Final Wrap-Up

Dear Readers,

Some say, “all good things must come to an end,” while others say, “it’s better to have loved and lost rather than to have never loved at all.”  I say, “whew, glad that’s over.”  With yet another successful graduation under my belt, I must to bid farewell to KGI…lest their lawyers come hunt me down and silence me in my sleep.  For those not quite following along, that means this blog must head into a peaceful, well-diversified retirement.

In the words of your friendly neighborhood dolphin, “So long, and thanks for all the fish,” or if you prefer, of our dear Captain James T. Kirk: “It’s been…. fun.”

The Human Extreme

What is the price for incremental quality, and is it really worth it? How much is too much? What about when you can’t even tell the difference; or perhaps even care to? To add to the confusion, what about marketing or celebrity appeal?

Well, sometimes it’s not worth a damn – sometimes it’s worth everything. It just depends on who you are. Either way, once you look into it, you won’t see a thin veil of magic marketing and superficial shadows on the wall – you’ll see a tremendous drive and passion for pushing the limits of the human experience.

The Taste

For some people, salt is just salt. It goes on sale occasionally at Albertsons for $0.04/oz. Well, this almost ubiquitous seasoning is also one of the most sought after seasonings in the world. Walk outside the US and It comes in almost a hundred different ways which can range from your traditional table salt by Morton ($0.06/oz.), to Camargue’s Fleur de Sel from France at $2.16/oz. It can come from Peru, Hawaii, Himalayan, Maine, New Zealand, and all the various oceans, each finely gathered and closely guarded with their own distinct flavor. Try pouring Morton’s on your $90 4 oz. Japanese Kobe beef and most likely the executive chef will chase you out with a butcher knife.

The Smell

Back when I worked at Starbucks, all employees are forced to go through coffee tastings to better understand, appreciate, and market the various types of coffee. The first eight coffees I had gone through had “it tastes like coffee” under the “taste” category, and “it smells like coffee” scrawled in the “smell” category. After about six more however, I started to notice subtle differences. Nut. Oak. Sweetness. Cherries? Apples? How does one pick up a cherry smell from a coffee bean is beyond me, but I swear it smells like cherries. For a step above, all you need to do is look to your local wine merchant for an even more intense and extreme form of olfactory sensory perception. The very best “winos” as we call them, can tell the grape of a foreign wine they’ve never had from just a brief whiff of the ‘nose’, some being able to even tell the year and vineyard in which the wine came from, with 99% accuracy. If they’ve had the wine before, the accuracy creeps closer to 100%.

The Sight

Back in the day, a black-and-white TV picking up basic channels out of the air was frighteningly “lifelike.”  Good enough?  Hell no.  If you compare an HD broadcast to an old TV on airwaves, the TV looks like a disgusting mess of scrambled eggs.  The same goes with DVD and slightly less so, Blu-Ray.  We’ve exponentially multiplied the number of pixels from 345,600 (old TV) to 2,073,600 (HDTV,1080p) in a single frame.  Sure, HDTV looks great, but we haven’t even scratched the surface of digital visual reproduction.  When is it going to be enough?  Researchers estimate that it’ll take about 15,000,000 pixels to make it indistinguishable to the human eye…so…we have a ways to go.

The Sound

Take a standard pair of headphones such as say, the headphones on your iPod.  Sure, they sound pretty good.  You can hear the music right?  Well, by audiophile standards, the standard iPod headphones are pretty horrendous in sound reproduction.

Take a quick peek around, and you’ll find yourself easily forking over $80 to $120 for a decent pair of earbuds that will do your music justice.  Right around there, you start running into your second barrier:  the mp3 file sound quality.  A standard mp3 comes in 128 to 192 kbps, but to really make use of your earbuds and push the limits of your iPod, you’ll need to find a source cleaner than that.  Getting a song encoded in 256 or 320 kbps is the first step, the next is lossless (i.e. FLAC), and for the hardcore, the old-school *.wav file that’ll turn your normal 3.5 Mb file into a 44 Mb one.

Once you get a lossless album pumping through your iPod, you reach a third barrier: your headphones… again.  Unless you’re really attached to earbuds and don’t mind paying up to $650 for custom earbuds perfectly molded specifically for your ear, you’ll probably move on to full headphones called ‘cans.’  Strange sounding companies such as Grado and Sennheiser make studio or reference versions of these that cost upwards of $800.  But just as you’re feeling pretty good about your hard-core set of cans in your music backpack, you run into barrier number four:  your iPod.

Your iPod is a pretty good at reproducing sound, but it’s noisy due to it’s compact circuitry and construction.  To minimize this, you’ll want to turn the volume to the absolute minimum, and then buy a high-quality amplifier that has less noise than your iPod.  These amplifiers are slowly getting more portable, and start at around $200 and go easily into the thousands.  The standard audiophile listening pack carries a high quality music source, a powered amplifier, and a good set of cans.

But eventually, even the minimum amount of noise on the iPod is just too much, and the reproduction isn’t good enough…so you got to ditch it.  This is where you hear people talking about how analogue sources such as record players “sound better” than digital sources such as CD players.  Some hardcore audiophiles will go back and build their own fully insulated analogue players with vacuum tubes (because they sound better than today’s transistors).  As my college Physics TA once said, “normal hearing is around 20Hz-20kHz, so most sound devices shoot for this range.  About 10% of the population can hear around 15hz-22KHz, and they will pay thousands of dollars for super-accurate hardware that will allow them to hear those ranges.”  For some, any pair of headphones or speakers will do – for others, the extra couple hundred dollars is completely worth it for audio nirvana.

The Speed

In this day and age, not many people ever need more than about 100 horsepower in a standard roadcar to safely maneuver their way to their destination.   This includes accident avoidance, overtaking, and quick-starts off the shoulder.  So why would anyone ever need 300 horsepower, which is standard on most $45,000 cars?  It goes well beyond practicality and almost into bragging rights right?  Well, for some, that sense of power is bit more sublime.  The speed of a roadcar is akin to the pace of the human technological frontier.  The passion and pursuit of speed is a bit like how you try to go higher and higher on a swing as a kid.  It’s not necessarily about bragging rights, it’s just exhilarating in pushing the limits of yourself and the swing.  Cars beyond $250,000 are not much more luxurious or comfortable than ones at $80,000.  In fact, some are much less so.  So what are you getting?  It’s this pursuit of speed that is so strong in us, it keeps companies such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bugatti, and Porsche in business.  Think $250,000 is too much for a 640 horsepower Ferrari?  Consider $1.4 million for a 1,001 horsepower Bugatti Veyron.  And yes, they are street-legal, normal roadcars that you could use everyday.

The Dihydrogen-monoxide Comparison Test

After less than fifty years in the making, I present to you.. the ultimate tap water comparison test:

I should note at this time, that my tap-water standard is from San Diego.

The Contendors:

• Kirkland Signature – Premium Water
• Spring! – Dannon Spring Water Bottled Water
• SMARTwater by Glaceau
• Penta Water
• Evian Water by Danone
• Aquafina by PepsiCo
• Dasani by Coca-Cola
• Voss
• Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water
• FIJI Water

The Winner: FIJI Water (Runner up: Voss)

FIJI

FIJI water is considered the original premium still water and despite the chic new kids on the block, it’s still the best. Back in 2001, I visited the ice flows in deep Canada. If you bring a container, you can catch the melt as it flows through the ice crevices and taste what I consider the gold standard of pure water. Of all the waters I’ve ever tried, FIJI s the one that gets the closest to that standard. Good even at room temperature, FIJI tastes clean and clear, has a perfect mineral balance that tastes crisp and refreshing with almost no aftertaste, and goes down smoothly like premium vodka. Like some waters also in this category, FIJI feels like it’s easily absorbed into your body. My only slight gripe is that it may feel a little too unnaturally smooth once you get up and above room temperature and starts feeling less and less like you’re drinking water.

Voss

Voss is undoubtedly one of the best premium waters out there and is always a great choice at a restaurant. Sharing many of the characteristics as FIJI, Voss is great at room temperature and has a cleansing palette. Unfortunately, it loses the top spot to FIJI for its slight metallic aftertaste.

Penta Water

Penta water is one of those waters you’d love to hate. Its claims towards bodily health are laughable and got to the point where it’s banned in some countries for false advertising. It loves to go on and on about its patented filtration system that is so unique, it somehow justifies it having a price higher than FIJI, although it really just sounds a lot like an everyday centrifuge. Marketing aside, Penta is a surprisingly decent water. It tastes pretty good and is fairly refreshing, but it must be served slightly chilled. The crux of this however, is even the worst waters taste pretty good if you get it cold enough, so Penta’s advantages are marginal. An okay premium water, but the price will have you scratching your head.

SMARTWater

Smartwater is an interesting mix of premium and non-premium characteristics. It’s well balanced, easy to drink, and more refreshing than non-premium waters; however, the taste is a mix between an off-taste tap and a fresh premium water source. My initial sense was that they over filtered it, and in a zealous pursuit of ultra-pure water, they only added the minimal amount of minerals back in to avoid tasting completely bland. Back in one of my internships, I had access to ultra-pure HPLC water (< 1ppm) and it tasted like cardboard. I should advise at this time that you do not try any significant amount of truly ultra-pure water because it will cause your cells to burst and that iron-like taste in your mouth is blood. So anyway, while this is a very decent bottle of water, there’s not much in it so it somehow feels like you’re not drinking anything particularly interesting.

Aquafina / Dasani

Aquafina and Dasani are almost equal as top performers in the non-premium water category. Aquafina is slightly more refreshing, making it good in regaining fluids from exercise, but Dasani tastes better. Aquafina is very temperature sensitive, and its taste starts to seriously degrade at room temperature and above. Hot Aquafina is almost as mineral-y as tap water in terms of taste, but retains its smoothness. Dasani (PepsiCo’s answer to Coca-Cola’s Aquafina) is much less temperature sensitive and tastes fine at a little above room temperature, but is much less refreshing and doesn’t seem to absorb as well.

Kirkland Signature Premium Water

For people who fridge their water bottles constantly, Kirkland can’t be beat. It tastes like every other non-premium water: like filtered tap; but sometimes that’s all you need. The taste is non-offensive, and the wholesale price makes it extremely reasonable. If you ”just want water” Kirkland is the way to go. For those who are particularly price sensitive, a Brita filtered-pitcher in the refrigerator is a bit more economical and yields similar results.

Evian Water

Evian bottled water is pretty average filtered tap water. It tastes like tap, it’s still a bit metallic, and it’s only slightly refreshing. I’d say Kirkland and Evian are on the whole pretty head-to-head, but Kirkland’s price is just unbeatable; especially when Evian is marketed and priced as a “premium” water sometimes.

Arrowhead Water

Arrowhead bottled water tastes a little worse than the Arrowhead coolers you see in office break rooms. It’s extremely metallic to the taste and has a metallic odor which makes it doubly offensive. I really wonder if they even filter this water source because it tastes pretty horrible.

Dannon Water

But if you thought Arrowhead was bad, Dannon water is disgusting. If you see a bottle with the older label (doesn’t say “Spring!” on it, it just says Dannon on it), just go thirsty. It has a slightly off smell to it and is disgustingly smooth, which gets worse with hotter temperatures. Even at room temperature, it starts feeling like you’re drinking smooth vanilla syrup. The newer Spring! Line fixes this and now it tastes on par with Kirkland water. Even still… Yuck

Getting into Manhattan

Getting into “The City” from New Jersey (say, Newark International Airport) is a little funky. You can take the bridges or tunnels yourself and pay $8 bucks plus gas to sit in a moving parking lot, you can pay a taxi $40-60 bucks to take you in, or you can take public transportation for as low as $1.75. Let’s take a look at public transportation.

Your first option is to take the train. Newark Airport is connected to the NJ Transit train line, so you can hop onto the Transit line, take it through Newark Penn Station into New York Penn Station. The upside is that the train is pretty decent, it’ll get you there in about 25 minutes from the Airport, and it runs until 2 AM. The downside is that it costs $15 each way, the train comes every 20-30 minutes, and if you park your car at the Airport, you’ll be paying $25+ just for parking half a day.

Your second option is to take PATH. Newark Penn Station also has a PATH line that will take you to the PATH World Trade Center Station, which you can continue to ride up to 33^rd and Broadway. Also, if you happen to be in your own car, you can park at the Harrison PATH station on the streets or private lots. Here, parking is $6 for 10 hours, and is timed up to 5PM; so technically you could park all day (from 7AM) for $6. The upside is cheap parking, the PATH line is $1.75 each way, and it runs every 5-10 minutes. The downside is that it’s dirtier than the train, a little more ghetto, takes up to 35 minutes and runs only to Midnight.

Welcome to He.. I mean… Newark

I used to think that maybe the 5/10/101/110 Interchange was probably one of the worst designed sections of road in the US. Multiple lane-changes. No-warning exits. Insanely fast drivers. Well, today, I learned I was wrong.

Exiting out of Newark Liberty International Airport, I encountered New Jersey’s deadly 1/9/21/22/78 Interchange, which could have only been concieved by the devil himself. Nowhere in the US have I ever seen NINE stoplights for an intersection, all facing ONE direction. Back-to-back, five and six-way intersections that make 30 to 60 degree sloping turns, with one-ways and yields. In one T-intersection, I counted SEVEN stop signs, with five one-ways and exit-onlys plastered all over. To make things worse, in New Jersey there are no left turns or left U-turns – only right hand turns that U-back or swoop into an overpass (sometimes). Multiple exits without warnings, signs that conflict, make no sense at all or don’t serve any purpose, single-lane road merges with non-highway traffic… whoever designed this was definitely laughing all the way to the bank. I envy that man.

Business Plan – Part 4?!

Just when you thought you’d heard the last of it, the ProLexis business plan comes back from the dead.

Two months ago, a highly perceptive team member of mine noticed yet another business plan competition going on over at UCLA.  Since we had already built our plan and presentation for our class at KGI and the folks at the Tech Coast Angels, we figured we might as well forward a copy to this competition as well.  No sweat.

Well, it turns out that we not only got selected, we made it into the Top 3!  Right off the bat, they asked us to take a trip out and present a full-blown 15-minute presentation to the entire organization for final ranking and to see if we could swipe the top spot.  Unfortunately, this presentation was on the same day as our final TMP presentations, so we politely declined.  Oh well.

Senior Boomers of Destruction

Here’s an interesting fact I learned while I was doing some research for my TMP:

Our senior population is expected to double by 2030.

Why is this? It was all that wanton reproducing that went on in the 70’s and 80’s, creating a huge statistical tidal wave of babies who will all pass the age of 65 by 2030. In just a few years, it could be the largest economic catastrophe ever faced by our nation.

Does it really need all this drama? The answer unfortunately, is yes. Right now, the situation is looking pretty rosey because all those boomers are still working and bringing in just a ton of money. Turn retirement, a huge number of highly skilled, high-income bearers will no longer be bolstering the US economy, leaving a gaping hole in their wake. Coupled with the fact that our education system is in literal shambles, we will soon be facing an alarming deficit of qualified, sufficiently-educated individuals to take up the reigns. Rather than reach into the human resource coffers of other countries, it is more likely that large corporations will find refuge on foreign soil. As an ominous beacon of things to come, foreign companies such as BMW are already tapping America’s workers as a cheap, semi-skilled labor source (yes, they outsource to us). Take into account a senior citizen’s increasing medical costs and needs (several times more than any prior senior citizen generation), we’re facing a wall of cash vacuums in medicare, medicaid, and social security that will become palpable almost overnight, and with little warning. These tax-generated funds will be sucked dry (or more accurately, “more in debt”) and will in turn be used primarily on consumables, which again will do little to solve our situation.

Long story short, if something isn’t done to address the incoming needs of the growing senior citizen population, the US could be in some serious trouble. And no, more debt is not an option.

Learn more!:
www.whitehouse.gov/cea/three-quest-soc-sec.pdf
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59227-2005Mar23.html
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm1867.cfm
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/washington/02benefit.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

MASHing my way into the future

I remember back in middle school (which was about, say, twenty years ago), I used to play this game called MASH with friends to pass the time. MASH stood for “Mansion, Apartment, Shack, and House,” which was the first set of choices that would inevitably predict your future living arrangement based on a “roll” or in some cases, a blindly-drawn squiggly. Other classic options include a spouse, car, and job – each with two ‘good’ options and two ‘bad’ options (or three really good options, and one just horrifying one). Depending on who you played with, you may also need to roll for your number of kids, wedding dress color (for the girls), annual income, internet connection speed, TV size, and number of times you will get called by a telemarketer during dinner.

Fortunately, I’m one for the basics, so here goes!

My magic predictive number is 34:

Living Arrangement:
(M)ansion – Malibu: You have neighbors, but they’re too far away to visit
(A)partment – The neighbors downstairs have your phone number
(S)hack – Cardboard Box: The upside is you get lots of pets
(H)ouse – Suburbia: You are special, just like everyone else

Spouse:
Giada de Laurentiis – If I was a girl, I’d still date her
Adriana Lima – No comment necessary
Hillary Clinton – I think I’ll sleep in the other room
Rosie O’Donnell – …and I’m bringing earmuffs.

Transportation:
2009 Nissan GT-R – The only way to spend $70,000 and still be labeled a little ricer boy
2003 BMW Z8 – Class, style, and superior handling without the rich-kid image
2010 Toyota Prius – Estimated to be bigger, faster, more maneuverable, and hit 100+ mpg
2001 Pontiac Aztec – I’d rather be killed by one knowing it’ll never drive again than killed driving one

Occupation:
Venture Capitalist – Throw money at things, and then run away quickly before anyone sees
Starbucks Barista – Oh, I thought you said Decaf.
Specialty Nacho Shop Owner – This is actually a ‘good’ outcome, believe it or not
Paper Company Director - Little do they know, I’m saving New York from certain destruction

So, things worked out pretty horribly. Hillary Clinton and I will attempt to conquer the known world from the comfort of our cardboard box, but that’s only because I spent my pitiful barista tip money on a BMW Z8, which I have parked in the alleyway. It is now filled with rapidly-procreating cats who are scratching away at the italian, nappa leather upholstery and building small nests out of the leftover “Hillary for President” pamphlets I have in a box in the back seat. Unfortunately, my wife keeps demanding that everyone deserves a free coffee even if they can’t pay and has sold my car to finance her initiatives. Funny how that works. Stupid MASH.

Things I Can’t Understand

The people who scare me the most are the people who when the the waiter comes near the end of a great meal and asks, “Can I take your plate away?” And they still have more than 40% of their delicious food remaining and say, “Sure.”

Surfing Silver Strand

As a San Diego native, people expect you to know how to surf, or to have at least tried it. I greatly enjoy similar things such as skateboarding and snowboarding, but surfing never appealed to me for some reason. I think it’s because I hate saltwater…and I hate sand. Hrm. Yeah, that’s probably it.

When I learned that a few friends were going out to a surfing school, I figured 23 years of procrastination was good enough and signed up. We went out to Silver Strand beach near Ventura, one of the hottest local surf spots in LA. The experience had everything laid out for me: a good surfboard, a good set of waves, a wetsuit, and a beautiful day out on the ocean. And when I finally stood up on the board, catching my first big wave, I felt like it wasn’t all what it was cracked up to be.

It felt futile, swimming all the way out against the tide, waiting around 5-10 minutes for that good wave, and then actually surfing only for 20-30 seconds at best, only to repeat it all. I found more pleasure in just sitting out on the water, bobbing up and down with the waves. I mean, I can understand the appeal of a surfing life, but I don’t think it’s for me.