Ditching surge pricing

Ride sharing companies have taken a lot of slack for their invention known as "surge pricing" (although they would prefer that you call it, "dynamic pricing".) The idea of surge pricing is that, during busy/peak cab-fetching times (New Year's Eve at 1am, for example), the cost of a ride can be 10x the normal off-peak rate. (Some states have limited these surge rates to only 2x, but this doesn't change the fact that the companies would like to charge you 10x.)

People have accused these companies of "price gouging". They say that the companies are charging the public more precisely during the time that riders most need a ride. Indeed, once someone is away from home and needs a ride home, they're more likely to pay more than if they were at home deciding whether to go out.

Additionally, people say that there is a humanitarian element too. They say that it's bad to encourage tipsy drivers into vehicles. They say that single women shouldn't have to make a decision whether to get a ride home from the guy with wandering eyes and hands.

Recently, in Australia, Uber was chastised for enabling surge pricing when people, in fear for their lives, were trying to get out of the heart of Sydney due to some reports of terrorists (actually, hostage takers.) What probably happened was, some operator in California, noticing the surge in requests for rides, and enabled surge pricing, completely unaware of the crisis.

Indeed, the companies claim that surge pricing isn't gouging; it's a means to provide a higher supply of rides. They claim that it's a total coincidence that it happens to raise their revenue.

To highlight one of reasons people dislike surge pricing, it means that one can't trust the company for a ride home. That is, while one can get the price of a ride to a destination, there's no guarantee about the cost to get back. When you make the decision to rent a ride somewhere, you actually have to account for the round trip, which could be 3x the one-way cost. It's not as though you can, when you want to go home, see the surge price and say, "No, thanks. I'll walk home and get my car."

There are solutions to these problems, so one has to question the companies' motives when they don't implement the solutions, and instead stick to surge pricing.

To understand the first solution, one has to ask, "Why wouldn't there ever be enough drivers (outside of the Godzilla is attacking the city scenarios) ?" Pretend that there are 2 drivers in a city and 2 riders. At any given moment, both drivers should be available, and none, one or two riders may ask for a ride.

If no one needs a ride, the drivers sit idle. Who knows what they do? If one rider needs a ride, the call goes out and a driver answers. If both riders need a ride, "Oh noes! Surge pricing!"

huh? Why would one need to raise one's price an order of magnitude just because your fleet is getting used efficiently?

The company would respond, "Because the other driver wouldn't show up unless you raised their payout."

huh? Why? They signed on for whatever their wage is. Why would they need a higher payout to relieve their boredom? Are they in a movie theatre and need an incentive to leave? Is there an army of drivers who can leave their existing jobs but will only do so for surge rates? Who can leave their job beside already highly paid white collar workers?

"Because they could be across town and need the incentive to drive over."

This is possible, but this is a logistics problem. It's the company's job to put cars where they are need. If lots of people take cabs into the city, guess what? They'll need them to get out, so maybe just leave the cabs there? And if people are going in random directions, then there's no issue.

One shouldn't have to pay extra to get a cab to come to you. Whenever you rent a taxi, it's built into the price that you're going to take the cab to the end of the world and the driver has to drive back.

This problem dovetails into the second solution: reserving round trips. The most common reason for surge pricing is that people go out for the evening and need a ride home. NYE is the perfect example. People go out at random times but, when the ball drops, everyone wants to get home at the same time. When you arrive at a restaurant, there may be a few cars in line, but when you leave, there's a line of a dozen people trying to get their cars.

If the logistics of putting cabs where you need them is too hard, allow people to buy round trips. That is, they pay ahead of time for the ride back. In return, they should get standard pricing. If they don't use the ride, the company keeps the money, just like an airline would.

The reply might be, "But the company doesn't know when you will need the ride. They can't keep a driver waiting for you." That's a small problem in the big cities that these companies operate, because there will be a pool of people with the same request. Simply shifting more drivers to the area should alleviate the problem.

If the question is, "What if all those people want to leave at the same time?", the answer is, "Then send more cars." It can certainly happen that some people will have to wait for their driver to come across town. But it's not like taxi companies where you have no idea if there's a driver coming or not. You can see your driver on the map coming to you.

The bottom line is, these companies can't claim that there simultaneously isn't anyone to pick up and that there's too many to pick up.

If the claim is, "No driver will drive across town to pick up a standard rate fair.", I have to say that I'm a little skeptical but that there exists an incentive to get more drivers to do it without raising prices.

Put yourself in the driver's shoes. He (let's say) sees this fare across town and has to decide whether to take it. If he believes that he can get a closer fare, then there simply aren't enough drivers. Shame on the company for not scheduling them, and what's more is that surge pricing won't bring out more. If he believes that he can't get another fare, why wouldn't he take it? The extra gas? Hardly.

Additionally, these companies could create incentive plans to pick up rides. What they would do is, the more fares you pick up, the more get sent to you. If you don't pick up many, then other drivers learn of fares, and can grab them, before you do.

Instead of surge pricing, the companies can employ "surge credit". That is, when a driver picks up people during surges, they get extra credit. A company could give 2x to 4x credit for picking someone up during a surge. The amount should be high enough to more than cover the fact that the driver might be missing out on a local fare.

Ask any Domino's Pizza delivery person and they will tell you, if you don't show up to work on NYE, you don't have a job on the evening of the 1st. Having regular employment is an incentive in itself.

Conclusion

These ideas may or may not work. There is a bigger point, however. The bigger point is that these ride sharing companies are charging surge pricing, not because it solves a problem for them, but simply because they can. That is, they charge it because people will pay it and it raises their revenue.

I believe another company will come along, if it hasn't already, that employs ideas like these, gives people a guaranteed rate, and in so doing steals business from the surge price junkies. (Yes, taxi cabs already exist but many believe that they will raise their game to compete with the ride share app companies.)

NPR covers CBP illegal searches

Do they look like drug smugglers? Everyone's a criminal in an Orwellian society.

Click through for full story and audio.

"The Internet with a Human Face"

Awesome write-up about some "concerns" about the Internet. Must. Read.

Funniest bit:

"There was an ad for the new Pixies album. This was the one ad that was well targeted; I love the Pixies. I got the torrent right away."

Pulseaudio and Jack on Ubuntu Linux

Perhaps you've fiddled with Linux sound configuration until you're blue in the face. Perhaps you've flip-flopped between Pulseaudio and Jack because they each did something useful but each also missed something you needed. Perhaps you (too) tried endless .asoundrc config files trying to get ALSA to do what it is you wanted.

There's a better way. Just use Pulseaudio *with* Jack.

Pulseaudio (hereafter PA) has the convenience that everything uses it; Chrome and Ubuntu practically force you to use it. Only some programs support the Jack API but those that do absolutely need it, and besides, you want to use it for its quick hook-up features. You *can* have the best of both worlds.

The following recipe will run PA on top of Jack. Programs that use PA will simply use it. Likewise for Jack. Yet, you will be able to select which sound card to use relatively easily, and you will be able to insert various filters, recorders, etc.

First, add yourself to the audio group:

% sudo usermod -a -G audio $USER

You may have to logout/login to see the effect.

Next, install any packages that you might be missing:

% sudo apt-get install jackd2
% sudo apt-get install pulseaudio-module-jack
% sudo apt-get install patchage

Now to start loading things. There are 2 ways to go about this. One is a fairly light handed way, the other fairly heavy handed. Try both, take your pick.

Both methods require that something useful be in ~/.jackrc. Here is a reasonable default:

% echo /usr/bin/jackd -d alsa > ~/.jackdrc

Jack will grab the first audio device listed by:

% aplay -l

It can happen that this isn't the system default device. Therefore, it's a good idea to actually specify the device name, not the number:

% aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 2: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC262 Analog [ALC262 Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

See how my first device is card 2, not zero(0) ? That's because ALSA found some USB devices first on boot-up. Therefore, my Jack command line is:

/usr/bin/jackd -d alsa -d hw:PCH

Yes, those are 2 "-d" options. The first "-d" tells Jack which back-end to use. Once a back-end is selected, the remaining arguments are sent to that back-end. The second "-d" tells the ALSA back-end which device to grab. Again, I specified the name (in this case, "PCH"), not the number.

Starting Jack

% mkdir ~/.pulse
% cp /etc/pulse/default.pa ~/.pulse

Then edit ~/.pulse/default.pa and add:

load module-jack-sink
load module-jack-source

and re-start PA:

% pulseaudio -k

This should force load jackd, but I have seen Pulseaudio refuse to start the Jack server. If you don't see any Jack devices in the Gnome sound configuration tool, try this:

% pactl load-module module-jack-sink
% pactl load-module module-jack-source

Whichever method you got working, start the Gnome sound configuration tool (pavucontrol might work in non-Ubuntu distros) and select the Jack source for Input, and the Jack sink for output. Set both volumes to 100% and close the config tool.

Next, start up Patchage. In the tool's window, you should see PA's sink connected to "system:playback", and likewise "system:capture" connected to PA's source. By clicking on various connections, you can move or remove them. Play with it. You can't break anything.

If you don't see both the system input and output, then Jack probably grabbed the wrong device, probably an input-only or an output-only device. See above to specify the actual device.

If you need to add any sound cards (or devices) that aren't listed, you will need to create Jack clients for them. For each *input* device (e.g. microphones), run:

% alsa_in <what-you'd-like-to-call-it> <input-device>

for example:

% alsa_in my-usb-mic hw:2,0 &

For each *output* device, run:

% alsa_out <output-name> <output-device> &

Note the terminating ampersand(&). This will run it in the background. You might need to devote a console to them because they spit out occasional error messages. I like using the program "screen" for this.

Once they are started, you should see blocks representing the new inputs and outputs in Patchage. Connect them to PA's ports if desired (inputs to PA sources, PA sinks to outputs), or connect them directly to the system inputs and outputs (not to themselves, of course.) This flexibility is the beauty of Jack.

You can also install utilities that tweak the sound pretty easily. For instance, zita-at is an auto-tuner, rakarrack is a guitar distortion utilitity, and jack-rack is a general sound tweaker. It can do lots of things including reverb, chorus, mute and amplification. Want to record all your video calls? Just start a Jack recorder (e.g. audacity) and connect it to an output (or PA sink).

Howl's Moving House

Fairy tale:

Scary fail?

Just kidding. I applaud the intent, but in the city, wouldn't basic wheels have been simpler? Trailers converted into tiny houses, and classic trailer campers (Airstreams and tear drop) abound in the Web.

http://www.n55.dk/MANUALS/WALKINGHOUSE/walkinghouse.html

Why do people hate airports? The Shadow knows

TL;DR

People opposed to airports are not really annoyed by the noise, or worried about pollution or crashes. They are, instead, afraid of the shadow that the airplane makes on the ground.

ahem

The smaller airports in this country are under constant attack, by the people - it should come as no surprise - who don't use them. People buy houses next to them and wake up one day and ask,

"Who put this airport here?? It wasn't here yesterday! Where's my torch and pitchfork??"

The people then write letters to their city council representatives and a long, expensive legal battle ensues (no pun intended.) Eventually the airport must be shut down, due to sheer exhaustion.

Why do people do this? Why do they hate airports so much? Ignoring why they moved there in the first place, why don't they wake up and say, "Oh cool! We're near an airport! We can go flying any time!" ?

People claim there are many reasons:

Noise

When a jet airplane takes off, there's little argument that it makes a lot of noise. There's no mystery to it: Engines designed around a constant explosion going off in mid-air tend to squeak a little.

This makes one wonder: Why didn't the people buying the houses know about the airport with all the noise? Do the planes have a "stealth mode" that they enable during Sunday open houses ?

Hardly. Jet operations - or even propeller operations - simply don't occur that often. Even the busiest airports only have a take-off on average every 10 minutes, and that includes little propeller planes. The fastest an airport can launch a jet is basically every 2 minutes. In the grand scheme of things, you're more likely to hear a chopper or muscle car pass before an airplane.

Clearly the issue isn't noise.

Crashes

Airplanes crash. Occasionally. If you're under it when it does, you're going to have a bad time.

But does it really occur that often? The embattled airport of Santa Monica is a fairly busy airport with about 300 operations per day. Yet, it only experiences on average one crash per year.

Note that this includes non-fatal non-damaging off-airport landings.

Compare this with the streets around your house. On any city block, there is a crash every week. In any city, there are thousands of crashes per year and, for example, Los Angeles sees about 300 deaths per year.

But that's not all! People even get into cars, and go traveling in them on these roads! In fact, they hurl themselves at life-threatening speeds! They even do it *across the paths* of other drivers! Why, you can't go a single block before crossing what's called an "intersection" where dozens of other drivers are speeding too - *perpendicular* to their path!

But not being in a car doesn't save you. Los Angeles also recently received the honor of being the deadliest place in America for pedestrians.

With such devastation, it's a wonder anyone puts their house so close to such "arteries of death"!

Compared to this devastation, once-a-year pace of airplane crashes are as legendary as unicorns.

Clearly the issue isn't crashes.

Pollution

What do the environmentalists claim kills more people than car crashes ? Pollution from cars, trucks and airplanes.

"Airplanes! There they are again!"

People dislike the pollution produced by airplanes, but apparently don't mind the pollution from cars and trucks. Why is this?

Surely it can't be the amount. Taking Santa Monica again, the city might experience 150 take-offs a day (again, including the little prop planes.) (Airplanes don't burn much gas landing.) The airplane will travel down Rose, and over the ocean never to be seen again. That's what? 2 miles?

Compare this with the thousands of cars driving all over the city, each covering dozens of miles. To get to work, my own car travels through 10 miles of Santa Monica, and again when I go home.

And of course, I'm not alone. The commute includes so many cars, that the West Side has some of the worst traffic in the world.

The 10 and 405 intersection are also in Santa Monica (maybe Mar Vista) carrying its share of the cargo trucks coming out of Long Beach, along with buses, etc.

"But isn't the pollution from a single plane spread over a wider area ?"

Yes, and this makes it less potent. If you want to get technical, the parts per million (PPM) is much lower.

Again, the airplane's contribution is tiny.

Clearly the issue isn't pollution

What then is the problem ???

The only reason that I can think of, why people hate airports and airplanes, is that they are afraid of the shadow that the airplane makes as it passes over them.

I'm not being coy. There is research to back me up. When a shadow passes over us, it produces a visceral, primitive reaction in our lizard brains. It is powerful and uncontrollable.

When a shadow passes over us, our instinct is that a predatory bird is about to pounce on us and eat us. Think of all the prairie dogs and chickens who dive for cover when a hawk or eagle passes over. They can't hear the raptors coming and so have to keep a look out.

To see this for yourself, find a pool of water containing mosquito larvae. Wave your hand over the pool and watch the larvae run (well, wiggle) to the bottom. If you do it long enough, you will drown them.

We evolved from the same scampering rat that these other animals did, that same first mammal who had to run in fear from much taller dinosaurs. That same panic reaction wells up in us when a shadow crosses us.

When you look at it this way, it's really no wonder why people hate airplanes. They cause us a lot of stress.

How do we fix this ?

The solution is to remove the shadows obviously. One way to do this would be to produce so much pollution - as much pollution as Hong Kong - that the sun never shines. It is widely known that people in China do not fear airplanes. In fact, the Chinese word for airplane translates roughly as, "What's that noise above us?"

Another solution comes from the comic book world, of all places. If the airplanes were transparent, they obviously wouldn't produce a shadow. Yes, I'm suggesting we should license the invisible jet technology from the Amazons of Themyscira, who Wonder Woman is a member of.

No, that would never work because we'd never find their invisible island.

Therefore I would propose that we just get over it.

Awesome hot tub tiny house

Check it out here.

Hypocrisy

"Why is it that, in 2014, affluent communities like Santa Monica, Mar Vista and Venice must suffer these horrendous health and safety impacts as part of daily life?"

Darn straight! That's for the poor neighborhoods!

Unless, of course, you buy a house in a flight path. Not that it matters because you'll be killed by automobile exhaust or impact first.

http://www.santamonicanext.org/jonathan-steins-open-letter-on-lawsuit-opposing-referendum-to-save-smo/

CBP (still) performing illegal stops of aircraft

The contents of this post are not news to general aviation (GA) pilots. AOPA (the lobbying group for pilots) and others have reported that the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) have been stopping small aircraft, apparently looking for concealed drugs. The CBP have been doing this without any probable cause. Worse, the CBP has no jurisdiction over aviation (only the FAA does, unless a plane crosses the national border). Even worse, the CBP (and the agents they employ - sheriffs and SWAT teams) don't know anything about airplanes. For instance, they don't know that if a dog walks across a wing, it will be ruined or that if anything is removed from a plane, the plane becomes illegal to fly unless put back together and inspected by an IA. In other words, these searches strand pilots in remote places (think middle of Utah, no offense to Utah-ites).

I don't know what the reader's opinion of the stop-and-frisk activities going on in New York and Los Angeles (and other cities almost certainly). I think they are useless and even harmful. They are useless because stopping a random person will, almost certainly, not catch a criminal in the act. A "criminal" might be walking around with drugs or a weapon that they ought not to have, but it is just as likely that a perfectly law abiding citizen might be too, and far more likely that the individual stopped isn't doing anything remotely illegal.

The stops are harmful because they erode the foundations of the country. Our country is based on the idea that, if I pull my weight, everyone else will and the country will succeed. If someone is going to be stopped by the police regardless, what is their incentive to behave legally ? If someone is going to be arrested for possessing any of the thousands of items that the government has declared to be illegal (for example, eagle feathers, or any plant or animal declared illegal by any country in the world), then it creates a threat to every citizen that law enforcement can wield any time that it wishes to threaten someone. Write an unflattering newspaper article (or blog post) ? Get stopped, searched and arrested.

The fact that both urban blacks and affluent pilots are getting stopped should be raising alarms and calling people to action. Law enforcement is making a power grab, they really aren't afraid of any particular group and won't stop until the courts tell them that they will suffer unless they stop. These actions should be uniting citizens in this effort.

Last year in the Atlantic:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/05/annals-of-the-security-state-more-airplane-stories/276018/

Today in the Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-aircraft-searches-20140415,0,7828658.story

[edit]

Also picked up by Mint Press News:

http://www.mintpressnews.com/feds-searches-private-planes-dont-fly-pilots-lawmakers/189436/

On justice

http://jjie.org/op-ed-for-a-kid-of-color-unavoidable-contact-with-the-cops/106637/

Where will your children live?

What do people who already own 80% of the wealth in America buy?

Your home.

Big investors are buying up houses for the purpose of renting. After all, homes are a pretty decent investment: They get the growth from the value of the home, plus the dividends from the rent.

Unfortunately, it means that people without the cash can't outbid the investors. It means that your neighbors will probably be renters who don't care about the neighborhood or the value of your home. And it means that your children will undoubtedly rent.

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2023084679_institutionalinvestorsxml.html

Google Watch

Looks awesome. I wonder what the battery life will be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrqZl2QIz0c

http://motorola-blog.blogspot.com/2014/03/moto-360-its-time.html

"Downton Abbey" vs "Upstairs Downstairs"

[edited to remove a not insignificant spoiler]

I've only watched maybe half a dozen episodes of Downton Abbey (season 4) or Upstairs Downstairs (the reboot), and yet I've seen the exact same scene in both. I think it's interesting to analyze the 2 shows based on this similarity. I think the scene gives us something like an "apples to apples" comparison.

The scene in Downton Abbey occurred in episode 3. While the entire family and staff are listening to Dame Nellie sing, the sweetest character on the show, Anna, is attacked by Mr. Green (of Clue fame?). It occurs in a side room. Even though she screams loudly, no one hears her because they're all on the other side of the house and getting blasted by opera music.

The scene in Upstairs Downstairs occured in episode 3 of the first season. Lady Agnes is expecting her first child. She's very nervous about the pregnancy, due to some previous event (of which, I forget).

Once again, the entire family and staff are off listening to the King abdicate the throne and Agnes is privately suffering the pains of labor. She begins to "not look well." Things are getting dicey.

What happens?

The meddling Lady Maud stumbles upon Agnes moaning in the bathroom and begins administering aid like a midwife. Then, the butler Warwick comes upon the scene. You might have thought the prude would slink away and get the kitchen maid, but instead he takes over for Maud, and goes to work like a competent surgeon. It turns out, he was the equivalent of an EMT in "the War". The episode ends with the family adoring their new boy.

I think these 2 scenes pretty well distinguish the 2 series. The former is fairly gritty and unforgiving. The latter is more low key and charming. The former won't hesitate to kill off (or worse) your favorite characters, while the most the latter can muster is to have the chauffeur sympathize with the Nazis for an episode before repenting.

Correction: US does "kill off" characters, but they just didn't seem as devastating as in DA.

I've seen these kinds of differences on Masterpiece before. At one end of the spectrum was Cranford, a quirky, and amusing series that you couldn't help but laugh at. It was sweet but not sickly sweet.

At the other end of the spectrum are every WWI and WWII mini-series where our hero marries minutes before being shipped off, suffers endless tortures trying to get back to his love, and is killed just yards from safety, the picture of his love clutched in hand.

[No, I don't know any show exactly like that but the descriptions certainly sound that morbid.]

Anyways, I'm just glad we have such a great variety of shows from which to choose.

Pebble 2.0.1 (2.0.12 app) "upgrade"

By now, some of you have run into the upgrade of the Pebble app. It should say 2.0.12, requiring Android 4.x. It will want to upgrade your watch to 2.0.1. Think twice before doing this.

When I tried, I got into a reboot loop on the watch. Once you press and hold Back, Up and Select, you need to install an image until your watch can do anything but be a brick. You can't even turn it off.

Here's what I recommend. Since it's going to factory reset anyways:

• Uninstall the Pebble app
• Unpair the watch (on the phone)
• Unpair the phone (on the watch, if you haven't bricked it yet)
• Re-install the Pebble app
• While it's installing, factory reset the watch
• If pairing doesn't work, try cycling Bluetooth on the phone. It seems to help my Moto X.
• If pairing still doesn't work, 3 finger salute the watch
• Hold Back, Up and Select
• After 10 seconds, it will say "pebble". Keep holding.
• After more than 10 seconds, it will go to the "upload" screen.
• Let go.
• If pairing does work, and the app says something like, "Pebble should show code 123456.", ignore the code. Mine never showed it. As long as the 4 digit code matches your Pebble, say, "yes, that's my Pebble."

If and when (let's be positive) you get it paired, go through the normal set-up steps.

Good luck!

MacBook Pro Song by Erin K

I haven't been posting because I hadn't anything important enough to fill a whole page. I've decided to start posting smaller, light-hearted things. Here ya go.

Poignant due to a recent movie. Notice the ukulele tuning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10P44-kFkZI

Oh, those intrusive running apps

What is with these running apps that want to send all my private data up to their servers??? By running app, I mean any exercise app that records your workout with GPS. However, the ones that I have a problem with are the ones who want to copy all my contacts from my phone. What is up with that?

I think this is particularly an issue with the recent change in Android's flagship messaging app: Hangouts. The recent change is that if you text someone, Android will show the recipient your G+ profile (if you haven't explicitly turned this off). The issue is privacy.

A little background: Earlier this year (or thereabouts), everyone realized that texting (SMS) was a wonderful fallback to someone else not being a member of your social site. "You're on Facebook and want to send a message to someone who's not? Not a problem! We'll just text them...

...but we'll need to see your contact list."

<cue sinister sounding music>



"Oh look! Your friend such-and-such is already on our site! You must be friends so we'll make you friends. Now your estranged relations can know your precise location at all times. You're welcome! :)"

RunKeeper

The king of intrusion is RunKeeper. RunKeeper was the darling of the Pebble watch. Pebble worked together with RunKeeper to integrate a client right into the watch. This is great but the problems show up when you look at the permissions that RunKeeper asks for on your phone:

• "Read your contacts" - This is what we were afraid of. RunKeeper wants to know all your contacts. They want to connect you to everyone (that you know) that's using RunKeeper, or invite them if they're not.
• "Find accounts on the device" - In other words, they want your email address. So they can spam you. But only a little. And they'd never sell the address. Unless they went bankrupt.
• "Use accounts on the device" -  They want you to give them permission to access the other parts of your Google account - G+, Drive, etc. This is scary and unnecessary for a running app.

Nike+

Nike+ is a very popular running app. The trouble is, it's just another social site where the currency is your last workout and your friends.

• "Add or modify calendar events and send email to guests without owners' knowledge" - Seriously??? This is an allowed permission at all???
• "Read calendar events plus confidential information" - hmm, not sure I want my running app to know that I'm going to that doctor...
• "Read your contacts" - Yes, Nike+ suffers from the same disease as RunKeeper.

Noom CardioTrainer

The Noom exercise app was one of the first Android running apps, going back as far as the G1. Their first product had everything that the best apps have today: recording your run or bike ride on a map, allowing you to download it as GPS data, periodic announcements during the run. When CardioTrainer first came out, the only way you could even download your workout data was to have a special code. Nowadays, it wants to share it with everyone. Here are the permissions that it asks for:

• "Read your contacts" - sigh, it's an epidemic.
• "Read call log" - huh? what is this for?
• "Add or remove accounts", "Use accounts on the phone" - I suspect that this is used to send your run up to Facebook but it's still overbearing.

Apps that got it right:

MapMyRun

MapMyRun is another popular running app but here's the worst permission that it asks for:

• "Record audio" - hmm, not sure what it's for but I doubt that they're recording your conversations. I suspect it's used to see if you're on a call or VC or something.

Pebble Bike

Pebble Bike is a little app written by some guys who wanted to see their bicycle speed on their Pebble watches. It has no ability to export your workout, no history, no reminders, no progress bars, no recorded celebrities telling you to run faster. But it does show you your speed and average pace on the watch, which is cool.

Also, it doesn't ask for any risky permissions.

Summary

In summary, I don't mind an app that wants to share all my runs with the people on Facebook. But if I don't want to do that, I'd still like to use the app. For instance, there aren't many running apps that talk to the Pebble watch. I'd hate to have to give up my friends and family just to do that.

I'm also shocked that any running app would share information that could be used by a stalker (or worse.) Would anyone knowingly give out this information?

• female, looks like she's in her 20's from the profile picture
• reliably runs around Such-and-such Park every Monday evening after dusk
• probably wearing very little clothes
• probably not carrying a self-defense weapon due to the weight
• should be getting too tired to run away around such-and-such o'clock...

Scary. Only share with friends, people!