The Frugal Algorithm

Fake Steve Jobs

We all know that there’s no fucking way in the world we should have microwave ovens and refrigerators and TV sets and everything else at the prices we’re paying for them. [...] You want to “fix things in China,” well, it’s gonna cost you. Because everything you own, it’s all done on the backs of millions of poor people whose lives are so awful you can’t even begin to imagine them, people who will do anything to get a life that is a tiny bit better than the shitty one they were born into, people who get exploited and treated like shit and, in the worst of all cases, pay with their lives.

(quote via Simon Willison)

We're still hearing more details about a young man killing himself in China because of a missing iPhone prototype, and the subsequent accusations against him. Fake Steve Jobs hit the issue right on the head with biting satire, as he writes about our willingness, or lack of willingness, to pay a little more for something in order to ensure good working conditions for the workers.

There will be lots of condemnation among the social media: blog posts, and Twitter trends, and shaking of virtual heads. Avatars will get colored, icons posted, hash marks used. Solidarity!

The same folks making the most noise, though, will most likely be the first in line at Apple to buy that iPhone when it comes out. Stand in line, and blog, Twit, Book, Space their experience. Because, let's face it, and I'm sure Fake Steve would agree: it's a lot easier to dye your avatar green, than to make a lifestyle change that will make a real difference.

I find it ironic that as this story is being discussed, a report comes out about Apple's record profits, primarily due to the iPhone.

I don't buy *plastic CDs anymore. Digital downloads is the way to go: better for the environment, and better for my wallet.

Online sites such as iTunes and Amazon's MP3 get most of the attention when it comes to online music buying, but for the frugal music lover, there are other web sites; especially if you're willing to go outside the box with your music interests.

One such web site is Magnatune, which works directly with independent musicians, and gives customers the option to pay what they can afford, rather than a set price. In addition, the site also features two membership types: one that allows you to download as much music as you want, per month, for a set price; the other that provides streaming capability. You set how much to pay when you sign up (with a minimum of $5.00 for streaming, $10.00 for download), and half the money goes to whichever artists you listened to (or downloaded) that month.

I have found some especially good classical music at the site, including Asteria, a beautiful duet featuring medieval classical music. For an instrumental, I recommend the debut album for AlmaNova, and anything by cello player, Vitor Paternoster. Ehren Starks' "Lines Build Walls" is also very good.

The site also features many new age and alternative rock artists, as well as a good selection of jazz, rock, and international artists.

Another, more mainstream, music site is eMusic. Like Magnatune, eMusic features many new and independent artists, and like Magnatune, typically rewards artists more than they would be rewarded through sites like iTunes. I've been able to pick up many old time albums at the site, including music by The Shangri-Las, the Shirelles, The Andrew Sisters, Peggy Lee and Rosemary Clooney, The Everly Brothers, and Jelly Roll Morton. Beginning in July, though, eMusic's offerings suddenly got a huge boost: Sony and all of its musical subsidiaries (Arista, Columbia, and many others) have now placed their back catalog on the site. This brings to the mix of older and indie musicians such music as the complete album set for Michael Jackson, music from Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Janis Joplin, and Bruce Springsteen, as well as Christina Aguilera and Sarah McLachlan.

eMusic did raise its prices and reduce downloads per plan with this new change, which has made some indie music buyers unhappy. However, the site has also instituted a fixed album price, typically at 12 track downloads, regardless of album size, to many of the offerings, which with many of the albums (especially the Best Ofs), is a very good deal. Be aware, though, that some of the more popular albums may have fewer than 12 songs, but still be charged the 12 track price. Still, everything being equal, the music at eMusic is typically 40-60% cheaper than at iTunes or Amazon.

eMusic runs a subscription plan, where you get so many downloads per month, depending on plan. You have to use all your downloads, too, as they don't roll over. I typically keep a list of single songs for those times when I have a few songs left over at the end of the month. The music is MP3, of course, as is the music you get from Magnatune, and iTunes, and Amazon, too. The days of proprietary formats seem to be over, long live DRM free music.

(Magnatune also offers other formats, including higher quality WAV files.)

Of course, iTunes and Amazon are still doing a brisk business, and both sites are good options for newer music, or music not showing up on the other sites. In addition, both regularly provide access to free songs, and special offers, which can provide a better buying option than eMusic, but you have to keep your eyes open—the specials typically don't last long.

A frugal buyer is also a wise buyer, and shops around. Both Amazon and iTunes can indulge in gimmicks, from time to time, which are not as good a deal. One new option that iTunes is offering is what it calls Digital 45 or B-Side offerings, where you can download the "hit" and the "B-side" for a set price. There are only a few such sets available, and I'm not impressed with the cost. In fact, many of the offerings are available at eMusic for a better price. Still, let's hear it for innovation.

You can also buy music directly from many artists, on their web sites. Most only provide CDs, but some will provide music for download. One advantage to buying music by the artist: there's no question about who gets the money. However, many artists tend to charge more for music directly accessed from their sites than what is charged at a place like Magnatune, so check with all sites, first, before you buy.

Another thing I won't do is use file sharing sites or other techniques to illegally get music for free. No matter what I may think of RIAA's absurd tactics, not paying for music is theft, and hurts musicians as much as it hurts the studios. If the music is in the public domain, or offered freely by studio, web site, or artist, then I'll gladly accept the gift, but I recognize it for what it is: a gift, not a right. Being frugal is not the same as being a cheap bastard.

In early 2002 I was living in a condo overlooking the bay in San Francisco. I had just finished a gig with Stanford University and was confident about quickly finding new work. After all, I hadn't been unemployed once in the years since I graduated college. In fact, I could usually count on having multiple offers to choose from.

But as I walked past empty buildings, through streets made into homes by the homeless, and listened to the silence of my phone, I began to think that perhaps finding work wouldn't be as easy as I originally assumed.

Living in San Francisco is expensive at any time, but the  expense can quickly break you if you have no income coming in. By April I knew I had to leave San Francisco, and take my best friend's offer of a home in St. Louis. Perhaps away from Silicon Valley I could find work.

Decision made, I had only one remaining concern: what about my stuff? My roommate couldn't fly out to help me haul the stuff back, and I couldn't drive both my car and a moving truck. I checked into having the items professionally moved, but the cost was more than I could afford. I rented a storage space, instead, and hired a local moving outfit to help me move into it. I figured when I was bringing in an income again, I could hire a mover.

The steady jobs never came, though, and about six months later, I no longer had the money to pay for the space. I ran an ad in Craigslist, offering everything I owned that hadn't fit into my car when I moved. All my furniture, my crystal vases, antique cobalt blue glass ware; the sheets and towels, and kitchenware; my photo studio lights and back drops;  the Vietnamese lacquered panels and Chinese embroidered tablecloth. And my books.  I had over 20 boxes of books, both paperback and hard bound.

I found a buyer, who ended up getting a better deal than he knew. I took one last trip to California, to drop off keys and see if I could salvage a few personal items from the storage. But the moving guys had done a good job, burying the boxes under a pyramid of furniture. The only items I could salvage were two boxes of books, too heavy for the movers to push into the far back reaches of the storage space, and of no interest to the new buyer.  At that I was somewhat lucky as the books I salvaged were some of the more expensive science books I'd collected, including the pricey Gravitation, which I'd always planned to read some day before I die. The boxes also included the only fiction book I was to salvage, a hard to find book by the legendary science fiction writer, James Schmitz.

I tell you all of this by way of explaining why I find it so funny when people criticize the Kindle because "someday Amazon may pull the plug, and you'll lose all of your books". Funny, because the main reason I bought my Kindle is because I had lost all of my books; my books of paper that were, somehow, supposed to be sacrosanct.

What is a frugal girl like me ...

Typically, no special equipment is needed to read a book made of paper. All that's required is the ability to read, and a light source. eBook readers, such as the Kindle, already have one strike against them because you have to first, buy the reader, and then buy the books.

Jeff Bezos understood this when he released the Kindle, and promised that many of the books available for the Kindle at Amazon would cost less than their paper counterparts. The $9.99 bestseller is famous, though there's no guarantee that every bestseller would sell at that price, or even be released on a Kindle. Currently, Ken Follett's World Without End in paperback format sells for $12.50, but the Kindle version sells for $9.99. However, the Kindle version for the second entry in the popular Twilight series, New Moon is priced the same, $6.04, regardless of whether you buy a paperback, or a Kindle eBook. And, in some cases, the Kindle books have actually been priced higher than available paperbacks; with the Kindle prices based more on the hard cover book, rather than the lower cost paperback.

Generally, though, I have found the books I'm interested in to be cheaper than whatever is the lowest cost paper version of the book— higher when the book is first released as a hard cover, with the price dropping when the paperback releases. Though some Kindle owners get angry when a book is priced over $9.99, I'm not adverse to paying more, as long as the eBook is cheaper than the paper book. That's really the key to making the Kindle work when you're frugal: setting a maximum you'll pay for a book, and not buying it until the price is reached. And while you're waiting for the book, you can always try out one of the thousands of free books available for the Kindle and other devices.

Project Gutenberg books have been converted into Kindle format, and many are now available for one click, free downloads from Amazon. In addition, several publishers, such as Random House and Tor, and others have been offering free books as part of a series or author promotion. The free books may be formatted in the Kindle format, in which can all you need do is drop them into the Kindle memory when next you hook it up to a computer. You can also email books to a special conversion address and the book will be uploaded to the device for you.

...doing with a Kindle?

I've not replaced all the books I lost years ago. For one, no matter how good the price, I can only afford so many new books. In addition, not all of the books I'm interested in have been converted to eBook format.

My reading interests have also changed in the last several years, and I'm now more interested in non-fiction works. With the new discussions about economic depressions and climate change, I've been trying out books on history and the climate, downloading a sample chapter and then buying the book if the sample is interesting. In a way, the Kindle has changed how I read, by making sample chapters so easy to access. It was through the sample program that I discovered David Kennedy's excellent Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 and Havana Nocturne by T. J. English.

The Kindle isn't perfect, and the imperfections have less to do with the design of the Kindle 1.0 and more to do with Amazon's policies. It does bother me that the Kindle is a closed loop system, at least for books protected by DRM. I have grown increasingly uncomfortable buying books at Amazon, knowing that I'm locked into one vendor if I want to read them. So much so that lately, if I'm interested in a newer book, I get a paper one from the library; all my recently added Kindle books have been freebies. Between both, I'm covered. For now.

Still, Amazon does sell eBooks more cheaply than any other eBook vendor, and the money you save can offset the cost of the device. But that's not the reason I bought my Kindle.

Philosophy of the turtle

I was watching a news story last week about one new industry that is adding jobs, rather than shedding them. So many foreclosed homes have furniture and other items left in them, abandoned when the owners moved. When you lose your home, I imagine you don't care how it looks. I also imagine that most people having to move have to move into smaller homes.

There are now companies whose only task is to clean out these homes, and I watched workers from one as they tossed furniture and toys into a truck to haul off. Furniture, toys, and books. When you move from a house to a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment, or into a friend's basement, or a parent's attic, books take up a lot of room.

Whatever other advantage the Kindle provides me, the ability to pick up all my books and put them into my purse remains the primary reason I like my Kindle. No matter what happens in the future, I'll never have to leave my library behind, again.

I've been experimenting with a few simple household items in order to replace more expensive bath and kitchen items. For instance, distilled white vinegar in a shallow dish will dissipate over a couple of days and help eliminate persistent, bad or stale odors in a room. Baking soda sprinkled on a carpet and allowed to sit overnight before vacuuming will do the same for a carpet. Best of all, there's no fake, cloying, floral scent left over.

I've also been experimenting with replacing more complex products, such as dishwasher soap. One popular formula mixes equal parts of baking soda and Borax (such as Twenty Mule Team Borax), though I've been having better luck with a recipe consisting of washing soda, Borax, and sugar free lemonade Koolaid (citric acid helps to prevent white deposits on dishes), based on a recipe found at The New Homemaker. My main modification is that I don't add the essential oils.

The primary advantage to these home mixes is that they're typically cheaper, but a secondary advantage is that most of the alternatives are also much better for the environment. They don't contain bleach and potentially other, harmful chemicals, and though something like Borax is toxic if ingested, most cleaning material is toxic when ingested. What happens to the material when it hits your sewer system and your water supply is what makes the difference.

As I find recipes that work, I'll post them online. In the meantime, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has posted a list of unusual uses for ordinary objects you might find both interesting and helpful. For instance, to remove the chlorine discoloration from hair, dissolve eight aspirin in a glass of water, work into your hair, leave on for ten minutes, and then rinse. Much cheaper than exotic shampoos, and better than turning your silver hair blue.

(Note, the P-D does have a habit of changing URLs over time, so you might want to print the page.)