This whole truck food thing in LA looks pretty interesting, and I want to start learning more about it...
Thursday, February 25, 2010
First time at a Kogi BBQ truck... yummmmm..
I saw on Twitter that a Kogi BBQ truck would be in the neighborhood, so I decided to check it out. It really was good. Of course, I brought my camera along, since I always like to take pictures of people buying and eating food, wherever I am... Our son had the Kobi dog, and my wife and I shared a short rib burrito and a spicy pork burrito. Very delicious, we'll be going back for more next time they are around. This is good stuff. Last time I bought food from a truck was when I lived in Philadelphia, and I bought great cheesesteaks from a truck called Sophie's that routinely parked near the Penn campus. I think the Kogi BBQ is probably a little healthier.
This whole truck food thing in LA looks pretty interesting, and I want to start learning more about it...
This whole truck food thing in LA looks pretty interesting, and I want to start learning more about it...
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Nexus One in China, with China Mobile M-Zone
I am in China for a few days. I brought along a borrowed Nexus One because I wanted to make sure it would work here before I bought one. I am pleased to say that it worked fine. I popped in my China Mobile SIM Card, turned it on, logged in to my Google account, and off I went. Obviously the native Facebook app doesn't work because Facebook is still blocked, and the Twitter app I am using right now, Seismic, didn't work either, since Twitter is blocked as well. GPS and Google Maps worked very nicely, with detailed road maps and well-labeled satellite imagery. I haven't tried out the navigation, however. I did turn out Google Latitude and my family back in the states had no trouble following my movements.
Overall, no problems to report. If you are coming to China and have a Nexus One, by all means bring it. Just make sure that if you do buy a prepaid SIM card for service from China Mobile or another provider, make sure it is one of the plans like M-Zone that includes data services. Some of the more basic, no-frills plans do not include data services, even as an add-on. If you do sign up for M-Zone or another plan, you should probably also sign up for a data plan. M-Zone has data plans where you can sign up for different monthly quotas, like 20Mb/month or 50Mb/month, and they deduct some fairly small charge every month from your balance. If you don't sign up for a data plan, you'll pay according to your traffic, which could drain you balance quickly.
One other nice thing about China mobile: at least in Beijing, they have fabulous English-language customer service via their help line, 10086. Every time I have needed to reach them to go over something, I had someone on the line in seconds, and they were able to resolve my problem quickly.
One other thing: 3G service in Beijing seems spotty. In some ways this may not be a bad thing. Yesterday I was somewhere that had 3G service and the battery drained very quickly. I'm not sure why, but someone else at the meeting who had a Nexus One said their battery also drained very quickly that day. I went into the settings to force 2G service, hopefully this will give me some battery life.
Overall, no problems to report. If you are coming to China and have a Nexus One, by all means bring it. Just make sure that if you do buy a prepaid SIM card for service from China Mobile or another provider, make sure it is one of the plans like M-Zone that includes data services. Some of the more basic, no-frills plans do not include data services, even as an add-on. If you do sign up for M-Zone or another plan, you should probably also sign up for a data plan. M-Zone has data plans where you can sign up for different monthly quotas, like 20Mb/month or 50Mb/month, and they deduct some fairly small charge every month from your balance. If you don't sign up for a data plan, you'll pay according to your traffic, which could drain you balance quickly.
One other nice thing about China mobile: at least in Beijing, they have fabulous English-language customer service via their help line, 10086. Every time I have needed to reach them to go over something, I had someone on the line in seconds, and they were able to resolve my problem quickly.
One other thing: 3G service in Beijing seems spotty. In some ways this may not be a bad thing. Yesterday I was somewhere that had 3G service and the battery drained very quickly. I'm not sure why, but someone else at the meeting who had a Nexus One said their battery also drained very quickly that day. I went into the settings to force 2G service, hopefully this will give me some battery life.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
In honor of Valentine's Day, my favorite pictures of roses...
In honor of Valentine's Day, I made up a slideshow of my favorite pictures of roses. They are from my galleries of photos from the Rose Garden at Huntington Library in 2008 and at the Rose Garden in Hyde Park in in London in 2009. You can also browse my favorite rose photos in a gallery. Of course I bought my wife a bouquet of real roses, I didn't try go cheap and offer this slideshow as the virtual equivalent of a bouquet.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
One way to move forward on health care
One way or the other, a single-payer health care financing system looks like a non-starter in the current political climate. Personally, I think it is the best way of doing things, but it seems like we might as well shelve the idea for a while.
I do hope something comes out of the current discussion of reform, but I am growing pessimistic. The problem is that many of the reforms, like mandating coverage, forbidding insurance companies from excluding based on preexisting conditions, and so forth, only work if they all come in together. Mandating coverage is useless if insurance companies can turn people away for having preexisting conditions, and forcing insurance companies to cover preexisting conditions is silly without mandates. Without a mandate for coverage, but with a ban on excluding preexisting conditions, there is a strong incentive for people who think they're healthy not to buy insurance until they're sick. Conversely, with a mandate but no requirement that insurance companies cover people with preexisting conditions, people with preexisting conditions who are trying to obey the mandate may not be able to obtain coverage. For any reform to be effective, it has to be all or nothing. So who knows what will come of all this... Also one of the criticisms of the current reform ideas does seem to hold some water: there is very little in the current discussions that would help control costs.
Here's an idea for something that could be done right away, would help contain costs, and shouldn't be too controversial... Why doesn't the federal government take over paying for screening and routine management of chronic conditions that are relatively inexpensive and straightforward to screen for and manage, asymptomatic in the early stages and therefore rarely diagnosed in the absence of screening, and that when not managed properly, lead to enormous costs that are borne disproportionately by Medicare because even though the conditions may begin in adulthood, the expensive complications tend to arise in old age. I am thinking of diabetes types I and II, hypertension, high cholesterol, and maybe a few other things that I am not aware of.
Diabetes type II, hypertension, and high cholesterol are especially important here. These can all be screened for at relatively low cost, can be managed with existing medications, and if not properly managed lead to enormous expensive complications. Moreover, people are often asymptomatic for years, so unless people are specifically screened for them, they may not be diagnosed and treated properly until they do begin exhibiting symptoms, typically at later ages and often after damage has been done. Undiagnosed or poorly managed diabetes type II can lead to amputations, dialysis, blindness, and a variety of other conditions. Hypertension and high cholesterol, of course, lead to heart disease, stroke, and other conditions. Again, because these complications tend to emerge later in life, Medicare picks up a big portion of the tab.
My specific reason for the federal government to become involved with the diagnosis and management of these conditions for the whole population is in fact that it is already picking up the tab for the complications, and might be able to reduce expenditure on complications if these conditions were picked up earlier and managed better. We have a situation where people may develop these conditions in adulthood but may not be screened or treated for them because they don't have insurance, or they have insurance but aren't screened properly, but when they are old enough to qualify for Medicare, begin experiencing very expensive complications that Medicare pays for. In these situations, a small amount of money spent on screening and management in adulthood would reduce or at least delay substantial expenditures by Medicare in old age.
So my idea is that the federal government pay for universal screening and management of chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol that can be identified and treated relatively cheaply in adulthood, but which lead to expensive complications in old age that are covered by Medicare. Set up a system where the federal government pays for diabetes, hypertension, and cholesterol screening for everyone, insured or not, and also pays for medications for anyone who is diagnosed. In this system, health care providers would send all bills for screening and management of these conditions to the government, to be paid for at some specified rate, and not send them to the patients' insurance companies, or bill the patients. I suspect that in the long term this would pay for itself by reduced Medicare and other expenditures, but in the short term it could be financed by a levy on insurance companies to reflect the money they would be saving by not having to cover screening and management of hypertension, high cholesterol, and diabetes type II. Even if it was politically impractical to ban insurance companies from covering all preexisting conditions, in this scenario, they could be forbidden from denying coverage based on existing hypertension, high cholesterol, or diabetes type II.
This would be a win-win situation. Medicare expenditures would be reduced because people old enough to be eligible for Medicare would be much less likely to have expensive complications that Medicare would have to cover. People would be better off by having access to screening and management for potentially debilitating chronic conditions. If the financing arrangements were done properly, this would be revenue neutral for insurance companies and health care providers.
In terms of selling an arrangement like this, the key is the likely reductions in Medicare and probably Medicaid expenditures, which in a few years would probably more than offset the costs of covering screening and management for working age adults. Think about the savings if there were a substantial reduction in the number of people requiring dialysis because type II diabetes had already led to kidney failure. And the savings, and increased tax revenue, if people who were debilitated by blindness or loss of their foot or other limbs by complications of diabetes could remain healthy, and continue to work. And so on...
The main reason for doing something like this would be a hard-headed cost-benefit analysis. This isn't about social justice, or any other existential, philosophical issues about equality or access or fairness, but rather about reducing Medicare and Medicaid expenditures in the long term by spending on screening and management of chronic conditions that we already know are 1) cheap and easy to screen for, 2) manageable with relatively inexpensive medications, and 3) if unmanaged lead to very expensive complications that the federal government, and therefore the taxpayers, already pay for. An $1000 investment in screening, statins, beta-blockers, and other drugs by the federal government might avert or at least delay $10000 in spending by Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurers to cover dialysis, amputation, disability, intensive care and so forth.
As a conclusion, I guess I would say that I am disappointed that so much of the discussion of health care reform is being framed in terms of abstract philosophical concepts like social justice and equity (from progressives) or individual choice and freedom (from conservatives). The concern should be about public health, and the implications of whatever we system for other features of the economy.
The real problem with the status quo in health care in the United States is that it is screwing up the economy, and affecting our competitiveness, by introducing complications and inefficiencies. Individuals are afraid to change jobs out of fear of losing benefits. Companies waste time and money in ongoing negotiations with insurance providers. Individuals and doctors waste time dealing with insurance companies, sorting out billing problems and so forth. All of these are sand in the gears of the economy.
Imagine an economy where individuals could change jobs without even thinking about their health insurance coverage, and where companies could focus on their products and their customers without needing to devote personnel to negotiating with insurance companies. The main reason to fix the health care system isn't some abstract concern about equality and social justice, or individual choice and freedom, it should be about making American companies more competitive by letting them focus on their customers, their employees, and their products, without wasting time negotiating with insurance companies to cover their employees.
I should clarify that when I propose federal government coverage for screening and management of chronic conditions like diabetes II, hypertension, and high cholesterol, it isn't because I think of this as some sort of clever thin end of the wedge that will eventually lead to a single-payer system, but because I think it would result in substantial net savings to Medicare and Medicaid and private insurers. We shouldn't be so blinded by an obsession with 'individual choice' or 'freedom' on the one hand or 'social justice' on the other hand that we let it dictate our preferences for policy, we should be doing a hard-headed calculation about what is best for the economy, in terms of reducing government spending, or improving competitiveness.
As I said at the outset, I would prefer a single-payer system, but I am realistic enough to conclude that it just isn't in the cards right now. My preference for a single-payer system isn't based on some sort of hazy concern with social justice, whatever that is, but rather based on a belief that anything else is inefficient, and ends up being a tax, direct or indirect, on the economy.
We should think about the time that Americans spend on health care, whether it is time spent trying to find coverage, find a provider that their insurance will pay for, sort out billing questions, as an indirect tax associated with the current system, and think about the improvements if people didn't have to spend minutes or hours on hold with their health care provider or insurance provider on questions related to billing or coverage, if companies didn't have to devote time to negotiating with insurance providers, if doctors didn't have to spend time filling out paperwork for insurance companies, and so forth. The real virtue of a properly implemented single-payer system is the time it saves for companies and for individuals. I would like to see the conservatives who advocate for market based solutions that include private companies as insurance providers at least acknowledge that patients and doctors waste with billing, negotiations, and so forth is in fact a tax, paid not with money, but with time. But I am realistic enough to think that a single-payer system is not in the cards, and we should be thinking about other, incremental changes.
One thing I would add is that when we discuss single-payer systems, we should look at examples beyond Canada and England. I think the Canadian and English systems work very well for serious conditions, but acknowledge that they probably don't do quite so well for chronic conditions that affect quality of life but are not by themselves life threatening. Knee surgeries and hip replacements shouldn't be thought of as a luxury that people have to queue months or years for, since these are debilitating conditions that impair productivity. We should be looking at other systems as well, like in Taiwan, and the Scandinavian and Northern European countries, that are also single-payer, but at least to my knowledge don't seem to generate the same numbers of complaints as the Canadian and English systems. I'm not an expert on those systems but the point is that the Canadian and English systems are not the only game in town.
I was particularly impressed with the Taiwanese health care system during my visit there in December. I needed to have something checked out. I ended up going to Taiwan Adventist in Taipei. I was absolutely amazed that all of my appointments started right on time, no paperwork was lost or misplaced, the staff were uniformly efficient and courteous, and everyone seemed to be on the ball. Since as a visitor, I wasn't covered by the national insurance system, I paid cash for everything, but the final bill was ridiculously low. Several consultations plus a number of tests that in the states would have cost somebody thousands of dollars cost only a few hundred dollars. My in-laws who live in Taiwan and use the national health insurance all seem pretty pleased with the care they are receiving. So maybe we should be looking into what the Taiwanese have done.
I do hope something comes out of the current discussion of reform, but I am growing pessimistic. The problem is that many of the reforms, like mandating coverage, forbidding insurance companies from excluding based on preexisting conditions, and so forth, only work if they all come in together. Mandating coverage is useless if insurance companies can turn people away for having preexisting conditions, and forcing insurance companies to cover preexisting conditions is silly without mandates. Without a mandate for coverage, but with a ban on excluding preexisting conditions, there is a strong incentive for people who think they're healthy not to buy insurance until they're sick. Conversely, with a mandate but no requirement that insurance companies cover people with preexisting conditions, people with preexisting conditions who are trying to obey the mandate may not be able to obtain coverage. For any reform to be effective, it has to be all or nothing. So who knows what will come of all this... Also one of the criticisms of the current reform ideas does seem to hold some water: there is very little in the current discussions that would help control costs.
Here's an idea for something that could be done right away, would help contain costs, and shouldn't be too controversial... Why doesn't the federal government take over paying for screening and routine management of chronic conditions that are relatively inexpensive and straightforward to screen for and manage, asymptomatic in the early stages and therefore rarely diagnosed in the absence of screening, and that when not managed properly, lead to enormous costs that are borne disproportionately by Medicare because even though the conditions may begin in adulthood, the expensive complications tend to arise in old age. I am thinking of diabetes types I and II, hypertension, high cholesterol, and maybe a few other things that I am not aware of.
Diabetes type II, hypertension, and high cholesterol are especially important here. These can all be screened for at relatively low cost, can be managed with existing medications, and if not properly managed lead to enormous expensive complications. Moreover, people are often asymptomatic for years, so unless people are specifically screened for them, they may not be diagnosed and treated properly until they do begin exhibiting symptoms, typically at later ages and often after damage has been done. Undiagnosed or poorly managed diabetes type II can lead to amputations, dialysis, blindness, and a variety of other conditions. Hypertension and high cholesterol, of course, lead to heart disease, stroke, and other conditions. Again, because these complications tend to emerge later in life, Medicare picks up a big portion of the tab.
My specific reason for the federal government to become involved with the diagnosis and management of these conditions for the whole population is in fact that it is already picking up the tab for the complications, and might be able to reduce expenditure on complications if these conditions were picked up earlier and managed better. We have a situation where people may develop these conditions in adulthood but may not be screened or treated for them because they don't have insurance, or they have insurance but aren't screened properly, but when they are old enough to qualify for Medicare, begin experiencing very expensive complications that Medicare pays for. In these situations, a small amount of money spent on screening and management in adulthood would reduce or at least delay substantial expenditures by Medicare in old age.
So my idea is that the federal government pay for universal screening and management of chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol that can be identified and treated relatively cheaply in adulthood, but which lead to expensive complications in old age that are covered by Medicare. Set up a system where the federal government pays for diabetes, hypertension, and cholesterol screening for everyone, insured or not, and also pays for medications for anyone who is diagnosed. In this system, health care providers would send all bills for screening and management of these conditions to the government, to be paid for at some specified rate, and not send them to the patients' insurance companies, or bill the patients. I suspect that in the long term this would pay for itself by reduced Medicare and other expenditures, but in the short term it could be financed by a levy on insurance companies to reflect the money they would be saving by not having to cover screening and management of hypertension, high cholesterol, and diabetes type II. Even if it was politically impractical to ban insurance companies from covering all preexisting conditions, in this scenario, they could be forbidden from denying coverage based on existing hypertension, high cholesterol, or diabetes type II.
This would be a win-win situation. Medicare expenditures would be reduced because people old enough to be eligible for Medicare would be much less likely to have expensive complications that Medicare would have to cover. People would be better off by having access to screening and management for potentially debilitating chronic conditions. If the financing arrangements were done properly, this would be revenue neutral for insurance companies and health care providers.
In terms of selling an arrangement like this, the key is the likely reductions in Medicare and probably Medicaid expenditures, which in a few years would probably more than offset the costs of covering screening and management for working age adults. Think about the savings if there were a substantial reduction in the number of people requiring dialysis because type II diabetes had already led to kidney failure. And the savings, and increased tax revenue, if people who were debilitated by blindness or loss of their foot or other limbs by complications of diabetes could remain healthy, and continue to work. And so on...
The main reason for doing something like this would be a hard-headed cost-benefit analysis. This isn't about social justice, or any other existential, philosophical issues about equality or access or fairness, but rather about reducing Medicare and Medicaid expenditures in the long term by spending on screening and management of chronic conditions that we already know are 1) cheap and easy to screen for, 2) manageable with relatively inexpensive medications, and 3) if unmanaged lead to very expensive complications that the federal government, and therefore the taxpayers, already pay for. An $1000 investment in screening, statins, beta-blockers, and other drugs by the federal government might avert or at least delay $10000 in spending by Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurers to cover dialysis, amputation, disability, intensive care and so forth.
As a conclusion, I guess I would say that I am disappointed that so much of the discussion of health care reform is being framed in terms of abstract philosophical concepts like social justice and equity (from progressives) or individual choice and freedom (from conservatives). The concern should be about public health, and the implications of whatever we system for other features of the economy.
The real problem with the status quo in health care in the United States is that it is screwing up the economy, and affecting our competitiveness, by introducing complications and inefficiencies. Individuals are afraid to change jobs out of fear of losing benefits. Companies waste time and money in ongoing negotiations with insurance providers. Individuals and doctors waste time dealing with insurance companies, sorting out billing problems and so forth. All of these are sand in the gears of the economy.
Imagine an economy where individuals could change jobs without even thinking about their health insurance coverage, and where companies could focus on their products and their customers without needing to devote personnel to negotiating with insurance companies. The main reason to fix the health care system isn't some abstract concern about equality and social justice, or individual choice and freedom, it should be about making American companies more competitive by letting them focus on their customers, their employees, and their products, without wasting time negotiating with insurance companies to cover their employees.
I should clarify that when I propose federal government coverage for screening and management of chronic conditions like diabetes II, hypertension, and high cholesterol, it isn't because I think of this as some sort of clever thin end of the wedge that will eventually lead to a single-payer system, but because I think it would result in substantial net savings to Medicare and Medicaid and private insurers. We shouldn't be so blinded by an obsession with 'individual choice' or 'freedom' on the one hand or 'social justice' on the other hand that we let it dictate our preferences for policy, we should be doing a hard-headed calculation about what is best for the economy, in terms of reducing government spending, or improving competitiveness.
As I said at the outset, I would prefer a single-payer system, but I am realistic enough to conclude that it just isn't in the cards right now. My preference for a single-payer system isn't based on some sort of hazy concern with social justice, whatever that is, but rather based on a belief that anything else is inefficient, and ends up being a tax, direct or indirect, on the economy.
We should think about the time that Americans spend on health care, whether it is time spent trying to find coverage, find a provider that their insurance will pay for, sort out billing questions, as an indirect tax associated with the current system, and think about the improvements if people didn't have to spend minutes or hours on hold with their health care provider or insurance provider on questions related to billing or coverage, if companies didn't have to devote time to negotiating with insurance providers, if doctors didn't have to spend time filling out paperwork for insurance companies, and so forth. The real virtue of a properly implemented single-payer system is the time it saves for companies and for individuals. I would like to see the conservatives who advocate for market based solutions that include private companies as insurance providers at least acknowledge that patients and doctors waste with billing, negotiations, and so forth is in fact a tax, paid not with money, but with time. But I am realistic enough to think that a single-payer system is not in the cards, and we should be thinking about other, incremental changes.
One thing I would add is that when we discuss single-payer systems, we should look at examples beyond Canada and England. I think the Canadian and English systems work very well for serious conditions, but acknowledge that they probably don't do quite so well for chronic conditions that affect quality of life but are not by themselves life threatening. Knee surgeries and hip replacements shouldn't be thought of as a luxury that people have to queue months or years for, since these are debilitating conditions that impair productivity. We should be looking at other systems as well, like in Taiwan, and the Scandinavian and Northern European countries, that are also single-payer, but at least to my knowledge don't seem to generate the same numbers of complaints as the Canadian and English systems. I'm not an expert on those systems but the point is that the Canadian and English systems are not the only game in town.
I was particularly impressed with the Taiwanese health care system during my visit there in December. I needed to have something checked out. I ended up going to Taiwan Adventist in Taipei. I was absolutely amazed that all of my appointments started right on time, no paperwork was lost or misplaced, the staff were uniformly efficient and courteous, and everyone seemed to be on the ball. Since as a visitor, I wasn't covered by the national insurance system, I paid cash for everything, but the final bill was ridiculously low. Several consultations plus a number of tests that in the states would have cost somebody thousands of dollars cost only a few hundred dollars. My in-laws who live in Taiwan and use the national health insurance all seem pretty pleased with the care they are receiving. So maybe we should be looking into what the Taiwanese have done.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Google and Sogou Pinyin IME comparison on the Nexus One
A friend of mine lent me a Nexus One that I will try out for a few weeks. I would like to buy one, but before I do, I want to confirm it works in China with my China Mobile M-Zone service. I will be going to Beijing later this month so will have an opportunity to swap in my SIM when I get there and see what happens.
One of the first things I did was install the Google Pinyin IME and Sogou Pinyin IME. I activated both of them in Language and Keyboard but nothing seemed to be happening when I entered text. I kept getting the usual Android keyboard. Finally I saw somewhere on the net that pressing on the text entry field for a few seconds would bring up a selection menu for choosing the input method. I don't think this was the case on the G1, the G1 used whatever keyboard was selected in Locate and Text. Anyway once I found this out, I pressed on the text entry field on the screen for a little bit and sure enough a menu came up, giving me a choice between the Android keyboard, Google Pinyin IME, and Sogou Pinyin IME. Being able to select input methods from the text entry field rather than the Settings is certainly a nice touch. I have not previously tried the Google Pinyin IME so I will see how it compares with the Sogou Pinyin IME and report back in a few weeks.
UPDATE: I have been trying out Google Pinyin IME and Sogou Pinyin IME. I will probably stick with Sogou. The main difference between the versions I have on my Nexus is that while both of them allow for easy switching between Chinese and English input, only Sogou retains auto-completion for English language input. Unless I am missing something, when you have Google Pinyin IME as the input method, there is no auto-complete or auto-correction on the English words you input. I find that really slows things down.
One minor annoyance: by default Sogou when installed seems to have the key click sound turned on, so when you are typing, it is making annoying typewriter sounds. That is easy enough to turn off in the settings.
Oh, one more thing: I just noticed that on the version of the Sogou IME that is now installed on my Nexus One, the menus are in English. In earlier versions, they were all in Chinese. That wasn't a problem for me, but might be for some.
YET ANOTHER UPDATE (23 July 2010): I tried out both Sogou and Google Pinyin IME on my Samsung Vibrant. They both work. The latest version of the Google Pinyin IME seems much improved. And the amount of stuff that Sogou claimed to need access to was pretty creepy... why does it need my contact list? While Sogou seems to work, I just didn't understand why it needed access to so much, so in the end, I uninstalled and kept Google Pinyin IME. I just wish someone would come up with a Swype-based pinyin or other Chinese IME.
One of the first things I did was install the Google Pinyin IME and Sogou Pinyin IME. I activated both of them in Language and Keyboard but nothing seemed to be happening when I entered text. I kept getting the usual Android keyboard. Finally I saw somewhere on the net that pressing on the text entry field for a few seconds would bring up a selection menu for choosing the input method. I don't think this was the case on the G1, the G1 used whatever keyboard was selected in Locate and Text. Anyway once I found this out, I pressed on the text entry field on the screen for a little bit and sure enough a menu came up, giving me a choice between the Android keyboard, Google Pinyin IME, and Sogou Pinyin IME. Being able to select input methods from the text entry field rather than the Settings is certainly a nice touch. I have not previously tried the Google Pinyin IME so I will see how it compares with the Sogou Pinyin IME and report back in a few weeks.
UPDATE: I have been trying out Google Pinyin IME and Sogou Pinyin IME. I will probably stick with Sogou. The main difference between the versions I have on my Nexus is that while both of them allow for easy switching between Chinese and English input, only Sogou retains auto-completion for English language input. Unless I am missing something, when you have Google Pinyin IME as the input method, there is no auto-complete or auto-correction on the English words you input. I find that really slows things down.
One minor annoyance: by default Sogou when installed seems to have the key click sound turned on, so when you are typing, it is making annoying typewriter sounds. That is easy enough to turn off in the settings.
Oh, one more thing: I just noticed that on the version of the Sogou IME that is now installed on my Nexus One, the menus are in English. In earlier versions, they were all in Chinese. That wasn't a problem for me, but might be for some.
YET ANOTHER UPDATE (23 July 2010): I tried out both Sogou and Google Pinyin IME on my Samsung Vibrant. They both work. The latest version of the Google Pinyin IME seems much improved. And the amount of stuff that Sogou claimed to need access to was pretty creepy... why does it need my contact list? While Sogou seems to work, I just didn't understand why it needed access to so much, so in the end, I uninstalled and kept Google Pinyin IME. I just wish someone would come up with a Swype-based pinyin or other Chinese IME.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Caribou, and the new track "Odessa"
Today I'll talk about music. Specifically, I'll talk about one of my favorite artists, Caribou. That is the name under which Dan Snaith records. As with many of my recent posts, this has nothing to do with photography, but I feel like writing and I don't have any new photos to talk about. I suppose I could write about how much I would like to buy a new camera, the Canon 5d MkII, but that isn't going to get anywhere. So I'll talk about Dan Snaith aka Caribou and his music.
I bought my first CD by Caribou a few years back in Madison, Wisconsin. I was visiting the university to give a talk and was killing time before a dinner with a visit to a CD store. They had some CDs by Manitoba, which was the name Snaith was recording under at the time. I had never heard of Snaith, or the band Manitoba, but since I went to elementary school in Winnipeg, and have family there, I was surprised and pleased that anyone would name a band after the province. I was even more tickled to see that some of the track titles on one CD, Up in Flames, related to Canada. For example, there was one track titled "Dundas, Ontario" and another titled "Brandon". I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that it referred to Brandon, Manitoba, which I believe is the 2nd largest city in Manitoba. I bought Up in Flames and Start Breaking My Heart.
I returned to my hotel room after dinner and listened to the CDs on my laptop and was blown away. I had bought them mainly as a novelty, and wasn't sure what to expect. I had some hopes since Canada produces a lot of talented musicians, some of whom hail from Winnipeg, or at least spend time there, but was prepared to be disappointed. Well, I wasn't. This was a completely unique, intricately layered sound that I couldn't compare to anything I had ever heard before.
Later, I bought Milk of Human Kindness and was even more pleased. By this time, Snaith was recording as Caribou because of bizarre complications with the name Manitoba that you can read about on the web with a little searching. This was just as creative and novel as Up in Flames and Start Breaking My Heart, but to my ears at least, tighter and more disciplined, the working of a maturing artist. This was also something I could play for my wife. Then came Andorra and I was even more hooked. My favorite tracks on Andorra is probably "After Hours" for its intensive, relentless beat.
Around that time, I saw that Caribou was touring, and would play at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. I talked my wife into going with me. I had played Andorra for her so she was prepared, but this was still pretty new for her, since she is from Taiwan and tends toward honey-voiced romantic balladeers like Fei Yuqing (费玉清) and so forth.
It was spectacular. I had never been to a rock concert in such a small, intimate venue before. I used to attend concerts in high school and college, but usually in stadiums, never in small clubs. We were in the front row of balcony. What made the strongest impression on me was the percussion. It was loud. Our ears rang for two days afterward, but it was incredibly tight. Snaith and another percussionist were going at it and I just couldn't believe that two people could drum that loud and that fast, but remain completely tight. It was amazing to me that such a small number of people could produce such an intricate sound. Somehow I take it for granted listening to a CD, which I always assume reflects lots of studio work, but it was inspiring to see a live show like this where this small group was recreating the incredibly intricate sounds of the CD, live. I loved it, and more importantly, my wife loved it, and added Caribou to her rotation along with her Taiwanese and HK pop ballads.
I was really pleased when I saw on Caribou's twitter feed that he had a new record called Swim coming out, and a track from it called "Odessa" was available. I just listened to it at an entry at the Hero Hill site and once again, it's great. It is a real departure from the sound on Andorra, which was an evolution of the sound on Milk of Human Kindness, which in turn was a real departure from the sound on "Up in Flames" and "Start Breaking My Heart". For the first few seconds I thought about Beck's "Cellphone's Dead" and then afterward it opened up into an incredible and impossible to characterize mixture. There are layers and layers of different sounds, that seem to always be on the verge of collapsing into chaos, but somehow it all works beautifully, and everything makes sense. I'm really looking forward to the album, and hope Caribou comes through LA so we can see him again.
If you want to download and listen to Caribou's new track, check out his website. Overall, it seems like these few months are good for album releases from some of the musicians that I like. Monolake and Four Tet and The Field all came out with albums recently that are pretty good, Caribou has one on the way. And I have this idea, perhaps incorrect, that Brad Mehldau and Thievery Corporation are at work on new albums.
One other neat thing about Caribou: he has a PhD in mathematics from Imperial College. Indeed, he seems to come from a family of mathematicians. If you search on Google Scholar, you can find what I assume is his dissertation. I really admire anyone who starts out as an academic, but ends up doing something even more interesting.
I bought my first CD by Caribou a few years back in Madison, Wisconsin. I was visiting the university to give a talk and was killing time before a dinner with a visit to a CD store. They had some CDs by Manitoba, which was the name Snaith was recording under at the time. I had never heard of Snaith, or the band Manitoba, but since I went to elementary school in Winnipeg, and have family there, I was surprised and pleased that anyone would name a band after the province. I was even more tickled to see that some of the track titles on one CD, Up in Flames, related to Canada. For example, there was one track titled "Dundas, Ontario" and another titled "Brandon". I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that it referred to Brandon, Manitoba, which I believe is the 2nd largest city in Manitoba. I bought Up in Flames and Start Breaking My Heart.
I returned to my hotel room after dinner and listened to the CDs on my laptop and was blown away. I had bought them mainly as a novelty, and wasn't sure what to expect. I had some hopes since Canada produces a lot of talented musicians, some of whom hail from Winnipeg, or at least spend time there, but was prepared to be disappointed. Well, I wasn't. This was a completely unique, intricately layered sound that I couldn't compare to anything I had ever heard before.
Later, I bought Milk of Human Kindness and was even more pleased. By this time, Snaith was recording as Caribou because of bizarre complications with the name Manitoba that you can read about on the web with a little searching. This was just as creative and novel as Up in Flames and Start Breaking My Heart, but to my ears at least, tighter and more disciplined, the working of a maturing artist. This was also something I could play for my wife. Then came Andorra and I was even more hooked. My favorite tracks on Andorra is probably "After Hours" for its intensive, relentless beat.
Around that time, I saw that Caribou was touring, and would play at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. I talked my wife into going with me. I had played Andorra for her so she was prepared, but this was still pretty new for her, since she is from Taiwan and tends toward honey-voiced romantic balladeers like Fei Yuqing (费玉清) and so forth.
It was spectacular. I had never been to a rock concert in such a small, intimate venue before. I used to attend concerts in high school and college, but usually in stadiums, never in small clubs. We were in the front row of balcony. What made the strongest impression on me was the percussion. It was loud. Our ears rang for two days afterward, but it was incredibly tight. Snaith and another percussionist were going at it and I just couldn't believe that two people could drum that loud and that fast, but remain completely tight. It was amazing to me that such a small number of people could produce such an intricate sound. Somehow I take it for granted listening to a CD, which I always assume reflects lots of studio work, but it was inspiring to see a live show like this where this small group was recreating the incredibly intricate sounds of the CD, live. I loved it, and more importantly, my wife loved it, and added Caribou to her rotation along with her Taiwanese and HK pop ballads.
I was really pleased when I saw on Caribou's twitter feed that he had a new record called Swim coming out, and a track from it called "Odessa" was available. I just listened to it at an entry at the Hero Hill site and once again, it's great. It is a real departure from the sound on Andorra, which was an evolution of the sound on Milk of Human Kindness, which in turn was a real departure from the sound on "Up in Flames" and "Start Breaking My Heart". For the first few seconds I thought about Beck's "Cellphone's Dead" and then afterward it opened up into an incredible and impossible to characterize mixture. There are layers and layers of different sounds, that seem to always be on the verge of collapsing into chaos, but somehow it all works beautifully, and everything makes sense. I'm really looking forward to the album, and hope Caribou comes through LA so we can see him again.
If you want to download and listen to Caribou's new track, check out his website. Overall, it seems like these few months are good for album releases from some of the musicians that I like. Monolake and Four Tet and The Field all came out with albums recently that are pretty good, Caribou has one on the way. And I have this idea, perhaps incorrect, that Brad Mehldau and Thievery Corporation are at work on new albums.
One other neat thing about Caribou: he has a PhD in mathematics from Imperial College. Indeed, he seems to come from a family of mathematicians. If you search on Google Scholar, you can find what I assume is his dissertation. I really admire anyone who starts out as an academic, but ends up doing something even more interesting.
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