Learning from Netflix

I’ve always thought Netflix an excellent service. For a modest fee, you get 2-day access to practically any movie ever made. Over the years, as content owners have made it harder for them to get streaming rights for interesting movies, the value of streaming has gone down. With their recent price increase, I decided that Amazon Prime instant video might be good enough on the streaming side and went with the 1-disc-at-a-time plan for $5/month.

So, how’s it going? I don’t really miss the streaming, I have to say. The plastic DVDs arriving in the mail still give access to a wide variety of movies and TV, but I find that less and less satisfying. Our most recent rental, Sherlock Holmes, had more than 10 minutes of unskippable previews on it. I suppose I could just get used to putting the disc in the player 10 minutes before I want to watch it, but really, why should I have to do that?

If content companies don’t want me ripping DVDs, why make it so unpleasant to watch them the “right” way?

The best movie experience out there? iTunes on the AppleTV. Granted, it’s not got anything like the selection I want, but it’s fast, convenient, inexpensive, and has more of what I want to watch than Netflix streaming.

Now at IMDb!

I’m pleased to announce that I’m now working over at IMDb. I’ll be working on increasing engagement with our mobile applications, and am looking forward to some mobile device coding after nearly 13 years of website work.

Wall Street Bailout is a Scam

I’m really starting to think that the whole rush to bail out wall street is a fraud.

Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio):

Rep. Peter Defazio (D-Oregon):

Old Political Ads

Definitely a nice break from the current vitriol.

Reform Details

Many generalities, as usual, but also some very important specifics. I particularly like the first bit regarding his lobbying rules.

Paulson Bailout Must Be Stopped

Krugman writes:

If the government is going to provide capital to financial firms, it should get what people who provide capital are entitled to — a share in ownership, so that all the gains if the rescue plan works don’t go to the people who made the mess in the first place.

That’s what happened in the savings and loan crisis: the feds took over ownership of the bad banks, not just their bad assets. It’s also what happened with Fannie and Freddie. (And by the way, that rescue has done what it was supposed to. Mortgage interest rates have come down sharply since the federal takeover.)

But Mr. Paulson insists that he wants a “clean” plan. “Clean,” in this context, means a taxpayer-financed bailout with no strings attached — no quid pro quo on the part of those being bailed out. Why is that a good thing? Add to this the fact that Mr. Paulson is also demanding dictatorial authority, plus immunity from review “by any court of law or any administrative agency,” and this adds up to an unacceptable proposal.

Write your newspaper editors, congressmen and senators, people. This is a $700 BILLION mistake that our grandchildren will be paying off. Here is a sample letter.

A break for some fun

How awesome is this?

Liberal and Conservative Foundations of Morality

At the New Yorker’s 2007 conference “2012: Stories from the near future”, the social and cultural psychologist Jonathan Haidt talks about the five foundations of morality, and why liberals and conservatives tend to talk right past each other.

I found this talk very enlightening and if, like me, you have ever wondered why conservatives just “don’t get it,” have a look! (hint: they do)

Thanks to Nick for the link.

Traffic Waves

Thanks to Matt Pennig for pointing me at Wikipedia’s entry on Traffic Waves. I first started thinking about this while reading “The Goal”, a management book. There was a chapter where the author wondered why all the machines in a factory could never achieve maximum throughput no matter how carefully they were balanced. This notion of small variances causing big results is exactly behind those stop-and-go-for-no-reason jams we see on the roads.

Here’s a corroborating experiment:

Interestingly, a Seattle driver has arrived at the same conclusion, and has thoughts on how to be an un-jammer:

Breaking Up a Traffic Jam!

Ah, Wikipedia. Is there anything you don’t know?

McCain’s Faith-Based Internet Policy

Required viewing:

Lawrence Lessig on McCain on Technology