Did you ever notice how...

...large established companies become stagnant in innovation and latch onto new concepts after a competitor has demonstrated that the concept is workable?

I was at Subway for the first time in years today....I'm a Quizno's guy. The reason I've always preferred Quizno's over Subway is because I prefer my subs to be toasted - in my opinion something that any good sub shop at least offers. Subway never toasted their subs - until now.

How convenient. We've watched Quizno's grow by several orders of magnitude over the last 5-10 years. In fact, they are the fastest-growing quick service chain in the United States. And of course, the cornerstone of their marketing efforts has always been to underscore the fact that their subs are toasted (while implicitly underscoring that the other major sub chain doesn't).

Well, I guess Subway was feeling the pressure, because their stores are now equipped with toaster ovens (that look like miniature versions of the pizza ovens seen at non-chain pizza stores). And their marketing makes it look like they came up with the idea - even though it is obvious what the motivation was for the feature.

Anyway, the Chicken Parmesean sub was pretty good.

This isn't the only example of this innovation-stealing. Blockbuster was resting on its laurels, content with being the largest video rental chain in the United States. Then Netflix came along and has become extremely popular (although I doubt it has overtaken Blockbuster in market share). A big selling point for Netflix is the "no late fees" policy. Well, guess what? I was driving down Pacific in Venice yesterday and saw a Blockbuster with a big sign on the window claiming "Life After Late Fees" as if they came up with the idea. Bastards.

That's not to say that Netflix isn't without problems. I've heard from several sources that the quality of service decreases as the time as a customer increases - with a sharp drop right after you are no longer on the free trial.

And finally, for the example that needs no explanation - just look at Microsoft. (Before you play the hypocrisy card - note that this post was created using Firefox on Linux.)

A California thing that I don't understand...

...is In-N-Out Burger. The veritable holy grail of fast food in California.

For those of you that have never heard of In-N-Out, it is a fast food chain primarily in California, but with locations in Nevada and Arizona as well. It has been a staple in Southern California - Los Angeles in particular - since the late 1940's.

Their menu is simple - they offer a hamburger, a cheeseburger, a double cheeseburger, french fries, soft drinks, and milkshakes. Their stores are simple as well, with many being drive-thru only. In addition, I have yet to find an In-N-Out that takes any form of payment other than cash (although I admit that my experience is limited due to my conviction that In-N-Out sucks). I'm sorry, but in this day and age, there's really no excuse for not taking a credit card, or at least an ATM card. It doesn't cost as much as the business you're losing from customers like me who never have cash on them.

Anyway, back to the point...so many Californians hail In-N-Out as the best thing in the quick-service food industry (and they have the drive-thru lines to prove it) that I am tempted to think that I may very well be the only one here who thinks that their food simply isn't that great. However, before I can mention why, let me explain the story behind the food.

In-N-Out trumps up their philosophy of food preparation to the point in which it offends me. They claim that their food is fresh every step of the way. This means hand cut and ground beef that is never frozen. This means hand leafed lettuce. This means hand sliced tomatos. This means french fries that are potatoes and nothing else. They claim to not own a single freezer, heat lamp, or microwave.

So what's the problem? That sounds great, you say. That's how one cooks at home, right? Okay, fair enough. But come on, let's be realistic, shall we? How is that model sustained on such a large system of restaurants? Does each restaurant get a new delivery every day? That sounds expensive. Their prices are not expensive. Doesn't add up.

I remember getting food poisoning shortly (two hours max) after a visit to an In-N-Out in the San Fernando Valley. Note that I did not explicitly say that I got the food poisoning from In-N-Out - I can't know for absolute sure - but it is my belief that I did. And this was full, unadulterated food poisoning. And In-N-Out did taste a little different that day.

I was never that impressed with their food, but I could eat it before that happened (I haven't been to one since). It was this incident that caused me to think about their philosophy and how it might not be feasible for a system of the scale that In-N-Out is.

This is not meant as a crusade against In-N-Out. I don't have to eat there, and I don't eat there. There are many other places to eat, and I don't have anything against people eating at In-N-Out. But come on, folks, it isn't God's gift to fast food!

Back to food practices. I can understand why it is somewhat undesirable to eat food that is blatantly chemically modified, such as that which you would get at McDonalds or similar. However, there is a big difference between that and freezing your beef. There is nothing wrong with throwing hamburger meat in the freezer. In fact, In-N-Out should have a freezer. I might not have gotten sick.

But we must get to the point I meant to get to in this post - California's illogical loyalty to this chain. I don't go around and advertise my incident with them to anyone and everyone - just a few people and only when it is relevant (I guess until now). However, each and every person I have told about this refuse to believe that such a thing is possible. After all, this is In-N-Out, the fast food chain that can do no wrong. They aren't like the others, they aren't McDonalds. Let me tell you, even though McDonalds food is purely atrocious, I have never had any problems from eating their food.

However, I must confess a small bit of hypocrisy here...I am a card-carrying member (in the figurative sense) of the crowd that worships the other Southern California fast-food staple - The Original Tommy's World Famous Hamburgers. Now that is some good stuff! And there's no pretense at Tommy's (other than their light-hearted slogan regarding the countless knockoffs operating under the names of "Tommie's" or "Tommy's" (without "The Original") - "If you don't see the shack, take it back!" Well put.). The Original Tommy's represents exactly what fast food is supposed to be - delicious but horrible for you.

A minor annoyance

Lately I've noticed something in my neighborhood. I live about two blocks away from a fairly busy fire station, so it is not unusual to hear the sirens fairly regularly (at least once a night). What has changed is that one of my neighbors' dogs has taken a liking in howling whenever a siren is audible. This prompts ALL of the other neighborhood dogs (and there are many) to bark and howl in response. This will go on for 30 or so minutes.

It is slightly annoying but I would never mention it to any of the dog owners, because a) that's just what dogs do, and b) when I had dogs we got tons of complaints about their barking and it pissed me off. I don't think it is worth getting worked up over. I find it interesting in a way.

Things are looking up

I tend to keep myself busy, and sometimes it is frustrating because I feel like I'm not accomplishing much - just spinning wheels. This tends to happen towards the end of every semester. I've been a lot busier at work this year too.

My state of mind lately has been to just finish up the semester and reduce the madness. I've had a lot of trouble focusing in my classes during the last couple of weeks. Work's been busy as usual, and I had a very important midterm this morning in one of my (hard) EE classes. This exam is important because it will play a large part in whether or not I pass the course.

So I went to the exam this morning feeling underprepared. But for some strange reason, I've been very mellow since I got up this morning. Work didn't stress me out even though I had more to do than there was time to do it in, and it was all pretty urgent. I got 95% done with it too, and wasn't late for my midterm. Parking was an issue at school, as it is every day, and so I found myself arriving in the classroom with just enough time to take out my calculator, my pad of nerd paper, and my (professor-provided) cheat sheet. The professor handed out the exam, and I took a brief glance at all the problems and found myself in the position of knowing, for the most part, how to work all three problems.

I always take a quick glance at all of the problems so I can mentally budget the amount of time that I have. Frequently, I don't end up working the problems in order, because I like to get the slam-dunk problems out of the way. This time I actually was able to solve the problems in the given order. I also had this feeling that I wasn't going to need the whole period to finish this exam. Usually when that happens I just crank through it and bail early. This exam was too important for that, so I took my time and was very careful to present my solutions in a clear, orderly, and explanatory fashion. Rather than sticking with the usual strategy of "work the problems somewhat neatly and only show major steps," I went with the strategy of explaining the process of solving the problem. This was, in my opinion, a necessary insurance policy in getting a good bit of partial credit should I have worked the problem incorrectly. So stuff that I would never waste time writing on an exam, I wrote this time. For instance: one of the questions involved a NMOS inverter circuit. The first part of the problem was to determine the output voltage in linear mode. The second part asked for what the output voltage would be at the edge of saturation. Normally, I would write the formula, fill in the constants, and solve for the unknown(s). This time, I wrote "The edge of saturation is the boundary between linear and saturation points, and is defined as the point where Vds is equal to (Vgs - Vt)". That way, he will at least know that, even if the number at the end is wrong, I understand the concept. Can't hurt.

After I finished the exam, I chatted with some of my classmates who are graduate students. We compared answers, and, with the exception of the third part of the second question, got the same answers. Either we're both right or both wrong. I'm pretty sure that we must have both been right.

Feels good to have done well on this exam. That might be part of why I wrote so much about it today.

School rocks! (a true statement, although on some days I might disagree)

I racked my brain on namethatband.com

Looking for an excuse to not study, i visited namethatband.com today.

namethatband.com is a site run by Platterpus Records in Kentucky. I've been aware of this contest for a few years because I bought a somewhat rare but sentimentally valuable record (yes, the vinyl kind) from them in 2000 or 2001.

Anyways, today I got an email mentioning that a new contest was ready to go so I gave it a whirl. The site works like this: there are 20 songs, recorded to RealMedia format from Platterpus' current inventory, and you have to identify the artist or band behind the song from a list of all bands/artists in current inventory. Each song is assigned a number of points based on difficulty. It appears that the point range goes from 1 for "anyone should know this one" to 5 for "if you know this it's probably because of one or more of the following: a) you have the record, b) you know the artist or one or more members of the band, or c) you were/are in the band. it has to be one of these because Google ain't gonna help you on this one." This particular contest has 65 possible points. the winner gets, I think, a gift certificate for Platterpus Records.

Well, there were a couple 1's on the list and sure enough I knew 'em. I'm not gonna tell you what they were. But it started to appear that this contest, if anything, demonstrated more my googling abilities than it did my musical acumen. And there were some that Google couldn't help with. Anyway, it was interesting because there were some songs that were just plain obscure. There were some that were songs I knew but not by that artist (one in particular had been covered by at least five artists that I can think of right now). Some of the songs are ones that I don't ever need to hear again, and some were interesting enough to look at buying.

A quick word of advice: the site is set up such that it will not submit your answers unless every one of the songs has an answer next to it. If you mess this up, it will bark at you, and you will hit Back, and all of your answers are gone (at least in firefox).

All in all, a fun, interesting, and instructive exercise.

welcome

this blog will capture some of my observations and curiosities as los angeles continues to unfold in front of me. it will likely also capture my thoughts on anything else i feel like posting.

stay tuned....