Over the past 15 years, I’ve gotten a first hand look at the education system as my four children have progressed through it. Unfortunately, from my perspective, it’s broken.

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In the William Hertling book Avogadro Corp., character David Ryan and his engineering team develop a machine learning algorithm called the Email Language Optimization Project, or ELOPe for short. As Hertling writes through character David Ryan in the book:

ELOPe works like a sophisticated grammar checker. As the user edits an email, we start to make suggestions about the wording to the user in the sidebar.

Behind the scenes, complex analysis is taking place to understand the user intent, and map it to effective language patterns we’ve observed in other users.

Ryan and his team succeed in developing ELOPe to the point of being too successful. The ELOPe algorithm develops a mind of its own, and in a bid to garner more computing resources for its machine learning algorithm, threatens to take control of the world.

The references to Avogadro Corp. and its AvoMail email tool are clearly meant to reference Google and Gmail, but the story is an obvious work of fiction. The premise of an artificial intelligent, machine learning algorithm that can read and respond to your emails seems pretty far fetched.

Then I saw this article last week on Mashable – Google Patent Will Let Software Do Your Socializing.

The patent describes a bot that would learn your “voice” by studying your social media accounts and then suggest updates and replies that you should make for future posts. It sounds eerily similar to ELOPe, right down to being developed by Avogadro Corp. Google. Are we already well on our way to seeing ELOPe become a reality?

Just seeing a reference to the filing of this patent brings back the memories of Avogadro Corp. and artificial intelligence run amuck. Hopefully, the creators of this new social media bot at Google will read Hertling’s Singularity Series and heed its warnings. I can at least hope that the Google engineers build in the necessary precautions to protect us from the machines in case they spiral out of control, right? At least that’s what I’m going to assume so I can sleep peacefully at night.

I’ve been wanting to check out Google’s Chromecast since it came out. Thanksgiving night, I noticed that Amazon was selling it for $30 with a $6 Google Play credit making the effective price $24. The deal was too good to pass up. I went for it. I’ll admit that it was an impulse purchase, but I’ve impulse bought worse. Much worse, and for a lot more money.

Thanks to the magic of Amazon Prime, the Chromecast arrived in Saturday’s mail. Don’t ask me how Amazon does it. Jeff Bezos must be practicing some kind of voodoo magic over there. As an aside, an Amazon Prime membership is the cheapest $80/year you’ll spend. Free two-day shipping, access to free streaming of hundreds of movies and TV shows, the Kindle lending library. It doesn’t get any better. Anyway, i digress – back to Chromecast.

The amount of time it took to go from out of the box to operational was ridiculous, in a good way. In fact, I think I spent more time figuring out which port to plug it into in my receiver and where to plug it in than I did setting it up. Here’s how easy it is:

1. Plug it into an HDMI port on your TV or receiver.
2. Plug the AC adapter in.
3. Load the Chromecast app on your phone or tablet.
4. Start the app, it asks you to verify that the code on the TV matches the code on your phone/tablet.
5. Hit OK in the app, the Chromecast reboots.
6. Through the app, enter your Wi-fi password
7. Done. Chromecast is operational.

It is very easy to stream content through Chromecast. Simply load up any Chromecast enabled app, look for the Chromecast symbol (see picture right), and press it. You’ll be asked to connect to the name you gave the Chromecast app, and then you’re in business. Anything you select through the app will be played on the TV.

Trust me, this is simple to setup and easy to use.

Likes

• For all the grief Google takes for being a consumer unfriendly company focused on technology, the Chromecast is incredibly easy to setup. Google nailed it here and knocked it out of the park.
• Chromecast worked flawlessly with all of the apps I’ve tried so far: YouTube, Google Music, Netflix, HBO Go. It’s a great way to share content with the family on the big screen.
• It’s awesome that you can search for additional content in the app while Chromecast is streaming content
• Another great feature is allowing multiple people to connect to the Chromecast at one time. No more, “hey, can you load this next?” Everyone in the room can search for content to push to the TV. It’s great if you’re into YouTube viewing parties.
• The Google Cast extension for the Chrome browser is the bomb. Once you install the extension, you can mirror whatever you are doing in that Chrome browser tab to your TV, and I mean anything. I was able to push content from Vimeo, Hulu and ESPN without much trouble. It would be much nicer (and smoother) with an app, but the browser mirroring bridges the gap while I wait for the official Chromecast apps.
• It really improved the value of my Nexus 7 tablet, which has mostly sat in a drawer since last Christmas. It’s now an awesome remote for the Chromecast.

Requests (aka Dislikes)

• More apps, and I mean a lot more apps. The situation is improving slowly, as Google announced a number of new apps this past week, but a few simple additions like access to Amazon Prime Instant Video would up the value of the device tremendously.
• A dead simple way to stream content from your home network. This is a major hole.
• Display photos from your own network in the background on startup, or while playing music. Being able to create instant slideshows would be an added bonus.

The verdict

Chromecast is effectively a poor man’s Apple TV or Roku box. If you already have one of those, you don’t need it. In fact, given the relatively few apps that are available, you’ll probably find that it’s a step back, especially from Apple TV. The biggest drawback is the difficulty streaming content (music, video and photos) from your home network.

On the other hand, if you don’t have a streaming media box connected to your TV, Chromecast is the best bang for your buck. I’d highly recommend it and don’t regret making the impulse buy. I also believe that if Google keeps giving it a little love, like adding more apps and content streaming from your home network, then Chromecast has the ability to be a killer device, especially at a price point of under $40.

I’ve been extremely pleased with my last PC build. It’s been working so good that I figured it was time to replace the oldest machine in my house – a Dell Dimension that I bought in 2002. The old machine still works great given what it’s used for – primarily email, web browsing, and light document editing. I’ve just gotten tired of waiting the five minutes it takes from power on to ready-to-use. In addition, I figure at 11 years old, the machine is probably an accident waiting to happen given that I’m still on the original hard drive.

About the only thing I would have done differently with my latest build was go smaller. Therefore, I chose to go with a mini-ITX form factor for my latest build. Since I was planning on using the integrated graphics on the CPU, there really wasn’t any reason to go with a bigger case.

As usual, picking the components is the hardest part of the project. Here’s the list of components I ended up buying, along with their price (excluding tax and shipping):

I got quite a few killer components all for under $700, including the SSD (which I won’t build another machine without). I’ve had the machine running for about a week, and it works just as well as the rig I built back in March. Power on to operational only takes about 15 seconds, and I haven’t noticed any limitation using the onboard graphics given what it is being used for.

Here are some more notes from the build:

1. I’m re-using the keyboard and mouse from the current machine, so I didn’t include them in the cost of the components.
2. I could have saved money by reusing the monitor, but $120 was too good a deal to upgrade from an old school 19-inch LCD monitor to a 24-inch widescreen LED monitor.
3. I could have also saved by using an Ivy Bridge Intel processor, but since I figure this PC could be in operation for 7-10 years, I wanted to use the latest Haswell architecture.
4. Since I don’t anticipate doing much media viewing or editing on the machine, I chose to go with 8 GB RAM and skipped the Blu-ray drive. I can always upgrade later if necessary.
5. I stayed with Windows 7 for this build. I wanted to keep the interface more familiar to the less technically inclined in my house. Plus, I’ve heard that Windows 8 works better on touch screens. Otherwise, it doesn’t offer an improvement over Windows 7. I also decided to go with Home Premium since I didn’t the need the extra features in Professional.
6. This is the first build using an ASRock motherboard, and I was pleasantly surprised with the ease of use and quality. I’ll definitely consider them for my next PC build. About the only drawback on the motherboard, and this is not a knock against ASRock, is that there are only two SATA connections on the board. I had to use one for the DVD drive and one for the SSD, so I couldn’t have included an HDD, even if I wanted.
7. I was a little hesitant with the In-Win case given the price, but so far it’s been great. The case is high quality, and no complaints with the power supply (yet). I also like the fact that a chassis fan was included, and there is a mesh opening directly over the CPU to help with the cooling of both the CPU and motherboard. I’ve also found the sound level of the fans to be very reasonable. I wouldn’t say it’s whisper quiet, but it’s not annoying either.

I’ve been spending most of the last week transitioning the key files and programs from the old machine, which has served the family quite well over the years. It’ll be sad to see the old beast go, but it was time. I have a feeling that within a couple of weeks, none of us will realize its gone. In fact, I bet we’ll be wondering why we didn’t upgrade to a new machine sooner!

As a fun exercise using the magic of Quicken, I created a graph of my triple play cost (phone+cable+internet) since 1997. Even though the data was collected in monthly intervals, I averaged the cost annually to smooth out fluctuations, which were especially prevalent in the phone data pre-2008 when long distance phone calls were still being charged by the minute.

Analyzing the triple play cost

What the data shows us is not a surprise, and I suspect that is indicative of what is happening in most households. The overall cost of the triple play has increased ~50% over the last 15 years from $120/month to $175/month. However, it’s not the total cost of the triple play that’s noteworthy. It’s trends in the individual components that are interesting. Namely,

1. The value of landline phone service is declining
   The cost of phone service has been cut in half over the last 15 years and will continue to drop, eventually reaching zero. I’m not surprised given that I rarely use my landline. I’m paying $30/month to rent a phone number to give to telemarketers. When I look at my children, who have grown up with a cellphone as their primary means of communication, I doubt any of them will ever pay for landline service in their lifetime, which portends the end of landline service as we know it in the not too distant future.
2. Advances in internet service have far outpaced the cost
   Once could argue that paying $20/month for unreliable 56kbps internet service that was metered by the hour was ridiculously overpriced, but it is the baseline. Compare that to paying $35/month for a pipe that is reliable, is always on and delivers 15Gbps, and it’s clear that internet service is a bargain these days, a HUGE one! Stated more bluntly, the service is infinitely more reliable and over 250,000 times faster. If speed and cost were directly proportional, I should be paying over $5,000,000/month for internet service today. As it stands, internet costs haven’t even doubled over the last 15 years.
3. Cable’s cost increase doesn’t match it’s value proposition
   While the number of channels I receive has increased from 70 to over 600, the number of channels I watch has changed from 10 to about 15. I’m paying over 3x the amount for a service whose value proposition hasn’t changed significantly. If you were to cut off my cable service tomorrow, I might miss watching sports and a few Seinfeld reruns, but other than that, I’m not sure I’d notice. On other hand, if you were to turn off my internet service, I’d be reaching for my checkbook.

What the analysis tells us

• Cord-cutting is not a fad
  Disputes over content distribution, like the one that happened between Time-Warner and CBS are becoming more and more common and are continuing to drive up the cost of the cable. People are tired of being held hostage to the cable companies and content providers and aren’t going to tolerate it. The result will be more cord-cutting. You can get by without cable today by using an over the air antenna and internet services like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video, but it’s not quite the same. However, these solutions are improving rapidly, and it’s only a matter of time before cord-cutting catches up to and surpasses the content provided by cable.
• The cable business is ripe for disruption
  Bundling of content is not a sustainable business model. I don’t want to pay for a service where I don’t use 90% of what is being supplied. If the cable companies do not recognize that their value is in the delivery network and not the bundling of content, they will be marginalized by more innovative and progressive thinking companies like Netflix, Amazon, HBO and YouTube (Google). Cable needs to move to a different model, such as a la carte or on-demand programming, sooner rather than later.

Where we’re headed

I’ve believed for over 10 years that content programming would migrate to an on-demand model. I thought for sure that it would’ve happened by now, but the entrenched players have been slow to move and have used government lobbying to slow down and impede competitive services. History has shown that these tactics only delay the inevitable. The companies that refuse to change are eventually replaced by those that embrace the new business models.

Bottom line, the cable companies and content providers need to start allowing us to choose what we want, when we want it, and only charge us for what we use. Otherwise, we’re going to start letting companies into our living rooms that will.