Mail Data Charted

Some interesting albeit fairly useless graphs detailing my corporate mail behavior. Since I'm typically actually communicating most of the time via several additional channels: personal email accounts (x3) , twitter messages, SMS, phone/voice... this is really only one angle on my overall productivity, however it's fun to look at nonetheless. Clearly I started my current job in about May, and didn't really get going for a couple weeks, and from there have continued to ramp productivity. December data is a little strange too since the holidays and also we're only half through December as of this post. This data comes from Outlook plug in xobni (inbox backwards), the free version. I'm going to start tracking these statistics more often and see if I can plot any of this is more meningful ways to reveal insights about how I communicate, or productivity enhancing strategy. For example I clearly hang up the computer around 5PM, eat and or go running, then jump back on email for a bit between 7 and 10. But perhaps I can find more time in the early AM? Looks like I'm taking a while to get going in the morning... or is this simply because my earliest 6AM meetings are typically web conferences where I'm not sending mail... Time and further analysis will tell. For now? Here's some charts!

More Map Data

The owner/creator of wheredoyougo.net sent me a note on Twitter, telling me he fixed some bugs and I could run my maps again for different result, which proved to be true, so I made more maps of other cities. I present Miami, Chicago and Plano for your enjoyment. It would be fun to see the whole US, or have the ability to mash up the entire Foursquare database (all users or all users opted in to wheredoyougo.net anyway), or selectively layer two users onto each other. I'm real excited about all the convergence of social media and location based services, there is so much more to do here. Location aware services like Latitude, Brightkite, Loopt, Foursquare, even possibly Twitter - wherever someone can assemble the platform and mostly the community - there are so many cool, intersting and mostly profitable things to do with currently disparate data.

Playing with Foursquare Data

Possibly the coolest thing I've seen in a while, or maybe I've had too many cookies today and the sugar is overwhelming. Either way, here are maps provided by wheredoyougo.net mashing up Google Maps and my Foursquare check in data. Which raises all kinds of privacy questions about public data, but fortunately I'm not checking in to Foursquare when making crimes happen, so I'm in the clear. Really though, say you've got the Patriot Act giving you rights to all kinds of non-public data, and the computing power and programming staff of Fort Meade, and the budget of the defense department...

I've hypothesized for ages about GPS cell data getting into the wrong hands. Think insurance companies deciding I'm a single man, living in the Bay Area, so my insurance premiums should be higher because statistically I'm more likely to be gay than someone living in say Kansas, so therefore higher risk for HIV statistically, so my health insurance premiums should be 9x higher. *shudder* These are heat maps, obviously showing my favoritism for San Francisco's South of Market (SoMa) neighborhoods!

Cutting Apples Out of Your Diet

Let me start by saying I'm technology agnostic, and have no special place in my heart for Microsoft or Google, but I'm just plain tired of trying to avoid Apple's stranglehold. My primary beef with Apple is their philosophy of "pretty but restricted" delivery of technology. I will give the user a simple software and player to deliver music, but I will control it with digital rights management limitations, and I will force you onto my platform.

I bought my first .mp3 player in 2003 to run with my music. iPod's were nowhere at the time, and to load files onto my player I simply dragged .mp3's onto the player drive and viola! Oh, and it had an FM radio. Then Apple comes onto the market and I can hardly find good players like the original SanDisk Sansa's out there any longer. Transferring, synching and organizing my music in the iPod universe stipulates that I use iTunes. Thanks, I don't need a software application to load music onto a (portable) hard drive. A friend just spend two days trying to figure out how to back up and migrate a music library HE PURCHASED legitimately to a new home media server.

The biggest challenge getting off Apple creates to me personally is the ecosystem they have created around their devices. If all my friends use iPhones, it's must harder for me to live in an iPhone world and simply make my own mobile device choice and co-exist with everyone around me. I loathe restrictions. Simply. Period. I don't want to be locked down to any service plan, application controls, synching/ loading software, etc. I have owned an iPhone and a 3G iPhone, but find my current Blackberry Bold better in many ways. And none of these gave me the mobile computing features that plain old Windows 5 on my Blackjack or Blackjack II gave me. And none of these gave me the simply pleasurable user experience that I had with my old Motorola Razr.

I guess my basic point is this: I'm elated to see the suite of new mobile devices emerge on the market lately: Droid and Pre and Pixie and HTC touch phones and others. I think I am starting to feel the "walled garden" approach to Apple's stranglehold lessen. The basic philosophy of, "I will limit you but make your user experience very nice" has always seemed very, "master planned community" and very, "dumb it down for the masses with cute icons" and, "mediocre is good enough for you because I'll make it simple." It's like eating at Applebee's... it's never going to completely fail, but it's also guaranteed to never be a 10 out of 10. And I personally find mediocre very boring.

Technology follows trend, and we saw a similar approach to Internet access with AOL in the early days of dial up. "let me control your experience but make things simple for you" eventually gave way to, "hey, I don't need you to get on the Internet and I rather an unrestricted experience, thank you very much." I'm watching from the sidelines and silently praying for a flight to quality, and this either driving draconian technology philosophies away, or giving birth to a new era of diminished controls. I'll be watching, eating my popcorn, cheering the release of each new Android phone release, hoping for a comeback of Windows Mobile, and periodically dusting off my pile of discarded iPods I refuse to sell on eBay because it's my duty to keep them out of circulation in the spirit of liberating the music and general freedom from oppression.

Quitting Your Mailbox

Much to the amusement of my creditors, I maintain a virtual Post Office Box in another state that has no physical mailbox attached to it. This is a service I pay for (about $5/month...) that receives my hard copy mail for me, scans it into an account I can view online, and I can click to make payments. Where e-payment can't be set up, they will print a physical check and mail it out to creditors. Besides the security advantages of using a different billing zip code from my physical address that is semi-secret, and the security advantages of not having to shred all the sensitive mail that comes to my USPS mailbox, there is a significant time and headache saving to not having mail show up at my house any longer! I've used this service for maybe ten years after getting turned on to it by a friend, and it's still the best $5 I spend every month. Also, having just moved... there were surprisingly few monthly statements I had to migrate addresses for (and most of those I was able to perform a quick five minute online address update for).

Oh, Silly Technology

Recently moving 15 miles North, in effort to get closer to SFO and the city San Francisco itself, I'm also starting to migrate my phone number to a Google Voice interface. Basically how it work is I get a call to this virtual number, it then calls all the other numbers I have registered with it (cell, home, office, home office, etc.) at the same time. Then I answer the call wherever I am. This is all configurable from a web-based user interface. I also get a transcript of the voice messages left either via email or text message - whatever I configure on the web interface. All in all pretty cool, Google likes this (free) service because they can now add voice dialog to their advertising platform, and intelligently serve me links and advertisements based on content I exchange via voice.

Voice to text transcription technology came first onto the market in the 90's. Hollywood gave us dreams of simply talking to our computers (think Star Trek) in full duplex and having intellectual intercourse. Then the PC became quite ubiquitous and we all learned to type probably as fast or faster than we talk, or at least harness our thoughts with (fewer) characters than syllables, and enter the era of text communication, IM, SMS, social media and other latin character visual letters trading. However this technology never really evolved to the point of reliability. We have all spent time talking to customer support queues through the phone yelling, "AGENT!" to try and get a live human on the phone, as the computer fails to properly recognize our words when spoken.

Now the security and privacy implications of this, particularly in a corporate setting, are an entirely different topic for another day. I would however like to share (a) one amusing exchange, and (b) one useful exchange I've had in the last 24 hours:

Amusing: My friends voice messages always sound like a two-year-old talking jibberish. Last night a caller said, "I called you back on your Google Voice but don't trust it so calling here. I'm home now. Bye." Now the text message I got was, "Can you give me back in your google voice but thanking courses. It's a good tax. Misfigure started now I'm home. Bye." The irony of this error is not lost on me.

Score: hilarity - ONE; usefulness - ZERO.

Useful: While on a conference call this morning I dodged a call to my cell phone. One minute later I got a text message, with a transcription of the voice message I had just been left:

"Hi Good Morning Quinton, This is [landlord's assistant] calling from [landlord's company] in South San Francisco. I am just calling because [landlord] was leaving. How many notice that your car was parked on the right side of. I guess Dayton avenue today and it's street. We need to face will give you a ticket if you don't move your car before they get there. Anyway, I hope you get this message before then. If you have any questions give me a call back (yyy) zzz-xxx and my extension is 101. Thanks. Quinton bye bye."

As you might guess, this is not quite exactly what the message said verbatim, but was enough for me to get the point, "move your car ASAP or you're getting a ticket." I raced out and moved my car, and avoided getting a parking ticket for street cleaning.

Score: Google Voice, transcription technology, SMS technology, [landlord & assistant] and Quinton - ONE; parking ticket police - ZERO.

Online Dating

I guess I have to back up at some point and explain online dating, how we got here, what that experience has been like. I started with online dating when this was a very taboo thing. Before television adds and billboards to help make this mainstream, probably it was 2001. At that point, this was a very fringe activity, and surely my friends who I told thought I was surely going to end up being the victim of human trafficking. Which amuses me - I mean meeting random people happens all day in my regular routine: cab drivers, people on the airplane, people I meet at the grocery store...

Meeting them via online methods doesn't really change much related to safety. Actually, if anything I might argue having an online window into someone is perhaps more insightful to safety issues than meeting them via brick-and-mortar methods in many cases.
I've tried most of the major online dating sites over the years. Mostly this has been interesting when I've moved to a new area and wanted to meet more people generally - for friends or activity partners or for dating if there happened to be chemistry. Hotornot, eHarmony, Match.com, Plenty of Fish, Dating DNA, Ok Cupid. I've met some great people, had fun dates, occasionally met someone who I ended up dating, others who I just became friends with. All in all it's been extremely positive experiences. Also some fun (and crazy) stories.

One of the most interesting things to come of online dating lately is from my overall favorite online dating site: Ok Cupid. They have all kinds of interesting data on their users, and they have started publishing some very interesting metrics at their blog: blog.okcupid.com This is one of my favorite blogs to read lately. Also I get these clever emails with random facts about my preferences or compatibility. The latest installment of this is shown in this post - they've mapped my compatibility scores with the averages across US States and also other countries, taking into account my stated "must haves" and "can't stands" and also other dimensions of preference I have specified (likes dogs or education levels or whatever). Look out South Korean women... here I come! Ha, ha, ha.

AFM Round 7 Race Results and Season Recap

The final round of the AFM season was this last weekend at Sears Point aka Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California. Reflecting on the race season, I can't help be feel overwhelmed with gratitude for my fortune and blessings to have means, health and luck to complete a race season with such success. Though the year I saw a couple very experienced racers cease their season-campaign due to life circumstance changes or unlucky track events, and many first year racers like me make race weekend appearances but not be able to consistently get out and compete. I didn't win any races this year - not a single one, and it may be some time before I could realistically compete at the level needed to podium in the varsity level races, and in no way does this hamper my feeling of success with this season overall. I was able to participate in 6 of the 7 total race weekends, and actually race in 5 of the 7 weekend races (missed one due to bike failure when I shattered my clutch at the Buttonwillow round early in the season). I'm healthy, learning safely how to ride quicker, finding people my same speed to compete with, making friends at the track, motivating some of my Saturday riding pals to get off the street and join me on the track, and amassing a great collection of race photos up here to share with you all!

So here's the performance stats. Last weekend at Sears Point I maintained 1:53's pretty much all weekend. Not my best laptimes at Infineon, but given the sordid state of my suspension rebuild and adjustment this was a great performance. For the season overall, I ended up with:

Clubman Heavyweight: 2 of 35
Open Production: 24 of 31
Open GP: 51 of 63

Keeping in mind that for the Open classes I only had two race weekends where I actually gridded up and competed, and this was my first race season... these stats are great year long rankings to build on for next year.

Next post will be about my quest for sponsorship and compiling my race goals for next year...

Exhilaration and Humility

I guess the crash pictures I posted a couple weeks ago could be misleading if you don't ride bikes. I did have to do some minor repairs on my bike, but it was quite an insignificant wreck. If you ride for any length of time, eventually you're going to have a spill. My off lately was probably the 100% most ideal way to go down - low speeds and really not much damage to the bike.

I met a very fast kid at the track who's 20 years old and easily five seconds faster than me. He races at a national level. It's mind boggling to me how such a young guy could be so drastically faster than I am. I must have some 200,000 miles more than him under my belt in just general driving cars on freeways. If I ever think I'm starting to get fast on the track I'm going to think of this kid and realize how much I have to learn at this sport.

The final AFM race of this season in this weekend, wish me luck and if you live in Northern California come out to watch the races!

Doing a wheelie is not particularly fast, but it sure is funnnnnn! (pictures by Ditto at gotbluemilk)

Bikes, Bikes, Bikes

Trying to satiate my interest in riding motorbikes lately - with business school over I'm getting out to the track quite often. I tried the famous-for-Nascar track Auto Club/ California Speedway in Fontanta, California two weeks ago, which was fun. I have one race left in the season back at Infineon Raceway September 20th and a few friends will be coming out to also grid up for their first race. Whatever will I post to my blog about after September and the riding season starts to go on ice till early 2010??? Here's a picture from Buttonwillow last weekend - I have somehow figured out how to keep my eyes open in pictures now. So I have that going for me. Which is nice.

AFM Round 6 - Infineon Raceway

Great race weekend. Last time I was at this track I bested 1:55, I got down to a 1:51 in the Open Production race which is my best ever. For Clubman Heavyweight I place third, which is also my position for the year in the class. With one race left this year mid-September I have a chance at finishing in the top three for the year in Clubman Heavyweight class. While this class is like the junior varsity for new racers, I feel pretty good about the race season so far having gotten out to the track as much as I have given the school and work commitments I've kept up. If I can put together a top three finish in the next Clubman Heavyweight race I will have a top three spot for the year - then it's on to strictly the varsity races next year (and a residency at the back of the pack... LOL). Here are some pictures from the weekend and a shot of the scoreboard which gets posted to afmracing.org after a couple days.

Anatomy of a Crash

Great weekend at Sears Point aka Infineon Raceway this weekend for AFM Round 6. I'll put up another post with more race results, I did quite well in two of my three races... I also laid the bike down in the Formula GP race. Pretty simple crash, I was on the front brakes too long into the turn trying to trail brake and the front washed out. Low speed tip over - no injury to person whatsoever and the bike is basically okay save small cosmetic blemishes. Joe at 4theriders photography got a great sequence of my sliding off the track which I submit here for your viewing pleasure! (Mom, don't watch!)

AFM Round 5 - Thunderhill

Last race was at Thunderhill Raceway on July 12th. I'm now experiencing the aftermath of the dilemma I faced at the start of the season, knowing I would be too distracted with new job and finishing business school to really get competitive - and debated if I should start racing this year or just wait till next year. The two weeks leading up to this race I was stuck in Texas and Orange County for work, and China for business school - so didn't get the practice I wanted. Nevertheless I made good progress in laptimes and relative rank and finished mid-pack in the Clubman Heavyweight race! I learned I'm actually quite good at race starts, and got first off the line and led the race for three quarters of a lap till the leaders could get around me. The next race this weekend at Infineon should be exciting because if I can duplicate that start, I should be harder to get past on this tighter course. These screen shots show the race results and the lap time comparisons between me and the two leaders in the Clubman Heavyweight standings for the year.

Click here for race results from AFM round number 5

Click here for pictures from AFM round number 5

Language Barrier

The Great Wall in China is about two hours outside downtown Beijing. The best way to get there is to hire a private driver. The cars are nicer than the cabs, very inexpensive (roughly $40 USD gets you a driver all day) and you have a better experience than a tour bus. But private drivers are less likely to speak English than a bus driver. In fact this was true in most of China - very little English spoken. And I do not speak any Mandarin. Which really isn't a problem, you simply have someone like the front desk at your hotel write out - in Chinese - directions to where you want to go on a slip of paper you hand to your cab or driver. But this doesn't really cover you when about one hour into a two hour trip you have to pee. And have no way to communicate this information to your driver. Well, unless your artistic ability is equal to mine, and you are capable of drawing a stick figure going pee. Showing this to your driver is bound to produce both laughter and a stop soon where you can have a brief biological break. Really quite funny.

Pictures from China - The Great Wall

I'm back from China and have a couple posts in my drafts about the AFM race #5 and further posting about Beijing and Shanghai, for now here are a couple quick pictures from the Great Wall...

Enroute To Beijing

-- Posted After Returning From Trip --

In Beijing for the next couple days then going to Shanghai Monday. Currently in taxi headed away from airport - the smog/haze is intense. It's roughly 100 degrees Ferenheit temperature. I'm strictly a tourist through the weekend, Monday is spent traveling, then next week I'm in a class at Fudan University.

My first impression of Beijing is surprise at how modern it is. I guess the GDP per capita stuff you read about is proof that numbers can lie... or at least they don't tell the whole story of this city. Beijing is very wealthy, on par with any US or European city I've visited. Clean, expensive cars, great roads, sprawling urban planning, a GREAT many tall buildings (there are 26B people in Beijing afterall), parks and greenways beside the roads.

I keep getting these travel books before I leave the country, then crack 'em open for the first time on the airplane. Which makes the first couple hours of my flight always very fun as I get excited for my trip. Here's what excites me about China:

- China sends 220 billion text messages a year
- It's probably illegal but I bet panda bear tastes good
- The terrain variety is baffling, from mountain borders shared with Nepal to the Muslim (yeah, when I think of China my mind doesn't jump to Muslim either) regions to the West borders shared with the -stans, desert/ tundra with camels toward Russia, sub-tropical rain forest to the East... it's boggling
- Would probaly like to spend five weeks here in a row at some future point to actually make a dent in the list of things one should see/ do/ eat/ experience in China - it's that big
- Agricultural areas with water buffalo and straw hat wearing rice farmers
- Old men who play mahjong and smoke pipes

Things I'll blog about in the next few days:

- Tienamen square
- Great wall
- Forbidden City
- Getting custom shirts for $15
- Getting a massage for $15
- The ensuing debauchery of 65 MBA students in their final school obligation

Access Denied (which in Chineese sounds like, *silence*)

Just back from a week in China for a class at Fudan University - I have to post some updates soon but I'm behind since blogging is prohibited in China! Pictures to follow later this week...

This is not like the blocking in Dubai where you are presented with a blocked page and a link to the acceptable use policy. This is a much more sinister blocking. There's no error message or
little note acknowleging the Internet's success in connecting you but China's denial of your access. Pages simply do not resolve with no error message. Of course instantly upon figuring
this out I began testing other sites which are blocked, and how to get around this blocking.
Here are a couple other sites apparently China does not want Chinese people visiting:

- YouTube
- State Web for Nation of Taiwan (stat.gov.tw)
- Web for US Courts (uscourts.gov)
- This blog (race.fm) and all blogs actually
- US Marines (usmc.mil)
- UN News (unitednationsnews.com)

Proxying out encrypted does work, but since I'm not interested in testing exactly how much they care and what they do to you if detected, I'll skip sneaking around for this short trip.

AFM Round 4 - Thunderhill

Great weekend at Thunderhill Raceway Park for AFM round number four. I had to miss round three due to a wedding in Seattle - and the new job has kept me too busy to get to the track lately - and it showed in my performance. Did have my best laptimes at Thunderhill with one 2:06 in the clubman race, but I got seriously rocked in all three races. I was overly intimidated by my first time out in the Sunday big-boy races. I also had some mechanical FAIL getting the bike prepped the week prior, which always jostles confidence a little. I'm not sure I realized I was signing up to be a part-time bike mechanic when I started racing! Weather was epic, made some new track friends, had a friend come visit at the track and learned a ton... great weekend. Round five is back at Thunderhill and I hope to find a couple more seconds - should be pretty easy if I find the time to train properly and kick up the running. Here's a laptime analysis of me and the two guys who were holding up the back of the pack with me. Appearenly I'm good at race starts.

Life Hacking

Whether actually true or not I don't know - but in my own head I am clever, belligerent, defiant, and strategic (read: twerpy). And I like to get my way. Oh and also bull-headed... Heck, I get my way loads of the time by simply tiring out those opposing me. So I don't always listen to words like, "no" or "not now" or "we have a policy against [thing I am trying to do] for no announced reason." I think I should start sharing my trials and tribulations of being contemptible.

Look I didn't choose it... but, I have a criminal mind. I walk into a bank and immeidately oogle their cameras and ponder their locks and protection systems. It's impossible for me to read a list of rules or policies or requirements and NOT scheme to figure out where loopholes are. Controls and countermeasures, gates and fence jumping. Maybe I should have become an attorney. Instead I work in business development for computer security companies (believe me, I'm one of the biggest hacks in and industry which hacks).

Plenty of books and conference talks have been authored on life hacking - I hope to see/read some of them someday, maybe I'll have time after business school. In the meantime I fear the schizophrenic nature of this blog may get another "Face of Eve."

AFM Race Two - Infineon

Yesterday was a big day for bike racing. I did successfully complete my first clubman heavyweight race, without crashing, and did not end up in last place. I did all my own safety wiring and race prep which is also empowering. Now clubman is the race bracket for the newest racers... so it's not like this is even the junior varsity here... nothing is televised, no sponsorship money, racers all have other jobs. Spectators do pay an admission fee to enter the race park, makers of tires or parts will give you a discount if you put their sticker on your bike, and top finishers might get a couple hundred dollars which doesn't even come close to offsetting the costs of racing. I did get my first groupie/fan crush gush yesterday though... which is AWESOME. Some guy came up to me after my race and said, "Aw man, I had money on you to win... That's a sick bike I said to my buddy watch that R1 he's going to kill it." My expectations going into the race were actually to finish without crashing and otherwise get pummeled in performance. I had only been at that track on two other occasions so there's plenty of room for simple experience to improve my performance. Actually I did okay though - it's so much fun to be on the track with other guys who are roughly as fast as me. I'm skipping race #3 for a wedding - so by race #4 in June at Thunderhill maybe I can join one of the bigger more varsity level race classes and try to hang at the back of the pack. Official results get posted to afmracing.org - but here are my laptimes:

That Was Interesting

On the heels of my first out of country experience in the Obama administration I am returning home with overwhelming patriotic feelings. This always happens when I travel - and maybe it has something to do with 15 hour flights and sleep deprivation, but wow - how our international image has changed. People I encountered in both Cairo and Dubai wanted to know what I think of Obama, showed genuine optimism in discussing the future of America and our foreign policy, seemed concerned about our domestic economic challenges (albeit this has potentially selfish motivations), and smiled with their eyes and whole face when I reported I'm an American rather than the furrowed and conflicted brows I've historically seen.

This change is drastic and has significant implications. Do you think the overall image of America is reflected in the commercial success abroad of American brands abroad like Ford, Coke, The Gap, McDonalds, etc? Absolutely.

It's also interesting to think about what it means to be an American when you're abroad. I met a couple guys in Dubai who were: raised in Kuwait, educated in the United States, Palestenian by self identification, and living in the UAE, and carrying US passports.

Considering the face value experience in Dubai - this seems like a very progressive society economically and culturally. But you don't have to look very far to find massive economic disparity, cultural tension on a broad scale, sweeping sex inequality, injustice, human rights transgressions, and people everywhere who are conflicted about their experience in the country and considering leaving.

We have such a special thing here in the US. We're certianly not without fault, but today I cherish our freedom and equality and justice and diversity and tolerance.

Dubai

This place is surreal in so many ways: geographically, culturally, economically... I need to post more commentary but much of what I'm thinking about while in Dubai is detailed here: clickity click Some pictures from 50 stories above the city streets of Dubai from earlier tonight. Man I'm missing my Leica.

Catching A Taxi In Cairo

My travel partner is Indian (like from India) and the Egyptians all assume he's Egyptian so they talk to him in Arabic. And he refuses to tell them he's American. SO I try to get in a cab and tell them where I want to go - and they just look at me blankly and start talking Arabic to my travel partner. Who both refuses to tell them were we want to go (for fear of disclosing his lack of Arabic language skills) and simply repeats everything they say back to him. It's totally hilarious. It probably sounds like this:

Taxi: Where do you want to go? (in Arabic - to me)
Me: Heliopolis
Taxi: blink blink

Taxi: What is he saying? (in Arabic)
Travel Partner: What is he saying (in something resembling Arabic)
Taxi: What? (in Arabic)
Travel Partner: What? (in Arabic)
Taxi: Where do you want to go? (in Arabic)
Travel Partner: Where do you want to go (in Arabic)

Me: Look, can we go to Heliopolis?
Taxi: Get in (in Arabic)

Travel Partner: (to me) where does he think we want to go - let's figure that out before we get in
Me: then tell him you don't speak Arabic!
Travel Parter: no way man
Taxi: Where do you want to go? (in Arabic)

.... repeat at least three times

Cairo Day Four

Visited markets today. Probably my last post from Egypt more next week from Dubai. of the pictures I took walking around Cairo these capture best the sense of the scene. Everything is grey and drab. Likely started that way but the sun beating down on it must mute all color with time anyway. I guess that's why bright colored things when the appear are so visually interesting. The mosques which speckle any view from any place looking in any direction are interesting the towers jutting out where the prayer time used to be announced by singing.