BMW or other expensive cars.  Lastly, the placement of the battery in a column down the middle of the car means that it is strictly a 4-seater.  It’s not that it would be comfortable to carry 5 in either car, but the flexibility is nice.

The interior of the Volt was distracting and felt cheap

By contrast, the Leaf’s interior did little to impress or offend me.  As a driver of a 12-year old car that has a fairly spartan interior, I am used to a car with fairly basic controls and displays.  The dashboard was straightforward with the expected battery gauges, speedometer and a nicely understated indicator of your driving efficiency.  The plastic interior detailing felt solid, though lacking in the aesthetic appeal of polished plastic, metal or wood.  The included navigation system and touchscreen was straightforward and responsive.  It will no doubt feel dated in 10 years, but hopefully by then you won’t need a special map to find a place to plug in your car.  Overall, as a car driver and not a car nut, the interior features aligned with my expectations of a car in this price range and appealed to my preference for function before form and features.

The Leaf has a clean and simple interior with less distractions

Conclusion:

Chevy is trying very hard to market the Volt as a Plug-in electric vehicle with no limits, but it felt like they wanted it to be everything to everyone and ended up building a car that isn’t great at anything and costs too much.  By contrast, the Leaf is marketed as a convenient 100% electric car for getting around town without a lot of fuss.

I think Nissan is right.  We all know what makes an electric car great: cost savings and lessened environmental impact.  That’s why they focused their energy on two things: Making a great car that feels like a car first, and explaining how you can fit it’s need to be plugged-in every 100 miles in to your existing lifestyle.

http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/index#/leaf-electric-car/indexT

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Posted in Technology, Uncategorized

Remembering John Merrill

October 5th, 2010 by Tom Alphin 7 comments »
John Merrill on the ferry, Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

John Merrill on the ferry, Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

Last Monday, I got a call from my parents that John, my closest friend from middle and high school had died while climbing a 14er in Colorado.  As the news articles came in, further details came to light…  His dog Oof survived the accident, the cause was a massive rockslide, and it was the same route where another hiker died two months ago.  Most tragically, his wife Delmy just found out the Friday before that she was pregnant.
This weekend, I attended a service in his honor at Asbury United Methodist Church in Arnold, MD.  I was asked to speak during the service and prepared a few words to explain John from my perspective.  I have shared those words again here as a tribute to John:

I’ve been John’s friend since we were in the 6th grade.  When I spoke at his wedding, I described the hiking trip we took when we were 17 years old, our first time driving more than an hour without our parents, and our first time backpacking without the supervision of our scout leaders or any other “grown-ups”.  Of course there were mishaps, such as losing the trail and having to bushwhack through a mountainside covered in Mountain Laurel, but we learned how rewarding it can be to lead your own adventures.

Getting ready to begin our backpacking trip in Virginia.

One such adventure became a tradition:  Over Christmas break during college, I convinced a few friends to celebrate the New Year by swimming in the Severn River.  The plan was to go to the beach behind Severn School, strip down to our swimsuits, jump into the water and get back out as quickly as possible.   It should come as no surprise that it was easy to convince John to participate.

Swimming on New Years Day.

Swimming on New Years Day.

Lastly, it would be incomplete to describe John without explaining his obsession with high places.   I could speak of our trip to the top of several volcanoes in Guatemala, but I would rather share in the story of a more modest high place.  Over Christmas break in 2004, John really wanted to visit a high point that he had researched, the highest point in Anne Arundel County.  If you are familiar with this area, I doubt you are imagining a majestic peak, but you might be thinking of a prominent hill with a nice oak tree.   Well, no; The high point of the county is the highest spot in a nearly flat area which is 100 yards from a minor road, about 200 yards from a cellphone tower and all of 300 feet above sea level.  It was right on the side of someone’s front yard.  We weren’t exactly sure we were on the exact highest point, but I was absolutely certain that we were trespassing.

John has always been obsessed with reaching high places professionally and personally.  I have always found the biggest reward for reaching high places were the clear views around me, but I think for John, part of the reward was the ability to see himself more clearly.

John, we will miss you, and we will remember you always, particularly in the highest and the wildest places of the world or the county.

(I should clarify that he went by “Johnny” to everyone except me and his immediate family; I met him before he switched his name.  I think he liked that I always called him John, as it was a reminder that our friendship started so many years ago.)

My tribute was just part of the many kind words shared by family and friends.  His mother started the celebration with a her memories of John, and an account of the accident.  She somehow managed to muster the strength to sing a duet with John’s brother David.   His cousin Amy Martelli expressed her admiration for John’s strength and the bond they shared as oldest siblings in their families.  Shawn Scout shared stories of the times they shared in the Boy Scouts, and Michael Weissman reflected on John’s role as a campaigner for several political campaigns.  Others filled in additional details of John’s life, including the memories of his role in the Peace Corps, and as a friend to so many.  John’s brother David Merrill finished the ceremony by sharing a few more kind words about his brother, before switching to song to celebrate his life.

One story by someone he campainged with on the Howard Dean campaign particularly stuck with me:  John was leading the campaigning for the northernmost district in New Hampshire where they were working to build grass-roots support by going door to door.  As it was winter, on many mornings they would wake up in their cabin to significant snowfall.  When everyone else had declared a snow day, John would simply grab the snow shovel, and start digging out the driveway.  At first, they tried to see how long they could wait before their conscience kicked in, but eventually, they learned that when John put on his boots and grabbed the shovel, it was a work day.

The ceremony was very thoughtful and moving, and it was warming to see the church absolutely filled with those who cared about him and wanted to celebrate his passion for life and his many accomplishments.

John pushing a stick into Lava on the Pacaya Volcano, Guatemala

John pushing a stick into an active lava flow on the Pacaya Volcano, Guatemala

Articles describing the accident:

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Energy Efficient Water Heater

June 16th, 2010 by Tom Alphin 5 comments »

We have needed a new water heater for a few months, since discovering that our hot water was slightly discolored with rust. (Harmless, but kinda gross and indicative of bigger problems with our nearly 20yr old water heater.)  That need increased this week, when I discovered that it had begun to leak.

Thus, research ensued.  I was already familiar with the Federal incentive for high-efficiency home improvements. (30% of cost, labor included. Learn more at the energystar.gov website.)    I also learned that our power company, PSE offers a 150$ or 200$ rebate (for units with an efficiency rating of .82 or higher, or .90 or higher accordingly. link), depending on the efficiency of the model.  For water heaters, the only options on the market that meet the efficiency requirements set by the government program and PSE are what are called ”tankless water heaters”.

This was enough info to start calling contractors… I used highly rated listings on the convenient Angie’s list website to find the best price, and the best product offerings.  Most tank based systems sounded like a ~1500 replacement, which would have been even less if our old unit wasn’t a more costly direct vent model.  The premium is required of a water heater that can vent out a side wall instead of the roof.  (Traditional tank-based systems are closer to 1000$ installed.)

This put tankless systems in a competitive price point, with the combination of PSE and Federal rebates.  I found that the Fast Water Heater company had particularly good prices, and they offered a extremely interesting product for a great price.  They had a traditional tankless system by Noritz with an efficiency rating of .82 for 2229$ installed, which seemed like a good price.  They also had a “hybrid water heater” by Eternal for 2569$.  (eternalwaterheater.com)

The hybrid offered a couple benefits over the traditional tankless unit:

  • Even higher .96 efficiency rating. (eligible for additional 50$ rebate from PSE.)
  • It is designed around a small 2 gallon “tank” which means that you get hot water more quicky, since it doesn’t need to start up the gas to get hot water flowing.
  • It is self cleaning, meaning that there is less need for regular cleaning of the heating element, which is required for tankless systems.

My enthusiasm for the feature list was slightly moderated by some real concerns too: The Eternal product has a great 10 year warranty, but it is hard to know how reliable it is since it is based on 3 year old technology.  The hybrid units are also larger than the true tankless units;  It would save space compared to the old 50 gallon tank, but not as much.

I decided to go for the hybrid for the reasons identified above.  I felt like the point of the Federal incentive is to drive the adoption of new technology, and in a way, the government is paying us to take a gamble on new technology, which will over time result in greater adoption and better quality products.  I sure hope that I bet on the right product, but only time will tell.  What I can say now is that it is pretty nice to be able to clean out the hot tub, and fill it right back up with hot water; no need to wait a day for the water to heat up.

Note: There is one important detail that is not entirely clear when comparing tankless units.  They all come with a GPM rating, which is used to determine which model is big enough to meet your home’s needs, but this rating is misleading.  You might calculate that your home needs 5gpm of hot water for peak usage. (ex: washer, dishwasher and a shower)  This does not mean that a unit rated for 5gpm unit will meet your needs in a location like Washington.  The rating on the unit is based on the assumption that the water heater only needs to increase the water temperature by a certain amount, maybe 30 degrees.  In Washington State, the water temperature coming into the house is quite cold, so it will take more energy, and a higher powered unit to raise the water temperature by a greater amount.  The eternal unit we purchased is rated for up to 14.5gpm, which will probably be closer to 7gpm maximum here in WA.

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I’ve been off WAC’ing.

May 11th, 2010 by Tom Alphin 1 comment »

Washington Alpine ClubAs you may have noticed, I haven’t been very active on the ol’ blog in the past two months.  It’s not because I am bored or lazy; I’ve been extremely busy!  The main culprits are: work, a fantastic one week trip to Utah, gardening and a little thing called the WAC.

I am enrolled in the Washington Alpine Club’s Basic Climbing Class.  It is an introductory course to mountaineering, starting from the basics.  The class covers snow travel, pooping in the woods, rock climbing, snow camping, ice travel, Self arresting, rescue techniques, Avalanche preparedness, setting up and traveling as a rope team and no doubt much more.  The “final” project for the class will be a summit bid on Mt Baker.

Mt Si: The very first trip was a test.  We were challenged to carry a full pack up Mt. Si in under two hours.  (The pack totaled around 30 pounds of gear as required by the instructors.)  It was weird hiking in a massive group with an artificial deadline, but I made the time without a lot of difficulty.  (It didn’t hurt that I summited Mailbox with a significantly heavier pack the week before in 2.5 hours as practice.)  At the top, we learned some basic skills in three stations: Knots, Emergency Bivy and Map and Compass.  They even had a mini orienteering course for us to practice our compass skills on.  We even had a little snowfall while we were at the top, which was fun.

Emergency Bivy practice on Mt. Si.

The main thing I learned that weekend was that I am in pretty good shape, and that I already have a good foundation in the basic skills.  I also learned that you get much colder standing still than moving about.  Standing on a piece of foam can make a difference in keeping your feet warm.

Spire II: The second and third trips were consecutive weekends at Spire Rock near Tacoma.  It is a man-made outdoor climbing area where we practiced climbing, rappelling, ascending a line, orienteering, and more.  (All in mountaineering boots, not rock climbing boots!)   I missed the first weekend in Utah, but they covered pretty much the same material both weekends.

Practicing belaying & rappelling techniques at Spire Rock.

The big learning for me here was that I still don’t enjoy rappelling, particularly with a large pack.  A broad stance helps you keep your footing and prevents you from toppling over.  Finally, prussiking up a vertical line, especially with a pack is a huge pain in the butt.  Not only is it slow, but I found my prussik knots kept getting jammed up and needed to be re-dressed every time I weighted the knot.  I don’t know if more wraps or less would have been better.  I do think a Bachmann knot (around a carabiner) would have been much easier, at least for me.

Mt Erie: The third trip took our skills to real rock, at Mt Erie, near Anacortes.  Here we did more of the same, but on longer pitches of real rock.  This was our first weekend wholly belaying each other, and some of the long belays with a heavy pack were pretty nerve-racking.  I completed several pretty tough routes, at least given that we were still wearing boots.

Nice weather arrived at the end of the day.

I learned that rappelling with an autoblock is annoying, but less annoying if you place it on your lower leg loop and as far back as possible.  This allowed me to use more of my leg to slow my descent and is much more comfortable.  I don’t know why I thought the autoblock should go on your waist belt near the ATC, this is clearly not as good.   I also finally got some decent photos on this trip.

Snow I: The most recent trip really galvanized the skills for me.  It was a weekend of Snow Camping, Self Arresting, Building and testing various Snow Anchoring techniques, Snow Travel, further practice on a Rope Team,  and given the unseasonably large amount of snow we received (all day, both days) we got a LOT of extra experience testing the waterproofness of our gear and practicing snow travel in fresh deep snow.  The final celebration on the first day was a cooking contest where each team competed to create the tastiest and most thematically strong dinner.  Not wanting to miss out on the competition, the Instructors surprised us with fantastic appetizers too.  The winning teams prepared Indian Food and Jamaican Food (complete with rasta dread-headed costumes.)

The Ascent to our snow camping area near the top of Alpental Chair 2.

I can’t begin to list everything I learned this weekend, but the biggies are threefold:

1) My gloves were not adequately waterproof, and you need an excellent glove system when you need to get your hands out to do things frequently in a wet environment.  The right gear and knowing how to use it is crucial.

2) I am horribly bad at following or kicking steps in very soft fresh snow.  I know I am pretty heavy, especially for my small size 9.5 feet, but this was maddeningly hard for me.  The learning is that keeping your weight on the toes and stepping up gently without the forceful push-off on the lower foot is crucial.  I haven’t got it down quite yet, but I know what I need to work on.  I even went to the gym and practiced stepping gently on the stair machine to get ready for the alpine climbs.

3) Ice Axe arrest is not something you want to need to use.  It works, sometimes, in certain snow conditions, but it is tricky to do well, especially when you start off sliding down hill head first on your back.  I don’t think this is completely a programmed response yet, but with the two days of practice I am getting there.

Group Photo at the Snow Kitchen we made during  Snow 1.

4) I nearly forgot, but I also learned that Photography in wet snowy conditions, particularly right around the freezing point is very difficult.  Everything gets wet, which isn’t great for the camera gear, but more troubling, the lens fogs up completely.  With nothing dry on my body, I couldn’t wipe the condensation free.  Further, I found the bulk of an SLR really is a burden when traveling on snow.  I’m not sure I can imagine carrying an SLR on all of the alpine trips, and may seriously consider a different camera for those trips.

So far, the class has been great and I look forward to the alpine climbs.  It’s a little hard to believe that the class is more than half complete, but I have learned a lot.  I certainly look forward to learning more through the class itself, and subsequent trips with my new friends in the Washington Alpine Club.

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Posted in Hiking, Photography

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