Taking the MBCR Fitchburg to Boston with the fancy new Wi-Fi

I am writing from one of the new Wi-Fi-enabled trains rolling between Shirley and Ayer stations, en route to Boston for New Year’s.

There is something inherently swell about surfing from my laptop while rolling through the landscape. Perhaps this is the thrill smartphone users find in their daily lives. I’ve used on Amtrak on business, but without that burden of work this becomes a much more pleasurable thing.  More than anything, this reminds me of the last leg of the stint I did as assistant tour manager for a band that was traveling on two buses. Writing “Andy on the Road” while actually on the road was quite a blast, and having the backdrop of a rolling highway helped me to get in the mood to write.

…entering Ayer station…

So far I have no complaints from a service standpoint, which is most impressive considering how bad even plain ol’ cell phone service can be in the nether regions off of Route 2 out in these parts. I certainly haven’t given the Internet a real stress test yet, nor have I really tried to test the security of the service (I am no Hiro Protagonist; I usually just check to see if the network still uses the default 192.168.0.1 IP for the admin access. This doesn’t.). I was able to check my RSS feeds and email, browse a little bit, and write this with no real troubles. Even watched a couple YouTube videos with ease. There was one service disruption as soon as logged onto the network between Fitchburg and Leominster, which booted me off the network and required me to reconnect, and other than that it’s been consistent, though sometimes a bit slow.

… Littleton/495…

As far as I can tell there’s nobody else taking advantage of this service right now, which might account for my relatively good connection speeds. (Speedtest.net puts it approximately 400 kbps both up and down). I wouldn’t be surprised if the service is far different on a commuter train during rush hour. It’s also neat to see how far the snow has gone down out here, compared to last week when got upwards of a foot. Now rolling through Acton the snow is sporadic and slushy, even with the accumulation we got last night.

… South Acton …

Anyone know of an easy way to see if they filter content (without dialing into the most obscene site you can think of)? I have yet to hit any road blocks, but my browsing is pretty tame from an obscenity angle. I even fired up the webcasting, listening to WRBB and WFMU at 128K with no problems. Pandora’s added on elements take a bit longer to fire up, but seem to be working once up and running.

… West Concord…

An older man just asked if this train has a snack car. Nothing like hearing some good ol fashioned sass from an MBCR conductor. “Oh yah, we gaht beah, wine, lobstah tails…” I guess the midday train is rookie season. The man didn’t seem impressed.

… Concord …

All of a sudden a lot of people just got on the train. A lot of my new traveling companions are young families. I wonder if we could make the Wi-Fi train also the quiet car in 2009? My Verizon phone is falling in and out of service. The AT&T Internet is having no trouble streaming Pandora. Doesn’t look good for the “Can You Hear Me Now?” guy.

… Lincoln …

I imagine the rest of the ride will be a lot like the first half, so I’ll end this here. All in all, I’m fairly impressed. Hope this becomes a system-wide perk soon.

(update: there’s some service troubles between Waltham and Waverley station. Seems to be fine by the time you hit Belmont.)

New Lang Syne (Thank God It’s Over)

Jim Infantino, of seminal un-pop, snark-rock group Jim’s Big Ego, posted this video today on The Facebooks:

I just picked up my copy of their new album, free*, on vinyl. You should consider doing the same. I have a tremendous weak spot for this group.

Strange dream

I had a dream last night that I was writing a novel, and the star of my novel was an anti-hero character, whose claim to fame up to this point had been that she was the hand model on kitchen supply infomercials who does the inept “before” shot where the person is having a terrible time cutting an onion, or cooking in non-stick cookware, or trying to peel potatoes and failing. You know, the person at the opening of this infomercial:

Or the poor, pathetic potato peeler:

Or the person flailing at the opening of the Snuggie infomercial:

In my dream I had developed this somewhat amusing backstory, about how she really wanted to be a deadpan comic (or perhaps an author) and how a long series of sad events had taken her from sarcastic in a Sinfeld way, to sarcastic in a Steven Wright way, to straight out depressed, and that her colleagues only thought it made her better as a “before” lady and did not see the inner turmoil (I’m using “before lady” as a placeholder for a better faux-industry term for the person in the shot I’ve yet to develop – my thought was to play something off of how they always show that person in black and white at the opening – the “monochromer” or something). I don’t remember what she actually did in the story; I just remember this character.

At any rate, I don’t anticipate I’ll be writing any novels anytime soon, so if any of my friends want to work with me in developing this character for their own purposes, let me know. I’ll leave you with my favorite “monochromer” I found while doing some character research this morning:

“Where did I park my car? oooh noooo…”

The next holiday already has a killer psych soundtrack.

… thanks to Analog Giant, who pass along a track through Now Again Records, found by the one and only Cut Chemist:

He5 – Auld Lang Syne:

I can find precious little on this late 1960s Korean psych band – save this one article from “Progressive.” Can’t tell how old that website is, but I can tell you that it does include a WebRing. Remember WebRings?

For more on this track, click on the links above.

The RIAA has stopped filing lawsuits… only they haven’t quite, and they’re not going to stop just yet, either.

Perhaps the biggest splash I missed while dealing with the chronic power failures out in central MA would be the surprise announcement from the Wall Street Journal that the RIAA will stop their 5-year campaign of filesharing lawsuits, opting instead to team up with ISPs to set up some sort of warning, “three-strike” system.

WSJ:

After years of suing thousands of people for allegedly stealing music via the Internet, the recording industry is set to drop its legal assault as it searches for more effective ways to combat online music piracy. […]

Instead, the Recording Industry Association of America said it plans to try an approach that relies on the cooperation of Internet-service providers. The trade group said it has hashed out preliminary agreements with major ISPs under which it will send an email to the provider when it finds a provider’s customers making music available online for others to take. […]

The new approach dispenses with one of the most contentious parts of the lawsuit strategy, which involved filing lawsuits requiring ISPs to disclose the identities of file sharers. Under the new strategy, the RIAA would forward its emails to the ISPs without demanding to know the customers’ identity.

Though the industry group is reserving the right to sue people who are particularly heavy file sharers, or who ignore repeated warnings, it expects its lawsuits to decline to a trickle. The group stopped filing mass lawsuits early this fall.

It isn’t clear that the new strategy will work or how effective the collaboration with the ISPs will be. “There isn’t any silver-bullet anti-piracy solution,” said Eric Garland, president of BigChampagne LLC, a piracy consulting company.

Mr. Garland said he likes the idea of a solution that works more with consumers. In the years since the RIAA began its mass legal action, “It has become abundantly clear that the carrot is far more important than the stick.” Indeed, many in the music industry felt the lawsuits had outlived their usefulness.

Be sure to also read the Wired piece interviewing Cara Duckworth (cue a bazillion Mighty Ducks references) of the RIAA. She lays some initial fears to rest: namely, that this ISP/RIAA operation would not be filtering, but some sort of warning system. Naturally, that system is ripe with its own problems – how are we to appeal or challenge the accusations of the RIAA? Will the user in question be party to the messaging between the RIAA and ISP?  I’m reminded of the YouTomb operation coming out of a bunch of brilliant kids at MIT, where they track the takedown notices coming from YouTube in an effort to check their validity. I wrote a bit more about this operation last May after the Berkman@10 conference. Their problem is the same that users will see in this RI(SP)AA solution – where is their day in court to challenge these warnings?

But, we may not even be able to trust Ms. Duckworth’s statements as far as to believe their attack plan won’t involve Internet filtering (which is also a terrifying idea, and if you don’t believe me take a read at Lessig’s Code). There’s another statement she made that warrants some serious scrutiny. According to her, the RIAA not only plans to phase out the lawsuits, but they haven’t filed a new lawsuit in months. Well, Ray Beckerman over at Recording Industry vs. the People had a little bit of fun disproving that. Here are a handful of lawsuits filed last week:

Merry Christmas – Danny Says

Here’s my favorite Christmas carol, care of the Ramones:

Tom Waits does a killer cover, too, off of Orphans (he does another End of the Century Ramones cover on that one, too – “The Return of Jackie and Judy”):

And you can’t mention Tom Waits and Christmas without this one:

Peace on Earth, all. My thoughts go out to those of you still without power around these parts. I’ll leave you with the 1967 Beatles Fan Club Christmas flexidisc:

Quick central MA power update

A shout out and thanks to all who have been sending me notes in support and such while we’re dealing with the power failure situation. Special thanks to Ted from NECN who hopped over to explain their situation (and may I add that when we have had power here, we’ve been watching you guys). I think our initial gripes are being addressed, as I see more and more coverage of the problem today. Seems the eastern part of the state is starting to pay a little more attention to us out here.

Since last I wrote we have lost and restored power twice. As of about four hours ago we have power back (and no stretch of power status, off or on, has gone for less than 11 hours, so for the moment we are resting). The Globe reports today that the last remnants of the problem linger in Fitchburg, Lunenburg, Townsend and Ashby, MA. Today I went up north to Milford, Amherst, and Brookline, NH today, and saw a lot more trucks (Verizon and assorted power trucks) on their roads than our own here in Townsend. Still, the crews are working.

I decided to graph out the power status of my house since my folks first lost power around 11PM, December 11th:

I was having a hard time representing this data graphically, but picture this as a clock, with the start of the power loss at twelve o’clock and working. Yellow means power was on, black means power was out. I’ve graded the colors and put the actual times for those interested more in quantitative data.

63% of the past 258 hours here have been without power. That is far better than some folks I spoke to at Parker’s Maple Barn in Mason, NH today, who did not have power until yesterday afternoon – 11 whole days without power. As of right now there are still some in Townsend without power.

Our biggest concern now, naturally, is whether the power will stay on during Christmas Eve and Day, when we plan on having all the relatives over. Given that we’ve lost power five times since the storm hit, each for at least half a day, and most recently for an entire 24-hour stretch, we are a little wary as to whether it will stay put. While this is frustrating, it makes you think of those for whom this is a regular occurrence. My sister reminds me of her stint in the Peace Corps, living for weeks intermittently with and without power in Honduras. And then, of course, we are lucky to have a home at all in these uncertain economic times. Still, this is a frustrating circumstance, and looks to hold that way until we have power for more than two complete days again.

I hope to have power long enough to catch up on my RSS reading, and we’ll get back to the usual music, technology, and copyright nerdage soon enough.

Cheers.

Hey, world: we still have power outages out here.

Hello again,

Seems to have totally slipped off the radar of the rest of the world, but us here out in north-central Massachusetts (as I have been since Monday) still are dealing with power outages in the region after last Thursday’s ice storm. Those of us who still haven’t restored power from last Thursday’s storm have now gone out and bought generators. The streets at night are a patchwork of lots of Christmas lights, and no lights at all. I’ve been totally off radar, even moreso than when I had finals, checking my email only twice in the past week.

My family lost power last Thursday, had it restored Sunday afternoon, lost it overnight Sunday night, had it restored Tuesday afternoon, lost it by the time I woke up on Wednesday, and had it restored Wednesday evening, where it remains today (with not a large threat with the light, fluffy foot of snow we’re supposed to get today, but a larger threat of losing it Sunday with a wet, heavy snowstorm). Internet and television were out until sometime yesterday afternoon, and now we’re hunkering down for the snowstorm today.

Driving out in this part of the state is quite a sight. I remember the last major ice storm we had (which the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise tells me was 1996), where parts of Townsend lost power for about this long and you could hear the trees breaking and see the flashes of power outages driving at night. From what I remember, this is far worse.

The damage at this point is mostly cleared (though many still do not have power), but the remnants are everywhere. Driving through Ashby and Ashburnham today was like driving through a post-hurricane scene, only with snow. The tops of 60% of the trees are simply gone along Route 119. I’m a little disappointed that the Boston Globe dedicated only one headline to this crippling storm, despite the hundreds of thousands who lost power, most for days, the multiple deaths reported, and total devastation that has gone through this area (not to mention some jerks conning those without power by posing as utility employees). Watching the NECN or any of the network stations, you would think nothing is happening in this portion of the world since last Friday. Perhaps it’s because we are finding it hard to communicate and tell metro Boston about it. Don’t forget that lost power for many (including us here) meant no heat and no water. Shelters are up in most of the schools, and emergency and utilities personnel are still coming in from across the northeast.

And the one article they had in the Globe? It came on Tuesday, talking about Harvard, Mass – which, forgive me, got off with nothing in this storm. A few people had to spend the night at the high school because they had no heat. Meanwhile, entire families in Fitchburg are selling their Christmas presents to buy generators to get out of this. And they still do not have power. Some people in the more remote sections of these towns have been told not to expect power until after this weekend. It’s likely many will still not have power at the start of 2009. The saving grace around these parts has been the round-the-clock coverage offered by WEIM (AM 1280).

Meanwhile, a new storm is coming today with more snow on Sunday. We’ll make it though, because we’re tough New Englanders and that’s what we do, but we’d appreciate a little more attention. I can only imagine how much worse it is further north in New Hampshire. As for today’s storm, Twitter folks can keep with the updates searching for the hashmark #snow1219 in their tweets.

Update: Mea culpa, Globe. I just got today’s issue and noticed the Fitchburg story below the fold. Thanks for keeping us in mind.

Photos below the cut.

The Death Star, and NE Ice Storm update

I’ve been out and about quite a bit over the past couple of days, now that finals are over. I’ve come to the same conclusion I usually do while on the DC Metro:

The metro looks like the Death Star. I know I’m far from the first to mention this. I’m thinking of this DCist article from November, talking about this video:

Meanwhile, on an topic more like Hoth than the Death Star,  I’m receiving word via friends and Twitter that most of Leominster, sections of Fitchburg, and a few spots in Townsend and Ashby have power, after two complete days without with temperatures staying below freezing. For the rest, it is unclear as to when power will be restored, as the damage to the transmission lines is widespread and of varying calibers (a combination of the substation transmission lines which service entire towns or sections of towns are down, along with the distribution wires on the streets).

(from Flickr user urtica)

Some of you might remember the storm we had like this in 1992 or ‘93 – Townsend was on the cover of the Boston Globe that week for maybe the second time in history, after sections lost power for upwards of a week and a half. All accounts are saying this storm is as bad, or worse. Let me know in the comments if you have any personal expereince with the storm – where you are and if you have power, phones, or cable yet.

As a positive, there are scores of great photos coming from this storm. Head over to Universal Hub or Flickr to check some of them out.

Stay warm. Stay safe.

Yuukichan’s Papa – Iceman Stage (from Mega Man 1)

Stay safe, New England.

I was going to write a letter of solidarity for all of my friends and family in central and western Massachusetts without power today, facing totally blocked off streets in Leominster and Fitchburg, and potential days of loss according to Boston.com. I then realized that my intentened audience has no means whereby they could see this, aside from the smattering of iPhones and Blackberries.

My folks report Townsend has many trees down and power out, but telephone lines operational. Trees are cracking and falling all over. Universal Hub is aggregating metro-west blogs with reports of houses damaged and more trees falling in Worcester and Littleton.

Boston: stay sharp. The same conditions that did this area are coming your way now. Get home and stay warm.

Update: my mom sent me this via Pic-SMS message:

Note how all the trees are leaning into the pond here. That’s not how it normally looks.