Panasonic RP-HC500 (Courtesy: Amazon.com)

I purchased a set of Panasonic RP-HC500 noise canceling headphones.  My intention was to use them with my Uniden BC95XLT scanner.  At Iowa Speedway, I was having a hard time hearing all of the radio traffic over the engine and exhaust noise from the cars.  I knew the NASCAR races at Chicagoland Speedway would be much louder because the cars are louder and there are more than twice as many as there are at IndyCar races.  My scanner would be totally inaudible.

That’s where the Panasonic headphones would step in.  I purchased my headphones from Amazon.com for $95.44.  I never thought I would purchase such expensive headphones.  I am hardly an audiophile.  I want something that sounds good, but isn’t expensive either.  The Panasonics won out over several other sets of headphones.

The headphones came in a rather large box, mostly because of the nice hard case Panasonic provides for transporting the headphones.  You can carry the headphones, audio cable, and airline and large-diameter jack adapters in the case.

(Courtesy: Amazon.com)

Now for the first audio test.  I run an air purifier in my room - an old school one with the fan inside and a filter.  It makes some noise and actually helps me sleep.  This white noise seemed like just the kind of thing that would be canceled out by the headphones.  I put the headphones on and flipped the power switch.  No more air purifier noise.  I couldn’t hear the air conditioner anymore either.  I then did some surfing with the Eee while listening to music on my Sansa e260.  Usually I would have the volume set around 50% on the Sansa.  With the Panasonic noise canceling headphones, I only needed to have the volume around 25-33%.  I could also hear things I had never heard before in some songs.  You really get immersed in the music.  The treble and bass from the headphones was to my liking - in other words, there wasn’t a lot of bass causing the sound to be distorted and “fuzzy.”  One downside to the headphones - there was some noticeable sound leakage from the microphone holes on the earpiece exteriors.  It was loud enough that a person seated next to me would have been able to hear my music.

Second audio test - NASCAR weekend at Chicagoland Speedway.  I caught the end of Sprint Cup final practice before the opening ceremonies for the Dollar General 300 Busch Nationwide race.  Stock cars are freaking loud!  Much louder than IndyCars.  You can watch IndyCars without ear protection (though I wouldn’t recommend it).  You will have hearing loss if you watch a NASCAR race without protection.  The sound was piercing and the inside of my ears felt like they were vibrating.  I then put on my headphones for protection.  The sound became much more tolerable.  Then I turned on the noise canceling function.  Even better.  The harsh exhaust note was gone and I could just hear the mechanical growl of the engines.  The sound was a lot like what you hear on TV during a NASCAR race.  In person, the cars sound nothing like they do on TV.  The sound in person is much harsher.  I tried out my scanner before the Nationwide race and the experience was just like the one I had with my MP3 player.  I only had to put the volume up half as loud as before to be able to hear the radio communications.

About comfort; the foam padding on the cups is comfortable.  You can adjust the length of the arch (I don’t know what it’s called) that goes over your head so you can wear the ear cup things high or low, based on what’s comfy for you.  Unlike a co-worker’s pair of Sonys I had tried at work, my ears did not get hot and there was no “sound pressure” sensation.  The headphone cable was pretty long, so I did have to coil it up a bit so I wouldn’t have much dangling cable.

In summary, these Panasonic headphones are an excellent value.  They are good for using at races and good for listening to stuff at home.  The carrying case adds a touch of class and is good for transporting the headphones so they don’t get broken.

Note:  As of this writing, I am awaiting Amazon to come through with their 30-Day Price Guarantee.  The price of the headphones dropped to $89.33.  Part of Amazon’s policy says “If Amazon.com’s price for an already-released item decreases within 30 days after we ship the item to you, we’ll be glad to refund the difference in price if you contact us within that 30-day period.”  I’ve invoked this privilege several times and it has always worked.  It’s part of the reason I shop at Amazon.

A belated report, as I was busy recovering from my trip to the NASCAR races at Chicagoland Speedway this weekend.

The GGSI closed down for the sixth consecutive week.  The index lost 15.11 points and closed at 1179.78, or the lowest value since March 16, 2007.  There might be some money to be made.  There were 10 gaining stocks and 19 losing stocks.

Biggest winners - GeoEye (10.88%), Yahoo (10.40%), Tyler Technologies (6.88%)

Biggest losers - Intermap (-20.48%), Oce (-12.66%), Trimble (-7.70%)

News

Garmin (1.69%) - Announced the Oregon touchscreen handheld GPS receiver.

GeoEye (10.88%) and General Dynamics (-2.61%) - GeoEye-1 arrived safely at Vandenberg AFB after being transported by General Dynamics.

NAVTEQ - Acquisition by Nokia is complete and NAVTEQ stock is no longer traded.  Nokia trades on the NYSE as an ADR, so it will be added to the GGSI at the close of trading on Friday July 18.

Stewart Information Services (0.20%) - Coverage initiated by RBC Capital Markets at Outperform.

Other - Mexens Technologies receives a patent for its Navizon GPS/WiFi/Cellular positioning technology.  Alliance between Adobe and TerraGo regarding GeoPDF and Acrobat.

Am I some sort of bellwether for American tastes and culture?

In September 2004, I signed up for a geocaching.com account and found my first cache by the end of the month.  The geocaching website had already been around for four years, so I wasn’t really part of the vanguard group of geocachers.  However, as time has gone by, geocaching has become more and more popular.  I got into caching just before all of this wild growth took place.

I bought my Prius in March 2007.  Gas prices had been going up, but nothing like we have experienced in the past year.  At the time I bought my Prius, there were plenty to be had on dealer lots and they even offered 0% financing on the Prius.  Then during the summer, Prius sales took off.  I think last year was the best ever for Prius sales.  Now Prius are hard to find at dealerships and there are tons of them on the road.  Yet again, I was right at the beginning of a trend.  This time, the trend toward hybrid vehicles being for everyday people.

During the Watkins Glen IndyCar race today, the TV announcers stated that Indy Racing League TV ratings and track attendance have been higher this year compared with last year.  Hmm.  I was part of that trend too, starting with my first race at Chicagoland Speedway at the end of last season.  I went to the Indy 500, the Iowa 250, and will be going to the season finale at Chicagoland.  Next year, I will be going to the same races plus Milwaukee.

I have never followed trends.  I’m a nerd - I don’t do things to be popular.  I still use a VCR instead of a DVR because it works better for me.  I only got my first laptop last fall, despite laptops outselling desktops for a few years.  Do I try to be on the cusp of trends in American culture?  No.  I just happen to find myself there.

The GGSI closed lower for the fifth straight week, down 9.67 points and closing at 1194.89.  There were 12 gaining stocks and 18 losing stocks.

Biggest winners - Intermap (4.68%), GE (2.48%), Stewart Information Services (1.91%)

Biggest losers - Oce (-20.39%), SiRF (-10.20%), GeoEye (-8.11%)

News

Boeing (-3.66%) - Completed environment testing of first Block IIF GPS satellite.

Garmin (-4.92%) - Acquired Finnish distributor.

GeoEye (-8.11%) - Coverage initiated by Soleil at Buy.  National Geospatial Intelligence Agency increasing the amount of imagery it is purchasing from commercial providers.

Google (1.69%) - Signed a five year agreement with Tele Atlas for map data, and Tele Atlas will have access to map edits initiated by Google users.

Microsoft (-5.97%) - Ask.com to use Microsoft’s Virtual Earth for its maps.

NAVTEQ (0.83%) - EU clears Nokia’s purchase of NAVTEQ.

Oce (-20.39%) - Reported a 70% drop in profit.

SiRF (-10.20%) - Asked the International Trade Commission to review the decision finding Broadcom did not infringe SiRF patents.

Other - Companies using GPS reported fuel savings, labor savings, time savings, and a reduction in distance traveled.  Skyhook introduces a new WiFi/cell tower/GPS positioning system.  Escort released a GPS-enabled radar detector that is capable of recognizing proximity to red light and fixed speed cameras.

So I was very interested when I heard Carrie Underwood would be having a concert in October at the Sears Centre arena, only 10 minutes from my house. I skipped her concert in DeKalb at the Convocation Center because I found out only a week ahead of time and didn’t have anyone to go with.

Well, today I decided I’d buy two tickets for the Sears concert and either hope to get a date to use the second ticket, sell the second ticket, or just give it away. I went online to the event’s webpage and found out parking will cost $20 per car! Man, I was really thinking about droping $110 plus fees on the tickets, but $20 per car for parking? There is tons of parking at that place. I don’t know why venues charge for parking. It’s just for sheer profit. I paid $13 or something like that to park at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Now that is understandable, because they have 250,000+ people and their cars to deal with. Surely there is some profit involved, but they also have some expenses. Sears Centre seats 11,800 for concerts, which you don’t really need traffic control for with respect to parking.  I didn’t pay for parking at Chicagoland Speedway’s IndyCar race last year (~50,000 spectators) or Iowa Speedway last month (35-40,000).

I dunno, I just don’t feel right paying $20 to park my car a 10-minute drive from my house. I’d be more willing to pay it if it was part of a whole evening, like a dinner date, then the concert, then whatever might happen next. But just to show up, watch the concert for 2 hours, then drive the 10 minutes home…I’m not so willing to part with my cash.

I know a person going to the concert with one of her friends…I wonder if she’d be willing to let me tag along so I can save $20 on parking.

Unboxing videos are usually pretty lame, but I watch them anyway because I like to ogle the product being unboxed. Sometimes you get to see more stuff because a real person might be more thorough than a journalist doing a video review.

Anyway, I have been considering purchasing the MSI Wind, but my enthusiasm has been dampened by the delays in releasing the product. I might wait for the Dell E or simply keep using my Eee 701 4G. Nonetheless, I am still keeping up with MSI Wind developments. Engadget had a post showing a YouTube video of a guy in Italy unboxing an MSI Wind.

I thought the first 45 seconds of this video was hilarious. Usually people try to be all smooth and bad-ass when they are doing their unboxing. This guy had a hard time using the scissors then ripped the box twice. How funny is that? One commenter on Engadget said it was like a nerdy virgin trying to get a girl’s panties off. Excellent simile. I laughed so hard at the box tearing that my co-workers thought I was odd. This was a great example of how not to do an unboxing video. The guy tried to look all cool, being one of the first to unbox a Wind, and all he did was look like a doofus who doesn’t know how to open a box.

Cell phone boot-up

A co-worker of mine was having issues with her fairly-new Samsung cell phone from AT&T.  The durfwad at the store couldn’t fix it, so she was calling AT&T to get a replacement, as she was told by the store to do.  Anyway, she had quite an ordeal with AT&T before they finally decided to send her a replacement cell phone.  I won’t be going with AT&T for cell service anytime soon after hearing about this.  The co-worker was trying to troubleshoot her phone and was turning it off and then back on.  I was disappointed by the boot-up time of her cell phone.  As time has gone by and phones have become more advanced, they have been taking longer and longer to boot.  I’m old school, I still say “boot.”

That got me thinking.  Her phone took a good 20-30 seconds to start up.  It reminded me of the Motorola Razr V3m that I have from work.  The Razr is a clunky phone.  The buttons are just bumpy labels on a continuous surface, which makes it easy to fat-finger the buttons.  The Razr also insists on making noise on startup and shutdown unless you put the phone in vibrate mode or hold down the power button while shutting down.  But here’s my biggest beef about the Razr.  The thing takes forever to boot up.

I decided to do a comparison of phone boot-up times.  Motorola Razr V3m versus Kyocera KX1 (aka SoHo).  The Kyocera is my personal cell phone.  This was by no means a scientific comparison.  I started the phones simultaneously and quickly started my stopwatch.  I considered the phone booted-up as soon as the screen quit going through conniptions and was in its standby/ready-to-make-a-call mode.  The Kyocera took approximately 15.6 seconds to start.  The Motorola slogged in at approximately 27.8 seconds.

Am I just impatient?  My Kyocera is acceptable; I wouldn’t want to wait much longer than 15 seconds between when I turn the phone on and when I can make a call.  I don’t see why it should take a phone more than 15 seconds to start.  I mean, what does it have to do?  Light up the LCD, send power to the antenna, find a tower (not hard to do anymore), check in with the tower, and put up the user interface.  Maybe I have vastly oversimplified what goes on.  The Razr mocks you for several seconds with the Verizon logo, then shows some silly animation about VCast, insists on showing me my own phone number, then is finally ready to make a call.  The Kyocera shows an hour glass for about 10 seconds, then shows the US Cellular logo for a couple seconds, then shows “Hello” and the KX1 logo for a couple more.

Does anyone else think cell phones have become overly complicated and actually less usable over time?  I’m a techy, but I only use my phone as a phone.  No web browsing, GPS, texting, or photography.  There are better devices for those things.

Book Shopping

I decided to ditch ArcSDE and ArcIMS at the office.  We haven’t gone through with our plans to set up our own ArcIMS map online and there hasn’t been any clamoring by potential users, so I decided not to recommend maintaining our license.  Instead, what I want to do is make our own Google Map mashup type of thing using the Google Maps API.  I don’t know squat about website maintenance, configuration, or design.  I know a little about HTML, but there seems to be a lot of Javascript associated with the Google Maps API.  I spent quite a while looking at some of Google’s sites about the API and still have more reading to do.  I have yet to find any good easy-to-follow instructions about how to use the API, or even just a generic description of the process.  I knew there were some books about using the Google Maps API and looked them up on Amazon.  I was specifically interested in “Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax: From Novice to Professional” and “Google Maps Hacks.”  They would have cost $42.88 from Amazon with free shipping.  For the record, I looked at some of the used copies on Amazon, but I only would’ve saved a couple of bucks because of shipping costs.  You don’t get free shipping unless you go through the “real Amazon,” not a partner.  I then checked Barnes & Noble, since Discover Card gives me a 10% cashback bonus if I go through Discover’s website to get to B&N.  B&N wanted a whopping $65 for the same books.  Even with the cashback bonus, it wasn’t worth it.  Overstock was also part of Discover’s cashback bonus online retailing program, offering a 5% bonus.  They wanted $43.69 for the books, including the $2.95 shipping.  The 5% bonus made them barely cheaper than Amazon.  I then remembered to Froogle the books.  I found that Buy.com had my books, and for an even better price.  I ended up paying a total of $39.58 and used Buy’s free shipping.

This reminded me of my college days.  I’d always try to find out the book requirements for my classes ASAP, often weeks before class.  I’d go to the campus bookstore, which always had the list first.  I’d take note of the ISBNs and prices, then would go to the off-campus store, which was usually cheaper and had a better selection of used books.  I’d note the prices there, then go back on campus to a computer lab to shop online.  Amazon, Wal-Mart, B&N, eCampus, eFollett, VarsityBooks, and so on.  I never checked Half.com, for whatever reason.  I’d get a big old spreadsheet going that listed all the books and all the retailers.  I’d then highlight the best deals and buy the books accordingly.  It took some time, but the money I saved (at least a couple hundred dollars during the 6 years) was worth it.

The GGSI is not immune to the general market fluctuations.  This week it closed down 40.56 points, at 1204.55.  In the past month, the index has gone down 9.64%.  There were four gaining stocks and 26 losing stocks last week.

Winners - Kodak (16.92%), Oce (2.40%), Broadcom (2.05%), Garmin (1.45%)

Biggest losers - SiRF (-21.43%), Boeing (-11.75%), Stewart Information Services (-8.50%)

News

Garmin (1.45%) - Partnered with GyPSii for navigation-based social networking.  Introduced revised Astro unit.

GeoEye (-1.04%) - Coverage initiated by JP Morgan at Overweight.

Google (-3.36%) - Average Joes can now digitize new map features (lakes, streets, etc.) to Google Maps.  Well, I guess I’ll be out of a job eventually.  If any schmuck can make a mashup or draw a map now, is there room for professional GIS people?

Microsoft (-2.13%) - Private firms and governments can now upload high-quality aerial photography to Microsoft for use in Virtual Earth.  Given how most governmental agencies are unwilling to share their data, I don’t see anyone jumping to give their imagery to Microsoft freely.

Yahoo (-3.00%) - Licensed neighborhood boundary data.

Other - Magellan looking to increase sales in Canada.  My opinion:  Improve product engineering and customer service before trying to sell more stuff.  Adobe Acrobat 9 to have some geospatial capabilities like distance measuring and redlining.  ArcGIS 9.3 will be able to export PDFs that take advantage of this.

I went to the Iowa Corn Indy 250 race at Iowa Speedway Sunday.  It was absolutely awesome.  Went down on the Fan Walk in the pits, then took my seat in the very top row of one of the grandstands.  But that’s another entry for another day, if I ever feel like writing it.  Here are the pics if you’re interested.

Anyway, I brought my scanner with me to the speedway.  I’ve been using these cheap Koss TD/60 headphones that fully cover my ears.  So they physically block some of the engine noise of the cars on the track.  However, there are times when I have a hard time hearing the radio transmissions.

I decided to look for some noise canceling headphones to use with the scanner when I go to Chicagoland Speedway in July for the NASCAR races.  There will be way more noise - the cars are louder and there are twice as many.  This made new headphones a must.  I looked at headphones running from $32 to $118.  Bose were out - $300 and the comments are universal that they have too much bass (I hate bass) and are overpriced.  My budget was around $100.

After a lot of research, I found the $30-something Philips were cheaply made and uncomfortable.  Sony was out - I used a co-worker’s set a while back and they were uncomfortable, didn’t feel sturdy, and created a strong sensation of sound pressure on my ears, if you know what I mean.  I also considered more expensive Philips models, a pair by Audio-Technica, and a pair by Panasonic.  The Pannys and the A-Ts were both rated pretty highly; the A-Ts slghtly better.  The A-Ts cost $118 and the Pannys cost $95.

I swear, I read so many customer reviews and website reviews.  I had to have spent 5 hours reading about noise-canceling headphones.  In the end, I chose to go with the Panasonic RP-HC500.  The reviews appeared to say they were about as good as the A-Ts, had better noise reduction, were cheaper, and able to use a rechargeable AAA.  The A-Ts needed an alkaline AAA for sufficient voltage.  I don’t want to buy regular batteries anymore.  So I saved $23 by going Panasonic.  I never thought I’d  ever spend $100 on headphones.  Damn!

The headphones should arrive next week.  Hopefully they will be worth the money and will help me better hear stuff on my scanner at races.  If not, I’ll have a really fancy set of headphones for using with my MP3 player.  Recently I switched from using my awesome Sennheiser MX100 earbuds to the cheap Koss headphones because I lost the foam covers to the earbuds.  Now they hurt to wear.  I actually had two sets of the Sennheisers from a couple of Rio MP3 players I have.  One set broke.  Now one set’s missing the foam bud covers.  I thought about picking up a new set of Sennheiser earbuds, but if I’m getting these fancy Panasonic headphones, I’ll just use those for listening at home and put up with the earbuds when away from home.

Sorry if this was boring.  I am a very bored nerd who doesn’t have anything better to do.  I’m on vacation from work.  I’m tired of unsuccessfully seeking female companionship and additional part-time employment.  So here I am talking about headphones I bought and I have no idea if they’re any good or not because I don’t have them yet!  This entry would’ve made sense if I actually had a review to write!

OK, it’s obvious from this blog that I’m not a normal person. Let’s further that notion now. Most people find out about artists and songs by listening to the radio or the internet. Not me. I don’t listen to the radio very often and I listen to music online (Yahoo Launchcast) even less. Lately, TV commercials have been piquing my interest in different music.

Mitsubishi commercials have interested me in recent years. A while back, like maybe 2 years ago, they were using Republica’s “Ready to Go” in a commercial. I always thought it sounded neat, though I never heard it in its entirety. Finally, I bought the song last month from Amazon’s excellent DRM-free music store. Then more recently, they have been using a ton of stuff from The Go! Team. Not really my style, but it turns out they had some pretty good non-vocal songs along with the song “Doing it Right,” which is used in one of the commercials. That’s the song that got my attention initially.

Now, I am playing the heck out of Alice Peacock’s “Bliss.” It’s used in the commercial for Hershey’s Bliss. There are a couple of versions of the song; supposedly the one from the commercial has John Mayer doing backup vocals.

Here’s the process for how I find out the name of a song and artist for a song I hear on TV. Quite simple. Memorize or write down one of the lyrics, Google them, and usually you get the artist and song title. No need to even click any of the links. “Bliss” was tricky because of the multiple versions. It turned out that several people had posted queries trying to find out what this Hershey’s Bliss song was. What was delightful for me was when I looked for the song on Amazon - they actually have the title as “Bliss (Hershey’s Bliss).” I gave the preview a listen to verify it was the right song and bought it right away.

Just tonight I think I’ve listened to it 15 times. Seriously. I just think it’s a nice song. I like the lyrics. Kinda sweet. I also like how Alice Peacock sounds in this song. There’s this sweetness (sorry, small vocabulary tonight) and delicateness to her voice. Some of her other stuff sounds too unpolished and rough for me, but I’m eager to see if she has any more stuff along the lines of this version of Bliss. Absolutely lovely song.

Eventually I’ll get back to my regular rotation of SheDAISY, Carrie Underwood, The Corrs, Taylor Swift, and Kelly Clarkson. Yes, I still have my bias toward female singers.

Addendum: I should also note that I found out about Sara Bareilles through an American Express commercial.