Navigation Foibles

I love the GPS Navigation system in my car. It's a rather expensive option, the value of which remains somewhat debatable, but on the positive side, it has a large and bright display placed at the proper distance for ease of focusing, is fully integrated into the audio and phone system, and arguably has improved safety, saved me eyestrain (compared to my iPhone's screen), time and gasoline.

Having said all that, there are some system foibles that I find maddening. On the minus side, unlike software for the iPhone, these OEM systems are not designed to be upgradable (apart from map updates).

One feature I find amazingly irritating is that it seems to have no rhyme or reason when it comes to displaying upcoming streets. For example, here it display the names of the upcoming cross streets both minor and major (thick blue line) perfectly.

The photo clearly shows I'm on N Alvernon Way, cross street is E Fairmount St and I'm coming up on E Bellevue St and E Speedway Blvd. It even (helpfully) displays the blue-lined cross street (E Speedway Blvd) twice, once on either side of the intersection!

Yet, somewhat mysteriously, sometimes it stubbornly refuses to reveal the name of a major (blue-lined) cross street, never mind the minor ones.

Here, I'm on E Grant Rd at the same map magnification level (700ft) as before. However, no clue about the identity of the major cross road is given. You'd think that'll be more important information than those parallel distant streets like E Lee St. Go figure.

The worst part of this of quirk is that I know it will have this annoying quirk for the rest of the lifetime of the car. I have emailed the manufacturer about it. However, despite the fact that this particular navigation system is connected, i.e. has a cellular interface (e.g. they can push destinations to you, or you can push e-destinations from the iPhone or computer to the car), they don't push out updates to application software like computer companies.

Update: I did get an email response almost immediately (10 minutes!) from a real person at the manufacturer, see below. I was pleasantly surprised by that.

We appreciate your loyalty to our brand, and thank you for providing us with your comments about the navigation system in your vehicle, and the cross-street display function. We apologize this feature has not met your expectations. We design our vehicles with our customer ownership experience in mind and it is through correspondence such as yours that we are able to continually improve our products. We appreciate the time you have taken to share your thoughts and to provide us with your view. Please be assured that your feedback has been documented at our National Headquarters for future model design consideration.

Parking Safety Specialist

I spotted this guy at at the multi-story parking garage that I use. If you enlarge the photo, you'll see but he has a rather nice-sounding job title: Parking Safety Specialist. Never noticed that before...

These guys have the thankless job of writing tickets when we don't follow the arrows inside the garage, fail to display the appropriate sticker in the windshield, or encroach on an adjacent space.

Since he seems to be a state of repose, I guess he is not lying in wait hoping to catch someone doing a left turn at the top of the ramp inside the garage. Rather, I can only suppose he must have had a tough day.

10 miles

I needed a long run. So Saturday morning, I ran along the Rillito River for 82 mins and a total of 10.34 miles, as indicated by my iPod Nano.

I started from Craycroft Rd on an out-and-back route along the northern Rillito River Park route. It's a fairly flat paved route with foot bridges and underpasses being the only elevation changes. On reaching the Campbell Rd bridge, I turned around.

Although I took one water bottle along in a fanny pack, I had to stop another two times for water. Fortunately, the route has several possible water stops at the various parks along the way.

I started out at around 7'47" (min/mile) pace - not truly sustainable at my current fitness level - and gradually lost speed, running the last segment at a sedentary 8'04" pace. Overall, I averaged just over 12 km/hr (7.5 mph) or for a 7'57" (min/mile) pace.

I'm fairly satisfied with my first long run of the season but I know I need more long runs to acclimatize my legs to the pounding. Pace-wise, I have to let my body pick it's comfort zone. If I push too hard, I won't be able to recover quickly and that'd be counterproductive training-wise.

I felt slight twinges in my shins. To be on the safe side, I'll pick up a new pair of running shoes tomorrow.

Another 3 miles

One week ago I reported I ran 3 miles and suffered horribly (see here). Things can't get worse can they?

Well, Thursday I did another 3 miler. And somehow, I did do worse. Not only everyone was outta sight, but as the downwards spikes in the graph below show, I had the ignominy of having to stop several times to catch my breath.

The route was a tiny bit longer, though I thought actually the slightly cooler conditions were better this time than last.

I really should try to get in a long, steady run this weekend at my own pace.

Stupid happy

I sat on my ZeroRH+ Angelfish (RH579) cycling glasses after I left them on my car seat during lunch today. One lens popped out (that's not supposed to happen) and there was a stress fracture in the lens near where they attach to the frame. I bit my tongue, didn't say a word but I was rather upset with myself at first.

Frustratingly, I couldn't get the lens back in immediately when I was in the car. Nor could I jam them in, the plastic wouldn't bend. Plus there is a spring-loaded metal pin that must be pushed back. Since they were so bloody expensive and had sentimental value, I was very persistent with fixing them. I spent an hour fiddling and struggling with them back at the office. Finally with the aid of a paper clip and a pair of small needle-nose pliers I managed to get them reattached properly. And I was stupid happy.

They are rather special. As you can see, the lenses only attach at one point and are super flexible and soft for safety reasons. They won't cut into your face as easily, and that minimizes gouging if you crash on the bike. I guess that flexibility also enabled them to survive me sitting on them without breaking.

As for the sentimentality that drove my perseverance, I bought them at a well-known sports store in Shibuya, Tokyo the day before a rainy Tokyo marathon. ZeroRH+ or ゼロ・アールエイチプラス is a high-quality Italian brand for technical sports gear for cycling and skiing. I remember dawdling over the cost for a while, rueing the fact I tend to lose things like this and that I'd left my inexpensive mail-order-brand Performance sunglasses at home. In the end, I managed to convince myself I needed them at dawn the next day and laid down the plastic.

This model (06) has 16～46% photochromic lenses. (Some models are 25～85%.) Excellent for both near dawn when one is assembling for the race and still later on when things brighten up considerably. I found the vision is very, very good indeed. Cost was around ¥24,000 (now $300), much higher than I'm used to paying for nearly disposable items. It's made in Italy and I guess that's the price one has to pay.

But I've managed to hang on to them for a few years. I ended up liking the lens quality so much I use them every day for driving. And they haven't scratched up like other cycling glasses I've owned. The soft lens case they come with helps for that.

Just 3 miles

I ran just 3 miles around the campus this evening. And suffered horribly. As the students disappeared into the distance ahead of me, I immediately rued my training neglect.

(Last time I posted about running outdoors it was September 2nd. See A Sunset Run.)

As the graph above from my iPod Nano shows, I only managed to last 4 mins at 14 km/hr (8.5 mph) before slowing down to run at my own pace (a bit under 13 km/hr, or just below 8 mph). Have to say this is a pretty good loop around campus.

I could say I am 10lbs heavier than optimal and lack training miles. But the fact is, I'm old and my legs just can't implement what my brain wills it to do anymore. I'm fundamentally slower and need to take my time. As I completed the loop around campus, I was simply happy my lungs and legs held out for the distance. Average pace 7'38" per mile. To my surprise, my iPod congratulated me on a new benchmark 7'22" mile. Ya take what ya can get.

High-end in-ear monitors: JH Audio JH16 Pro

I've been listening to my brand-new pair of in-ear monitors for a couple of weeks now. They're the JH16 Pros I ordered at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest show.

They're extremely pricey and are custom-molded for my ears (done open-mouthed right at the show). In partial mitigation, they are complex, having 8 drivers for each ear, and the sound quality (especially the bass) simply blow the custom-molded Etymotics but bass-light Hf3s that I had before out of the water.

You really don't feel you're missing anything with such tiny devices. It's as good as the best full-sized headphones. It's significantly better than my car audio system. I don't feel like listening to the Etymotics anymore. The difference is night-and-day and readily apparent from the first moments. I simply enjoy my music more with the JH16 Pros.

(Note: believe it or not, they're not quite top-of-the-line for JH Audio. There is a brand-new fancier version of the JH16 Pro with an external box containing a DSP crossover and amplifier for maybe $600 more. It's called the JH-3A. But it's not as portable obviously.)

I bought it for use on trips: long flights and all that, so sound isolation is also important to me: hence, the custom ear-molds. I am listening to music (Apple lossless) out of my iPhone 4.

I'm told the sound can be further improved by bypassing the iPhone's inexpensive internal DAC (Digital to Analog converter) and headphone amplifier for an outboard solution: in other words, using the iPhone as a digital transport only and outsourcing digital-to-analog conversion and amplification to a (presumably, higher-quality) external box or boxes.

Two solutions exist at the moment to take the digital output from an iDevice: the Fostex HP-P1 which contains a 32 bit DAC and a headphone amplifier in one box, or the Cypher Labs AlgoRhythm Solo DAC converter feeding another box such as the ALO Continental vacuum tube-based headphone amplifier.

The cost to the wallet is another $750-$1200 depending on the solution, plus you sacrifice portability since you need to carry along one or two other boxes along with my iPhone that also need to be battery powered and charged. The upside is that you get the last 10% of sound quality out of the JH16 Pros.

Maybe I'll go the outboard DAC and separate amplifier solution at a later date, but right now I'm amazed at and very happy with the great sound quality I'm getting from such a tiny speaker system.