Top Albums of 2011

2011 was a bit of a down year in music for me.  For the sake of comparison, my personal music collection has 25.3 hours of music released in 2011, but 62.8 hours from 2010.  [But this makes things look worse than they really are, for a couple of reasons: (1) I've since added music from 2010 during 2011 (2) Now that I use the fantastic subscription service MOG to preview almost all the music I listen to, I can be more selective about what I add to my collection.]  Also, I attended only 3 concerts (excluding festivals) in 2011, compared to 20 (which was actually a bit much) in 2010.

All that being said, I wouldn't necessarily claim that the quality of this year's top 10 is worse than last year's.  However, the quality does seem to thin out beyond #10 faster than it did last year.  But you can be the judge of that.

Without further ado...

1. Panda Bear - Tomboy
2. BOBBY - BOBBY
3. Radiohead - The King of Limbs
4. Washed Out - Within and Without
5. Other Lives - Tamer Animals
6. Common - The Dreamer, The Believer
7. Jay-Z and Kanye West - Watch the Throne
8. TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light
9. Cut Copy - Zonoscope 
10. M83 - Hurry Up We're Dreaming 

...and the best of the rest...

Dawn Golden and Rosy Cross - Blow EP
Son Lux - We Are Rising
Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto
Blindside - With Shivering Hearts We Wait
Death Cab for Cutie - Codes and Keys
The Joy Formidable - The Big Roar
Deal Earnhardt Jr. Jr. - It's A Corporate World
The Dodos - No Color
Friendly Fires - Pala
Cults - Cults

What about this method of taxation?

My general feeling is that the last thing we need in the USA is a more complicated tax code.  However, I just had an idea for a new, perhaps slightly complex, structure to the income tax system that I think might be worth mulling over.  I'll state right off the bat that this probably would never work for logistical reasons.  But if we cast aside that impediment for a bit, there might be something worth pursuing in this idea.

The basic idea is that each taxpayer would use their tax dollars to have a real say in how he/she thinks the government should run.  For now I'm just talking about income tax, and this may be the only area in which this idea would make sense.  There are, of course, arguments that an income tax is not an effective method of taxation, but that's a discussion for another time.  Anyway, here's what would happen in my proposed system:

• As before, each taxpayer would be assigned a total effective tax rate based on their income.  There seems to be somewhat general agreement that a system that does this in a progressive fashion (i.e., the tax rate increases with the taxable base) is preferred, and I'm fine with that.
• I would advocate eliminating all tax deductions and credits.  I agree with a wise friend (Tim Mason) who stresses that the point of taxation is to fund the government, not to encourage or discourage certain behaviors.  Assuming no other changes, the effective tax rates would be lower in this system while generating the same amount of revenue - this is because people would not be doing tricks to lower their taxable income through deductions and credits.  So far this idea is nothing new.  Time for the potentially novel aspects...
• Of that total effective tax rate, each taxpayer would be required to pay some mandatory portion of it towards barely keeping the government running.  By this I mean keeping the lights on and funding prior obligations (debt, entitlement programs, etc.).  To give a more concrete example with simple numbers, lets say this mandatory portion is 50% of the total effective tax rate.  While we're making up numbers, let's assume that the total effective tax rate for an income of $100,000 is 20%.  Someone with that income would be require to pay 50% of 20% (= 10%) of $100,000, so $10,000.
• The remainder of an individual's tax burden could be lower or higher than the remaining 50% of the total effective tax rate.  The final amount would be at the discretion of the taxpayer.  But this determination would not be arbitrary.  The taxpayer would be presented a list of departments of the US government (I don't know whether this would be a complete list, but the "major" ones should probably be on there) with information on what each department does and its funding needs.  For each department listed, the taxpayer would be given a choice of 5 funding levels, ranging from significantly reducing a department's budget, to maintaining its current budget, to significantly increasing its budget.  Let's say the choices are something like the following:
• (A) Fund the department at 50% of current budget
• (B) Fund the department at 75% of current budget
• (C) Fund the department at 100% of current budget
• (D) Fund the department at 125% of current budget
• (E) Fund the department at 150% of current budget 
• The system would presumably be set up so that choosing to fund all departments at 100% would result in paying 100% of the discretionary portion of the effective tax rate, and thus 100% of the total effective tax rate.  Using the numbers above, an individual could then pay between 50% (all budgets slashed) and 150% (all budgets boosted) of the discretionary portion - or between 75% and 125% of the total effective tax rate.  The final number would be dependent on his/her funding levels for each department.  The departments would also presumably have different weightings on the individual's final tax burden, with larger departments having more of an effect.

I like this idea because it gives taxpayers a say in how they think the government should be structured, and this vote is directly tied to something that most people care about - their wallets.  If you think that the work a certain department does is valuable, you can show it by increasing their funding.  If you think a department should be shut down, decrease their funding.  I think it would go a long way toward showing what people think the right size of government should be.

It also changes the dynamic of tax increases and tax cuts.  If a political figure or group wanted an income tax increase, they basically would have to convince the public to fund the government at higher levels.  Tax cuts would go the opposite direction, though I don't think most people would need convincing in order to reduce their tax outlay.

Obviously, there are also some drawbacks to this idea.  I see two main arguments against it, but I am sure there are many others.  The first deals with logistics.  Besides the fact there are many details that I glossed over that would need to be sorted out, it seems like an overwhelming burden to force each taxpayer to make these sorts of decisions.  And it may be that the departmental level is not an ideal partitioning for this project.  Imagine how much more work it would be to have to make decisions on individual agencies within departments.  Isn't that what we elect public officials to do for us?

The other argument seems to be one of fairness, and goes something along these lines...  If I'm funding a department at a higher level than someone else, should I not benefit more from that department than that other person?  If I give the Department of Defense 150% funding, I should be better protected from foreign militaries than someone who gives them 50% funding.  Or if I give the Department of Transportation 150%, I should perhaps drive on better roads than someone who gives them 50%.  Even if the current system has other flaws in distribution, I can at least say something like each person pays an equal portion of each tax dollar for each service that the government provides.

To the first point regarding logistics, I don't think the project is hopelessly doomed.  I certainly think that there would be many issues to work out, but I think it could be done in a way that preserves the basic ideas driving this.  Remember that filling out tax forms right now is not a straightforward task.  In fact, this is so much the case that a large number of people pay professionals to do it for them.  My proposal could conceivably be simpler than the current system if tax loopholes were closed and tax rate calculations were simplified.  The only remaining variables would be income level and departmental funding levels.

Even if the logistical issues could be overcome, the question remains of whether this would be a worthwhile method to try.  The second objection above is an argument that it is not.  I don't think that I currently have anything to say directly counter to that objection, though my response would be that I perhaps see fairness a different way.  I think that giving each person a voice regarding the structure of the government is fair.  And in the end the benefits of doing this could outweigh claims to individual levels of service based on contribution.

As I hinted at earlier, there are many more aspects to this idea that I have not even considered (despite the above-average length of this post).  Perhaps somebody will point something out that will make me realize that this is a profoundly misguided idea (and hence why I've never heard something like this discussed before).  But for now I'm kinda diggin' it.

Really, Charlie Davies??

I like Charlie Davies as a footballer.  I wouldn't call him great by any means, but his speed gave the US Men's National Team a bit of a spark when he played.  And of course I was saddened when I heard about the car accident a couple of years ago that ultimately cost him a chance at playing in the World Cup.  But he's recovered fairly well, and had a pretty solid season in the MLS this year.  And I wish him the best in his soccer career going forward.

With that being said, however, I think that his current lawsuit against the Shadow Room, the nightclub where he partied the night of the crash, and Red Bull is completely frivolous and without merit.  The lawsuit apparently claims that the Shadow Room and Red Bull are responsible for the car accident (in which one person was killed, in addition to the others that were injured) because they served excessive alcohol to the woman that later drove the car.

Really??

I have a couple of questions for you, Charlie...

1. Did the nightclub in any way force the woman to acquire or consume those alcoholic beverages?
2. Did the nightclub force her to get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle while intoxicated?
3. Did the nightclub wreck the car?

I strongly suspect that the answer to all those questions is clearly "No".  So drop the stupid lawsuit.

The whole idea is so dumb that it's not even worth my time writing this post.  Except for the minor point that it allows me to make about free will.  My opinion is obviously that we are each responsible for our freely chosen actions.  An excuse such as "I was drunk" does not relieve you of that responsibility (assuming here that you were not forcefully or surreptitiously drugged, or anything like that).

Since I am also a determinist, some might argue that I must provide an account of how free will is compatible with determinism in order to be able to claim that we are indeed responsible for our actions.  But that's a discussion for another time...

Every online service should have a data extraction feature

This post was initially inspired by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings' blog post that apologized for the recent price hike and then announced that their movie-by-mail service would be spun off to a separate site named Qwikster.  My concern was that I would then have to manage two separate movie queues and, more importantly, two sets of movie ratings.

Sidetrack...  One primary driver that makes me like Netflix so much is my horrible memory.  I've seen a fair number of movies, but I don't really remember much about most of them.  But given any particular movie I can take a glance at my Netflix rating history and get an idea of how much I liked (or disliked) it.  This seems like a pretty simple idea, but for me it's pretty great.

Anyway...  The announcement of Qwikster even had me considering quitting Netflix for about half a second.  But Netflix does not provide a way to extract your rating history from their service.  And I've rated a lot of movies on there - 1120 at latest count (though I'd estimate that I've only watched 700-800 on Netflix).  There are, or at least were, some ways to hack your rating history out of Netflix, but the couple that I found appear to not function any more (though I did not verify this myself).

Wouldn't it be great if Netflix, and other online services, had a data liberation team like Google's?  The folks at Google even have a feature called Google Takeout that allows you to download your data from an expanding list of Google services.  Even Facebook has a way to archive and download all your Facebook data (there's a link that says "Download a copy of your Facebook data" at the bottom of the Account Settings page).  This makes it easy to keep all your data if you stop using a service, or transition to a different provider.  Unfortunately, this ties into why they wouldn't want to provide this feature - they want to keep you hooked.

OK, so maybe Netflix doesn't really have enough of my data that they need a huge archiving system.  But I would have thought that it wouldn't be that hard to provide a simple API that allows external applications (that I authorize) to access my movie ratings.  In fact, this feature has been in request for over 3 years now.  It seems that the hang-up has been with the legal department - privacy issues and the like.

Anyway, Reed and Netflix today announced that DVDs will be staying on Netflix, and that Qwikster is not going to happen.  So the status quo will be maintained.  And I won't be leaving Netflix...which wasn't going to happen anyway.

The PNC Virtual Wallet Android app has finally arrived.

And it mostly lives up to the hype.
 
It's been about a year since I switched my main bank accounts from the one that everyone and their mother uses (Bank of America) to PNC.  Part of the reason for this is PNC's Virtual Wallet product.  It basically involves giving you 3 accounts: one for everyday spending (Spend), one for short-term saving (Reserve), and one for long-term saving with a "high" interest rate (Growth).  And they have a novel UI (centered around a calendar view and a "Money Bar") for presenting your account status.  That's about as much selling of it as I'm going to do here - see https://www.pncvirtualwallet.com if you would like to find out more.  I will note that their system can be a bit buggy at times, especially when new features are released, and they seem to be down for maintenance a bit more than I would like.  But overall I'm quite pleased with their services.

Anyway, Virtual Wallet has had an iPhone app for a while now, and it's been making my Nexus S jealous.  There has been a PNC app in the Android Market, but it is (to be frank) pretty crappy - it is little more than a bookmark to their mobile site, which has no VW-specific functionality.  The VW iPhone app gives you the Calendar, Money Bar, and (most impressively) remote mobile deposits - the ability to deposit checks by taking a picture with your phone.  Chase was the first bank I was aware of to offer this last bit of functionality, and from what I understand Bank of America has plans to do so as well in the near future (if they don't already).

The Virtual Wallet Android app was released two weeks ago, with a feature set to match its iOS counterpart.  Everything advertised seems to be there, but I have not yet had a chance to actually perform a mobile deposit - I have not received any checks recently.  Normally I don't like receiving checks, as depositing them requires making a trip to the bank (though the BoA ATMs with automatic no-envelope check processing are pretty slick), but I'm kind of itching to try out this feature.  I'm still a proponent of all-electronic finances, though, so I'm glad to see Virtual Wallet offer PopMoney integration (though not in the mobile version).  And in a similar vein, the arrival of Google Wallet  is also a welcome event (though it is, unfortunately, only offered for Sprint's Nexus S 4G, even though my Nexus S has the required NFC capabilities).

But back to the Virtual Wallet Android app...which is not without it's minor flaws.  My main gripe is having to perform a full sign-in (i.e., typing in my user ID and password) each time I use the app.  It would be nice if I only had to sign in once, and then each subsequent time only had to enter in a PIN unless I performed a manual log-out.  Other than that, though, it seems to work pretty well.  Maybe I'll go write myself a check from my BoA account...just to give the app the full once-over...

Journey of my music files

I just bought the album Pala by Friendly Fires (whom I will hopefully be seeing this Saturday at Lollapalooza) earlier tonight.  In the process, I kicked off an interesting chain of MP3 file transfers that illustrates how my music "lives in the cloud" these days.

First, I bought the album with "1 Click®" (actually 2, since I have my account set to confirm my MP3 purchases) on Amazon.  I have my account set up to automatically add my MP3 purchases to my Amazon Cloud Drive.  From the purchase confirmation screen, it's one click over to the Amazon Cloud Player, and then four more to initiate the album download to my PC using the Amazon MP Downloader.  The MP3 Downloader is set up to download songs into my music library on my PC.  The folders in which my music library resides are watched by a couple of services running on the computer.  I use Windows Live Mesh to automatically synchronize my music (as well as my pictures, videos, documents, etc.) across a couple of of PCs - my Media Center PC was actually asleep at the time, so this transfer actually will not kick off until it is awakened.  The other service, Google's Music Manager, watches for additions to the library and automatically uploads the songs to Google Music - this transfer did kick off shortly after the download.  So I am now able to stream Pala to my (Android-running) Nexus S using the stock music app.  I can also use the Cloud Player in my Amazon MP3 app to stream from my Cloud Drive, but I prefer using the music app (better interface, includes on-device music while offline, and *scrobbles* to Last.fm).  I should note that for a few minutes all these file transfers do slow my Internet/network connection to a crawl for other non-music related activities.

So in about 6 clicks (after finding the album on Amazon), I set off a process that put the album on 2 cloud services and 2 PCs, and allows me to stream it to my phone using 2 different apps.  In 2 clicks (1 if I turn off purchase confirmation), I would have been able to stream to my phone from the cloud using only Amazon services and the Android mobile platform.  The tech-savvy among us will note that Apple's upcoming iCloud service will provide the same type of functionality, though they (and Apple fanboys everywhere) claim that their way is the way that it "should" be - it's yet another case of Apple taking something that's already being done and making it shiny and pretty, and charging more for it (though I will give them kudos for how seamlessly it appears that their cloud functionality will be integrated with everything Apple).  One reason, among others, that I'm not considering a switch to the iEcosystem/iUniverse is that, as is typical, Pala costs $2 more on iTunes than on Amazon.

As an aside, T-Mobile's (and other mobile carriers') network engineers are probably not too thrilled with this cloud-based availability, as I (and I'm sure many others) have switched to using my phone as my music player while driving in my car (using my stereo auxiliary input).  Prior to the switch, I consumed under 200 MB per billing cycle in data usage.  This billing cycle is the first full one that I will be in the country since the switch, and I had consumed about 1.5 GB of data with a week or so left in the cycle.

Netflix is beginning to test my patience

As Netflix has become a more and more dominant player in the home movie arena, they have not been shy about trying to squeeze more profits out of their customers.  Or are they simply barely covering their costs?  The latter is what their latest account update e-mail would lead you to believe:

Dear Obinna,

We are separating unlimited DVDs by mail and unlimited streaming into two separate plans to better reflect the costs of each. Now our members have a choice: a streaming only plan, a DVD only plan, or both.

Your current $23.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs (including Blu-ray access) will be split into 2 distinct plans:

   Plan 1: Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month
   Plan 2: Unlimited DVDs (including Blu-ray), 3 out at-a-time (no streaming)
              for $19.99 a month

Your price for getting both of these plans will be $27.98 a month ($7.99 + $19.99). You don't need to do anything to continue your memberships for both unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs.

These prices will start for charges on or after September 1, 2011.

You can easily change or cancel your unlimited streaming plan, unlimited DVD plan, or both, by going to the Plan Change page in Your Account.

We realize you have many choices for home entertainment, and we thank you for your business. As always, if you have questions, please feel free to call us at 1-888-357-1516.

–The Netflix Team

Fair enough, at first glance.  But lately it seems that I can expect this type of e-mail every few months from these guys.  I've had their "unlimited" 3-discs-at-a-time plan with unlimited streaming (since they've offered it) for what seems like forever.  Here's a summary of all the price adjustments that they have made for this plan in that time (these prices do not include tax, which is typically about $2):

• November 2004 - $17.99
• Cost when I started
• August 2007 - $16.99
• $1 decrease due to competition from Blockbuster
• October 2008 -  $17.99
• $1 increase for customers who rent Blu-Ray discs
• May 2009 - $20.99
• $3 increase for Blu-Ray option
• January 2011 - $23.99
• Plan price adjustment to account for rise in streaming demand
• September 2011 - $27.98
• Separation of disc and streaming plans

As you can see, the price increases have been especially sharp as of late.  This is supposedly due to the shift towards acquiring and providing more streaming content.  It's somewhat understandable, but a 55% increase in 3 years seems a bit harsh.  Too bad they're pretty much the only viable game left in town.  Plus I can't say that I'm disappointed with their services.