DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

The Oktava MK-012 is a well-known and well-respected condenser microphone. At a price point of about $100, (Update: With popularity comes demand, and with demand comes higher pricing. As of March, 2008, single Oktava MK-012s retail for $275.) it’s reported to deliver performance comparable to mics costing significantly more.

I’m currently upgrading my microphone collection in preparation for some recording projects later this summer. I found lots of MK-012s on Ebay, where “matched pairs” (suitable for drum overhead miking) sell for $250-$500, used.

Buying from Ebay is no picnic, especially when the prices on used items approach the prices of brand-new stock. I called Guitar Center in San Francisco for current pricing information and learned that GC just received a new shipment of Oktava mics, including “factory matched pairs” for $250. This seemed like a great deal.

Upon examination, though, the mics sold by Guitar Center are deficient in two significant respects:

• The mics come with no paperwork or documentation of any kind: no manual, no warranty, no frequency-response graph, no indication of the performance of the so-called “matched pair.”
• The screw-on 10-decibel “pad,” an attachment that helps prevent clipping, is not included.

I researched the matter and found claims of fraud: I came away believing that Guitar Center is (unknowingly) selling counterfeit microphones. Specifically, the “Oktava MC-012” currently sold by Guitar Center appears to be a knock-off produced in China.

The evidence is compelling. I’ll start with the best: a page on the Russian company’s website claiming that the “MC-012” is a knock-off produced in China. (local mirror)

I first heard this story from Ken Heaton, who claims he is the only factory-authorized Oktava reseller in the US. (See his certification letter.) The homepage of his website claims,

Don’t be fooled by the Chinese Manufactured Nock-Offs being passed off as “real” Oktava Microphones by a large national music store chain!!!

Ken told me that Guitar Center used to buy its stock of Oktava mics from Fergus McKay, whose reseller license was revoked by Oktava last Fall. The revocation was announced at oktava-online.com. (I’m assuming McKay is “Oktava Ltd.”)

Because of numerous violations of contract terms by the “Oktava Ltd” company (Great Britain), and unlawful usage of our trade-mark of microphones manufacturer, JSC “Oktava” declares that by official notice dated October 13, 2004, “Oktava Ltd” company is deprived of rights of exclusive distributor all over the world.

Ken told me that McKay owns the rights to the transliterated name “Oktava” — note that the actual Russian company name looks more like “Okraßa” — and appears to have had these look-alike mics manufactured in China. Guitar Center very likely does not know that they didn’t buy genuine Russian Oktava mics, or they wouldn’t be selling them as such.

The New York Times ran a story on Oktava in 2000; see Stalinesque Lines, But a Silky Sound; Man, That’s One Ugly Microphone (Sabrina Tavernise, September 9, 2000). It recounts how Fergus McKay helped bring Oktava mics to the world. It’s an interesting history, and it tends to corroborate Ken Heaton’s story… not that that you should really need any more evidence than the series of photographs at http://oktava.tula.net/fake/.

I learned all of this too late — a day after purchasing a pair of the mics-of-questionable-heritage from Guitar Center. Due to the missing 10dB pads, I’d inquired from the surly GC staffperson whether I’d be able to return these. Guitar Center has a 30-day return policy, but not for microphones, said the clerk, “because you could spit into them.” In a couple days I will provide an exception to this rule.

Update 2005-05-05: I spoke with someone in the purchasing department at Guitar Center. I told him the entire story. He listened patiently, checked out the “fake microphones” photos on the Oktava website, and assured me that Guitar Center would not knowingly sell fake or counterfeit gear. I imagine we’ll see a public response soon. The interesting thing is that he was under the impression that Guitar Center is a, if not the only, authorized Oktava reseller in the US, which we already know is not true as far as the manufacturer is concerned.

It appears there may be some legal confusion as to who actually owns the marketing or reselling rights for Oktava products. This issue may be settled in court. From my perspective as a consumer, though, I’m interested only in who designed and built the gear. I’m not interested in who might have a legal claim over a name or logo design. And it seems to me, from my research, that the only sure way to get the Russian-sourced microphone that audio engineers have been raving about for 10 years is to get them from Oktava USA. Disclaimer: Long after publishing this statement, I became an Oktava USA customer; I purchased a hand-matched pair of MK-012 cardioid mics from Oktava USA and have been very happy with them; see my overhead mic shootout.)

Update 2005-05-06: I received an email from one of the McKay brothers. He said I had some facts wrong and offered to set me straight. I responded immediately with a list of questions, but have not yet received a response.

Note: this article has been revised several times, to clarify points and add updates. I also removed most of the traditionally sarcastic commentary, once it became apparent that corporate attorneys — the sorts of folks paid not to have a sense of humor — were reading the article. Apologies to those of you who only come here for the sarcastic commentary. To the corporate attorneys: welcome! Please take off your ties. Thank you.

Update 2005-05-12: see pt. II, response from Andy McKay / Oktava LTD, and multiple updates thereafter (4 parts in all)

I was feeling sort of price-sensitive about these B12 supplements, which cost $20/bottle.

But then I saw the “% Daily Value” breakout on the label: a single pill contains 84,400% of the suggested daily value of vitamin B12. I only need 100% for any single day, so 84,400% should last me for 844 days, or about 27 months. There are 60 pills in the bottle… so this bottle should last me 138.7 years.

W00t! That’s only four ten-thousands of a cent per day!

FedEx, in partnership with Environmental Defense, is beginning to convert its fleet of delivery trucks to new hybrid models that get 50% better fuel economy:

Two new trucks in D.C. bring our total number of hybrid electric vehicles delivering packages — and cleaner air — around the U.S. to 18. The first two hit the streets of Sacramento in March 2004, followed by ten more in New York City and four more in Tampa in October.

Details of the hybrid solution can be found in the manufacturer’s press release:

Eaton’s hybrid-electric powertrain effectively combines a diesel engine and electric motor to drive the vehicle. A computer determines the most efficient combination… A four-cylinder engine replaces the six-cylinder version currently used in the FedEx Express W700 delivery vehicle. The engine size is reduced because of the added power provided by the electric motor. A particulate trap has been added to the truck to further reduce emissions.

Batteries capture and store energy during the “regenerative braking” phase of the vehicle’s operation…

Eaton’s hybrid electric powertrain has been placed in the standard white FedEx Express W700 delivery truck… The hybrid electric delivery vehicle will be differentiated from the standard FedEx Express delivery vehicle only by an OptiFleet brand decal on the sides and rear of the vehicle. The hybrid electric E700 has a gross vehicle weight of approximately 16,000 lbs. and a cargo capacity of approximately 670 cubic feet.

May 1 is the beginning of PG&E’s summer rate season for “Schedule E-7” customers, which includes most PV owners. Which means it’s time to haul your butt onto the roof to wash off the panels again.

Pictured is my new panel-washing device, which turns out to be so useful it practically qualifies as a life hack. It’s a car-washing wand, about five feet long. The garden hose screws into the handle and water sprays out of the brush. It’s totally not worth the $25 the local hardware store charged me for it, but given the 8% electricity generation I’ve just regained by washing the panels, I figure this brush will pay for itself in, oh, about six years.

Following is an illustration of the only way to win an Ebay auction any more: wait until the absolute last second, and bid 29¢ more than than the next guy.

This auction closed at 12:16:50, one second after my bid was received. I nearly missed the window because I decided 3 seconds before close to revise my bid. I wasted 25¢, as it turns out.

Bidding in the last moment of an auction is called “sniping” and it is annoying as hell, unless you happen to be the winner. I’ve lost numerous auctions by $1.00 or less, in the last 10 seconds of action. And I’ve won numerous auctions the same way. In fact, most everything I’ve bought on Ebay in the past year — or failed to buy — has come down to a last-moment bidding war. I’ve saved a bit of money this way, and, probably, shaved 18 months off my life due to sniping-induced stress.

I had a physical yesterday, my first in probably 10 years, spurred by the coincident realizations that [1] I have 0 sources of vitamin B12 in my (predominantly vegan) diet, and [2] I have more than 0 symptoms of B12 deficiency, or at least hypochondria. I put 1 and 2 together and got, naturally, B12. I decided to order a blood test, to see if I’d done any damage — my cholesterol, acid/alkaline balance, glucose, protein, or any number of measurements could be whacked. All this healthy living can be dangerous.

Modern American healthcare, or insurance, anyway, requires a doctor’s intervention for labwork. I couldn’t simply order a full metabolic panel and expect the folks at Blue Whatever to cover the tab. But then the doctor chided me for having gone so many years without a “full physical,” which, according to modern American healthcare, or insurance, anyway, means having a medical professional with six years of training spend approximately eight minutes asking dumb questions like “when was your last physical?” I caved in and scheduled a physical after the bloodwork came back.

At the beginning of the physical, a nurse recorded my pulse at 80 bpm. It’s usually 60. I attribute the elevated rate to the presence of the tube of Aqua-Gel on the side table. Fortunately, though, Dr. Jellyfinger didn’t make an appearance. His kindly counterpart Dr. L_____ (you can tell them apart by the rubber glove) informed me that the DRE can wait until I turn 40.

My blood test, as expected, showed the classic sign of a non-supplemented veganesque diet, namely an elevated homocysteine level, a precursor to coronary artery disease, stroke, and thromboembolism. Apparently all those warnings about B12 supplements for vegans aren’t kidding. I ordered some B12 supplements.

The doctor also recommended that I get a tetanus shot. The primary symptom of the need for a tetanus booster is the inability to remember the date of one’s last tetanus booster.

A nurse entered the room with a syringe full of a sickly yellow substance. “This goes into the muscle,” she said. “It’s going to hurt.” The nurse has apparently not learned the power of suggestion, or maybe she was disappointed about the whole Aqua-Gel thing. I bared an arm with growing dread. I’d survived the recent blood test, but in general, needles give me the screaming heebie-jeebies. It’s fine for doctors and nurses and even you to be all cavalier about it — “it’s a simple injection, for Chrissakes” — but let’s see you say that when you’ve got a fucking needle sticking into your arm.

“Err, I’m not sure I really need that shot,” I offered like a man grasping desperately for the slick edge of the buoy just before a thousand-ton wave crashes down on his head. The nurse held up the syringe and gave me a look like I can’t exactly put this shit back in the bottle, and began swabbing my arm. She asked if I ever cook meat (no!) or work in the yard (no!) and seemed somewhat bothered that I genuinely had a near-zero risk of exposure to tetanus bacteria. In the end I swallowed my fear, and I think a little bit of the previous night’s dinner, and I allowed her to administer the shot. She was all pro. It was over before I knew it started.

She was right about the pain. It’s 24 hours later, and my arm feels like a truck drove over it. A truck full of linebackers, each of whom hopped out to punch me in the arm, just below the shoulder. With brass knuckles. With little diamond studs set into the front. I’m afraid to peel off the little round band-aid; I think the bone might be showing.

So, I’ve left my band. I realized I was past due for a change of scene when I found myself enjoying playing a Creedence tune. I have nothing against dead-simple rock tunes — I just don’t want to play them. Nor hear them. Nor think about them. Nor stand in the vicinity of anyone who enjoys them. Nor admit knowledge of anyone who owns, or at any time owned any such CD. Etc. I’ll be spending what used to be rehearsal time learning music theory and composing.

June brings the return of Borrowed Time Studios… coming soon to a nursery near me.

In August or September, depending on how full my recording schedule is, I hope to put a progressive-rock band together. I doubt it would ever play out, but I wouldn’t care because I’d be playing crazy 4-limbed ostinatos in 7/8. (That, in fact, is the reason we’d probably never play out.)

Exploding Toads in a Hamburg Pond Baffle Scientists:

More than 1,000 toads have puffed up and exploded in a Hamburg pond in recent weeks, and German scientists still have no explanation for what’s causing the combustion.

This is a meme with legs. (Ahem.) See more exploding toad news. The toads have even been slashdotted.

Update: toads are exploding in Denmark, too.

Seeing this in print makes me laugh:

Update 2005-04-29, courtesy the Chicago Tribune (via Google’s Exploding Toad Alerts):

One German scientist has a theory: Hungry crows are pecking out their livers.

“Crows are clever,” said Frank Mutschmann, a Berlin veterinarian who tested specimens. “They learn quickly from watching other crows how to get the livers.”

Based on wounds, it appears that a bird pecks into the toad, and the toad puffs itself up as a natural defense mechanism, Mutschmann said.

But, because the liver is missing and there’s a hole in the toad’s body, the lungs burst, and blood vessels and organs ooze out, he said.

Spiegel.de weighs in with the same story, translated by babelfish:

If earth toads are on the Balz, they - humans not dissimilarly - come along every now and then quite blown up. Balloon equal the animals blow themselves up, in order to look quakend for partners. More than 1000 animals inflated themselves at the edge Hamburg pool, until they said good-bye bursting from this life.
…
That Hamburg Institut sent thereupon toad remainders to the citizen of Berlin veterinary surgeon Frank Mutschmann - which had promptly a plausible explanation for the large toad blow-out ready. “Crows were most likely,” said the amphibian expert… The discriminating birds toads purposefully anpicken and only their liver to feed.

Stephen Glass was a star journalist in the late 1990s, until the news broke that he’d fabricated all or part of about half his high-profile articles.

A movie about writing magazine articles would be pretty drab. Fortunately, Shattered Glass is really about the main character’s obsessive need to be accepted, praised, the center of attention. Playing the lead role, Hayden Christensen demonstrates something not at all apparent from his better-known role — namely, that he can act. His performance is a master class in manipulation.

The best part of the DVD release is the 60 Minutes interview with the real Stephen Glass, filmed about five years after his unceremonious retirement from The National Review. Glass had apparently spent a couple years in therapy, and a couple more in law school, which in some circles could be considered an appropriate punishment for, well, just about anything. Curiously, the state BAR association had held up his law license due to ethics concerns.

What was striking about the interview was how well Christensen had nailed the portrayal. While Glass spoke, expressing remorse for what he had done, I could imagine Christensen delivering the same lines, and I couldn’t help but conclude that Glass was back to his old tricks — after having watched Christensen-as-Glass deliver lie after lie with whole-body sincerity, watching the real Glass say something that is almost certainly true was entirely unbelievable.

In the same interview, an ex-coworker from TNR called Glass a “worm.” That has to hurt.

Then again, Glass reportedly got a six-figure advance for his semi-autobiographical novel about … wait for it … a magazine writer who fakes his stories. Check out the reviews; sadly for Glass’ writing career, it got universally panned at Amazon. (You’d think the one thing he could really do well is write fiction!)

But the movie, and especially Christensen, is great, and at ~$6 the DVD is a steal.

Read more about the movie at IMDB.

I haven’t seen the Enron documentary (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) yet, but I’m eagerly following the early commentary:

• Mark Frauenfelder at boingboing describes the rank-and-yank system that guaranteed that 10% of the workforce would be fired annually (in an effort to continually cull the worst performers)
• A reviewer at Amazon comments on the lessons we could learn from Enron: “Currently our president is telling us that we should gamble our future on the stock market. That’s right, take all of your social security money and give it to guys like Ken Lay.”
• David Weinberger sums it up: “We can only hope that the Enron boys become the smartest guys in Cellblock C.”

The Chron published a nice post-mortem on the electric car industry: Owners charged up over electric cars, but manufacturers have pulled the plug

The story, in brief, is that the Califoria Air Resources Board passed a law in the 1990s that required all manufacturers to produce some small percentage of zero-emissions vehicles every year. Electric was the only way to achieve true ZEV.

The automakers turned out some great solutions, like GM’s EV1 and Toyota’s RAV4 EV. But the laws changed, and one by one the big automakers pulled the plug on their electric-car programs.

GM had not sold any of its über-sexy EV1s; rather, they’d leased them. One by one, as the leases expired, GM collected the vehicles — ignoring hundreds of requests from owners who wanted to extend leases or purchase the ZEVs outright — trailered them to the desert, and crushed them.

Is that the most astoundingly evil and stupid thing you’ve read all day? It gets better. Or worse, depending on how much oil-company stock you own. Here’s the explanation for GM’s abandonment of its EV1 program, as reported by the Chronicle:

GM stopped EV1 production, spokesman Dave Barthmuss said, because “after spending over $1 billion over a four-year time frame, we were only able to lease 800 EV1s. That does not a business make. As great as the vehicle is and as much passion, enthusiasm and loyalty as there is, there simply wasn’t enough at any given time to make a viable long-term business proposition for General Motors.

“If we’re really going to make a difference in environmental auto issues, we have to be able to see vehicles in the hundreds of thousands of units, instead of hundreds,” Barthmuss said.

Asked why GM didn’t just sell the cars to the clamoring motorists, as Ford finally did with the Rangers, Barthmuss said that “parts are no longer available.” Even though buyers might waive the right to sue GM over any design or production defects, he said, “in today’s litigious society, there is no such thing as no liability.”

The explanation smacks of greenscamming. Let’s dissect it.

Barthmuss claims GM was only able to lease 800 EV1s. How does he explain the long waiting lists of would-be EV1 owners? GM has been under-reporting the demand for electric cars ever since they cancelled the program.

Barthmuss implies that the few ZEVs they sold were not making a great enough impact on the environment, but he doesn’t explain how selling fewer would be an improvement.

Addressing the question of why GM recalled all 800 EV1s, which were only about 2 years old at the time, and destroyed them, Barthmuss claims, “parts are no longer available.” Even if this were believable, it’s irrelevant; I’m quite sure GM’s high-powered attorneys could craft an end-of-lease transfer agreement that releases GM from the responsibility of supplying parts in the future.

For that matter, what car has ever come with a guarantee that parts will always be available?

Moreover, if GM had done a better job of putting EV1s in the driveways of the folks who were waiting in line for them, there would be enough customers to support an aftermarket parts manufacturer.

Finally, Barthmuss said something that is true — but still fails as an explanation for GM’s awesomely wasteful and short-sighted ZEV-crushing. He said, “in today’s litigious society, there is no such thing as no liability.”

GM sells something like 8 million vehicles every year. The 800 EV1s they managed to lease constitute about one-one-hundredth of a percent of the total. How much liability could there possibly be? Compared to the cost of cancelling leases, collecting and dismantling and crushing the EV1s, and enduring the ongoing public relations challenge of explaining the whole mess, I can’t help but think someone slipped a digit.

Maybe I’m an optimist, to think that GM could spend a billion dollars and come up with something fun and safe and eco-friendly and life-affirming, something to pay back a little of the negative karma they’ve developed by selling the hell out of those road-mashing Escalades.

At least Ford learned from GM’s mistake.

DSW Shoe Warehouse lost control of 1.4 million customer records — credit card numbers, driver’s license numbers, checking account numbers. A company spokesman said, “we greatly regret any inconvenience this may cause.”

LexisNexis reported that identity thieves stole or modified data on over 310,000 US citizens — names, addresses, driver’s license numbers, and Social Security numbers. A company spokeseman said, “we sincerely regret these incidents.”

ChoicePoint, whose sole mission is to collect data about you and your purchases, admitted having sold the personal data of at least 145,000 U.S. citizens to a group of fraudulent businesses that were possibly fronting a ring of identity thieves. The notification postcards sent to victims read, “we deeply regret any inconvenience.”

I have a message to DSW, LexisNexis, ChoicePoint, and any other companies with insufficient security procedures: regret doesn’t butter the biscuit.

If these examples prove anything, it’s that identity theft is a matter of when rather than if. Too many companies aggregate too much data, and have insufficient means of protecting it. It’s enough to make a guy move to the country and write a manifesto, or at least a bunch of privacy rants on a website. Pardon me while I grow a beard.

I’m considering using cash for purchases. I don’t know how e-commerce would work, but I’d be interested in anonymous payment mechanisms or one-time account numbers. I’d gladly trade the inconvenience for security.

In case you’re wondering why we even know about these incidents, you can thank the great state of California, which passed a law requiring companies and government agencies to notify California citizens if their private data has been accessed by unauthorized parties.

Coming out of the Santa Clara Westin, I was approached by an earnest women with a flyer in her hand. I usually avoid such solicitations, because people rarely want to give me anything of value — if they had anything valuable, they’d keep it for themselves, right?

This was a rare exception. The flyer proclaims:

Don’t give this hotel your home phone number, unless you like telemarketers.

Under a loophole in the federal “Do Not Call” legislation, businesses like Starwood are allowed to call people with whom they have an “existing business relationship.”

Every time you stay at a Westin, Sheratin, St. Regis, W or other Starwood hotel you’re giving them permission to call you about timeshares.

Assuming this is true, it illustrates one of the problems with “existing business relationship” clauses on privacy and marketing legislation.