Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/08/09/oh-netflix/
Netflix has two awesome distinctive features going for it:
- It knows my taste enough to effectively recommend content.
- They do streaming and DVDs!
Right now I watch old TV shows on the streaming service, and maybe 1 DVD/month. For this I pay $10/month. That’s a good deal.
But now they want to cleave their business between DVD operations and streaming, and charge most customers more. Plenty of folks have gotten upset over this. Personally, I am irritated that they’re screwing the pooch on one of their distinctive features. What I had perceived as “hey, in order to satisfy our customers, we do DVDs and now we do streaming” now sounds more like “we want to be a streaming company but shipping DVDs is so expensive so we need to separate these different operations to keep the DVD taint off our streaming business!”
Which makes their distinctive feature list look like this:
- It knows my taste enough to effectively recommend content.
They do streaming OR they do DVDs.(Oh wait, that’s nothing special!)
Amazon.com offers me a bunch of “free” streaming through Prime and newer TV shows a la carte. I can get DVDs from the local library, not to mention any number of commercial outlets. I don’t need Netflix for only one or the other.
For my existing plan of 1 DVD at a time plus unlimited streaming, I pay $10/month. The new price for this same plan is to become $16/month. That’s a 60% increase.
I could go unlimited streaming only for $8/month. There goes the $2 extra I had been paying to watch the occasional DVD.
They do have a limited DVD plan for $5/month, but I called and confirmed that I can not combine that plan with unlimited streaming. That’s too bad, because $8 for unlimited streaming plus a few dollars more for limited DVDs is basically what I want.
So, for now, I am downgrading to their $5/month limited DVD plan. If Netflix wants to be a streaming-only provider they need to have way better streaming content. If Netflix wants to stick with their original plan of providing entertainment I like at an affordable price via the most cost-effective delivery option, then I look forward to signing up for an unlimited streaming plus limited DVD plan.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/08/10/san-jose-tube-map/
I am a fan of transit maps, but in San Jose, the light rail system is two lines and a little stub. There doesn’t seem to be much consistent bus service, either. Instead, San Jose is a city built around a set of highways. So I built this Harry Beck-style transit map of San Jose’s transportation system.
It is designed for printing on a sheet of US letter paper as a quick reference. I’m confident that a better resource would opt for a display of the major roads that comprise the irregular street grid, so you can see what flows to where, turning in upon itself and changing names along the way. I might even build a map like that, but for now, I just wanted to blow a mind or three by rendering highways as if they were a transit system in a clearly iconic fashion.
Incomplete interchanges have been omitted, and I’m sure there’s an error in there somewhere.
The fare? An automobile and a licensed driver!
Links: PNG: 3300×2550, PDF: 8.5x11in, Inkscape SVG (source)
Update 2011-08-19: Dixon Landing moved North of CA237, San Tomas spelled correctly.
Update 2012-06-26: For a future project, check out code by Andrew Godwin for his “Twin Tubes” map.
Update 2013-05-23: John Galantini has rendered a Tube Map using HTML and CSS, which is utterly amazing. For example, the little wheel chairs are a list of items, each representing say, the wheels, the back, the arm, all rendered using the CSS box model.
5 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/08/14/no-restrooms-beyond-this-point-2/
Second test of Android photo sharing to WordPress. Maybe I can get back on the photo-a-day wagon . . .
Boston airport, terminal B.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/08/17/ticket-or-gtfo/
I do not know the provenance of the source material, and can make no claims of intellectual property rights here. TinEye finds 550 similar images.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/08/24/pretty-clouds/
Rolled in early to the far side of campus for an All Hands meeting, and these clouds caught my eye.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/08/25/steve-jobs-is-a-wise-man/
Personally, I am not fond of Apple products, but I can not help but admire Steve Jobs. I am enjoying a compendium of Steve Jobs quotes from the Wall Street Journal. This one hits close to home:
“The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament.”
I work for an Information Technology bellwether, which is both highly profitable and obsessive over maintaining its profit margins. Costs must always be contained. While we have a variety of interesting technology we are working to develop, we are presently completing our latest round of workforce reductions. I wish our leadership could be a little more like Steve Jobs:
“This is not a one-man show. What’s reinvigorating this company is two things: One, there’s a lot of really talented people in this company who listened to the world tell them they were losers for a couple of years, and some of them were on the verge of starting to believe it themselves. But they’re not losers. What they didn’t have was a good set of coaches, a good plan. A good senior management team. But they have that now.”
You know what John Chambers might say to that?
“The problem with the Internet startup craze isn’t that too many people are starting companies; it’s that too many people aren’t sticking with it. That’s somewhat understandable, because there are many moments that are filled with despair and agony, when you have to fire people and cancel things and deal with very difficult situations. That’s when you find out who you are and what your values are.”
Really, the whole collection is worth a read.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/08/28/morning-coffee/
Maggie, content to sun on the porch, spares a moment to humor me by looking at the camera.
See also: Jessica Eats Breakfast
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/08/29/everyone-believes-in-dogs/
I have been writing most days at 750words.com. This is a little like Sy Safransky’s Notebook, as published in The Sun Magazine.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/08/31/all-roads-lead-to-san-jose/
Monday afternoon I biked down the Guadalupe trail past the airport to San Jose Diridon Caltrain and rode a comfy baby bullet home to Mountain View.
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