Author: Michael

While I disagree with his views on Pluto, Mr. Tyson is pitch perfect on this:

SxSW starts March 11th in Austin. This is my NINTH year and these are my helpful tips for the novice. I’ve tried to revise the info over the years as things change.

ABC – Always Be Charging – If you bring a laptop, you need to be charging it every single chance you get. No battery lasts long enough. Try to sit near an outlet in the session rooms. Share power outlets with others. Phone coverage is hard, meaning it will be in ‘Searching…’ mode often. This drains batteries, so you might consider a specialty phone charger. My friend Brad says “throw a simple 3×1 plug adapter or short multi-outlet extension cord in your laptop bag, you can use this to cadge access from people who are already using outlets.”

Secure connections – Wifi traffic is in the clear and people are sniffing packets all the time. Arrange for secure email, FTP, and if possible, secure browsing while at SXSW. HTTPS: should be in the browser bar of any site you are perusing that utilizes a login. It’s unlikely that a malicious hacker is gunna do bad things, but it’s best to be prepared.

Go play at Kick – Kick is a game of kickball for SxSW attendees on Saturday morning at 10AM. It’s a ton of fun and a great way to meet people. Thanks to Anil Dash, the event is once again sponsored by SB Nation and their will be food & coffee!

Don’t hog bandwidth – There is good wifi, but a limited amount of bandwidth at SxSW and everyone there is highly connected. That means don’t be a bandwidth hog. Don’t run bittorrent, for anything, at any time. Don’t download large operating system patches at the conference. Don’t try to live broadcast anything. Don’t upload all your photos from your 10MB DSLR camera during sessions. Don’t update your podcast downloads. Don’t download fresh builds of linux distros. Do not backup your laptop to Amazon S3 at the conference. Am I getting through here? Your actions can affect the experience for others. Nothing you are doing is that important that it is worth preventing others from having net access. Beat the hell out the hotel broadband in the evening, but do everyone a favor and show some restraint so everyone can do simple web surfing, IM, and email at the convention center.

Introduce Yourself – People are at SXSW because they want to meet people and see new things. Strangely, many of the blogger types that go are introverted types that are a bit shy. Do yourself a favor and say “Hello, I’m So-and-so” to that person you are sitting next to. (Don’t say So-and-so, use your name…) I guarantee that they will be happy to talk to you.

Personal cards – Make up business cards with your name, email, and website info on them to hand out. Bring your regular business cards if you want, but what people really want is a card that ties you to your online persona so they can find you after SxSW.

When asking a question in a session, don’t make a sales pitch – From time to time, people use the question time during sessions to pitch their own projects. No one cares. You look stupid if you do. Ask questions that the rest of the audience might care about. If you make a sales pitch during question time and I’m in the room, I will throw a brick at your head.

Session Info – When you arrive on Friday go to the Convention Center and pick up your badge. They will give you a large canvas bag of swag. You don’t want to haul this around, so you need to figure a way to drop this off at your hotel before a long night of partying. In the bag are two crucial items. First is the program which has detailed session descriptions. Second is a small pocket card with the session schedule on it. You want these to be in your daily walk around bag, not in your hotel room.

Don’t sleep in – Many of you are not parents (meaning not used to getting up at the crack of dawn), but sleeping in past Noon means you are missing plenty of good stuff you paid a lot to see. Get up so you can grab breakfast and be at the 10AM sessions. If it’s more important to you to stay up till dawn and sleep in until 2PM, you probably shouldn’t be coming to Austin. You can do that at home.

Shiner Bock – Shiner Bock is a local Texas beer that you find everywhere. Often referred to as simply ‘Shiner’.

Badge Surf – Badge surfing is a perfectly acceptable behavior at SxSW, but don’t use it to fake knowing someone. If you want to talk to someone, say “I see from your badge…”. Don’t make them think that they should know you or that you’ve met previously.

Fray Cafe – Go to the Fray Cafe on Sunday night. Fray is people telling truthful stories about their life. It’s one of the best things about SxSW. Kevin Smokler is the host and is longtime SxSW veteran. Get there early for a good seat, otherwise you will be standing for the whole thing.

Stay Warm – It can get cold and rain in Austin this time of year. Bring a good jacket or coat just in case.

Sharpeners – There are no pencil sharpeners at SXSW. People think writing on a pad of paper with a wooden pencil is a bit strange.

Street Signs – For some reason, downtown Austin has few street signs. Get a map and study it before venturing out.

Food – Eat food. Austin has a great bar scene. You will be drinking. Don’t drink on an empty stomach. It also would be a good idea to keep a couple energy bars in your bag during sessions.

Drink – Drink smart. If you start drinking early in the day, be sure to employ the “full glass of water between drinks method” to avoid overindulgence and a hangover. Or consider not drinking at all.

Texas BBQ – IMHO, Texas BBQ pales in comparison to BBQ in other areas like Kansas City and Carolina. That chopped beef sandwich stuff just doesn’t cut it, but people will want to eat it for lunch. That said, Stubbs makes a great brisket.

Say Hello to Me – I would love to meet Loyal Cruft Readers. On Twitter I’m @cruftbox or email me or IM at pusateri AT gmail.com and I promise to respond.

Any questions?

My little post about the iPad is getting a lot of views, and strident, indignant comments from my beloved Internets. That you for all the comments that exactly, perfectly prove my points…
I would reply point by point, but as this is the Internet, discussion can never end in someone changing their mind, so it becomes fruitless.
The best is me being called an Apple fanboy. Let’s be clear here, this is my computing environment at home:
4 desktop running Vista – one per family member
1 desktop running Vista – a media hub/home audio/phone dock
1 Media Center PC – hooked to TV to watch DVDs and Blu-ray
1 laptop running Vista
1 Microsoft Home Server – backing everything up
Currently putting together a new gaming PC to run Windows 7
and to top it off, one of the desktop PCs is a 20″ Mac that only runs Vista – good design for my wife
3 iPhones – me, wife, eldest daughter – youngest uses a Samsung Impressions
If that make me an Apple fanboy, then everyone is an Apple fanboy.

“Everyone gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.” – Gertrude Stein

Oh Internets, how I love your unrealistic optimism, your pervasive cynicism, your willingness to believe any rumor, no matter how far fetched, and your desire to pronounce judgment on things with the tiniest amount of actual information.

Today Apple announced the iPad. Amazingly it did not fulfill every expectation that was floating out there. Most importantly, it does not fulfill every, specific desire you have and expected. The rumor machine of tech web sites promised you so much more.

Oh noes.

Let me explain it clearly and talk you off the ledge before you go and do something stupid.

Remember way back to January 2007, when the iPhone was announced? Oh Internets, you wailed and gnashed your teeth endlessly. No 3G network? No MMS? No apps on the iPhone? No replaceable battery? Oh, your complaints were endless. You were sure that the iPhone was doomed because it didn’t meet all your requirements.

And what happened? Well, Apple has sold 40 million iPhones. FORTY MILLION. They have become the largest mobile device company in the world.

So today, you moan on and on about all the features you expected and demand in the iPad. What no Verizon? No two-way camera? It’s not weightless? A full half inch thick? Only 10 hours of battery life? You make tons of predictions on the success and failure with scant details and without ever actually trying one.

Well, I am lucky enough to have been at the Apple Event today. Deep within the Reality Distortion Field. I saw the demo live, not snap shots on a web site. I got to use the iPad and see how it worked in person. I talked with other people that had tried it.

And you know what, just like Steve Jobs said, you need to hold it for yourself. It’s a different computing experience. It’s intuitive and simple. The device is blazingly fast and obvious how to use. It is a third kind of computing between a smartphone and a laptop.

For those that have iPhones, you know the experience of showing someone the iPhone for the first time. The look in their face, when they first flick the screen or squeeze the image to zoom. The realization that this is something different, very different, than what they have experienced before.

I am a technology professional. For almost 20 years I’ve tested, used, broke, fixed, and played with all kinds of technology from broadcasting to air conditioning to software. I am not easily swayed in these things. But even with all my skepticism, I think the iPad is something different. A new way of computing that will become commonplace.

Oh Internets, I know you won’t believe till you hold one in your hands. You’ll bang on about features, data plans, DRM, open source, and a multitude of issues. You’ll storm the message boards, wring your hands, and promise you won’t buy one till ‘Gen 2’. The din will grow and grow as time passes.

And then one day, in a few months, you will actually hold one and use it. And you will say, “I want one. I want one right now.”

So, my sweet beloved Internets, please take a deep breath, relax and stay away from your regular knee-jerk reactions. Have a little patience, a quality you are not known for, my sweet Internets.

And please, please stop trying to make predictions about what’s next, you have no clue and just look stupid when you do.

“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” – Steve Jobs

Today marks the 10 anniversary of the formal start of this weblog, the venerable Cruftbox.
In internet time, that’s an eternity. While I’m not considered one of the truly early bloggers, I’ve been at this quite a while.
I registered my first domain back in 1997 and promptly posted a story about making a cup of coffee on August 31st. I had posted about my daughter being born even earlier, on July 19th. While some might claim that as the start of my blogging, I consider it when I started using a content management system of some kind.
My inspiration for Cruftbox was a site called Lum the Mad, a weblog about the game Ultima Online. Scott “Lum” Jennings still blogs about gaming today at brokentoys.org. My initial start was a rudimentary blogging app called NewsPro. Blogger was less than 6 months old, MovableType didn’t even exist in those days, and owning your own domain was not for casual enthusiasts. Thanks to Ben & Mena Trott for making MovableType. Without it, I probably would have never kept on blogging.
My first post was January 21st, 2000, simply about starting the site. In the beginning, I mainly posted about video games and linked to interesting stuff I saw on the web. As time went on, I started to create more real content on the site.
To this day, the most popular page on Cruftbox remains How to make a Smoker from a Trash Can, posted in October of 2003. Even now, 50-100 people a day read this page. The more real content I made, the more visitors I had arrive. Once I added Google ads, I started making $100-150 a month and still do today.
Blogging led me to start attending SxSW Interactive and helped me meet a ton of great people all over the world. I have found blogging to be a rewarding experience, well worth my time and the headache. I have refrained from trying to turn my site into anything other than a window into my life.
I never believed in the “Bloggers will pwn the world!!!1!!” meme that still occasionally rebounds around the net. It’s not blogging that changes the world, it’s hard work that changes the world. Blogs are a great way to surface hard work, making it easy to publicly publish what you’ve been working on, but crap on a weblog is still just crap.
Over the years, I’ve been Slashdotted, Farked, Boinged, Dugg, and even hacked. To be honest, it feels good to get the attention. I’d much rather get many people reading my site than a bunch of hits to the Google ads.
Today, I mainly post about my experiments in food or science. I don’t post as frequently, since I feel a lot of the personal stuff fits better into Facebook or Twitter. Who knows what I’ll be writing about in a few years.
So what words of wisdom do I have after 10 years of blogging?
Not a lot really. Just a few things that are probably obvious to a lot of people, but I’ll write them down anyways.
1) Blogging adds content to the internet, where as social networks add noise. A weblog tends to be a more permanent record of information that is searchable and retrievable over time. People still visit my post about loading XP on a SATA drive from 2004 regularly, because it’s usefully content that they can find easily. Twitter and Facebook are fun, but their content is ephemeral, melting into the net like snowflakes in the sun. Beautiful for a brief moment and then gone.
2) Only write things on your weblog that you are comfortable your co-workers, friends, family, and strangers knowing. If you have private thoughts, keep them private.
3) Most of the social media experts are full of crap. Anyone who claims to know where the internet is heading or how ‘you should establish a relationship with your reader’ is simply selling something. The internet is wild and unpredictable. Your best bet is to simply sit back, do what you find interesting, ignore what bores you, and enjoy the ride.
The biggest thanks I have go to my wife, Michele, who has put up with my blogging of our lives, eaten food cooked in trash cans, let her kitchen be used as a lab, helped me count Halloween costumes, and watched me eat copious amounts of junk food in the name of science. Thank you sweet pea!
Lastly, thank YOU for reading. If not for the comments and emails over the years, I wouldn’t still be doing this. Let’s see what the next ten years brings, I have no idea what it will be, but it will be wonderful.
And yes, I know I need to redesign the site.

Besides trying to get Foursquare badges and going to sessions, I’ve been having fun in Austin.
#sxstarwars
I got involved to ‘act’ in a live reenactment of the run on the Death Star in Star wars via Twitter. That link should take you to the start and allow you to read forwards (Newer) to see how it played out.

Jay Bushman organized the whole thing. He even built a wiki to show us actors what to do. Within an hour, the #sxstarwars tag went from nothing to the #3 trending search topic on Twitter Search. Seeing everyone join in was great fun! Here are some photos of us during the event.
Always Be Charging
I’m honored that the guys at SxSWBaby liked my phrase ABC – Always Be Charging and even built an alwaysbecharging.com site.
Causing Trouble
Those that know me, know I can get passionate about things. Here’s me causing trouble in the LA Tech Scene discussion.
Hotel Room
And for the sake of tradition:

SxSW starts March 13th in Austin. This is my SEVENTH year and these are my helpful tips for the novice. I’ve tried to revise the info over the years as things change.
ABC – Always Be Charging – If you bring a laptop, you need to be charging it every single chance you get. No battery lasts long enough. Try to sit near an outlet in the session rooms. Share power outlets with others.
Don’t hog bandwidth – There is good wifi, but a limited amount of bandwidth at SxSW and everyone there is highly connected. That means don’t be a bandwidth hog. Don’t run bittorrent, for anything, at any time. Don’t download large operating system patches at the conference. Don’t try to live broadcast anything. Don’t upload all your photos from your 10MB DSLR camera during sessions. Don’t update your podcast downloads. Don’t download fresh builds of linux distros. Do not backup your laptop to Amazon S3 at the conference. Am I getting through here? Your actions can affect the experience for others. Nothing you are doing is that important that it is worth preventing others from having net access. Beat the hell out the hotel broadband in the evening, but do everyone a favor and show some restraint so everyone can do simple web surfing, IM, and email at the convention center.
Introduce Yourself – People are at SXSW because they want to meet people and see new things. Strangely, many of the blogger types that go are introverted types that are a bit shy. Do yourself a favor and say “Hello, I’m So-and-so” to that person you are sitting next to. (Don’t say So-and-so, use your name…) I guarantee that they will be happy to talk to you.
Personal cards – Make up business cards with your name, email, and website info on them to hand out. Bring your regular business cards if you want, but what people really want is a card that ties you to your online persona so they can find you after SxSW.
When asking a question in a session, don’t make a sales pitch – From time to time, people use the question time during sessions to pitch their own projects. No one cares. You look stupid if you do. Ask questions that the rest of the audience might care about. If you make a sales pitch during question time and I’m in the room, I will throw a brick at your head.
Session Info – When you arrive on Friday go to the Convention Center and pick up your badge. They will give you a large canvas bag of swag. You don’t want to haul this around, so you need to figure a way to drop this off at your hotel before a long night of partying. In the bag are two crucial items. First is the program which has detailed session descriptions. Second is a small pocket card with the session schedule on it. You want these to be in your daily walk around bag, not in your hotel room.
Don’t sleep in – Many of you are not parents that are used to getting up at the crack of dawn, but sleeping in past Noon means you are missing plenty of good stuff you paid a lot to see. Get up so you can grab breakfast and be at the 10AM sessions. If it’s more important to you to stay up till dawn and sleep in until 2PM, you probably shouldn’t be coming to Austin. You can do that at home.
Shiner Bock – Shiner Bock is a local Texas beer that you find everywhere. Often referred to as simply ‘Shiner’.
Badge Surf – Badge surfing is a perfectly acceptable behavior at SxSW, but don’t use it to fake knowing someone. If you want to talk to someone, say “I see from your badge…”. Don’t make them think that they should know you or that you’ve met previously.
Fray Cafe – Go to the Fray Cafe on Sunday night. Fray is people telling truthful stories about their life. It’s one of the best things about SxSW. Kevin Smokler is the new host and is longtime SxSW veteran. Get there early for a good seat, otherwise you will be standing for the whole thing.
Stay Warm – It can get cold and rain in Austin this time of year. Bring a good jacket or coat just in case.
Sharpeners – There are no pencil sharpeners at SXSW. People think writing on a pad of paper with a wooden pencil is a bit strange.
Secure connections – Wifi traffic is in the clear and people are sniffing packets all the time. Arrange for secure email, FTP, and if possible, secure browsing while at SXSW. It’s unlikely that a malicious hacker is gunna do bad things, but it’s best to be prepared.
Street Signs – For some reason, downtown Austin has few street signs. Get a map and study it before venturing out.
Food – Eat food. Austin has a great bar scene. You will be drinking. Don’t drink on an empty stomach. It also would be a good idea to keep a couple energy bars in your bag during sessions.
Texas BBQ – IMHO, Texas BBQ pales in comparison to BBQ in other areas like Kansas City and Carolina. That chopped beef sandwich stuff just doesn’t cut it, but people will want to eat it for lunch. That said, Stubbs makes a great brisket.
Say Hello to Me – I would love to meet Loyal Cruft Readers. On Twitter I’m @cruftbox or email me or IM at pusateri AT gmail.com and I promise to respond.
Any questions?

It’s been a hard month for Los Angeles radio listeners.
First, Indie 103.1 goes off the air. It’s online still at indie1031.com, but 103.1 is now ranchero music. A sad state for the station once named by Rolling Stone magazine as best radio station in America. Of course Michele would argue that WOXY is the best radio station.
Second, KLSX flipped formats and the Adam Carolla Show is off the air. I really enjoyed Adam’s show. It was a bright spot everyday. I would listen live when I could, but mainly listened to the podcast, which was a segmented recording of the actual show.
CBS Radio, in their corporate wisdom, decided that Los Angeles would be better served by a Top 40 (CHR) format station. And so, KLSX died and Adam was off the air.
Not a quitter, Adam decided to continue his “conversation with listeners”. His words, not mine. His new site carollaradio.com is now posting daily podcasts he produces at home with help from friends and former co-workers. His very first podcast, had over 200,000 downloads. Those numbers make any podcast saavy person sit up and recognize the size of his fanbase.
Adam absolutely gets where media consumption is going and is working to give it a shot and see what happens. Jesse Thorn (the man behind the wonderful Sound of Young America show) agrees and posted a good bit of Adam’s rant with a little commentary. I agree with Jesse, if you think of Adam as just the Man Show/Crank Yankers guy, you are missing what he’s all about. He’s honest and a bit of a blowhard, you won’t agree with everything he says, in fact you’ll sometimes think he’s wrong. But he speaks how he feels without resorting the the usual talk radio hyperbole where jocks say anything to get the audience revved up. That’s a very rare thing today, where almost all radio bits are heavily scripted, edited, and basically fake.
Give it a listen. Adam curses a bit on the podcast, so I’d call it NSFW, but it’s better than anything else on the radio these days.