Cruftbox: My Box of Cruft

Ten years ago I was awaken by a call from my mother-in-law asking “Did you see? Did you see?”.
Ten years ago I was driving to work, to send everyone home, when I heard on the radio that the Twin Towers had fallen.
In those ten years, I have seen the best and worst of America.
I have seen honest debate about the future of our country, and I have seen citizens call each other traitors simply because they don’t share the same politics.
I have seen America unite in joy and in grief together regardless of race, gender, or politics, and yet at other times question the foundational concept of America that “All men are created equal.”
America, we are a better country than this.
Our forefathers deserve a better legacy that an era of personal name calling and character assassination.
Our descendants deserve a better future than an era focused on fear.

That which unites us is stronger than that which divides us.

Recently, DC Comics rebooted their entire line of stories. I hadn’t read comics in a year or two, but I was intrigued. I stopped by the local comic store and picked up the new books. The price of the new issues was $3.99 a copy.

I thought to myself that the price is really rising. When I got home, I read a great article on comparing the price of comics to the minimum wage by Von Allen.
Soon I was wondering what the relative cost of comics was in the past. I mean, I know they were 10¢ in the 50s, but what does 10¢ in 1950s dollars compare to in 2011?
So I did a little research. I looked up the cover price of comics over the years on Wikipedia and I used a site called Measuring Worth to covert prices in the past to prices today based on the Consumer Price Index.
I threw all the values into a spreadsheet.

Year	Cover Cost	Cost Adjusted To 2011 $ (CPI)
1950	$0.10	$0.91
1962	$0.12	$0.87
1969	$0.15	$0.89
1971	$0.20	$1.08
1974	$0.25	$1.11
1976	$0.30	$1.15
1977	$0.35	$1.26
1979	$0.40	$1.20
1980	$0.50	$1.32
1981	$0.60	$1.44
1985	$0.65	$1.32
1986	$0.75	$1.49
1988	$1.00	$1.84
1992	$1.25	$1.94
1995	$1.50	$2.15
1996	$1.95	$2.71
1997	$1.99	$2.70
2000	$2.25	$2.85
2005	$2.50	$2.79
2006	$2.99	$3.23
2011	$3.99	$3.99

Graphed it looks like this:

Looking at the graph we can see that the relative price of a comic book stayed around a buck until 1970 or so, slowly ramping up to a buck fifty over the next 15 years. That’s a 50% increase. From 1985 to 2000 the price almost doubles (100%) getting neat three dollars. From 2000 to 2011, it’s around a 33% increase.
It’s a fact that costs increase over time, so I’m not saying prices could remain at a buck forever. But it is hard to see how young kids and teenagers can get into comic books, it’s simply too expensive. For $20 you get 5-7 books. Serious comic readers will pick up 10-20 books a week. A few years ago, when I was a more regular reader, I would the totals of other people routinely $30-50 a week. That’s $120-200 per MONTH. There can’t be many parents helping pay that much for a kid’s comic habit.
Perhaps comics are now becoming a purely adult pastime. That would be sad. The joy of reading, sorting, and collecting comics was a wonderful part of my youth.

Recently, I’ve been playing the the Replay editor in Team Fortress 2. It allows you to edit a video together from a round in a game of TF2. Not only can you see the round from your perspective, you can switch between the views of any player or go with a free view camera. once you’ve edited the video, you can render it out several different ways. The editor even allows you to upload the video directly to Youtube from within the game.
The most interesting part is the transition of gaming from simply playing to playing and then taking the gameplay and then remixing it into new content.
Valve, makers of TF2, held a contest called the Saxxy Awards, for the top videos in 20 different categories. Winners of the Saxxy received an actual golden statue in game for use. This blending of gameplay and community is exemplary.

We’ve played around with making Cookie Inceptions a bit, but I never really wrote it up.
Today, Mira and I made Cupcake Inceptions. And they turned out great.

The idea was to bake an Oreo cookie inside a cupcake. The first thing to ensure is that the Oreo would fit inside the cupcake wrapper/tin. They fit perfect.
We decided to use Oreo Heads or Tails, which have a chocolate side and a vanilla side.

Mira mixed up the cake mix. We went with chocolate cake for the cupcakes. A vanilla mix would have shown off the Oreo better, but we thought the chocolate would taste better.

We poured a little cake mix into the cupcake wrapper to give it a good cake base.

Then the Oreo were Incepted!

Cake mix then covered the Oreos to a little over 2/3 full. We like using a measuring cup to pour our cupcakes into wrappers.

A little over 20 minutes in the oven and out come the Cupcake Inceptions!

The cupcake holds together well and you can’t see the Oreo from the outside.

Inside, you can see the Oreo. The cake mix softens the cookie, but not too much. There’s still a little crunch to the Oreo, but not enough to slow us down from wolfing down the cupcake.
The experiment was a success. Give it a try.

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

There has been a bit of recent discussion on comments and anonymity on the web. See Anil, Tim, Caterina, and Anil again. Good stuff for the most part, but I have a bit to add from my perspective.
For several years, I ran a site called Anonyblog. I’ve taken it down now, so there’s not much to see now. You could probably Google it or find it on archive.org if you are really interested.
The premise was simple. I made a weblog and posted the username and password to allow anyone an anonymous way to post on a weblog and “get it off their chests”. I was enthusiastic about blogging at the time, fresh from inspiring SxSW conferences and watching traditional media adapt to the influence of bloggers.
My plan was simple, let people post whatever they wanted, stand back and let the good times roll. I was quite naive.
At first, things went as I intended. Posts on all types of issues from work, relationships, politics, police departments, other bloggers, and even requests for advice. Occasionally there were posted that I found distasteful, but in the name of ‘freedom’ I didn’t censor anything.
At one point someone starting posting NSFW photos. Being that I was checking on the blog from home, I didn’t want my children seeing NSFW photos while I requested that people not post NSFW photos. This was the first rule I made.
Things were OK for a bit more, and then a group of posters appeared that appeared to already know each other. They posted inane stories about stuffed animals and racist stuff, and appeared to encourage each other in this. I really didn’t like it and considered deleting it all, but ended up leaving it alone. “It’s just words.” I said to myself.
Fairly quickly a contingent of readers started pushing back and complaining about the stories. The frustration on both sides escalated and soon I was dealing with users deleting and revising the posts of others. Some users were even posting fake posts from their ‘enemies’ to make them look bad.
Suddenly, I was in moderation overdrive trying to maintain some sense of order. It was a pain for me, but I did it because occasionally someone would post something that I felt worthy or that gave someone that was hurting a way to relive their pain.
I worked on ways to auto-approve posts to prevent editing by others and free me from having to individually approve each post. I spent many hours trying to solve the now communities’ problems.
The group of stuffed animal story people soon invited yet another friend to post. This person was obsessed with coprophagy (Google it yourself, I won’t link it). Multiple posts, images, and all sorts of disgusting stuff way over my personal limits for freedom. I pushed back hard, deleting stuff and banning IP addresses.
Soon I was in a war with the shit poster. He would use scripts to auto-post hundreds of posts via proxies. I would script deletions, use anti-spam software to filter words he used frequently, and even started tracking down the person via IP in an attempt to dox him.
I posted to the community about the issues so people knew what was going on. A few cheered, but many harangued me over my censorship. WTF? I’m the guy who built the Anonyblog in the beginning and did a bunch of work to keep it running. How dare they question me?
At this point, I knew the end was near. I started to feel anger and hate toward users. At some point, the blog software broke due to either the external attacks or my defense modifications. No new posts were possible at this point.
I could have fixed it, but I didn’t.
Why? Well, people could still post in the comments, so they did. And it just got worse. Terrible stuff, fighting, and everything bad that occurs in online communities when the brakes are removed.
For a couple years, I agonized over what to do. I talked to a few people I respected as having wisdom in blogging community expectations. More than once I was ready to relaunch the site, but just couldn’t since I knew it would bring ever more drama and frustration into my life. I felt bad, since I knew there were many people out there suffering that could use an outlet for their pain.
In the end, I wiped the site clean. The web is a better place without it.
What did I learn? Two things really.
First, people do need anonymity. There is pain, secrets, desires, worries, successes, failures, and prayers that people have and need to share in a way that they feel safe. Going to an all ‘Real Name’ internet does not help many people.
Second, complete anonymity and anarchy leads to the worst in people. Even a tiny group can poison a community, creating divisiveness and bad feelings all the way round. Without fail, this is what I saw on Anonyblog and in other communities on the web when anonymity reigned.
To make Anonyblog work would require many of the things Anil mentions in his post. I just don’t have the time, energy, of desire to build all that to support what would be needed to prevent a site like Anonyblog from becoming a sewer once again. But the need for it remains.

I posted a tweet on a whim and got a few good replies. My full response if longer than 140 characters, so I’m going old-school with a blog post.


Cruftbox: Eating lunch at Jack in the Box helps remind me that most people don't care about Google Plus, IPOs, retweets, or Klout.
tara @Cruftbox don't you think the nextgen will though?
Cruftbox: @tara No. Most people aren't innovators or early adopters. My teens aren't. People need to be aware if they are in an echo chamber.
tara: @Cruftbox I disagree. 72% of American households play video games. Points, rewards, etc. are a known quantity. It's an easy transition.
derekdemoro: @Cruftbox They care about their phones.


It’s no doubt that I’m a geek. I’ve been one since I was a child rewiring telephones and playing with chemistry sets.
In my career as a technologist, I’ve been lucky enough to meet many of the brightest people in big companies such as Apple, Cisco, HP, IBM, etc. and true innovators that helped build the web and invent many of the social technologies that seem commonplace now.
As a result, some of my social circles are the alpha geeks that invent what the world will be seeing as commonplace in the next 10 years.
My tweet was a poke at the intense focus and emotion these circles can have about topics and new concepts that have no relevance or significance to the rest of the world.
The valuation of startups is interesting to a tiny population. Most people don’t know what the startups do, let alone if the valuation is wrong. And to be honest, why should they care?
Google Plus is nice, but the whinging over invites is a bit over the top when you take the long view. The demand for immediate satisfaction and full understanding is a sense of entitlement I dislike in others and myself. People demanding things over Twitter/Facebook and creating boycotts based on a single link of information is the norm these days, and I believe it’s not helpful.
In other words, calm the fuck down, relax, and take a deep breath. Don’t complain so much.
As far as the future, the next generation will be more technically adept than previous ones, but they won’t fundamentally change into a generation of early adopters.
Tara and Derek are right that today’s youth play videogames and love mobile phones. Both of those technologies are 30+ years old. The penetration levels of video games and mobile phones 30 years ago was tiny compared to today. In those days, both were the domain of the alpha geeks of the time.
For people today to get so seriously wound up about new ideas and make grandiose predictions is silly, IMHO. Pundits, especially social media pundits, are so profoundly wrong about everything it is amazing that anyone still listens. If they were right, they’d be rich. Ever seen a rich pundit?
I’ve been to many conferences where the future was explained to me. Let’s see, at first, individual blogs would kill media companies. Around then auctions were announced as the way all companies would buy supplies. Then Creative Commons would kill copyright. Next, Open Source would kill Apple & Microsoft. One year the future of music was Myspace. Next year, Facebook apps were the future of the internet. The next year, apps on the mobile phone were the future. Recently, location based apps were declared the future of commerce. Oh wait, now social buying is the future of commerce.
The only thing that has proven correct is that speed of change is increasing and not much withstands change.
Hate the new version of software that just came out, don’t worry, the next next patch will make it better or their competitor will come out with a better one. Sternly worded tweets don’t do anything.
Google Plus hasn’t even been out a week and already the alpha geek echo chamber is whining, ranting, pontificating, and snarking about every aspect. All I’m saying, it STFU for a bit. Use what’s new, talk with friends about their ideas on it, pause to think a bit, and run that cycle a few times before making up your mind.
I’m not saying shut up and don’t ever complain. I’m saying think, consider other points of view outside your echo chamber, offer suggestions and compromises, and try to be helpful rather than hurtful.
As far as the next generation, I don’t know what they will be using and thinking is cool, if I did, I’d be rich.
But I can tell you what they won’t think is cool.
They will think of Facebook and Twitter the way many today think of AOL and Compuserve, relics of a previous age that only stubborn old people use.
They will think of email the way many think of faxing, an antique method used by rule and tradition bound industries like medicine and law.
They will think of debates about digital music and video and copyright the way many think about the arguments about CDs and DVDs killing the music and film industries, silly debate over an obviously better way.
But 20 years from now, there will still be a small group of alpha geeks, inventing super cool stuff, that most people won’t understand or worse think stupid. And I have no doubt there will be people complaining about stuff because it doesn’t fit their exact desires.

Last week, I was at lunch with Greg Knauss. While enjoying our delicious In-N-Out burgers, the conversation wandered to email maintenance as can happen with serious geeks. We discussed the subtlety of hosting email and the amount of geek cred each method represented. Talk turned to the choices others make in what email they use and our perception of what that means about them. FYI, an email domain name is the name after the @ symbol. For example, if an email address was john@foobar.com, the email domain name is foobar.com.
We joked about putting up a survey to see what others think. In my copious free time, that’s exactly what I did. The survey’s still up here. I was able to cajole about 98 people into responding and my brief analysis is based on those responses. I was interested in how people feel about an individual’s choice of email domain. Not about the technology or functionality, but what the email domain says about the person using it.
A few caveats:

1. It’s not scientific, I never took stats in college, just engineering stuff
2. Yes, my scoring method is probably wrong
3. Yes, I know you don’t like my 12 choices of email domains
4. Yes, the survey was confusing and not sexy HTMLness
5. Go do your own survey if you don’t like mine

I asked people to rate email domain names with 1 being best and 12 being worst. Here is the raw data.

The Excel spreadsheet of data is here if you want to do your own analysis.
If you look at purely the votes for number 1, then Vanity domain with self-hosted email is best regarded, followed by Vanity domain with Google hosted email, and Gmail next. By this method, Aol.com email is seen as the worst by far, with Portal domains next.
I tried doing a weighted analysis (OK, I have no idea what a ‘weighted’ analysis is, but my method seemed good. You can berate me in the comments…). I multipled the number of votes by the ranking position and summed up the totals. In doing this, the lowest sum should reflect the overall ranking including votes that are good and bad.
With this ‘weighting’ Gmail rises to the top over vanity domains. Aol.com and Portal domains remain at the bottom. The ‘weighted’ order is:
Gmail.com
Vanity domain with self-hosted email
Vanity domain with Google hosted email
Work domain
Alumni .edu
Facebook.com
Yahoo.com
ISP email (cable or DSL company)
Shared family email account
Hotmail.com
Portal domain (go.com, lycos.com, ask.com, etc.)
Aol.com
Personally, I don’t give email domains a lot of thought, except in two cases. First is the use of the email address given by an ISP provider that someone might get with their cable modem or DSL service. IMHO, this email address should NEVER be used. Locking yourself into an ISP to simply keep your email address or suffering through issues if your ISP is bought/merged is senseless. Second is using an Aol.com address, especially for business purposes. This simply shows a lack of professionality and knowledge of current internet practices and capabilities.
I asked people for any comments about email domains and I got a number of responses. I redacted any identifying or non-pertinent info.

I don’t like getting personal emails from folks work email address. I won’t share the same way knowing that my reply is “owned” by their employer. I’m not sure how I’m going to know if someone’s vanity domain is a gmail one.
facebook.com unless they work for facebook but then that just goes back to using company email for personal. Just like it is unprofessional to use your personal email for work it is poor form to use your work email for personal. It would be hard for the casual observer to tell the difference between google hosted private domain and self hosted. ISP email is amateur hour. AOL or hotmail email probably means you have been using that since the 90’s, suck it up and change already. Alum email tells me you shop for all your casual wear at your college bookstore unless it is alum related correspondence.
I ranked the “Shared family email account” only a 6 since that type of account is analogous to a home phone number with an answering machine vs a cell number with voicemail — you’re never quite sure who’s going to be able to see your message. In general, though, my rankings are largely based on implications of longevity — that is, how long a given domain is likely to remain as a person’s canonical/primary email address. Naturally, that’s why “vanity domain” is the winner. (And that’s also why Hotmail and Aol are at the botoom — most sensible users soon outgrow those services.
I don’t place a particular judgment on these because most folks don’t have many choices on which domain they use (their area might not have many ISPs or for financial reasons they are limited)
Having an opinion about someone’s email domain feel like making a judgment based on the shoes they wear. Pointless and counterproductive, but I tend to do it anyways.
My worsts are based on the perception that these people aren’t savvy enough to go with a more modern ISP. My bests are based on the assumption that the person has made something of themselves – if this is their work domain. That said, individuals whose business value is derived from their business identity get respect from the use of that identity in the email domain name, so work domain would be a tie with either of the vanity domain options. I put it third only in the case of someone who uses their work email address for personal purposes (guess it feels to me like unwise misuse of company property, or like you’re slacking on the job.) I have to confess a little confusion on the difference between the two vanity-domain options because – unless I’m completely wrong (highly possible) I’d be completely unable to tell who is hosting your domain just by reading the name in an email header.
Extra bonus points for a working genie or compuserve address.
have admined my own email server (on a freebsd jail) for the last 8 years, and i’m female.
I do not understand the difference between the two vanity domains- google vs self. How would I know who was hosting the email? Work domains depend on the company: bob@pixar.com is cool; bob@foxnews.com is not. If you are not a student, any .edu email address tells me you’re either a) stuck in the past or b) trying to show off (bob@princeton.edu)
For some reason I presume hotmail is for flighty people, and gmail is more credible. I do not know why I feel this

What do you think? Are there email domain that make you think one way or another about the user?

Ever since I started doing this, I’ve been surprised how much people like watching these. Here’s three more.

My Hotel Room in New York from Michael Pusateri on Vimeo.

My Hotel Room in Paso Robles from Michael Pusateri on Vimeo.

My Hotel Room in Santa Barbara from Michael Pusateri on Vimeo.

The 2011 SxSW Interactive conference was the ninth time I’ve
made the journey to Austin.  I have mixed feelings about it but haven’t been able to put it into words exactly.  After staring at a blank page for a while I finally drew this diagram that about sums it up.