I’m getting traffic derived from Trnsmit and its recent publicity from Rdio. I now work full-time as a developer at Kettle, so I no longer have the time to maintain this Web site. Regardless, enjoy Trnsmit.

P.S. I know there are character encoding issues with playlist titles. I’ll look into it.

I was sick two weeks ago and started watching The X Factor. And as embarrassed as I am to admit it, it’s amazing. Here’s who should move on to the next round:

Girls: Drew Ryniewicz (“Must Have Been Love” by Roxette)

Boys: Marcus Canty (“All My Life” by Casey & JoJo)

Groups: InTENsity (“That’s Not My Name” by The Ting Tings and “You Make My Dreams” by Hall & Oats)

Over 30s: Christa Collins (“No Surprises” by Radiohead)

In case you missed it, Bittman’s “Is Junk Food Really Cheaper?” appeared in last week’s Times Sunday Review. (In a word: no.)

The conclusion itself isn’t the shocker, because Bittman skews the comparison. As many commenters noted, people who are genuinely poor order off the Dollar Menu and buy soda much cheaper elsewhere. And doing so would eliminate the price gap between the healthy, home cooked meal and the one from McDonald’s.

Granted, Bittman’s meals still compare relatively favorably on a dollar-for-calorie basis, but this sort of temperance of thought has no place at the foodie table. Read for yourself how people responded.

Alice H. Lichtenstein wants to mandate “food-preparation and buying skills be incorporated into the school curriculum.” I can see it now: Sorry Billy, your algebra class has been cancelled so you can learn how to poach an egg. Ironically, this is great news because your future employment as low-wage short order cook is pretty much assured without proficiency in algebra. But I’ve already been here, so let’s move on.

Pamela G. Bailey wants you to know that “children in families that dine together eat more fruits and vegetables and have healthier diets and lower rates of obesity” and so on and so forth. She’s the president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, and yet basic logic appears to fail her. What does dining as a family have anything to do with who prepares the food?

Lastly, Carol Nicklaus wants to tell you it costs “roughly three times as much to eat fast food as it does for us to eat at home.” Outrageous! Dining at full-service restaurants including Chili’s and TGI Friday’s costs more than buying the ingredients alone. Who will tell the people?

But what irks me most of all is the “cooking isn’t work” mantra. Cooking requires uninterrupted lengths of time engaged in mundane, repetitive activities. There’s absolutely no fundamental aspect of cooking from food prep to cleaning—other than the eating itself—that could legitimately be described as fun. So don’t let this subset of upper-middle-class liberals convince you otherwise; quite frankly, it seems like they’re still trying convince themselves.

I’ve always been perplexed by people’s amazement by Google’s search results, because, well, they’re just not very good. That’s not say Bing’s or Yahoo’s are better; they aren’t. I’m fond of DuckDuckGo. But can’t we do better?

I was looking for an article published several days ago by the Times (site:nytimes.com). I knew it was about what was once thought to be the world’s longest building. (It never was.) I was pretty sure it was built in Switzerland, and I knew it discussed architecture and public housing at reasonable length.

But all those details weren’t enough to locate the article. I resorted to digging through my recycling to find it. Why? Because the article I was looking for discussed the architects, and it turns out nowhere was the word “architecture” printed.

So is Google unstoppable, or is no one really trying?

GOG recently reduced the price of Tropico Reloaded, which includes Tropico, the Paradise Island add-on and Tropico 2: Pirate Cove to a mere $6, making it a steal for anyone with El Presidente-sized ambitions. (It’s like SimCity but oriented towards politics instead of transportation.)

You probably already know Macs can run Windows via Bootcamp from Apple or third-party software such as VMWare’s Fusion. Though in order to run Windows, you need a copy of Windows, which costs about $100. But, believe it or not, most Windows games circa 2005 and back can run via emulation for free with WINE.

Wineskin (free) simplifies most of the process. It uses WINE, which lets you run Windows software on other operating systems.

1. Buy and download Tropico Reloaded.

2. Download Wineskin, and drag the app to your Applications folder. Launch it and click the “+” button to download and install a new engine. Grab the latest WS7WineCXG package available.

3. In Wineskin, click “Create a new wrapper.” Once it’s done, click “View wrapper in Finder.” Double-click the new Wrapper in Finder, and click “Install Windows Software.” Locate the .exe file you downloaded from GOG and click “Choose.” Click “Options” and choose only one of the games to install. (You’ll see why later.) Proceed through the installation process. Quit the installer.

4. Select the executable you want to run: “Tropsafe.bat.” Next, click “Advanced” and check the box for “Use Start.exe.” Next, go to the “Tools” tab. Click the “Config Utility” button. In the new window, click the “Drives” tab and click “Add…”. Pick any drive and click “Show Advanced”. For type, choose “CD-ROM”. (Tropico 1 requires a disc drive, even though games distributed through GOG are downloads and DRM-free.) Click “OK.”

   • If you want to run Tropico in windowed mode (instead of fullscreen): Click “Set Screen Options.” Click “Override” and “Virtual Desktop”. (You’ll be able to change the game’s resolution in-game, ignore the settings here.) Check the “Decorate windows” box. Click “Done.”

5. Quit Wineskin and launch Tropico.

You can follow a similar process to make a separate app for Tropico 2. Simply choose a different executable in Step 4 (“Tropico2.exe”). You can also skip the part in which you create a fake CD-ROM drive. It’s not necessary.

If you need to change any Wineskin settings after you’ve closed the window, right-click the game app and click “Show package contents” and launch the Wineskin app within. You can also use this method to locate the game’s icon and manual; browse to drive_c > Program Files > GOG.com > Tropico Reloaded > Tropico 1. The icon is “gfw_high.ico,” and the PDF manual is “Manual.pdf” (obviously). You can extract the icons with Preview.app and convert the icons using Iconverter.

One small caveat: The game video that plays after you win a scenario doesn’t work, but the rest of the game does. I’ve played for over two hours at a time and consider it stable. Enjoy El Presidente!

So Netflix is spinning off its DVDs-by-mail service as Qwikster because, as Hastings makes somewhat clear in his 13-paragraph email to subscribers, they’re “very different”. Let’s ignore there’s no live Web site for this service, its name and logo are aesthetically repulsive, and the Qwikster Twitter account is held by a pot-smoking Elmo avatar.

You can read why Dan Frommer, who’s ostensibly in the minority, argues for the logic of a split. His points aren’t particularly persuasive. Most of them revolve around the idea they’re just kind-of, sort-of different. And they are. But so are delivery and table service at pizzerias. (And #4, the U.S. Postal Service is in “big trouble”? Talk about crying wolf. It also has $60b in overpaid employee pension funds.)

The real problem with the separation is Netflix Watch Instantly, which can’t stand on its own two feet. The quality of the content is abysmal. OK, they have Mad Men and Weeds, and perennial favorites like The X-Files, but generally speaking, there’s a huge gap in the content available by mail and streaming.

Granted, Hastings acknowledges this, but the selection hasn’t improved. You can review the streaming titles recently added to Netflix at Instant Watcher. Netflix has added 63 titles in the past two weeks, only 38 of which were rated 3 stars or higher by its subscribers and the most popular of which is Saw: The Final Chapter. Draw your own conclusion.

Think 63 titles isn’t half-bad? How many movies can any one person watch in a 2-week span? Keep in the mind, over the next two weeks, over 200 titles are set to expire from its streaming service. (Some may be renewed.)

Add to that, Starz, the source of much of Netflix’s better streaming content, including that from Sony and Walt Disney, will be not be renewing its distribution deal with Netflix, which ends in February 2012.

Are subscribers like me being overdramatic? Maybe, but many investors see the writing on the wall. Today’s closing share price is less than half of what it was at its peak in mid-July, all of two months ago.

What really makes Hastings a moron though is the backhandedness of what was once a customer-centric company. Netflix kept mum about Qwikster when it announced the 60% price increase. It’s no surprise why. He apparently thinks Netflix subscribers are so dumb they won’t realize they’ll be paying more for less.

While I’ve been busy with interviews, I’ve devoted the rest of my time to my almost-complete iPhone app, Caffeine, which is built atop Appcelerator Titanium.

It’s a slick steeping timer and café locator that has built-in presets, Google Places support, and even links to external apps like Yelp. Leave the app? No problem, the timer can use local notifications to alert you.

I’ll submit it as soon as Apple approves my iOS developer account, so you may see it in the App Store by the end of the month.

Here’s a few screen captures to whet your appetite:

In today’s Times, Helen Zoe Veit’s op-ed “Time to Revive Home Ec” argues (what else?):

Reviving the [home economics] program, and its original premises—that producing good, nutritious food is profoundly important, that it takes study and practice, and that it can and should be taught through the public school system—could help us in the fight against obesity and chronic disease today.

There are really two major problems with this op-ed: blatant opportunism and foodie propaganda.

First, the opportunism. Does Helen Zoe Veit really think Americans should reinstitute home ec? It’s not really clear. She writes her own experience with home economics was “utterly stripped of content.” Then, she tells us about her “deeply empowering [cooking] lessons” that “weren’t hard.”

But she wants kids to learn cooking anyway. So, no, little Billy, you can’t read Clifford the Big Red Dog, you have to go peel potatoes. Why exactly is Veit arguing for home economics? Well, she’s an assistant professor of history, and she’s written a book on food that’s coming out soon. That’s a hint.

Then again, shameless self-promotion by way of a Times op-ed is pretty much par for the course. What’s more insidious is the leftist reinvention of food. Is producing good, nutritious food “profoundly important”?

No. Absolutely not. Eating good, nutritious food is important. We leave the actual production of food to other people, like chefs and farmers and butchers, as well as large agricultural and food processors. We do this because we live in an advanced economy that rewards specialization. It’s why you pick up a $3 loaf of bread instead spending an hour and a half (and $2.50 worth of ingredients) baking it yourself.

Members of the food cult would like you to believe that food is intrinsic to our self-being and that if you don’t know the provenance of your kale, then you may as well give up on life now. Sure, we need food, but we also need shelter and clothing—and I don’t see a sew-your-own-jeans movement brewing on the horizon.

Foodies also want you to believe they’re not elitist, and that, in cases like these, that they’re merely thinking of the children. To that, I ask them to join the club. Diabetes and obesity are serious issues, but teaching someone how to braise a lamb or make a puffed pastry never made anyone thinner.

But in the end, Veit, never much of a committer, writes her idea may “sound outlandish.” Phew. Now there’s something we can agree on.

I spent about 4 hours constructing the original Trnsmit, which adds iTunes playlists to Rdio. The main problem was demystifying Apple’s proprietary PLIST XML into a usable array and making the user interface blissfully simple. If you don’t love Futura PT, you’re probably a jerk.

And then it turned out that other people actually liked it. And not just any people, but designers and developers for prestigious Web firms. (Search for “trnsmit” on Twitter.)

I went back and added an SQLite backend and a JavaScript-based progress indicator, which allowed it to run simultaneous processes and work indefinitely on monster-sized playlists. Added 50x and 404 error pages. Bumped the file size limit to 4MB, enough for playlists with 2,500 songs.

Rdio plus Trnsmit, it’s a pretty awesome combo.

Bonus: You can use Sirius and XM broadcast playlists by using the “copy and paste a list” link at Trnsmit. Don’t worry about removing the leading numbers, dates, or times; Trnsmit will automatically scrub them.

Is college too expensive? Ask any economics professor, and they’ll say no, the return on your investment exceeds its cost. That’s true. And if you’re considering whether to attend college or not, you almost certainly should. But that response doesn’t answer the question.

Let’s say, as a native English speaker, being fluent in a foreign language will earn you an additional $5k/year. Would you consider spending $25k on a comprehensive Spanish textbook or software program?

No, of course you wouldn’t, because many substitutes exist. There are thousands of people, if not many, many more, with the knowledge necessary to develop the coursework materials to teach you Spanish, and there are not many other limits on supply. Therefore, Spanish instruction is a monopolistic competition, and its price should reflect its production cost and a small profit (several hundred dollars), not its value to you as the student (tens of thousands of dollars).

So is college too expensive? Maybe. It depends on the college. Of course, economics professors are beholden to their potentially-overpriced academic institutions and do not disclose their conflicts of interest, so this argument is rarely voiced.¹

¹ Watch “Inside Job.”