The first song I heard of theirs was Fake Empire of a previous album, while I like that album okay when I heard this one it was like they had struck a chord I hadn’t heard before.  The combination of the lead singer’s voice with the poetic / non-sensical lyrics and a simple but layered musical sound is really unique.  That combined with the fact that I can put this on heavy rotation and not get tired of it, makes this my pick for best album of 2011.

I consider myself moderately handy and have a few tools laying around, but nothing particularly fancy.  This project was a big project for me but it was fun to do and worth it to get the custom fit I needed.  The full bill of materials was a few bucks less than $300 for both boxes and it took me most of two weekend days.

As you can see we have a curved / angled deck.  This part of the deck doesn’t get much use, but it gets pretty good sun, so we decided to some of the space for planting.  But this meant your standard square planter box just wasn’t going to cut it.

Here’s another picture of the final project.

The boxes are each about 5′ long, 2′ wide, 1′ deep and the tops are 32″ above the ground.

Materials:

• 1×12 rough redwood
  • enough for the bottoms sides and ends, I bought four 8′ boards and two 12′ boards
• 2×6 rough redwood
  • enough for the legs, I bought two 12′ pieces
• 2×2 rough redwood
  • enough for the cross beams, I bought one 12′ piece
• 2″ outdoor wood screws, I used 2 boxes
• 3 1/2″ outdoor wood screws
• 2×2 smooth redwood or scrap
  • enough for the interior supports, I used some 2×2 I had around and ripped some smooth 2×6′s for some of the complex interior corner supports.  All in all about about 10″ per corner and 1′ per end.

Tools:

• Circular saw
• Jigsaw
• Protractor
• Right angle
• Drill
  • Drill bit for pilot holes
  • Screw driver bit
• Pencil
• Tape measure
• Calculator
• C Clamps
• saw horses

Process:

The front, back, left, right and bottom.

First I measured the angles and cut the lengthwise boards with the circular saw.  If you were building a square box you’d just cut two 60″ lengths .  With mine each front and back was a custom length and cut with the blade of the circular saw adjusted appropriately to make the ends match the angle of the left and right sides.

Then I cut the left and right sides, which if you were building the square box would just be the same as two 1×12 widths, about 24″ long.  With my angles the ends needed to be longer than 24″ to deal with the angle and still keep the front and back 24″ apart.  Also the cuts needed to use the blade angle adjustment of the circular saw so they would align with the front and back pieces.

Last of the 1×12 cuts was the bottom pieces which would be ~58″ long (60″ minus tw0 1×12 board thinknesses), but mine were cut to fit the traced outline of the frame pieces I already made.

Securing the sides.

I cut some 2×2 or scrap to be about 10″ in length this would leave some space at the top to cover with dirt so they wouldn’t show.

I put the two scraps on the ground and placed the end board on top, applying some pressure with my knee and using a piece of 1×12 scrap to position the scraps the right distance in from the edge and bottom.  Then I drilled pilot holes and screwed them on.  (I drilled pilot holes for all the screws in this project).

With the interior supports attached to the ends I lined up the bottom on the ground and placed everything in place.  From here I went around screwing the front and back boards to the 2×2′s attached to the ends.

Securing the bottom was a bit trickier, first I turned the box top edge down and held one bottom board in place by one edge and resting it on the interior scraps to support the other.  While holding the center edge from falling I screwed the corners into the bottom of the 2×2 / scrap pieces.  I repeated with the other side by using a piece of scrap to hold the center up since fingers don’t fit at this point.

Then I flipped the box over so the bottom was on the ground and placed about a 1′ section of 2×2 / scrap on the bottom against the end screwed through the left and right sides into it.  With that done on both ends I flipped the box once again and put the screws through the bottom into the scrap.

Fhew… the box parts are done now for the legs.

I eyeballed the angle I wanted the legs to be at and found 10 degrees to be nice.  I wanted my box to be 32″ tall at the top edge and the top of each leg to be 1″ below the box edge.  Without an angle it would make the legs 31″, but with the 10 degree angle they needed to be 31 1/2″ long.  With the protractor set at 10 degrees, I marked then cut a small scrap off the end of the 2×6 to make the board end at 10 degrees and then just repeated marking and cutting 31 1/2″ lengths.

At this point I needed to notch out the legs to accept the cross beams.  I decided to mount the cross beams perpendicular to the bottom of the box, vs. parallel with the legs.  I saw both designs looking around the web and liked the fact that with my design the full edge of the 2×4 supports the bottom of the box instead of just one corner of the 2×4.

This part was a bit tricky.  My 1×12′s were 11 3/4″ wide so subtracting 1″ for the recess my legs would have from the top edge of the box I measured 10 3/4″ from the top of each leg.  I made this measure using a right angle against the top of the leg, vs. measuring down the edge of the leg.  From here I measured 3 7/8″ further (the width of my 2×4) and made a second mark.

Using my protractor set at 10 degrees again and placed along the edge of the leg I extended my previous marks to reach the edge of the leg.  At this point I measured 1 3/4″ in from the edge of the leg along the line that’s at the 14 5/8″ mark (10 3/4″ + 3 7/8″) and made a mark.  Last was using a right angle to connect that mark with the line at 10 3/4″

I did this to all my boards picking which end I wanted up and which side I wanted forward.  Then used my jigsaw to make the cuts.  I’m sure there’s a better tool for this, or my saw is just cheap because these cutouts could have been a bit more consistent.  I had to do some dry fitting and adjusting with the jigsaw and a file to get things fitting right.

Now for the crossbeams, these are easy, just  measure and cut.  My boxes at this point were just about 25 1/2″ wide and another 3 1/2″ for the two 2x6s meant my crossbeams needed to be 28 7/8″ long.

I decided to place my crossbeams at 1/4 the way in from each end.  With the boxes on the ground bottoms facing up I measured 15″ in from each end and made a line across the bottom of the box, making sure to extend the line with a small mark on the front and back sides so I could still see it when the box was sitting on its bottom.

I then drilled two pilot holes on those lines, one in the middle of each 1×12 bottom board.

Then I laid out the 2x4s roughly in the right place on the ground nearby and flipped the box onto the 2x4s and adjusted them to line up with the marks on the front and back of the box.  I also adjusted the crossbeam so that an even amount stuck out on both sides.  I used a scrap 2×4 to tap them around to get them in the right place.  Then I drilled through the existing holes in the bottom of the box into the 2x4s and screwed the bottom of the box to the 2×4 crossbeams.

Now attach the legs.  I did this part with the box on its edge.

I placed the legs in place with the notches aligned on the crossbeams and made the tops align parallel with the top of the box using a spare scrap 2×4 and clamped them into place using the C Clamp.  With both legs secured I drilled 6 holes from the inside and secured the legs with six 2″ screws per leg.  Then I drilled and screwed the 2×4 crossbeam into the 2×6 using a 3 1/2″ screws.  I flipped the box and repeated on the other side.

Once the boxes are standing I used a 5/8″ paddle blade drill bit and made some extra drainage holes in the middle of each 1×12 bottom board.

They are super sturdy and don’t wobble.   Tomorrow it’s time to go get soil and plants.

Next I’m going to make a plastic canopy as a greenhouse covering so that I can put my starts in a bit earlier in the season and still keep them warm.

I first came across this album and artist from a music blog I follow called ScissorKick around memorial day and it’s been in my rotation ever since.   Black Sands is a sexy downtempo / chillout music that has a mix of electronic and live instrument sounds.

Ray

Ray, also known as Raydog, Buddy, Dude and lately Old Man, is no longer with us.  He was the best dog, a loyal friend, gentle, loving and smart.  We had a lot of fun together over the last 14 years.  I miss him badly, but I will always cherish my memories of our time together.

The part that got my attention was the fact that of the people who currently pirate content only 20% of them would be likely to pay, they’d rather go without than pay for content.

In my previous thinking about how business deals with piracy this was one of the key questions, because if this is true then it doesn’t really matter what business does with pricing, quality improvements, user experience, etc…  People just won’t pay, even if there is no other option.

If the data had been different and 80% would be willing to pay, given some change in situation, price, quality, etc… then the onus was on business to work hard and find the right combination of price vs. quality and user experience to get paid.

I guess this means that the future of online content is ad supported, or other methods where the end-user doesn’t perceive the exchange as “paying for” content.

• Giving up personal data to get content.
• Content attaches itself to payments that the user is willing to make, for other goods and services, etc… and the content comes across for the ride?
• Maybe someone like a Comcast can hide it in a monthly bundle fee, or at least throw in the online content service as a way to sweeten the deal vs. DSL even if the pricing for each is the same.

I don’t know, but this data seems to indicate that if the user perceives it as paying for content they won’t do it.

My First Homebrew in 6 years

It’s so awesome having more space in our new house.  One of the things that I had been looking forward to was getting back into homebrewing.  I started homebrewing about 15 years ago, but when I moved back to Santa Cruz in ’03 we got a small place with no room to brew.

My first brew in 6 years or so is an organic IPA.  The pic to the right is during primary fermentation, this last weekend I racked it and dry hopped it with some NZ Hallertaur hops.  Just a few more weeks and it will be ready to drink!

They’ve gone further and allow your friends to “log in” to your site with whatever other social networking site username and password they have and comment / contribute.

Unfortunately I’m way too deep into WordPress to switch, but this certainly made me think it might be worth it.  Hopefully the wordpress community sees this and decides to build something similar.

How about some real oversight?
How about some help for the people in the troubled mortgages that are causing this crisis of toxic debt?
How about some regulation to address the root cause of this crisis?
How about some rules about ceo pay with teeth for those companies seeking help?

Come on people take the time required to rationally think this through. Fear is not a good reason to pass stupid legislation.

Here are some of the key take-aways I had from this discussion:

A value proposition is a multi-layered and multi-faceted thing.  Depending on what level you are at and what view you take the answer to “what is the value proposition?” may be very different.

• Multi-layered in that there are different levels of detail you use.
  • Market
  • Brand
  • Company
  • Product
  • Feature
• Multi-faceted in that there are different views or portals through which you need to look at a value proposition depending on the context and audience.
  • Business owner
  • Technical owner
  • Consumer / end-user
  • Purchasing department
  • Channel
  • Integrator

There are some things that a new value propisition will not change, and knowing ahead of time what those are is key to creating a value proposition that will work.

• Corporate culture
• Core compitency

A value proposition is like a press relationship message.  You can’t have too many, 3 or less is a good rule of thumb.  So whatever context, level and audience you have the value proposition has to be concise.  In my own experience simply eliminating value proposition statements and angles that were less effective added to the effectivity of the other remaining statements.

Tips and tricks

• Interview the company team members to understand what facets of the value proposition are resonating and working with customers, the market, analysts and press.  There may be some common themes that rise to the top.
• Perform win-loss analysis to learn what messages and propositions were effective and which weren’t
• Host a cross-functional brainstorms to get different groups thinking about the business / product from the perspective of the other groups within the company.  Having a meeting facilitator that can hold 1 on 1 pre-meetings to preflight any potentially sticky issues between groups can make things go even better.

Take wordpress or similar self publishing platform and add a few features to it to make it into a distributed social networking platform.

• Make it easy to “add Bill as friend” from the DOSN enabled homepage so that when someone’s viewing your site they can add you as a friend to their DOSN enabled site.
• Create a common “app framework” similar to facebook’s app framework.
• Make arranging the site a simple drag and drop interface like iGoogle or Facebook.
• Provide a common template for “About me” (school, gender, pic, favorite lists etc…)
• Create a status update concept that is propogated to all friends (potentially ping each friend when the status updates and provide a status RSS feed)
• Through the app framework you could monetize your popularity yourself by placing ad “apps” on your page.
• Use the existing blog post and comment mechanism as the blog / wall

That’s it.  Maybe it exists, I dunno I haven’t gone looking for it yet.

One of the advantages would be that you own your own data, and you get to choose what platform to use so long as it complies with the open specification.  No more choosing what platform to use.