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I just read an ABC Nightline interview article with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings regarding the recent controversy with package and price changes.
In case you are unaware of all the hubbub, basically Netflix raised their rates in early 2011 and then a few months later split thier DVD from their streaming product in essence raising their prices yet again. According to the ABC Nightline article, Netflix lost 600,000 subscribers and saw their stock value plummet by 50%.
The results and feedback from this action ultimately prompted an apology email. In the email Mr. Hastings, the CEO, basically says what was clear from all the outrage feedback was that we the customers wanted more humility & respect before being screwed over.
It would also seem Mr. Hastings is under the impression we are upset because of the speed in which they moved and the lack of information. For some reason, the thought that maybe we are upset by the price increase and loss of DVD/Streaming plan escapes Mr. Hastings as a possible reason. To be honest, I know of no Netflix user, former or present, who is outraged at the lack of humility or respect or speed or lack of “why”. We are upset because the streaming options suck and we got screwed over by Netflix.
And if thats not enough, the reason all this took place was because Mr. Hastings has been afraid that a successful DVD Netflix would be unable to transition to a successful streaming Netflix. So the solution apparently was to spinoff the DVD division into some other brand. I guess Mr. Hastings just assumed that keeping the Netflix name for streaming would automatically make it successful. Good thing success does not require a quality product.
To me, the email apology points to either a clueless CEO, or a less than genuine apologetic CEO.
Related articles
- Netflix CEO: Not Communicating Service Changes Was a ‘Big Mistake’ (abcnews.go.com)
- “I Messed Up” – Reed Hastings, CEO and Co-Founder, Netflix (inquisitr.com)
- Netflix to Spin off DVD Division (techbookshelf.com)
- Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on Qwikster & What Went Wrong [VIDEO] (mashable.com)
- Netflix’s Qwikster Twitter Dilemma and Letter from the CEO (blogworld.com)
- Al Lewis: Offensive non-apology by Netflix CEO (marketwatch.com)
- Netflix’s Qwikster: A Bad Name and a Bad Idea (slashgear.com)
- Silicon Alley Insider: How Netflix Walked Away from 95% Of Its Revenue — And Why It Worked (NFLX) (businessinsider.com)
- Netflix Has Lost Half Its Value in Two Months (mashable.com)
I will assume that some visitors will find this post searching for information on Rick Warren. Well let me just address the title of this blog post right away. I don’t know if Rick Warren is right or wrong. You see, this post is less about Rick Warren and more about the struggle and clash stemming from new idea’s, view points and interpretations versus traditional Christianity.
I have never actually read any of Rick Warren’s books. I have thumbed through just one of his books, heard some interviews and read some anti-Rick Warren articles. For me personally, if some of the claims against him are accurate, I probably would have a problem with “some” of what he teaches. And here lies the conundrum. Is truth mixed with false-hood any less truthful? How much truth is needed to be of God? More importantly, Does God use those whose message is not fully accurate/biblical?
Last weekend I was in a Sabbath School class – Sunday School for adults – and a discussion started originally based on some new teaching that was gaining popularity and how it was the tool of the devil used to attack the truth. Now I have no idea or knowledge the merits of this new teaching that was being discussed. I did however suggest some caution when deciding the merits of new teaching. It seems to me that if something is new or different than what we are used to, we all too often attack it as being the work of the devil – not biblical. More importantly, we will write off the entire message or the messenger because of just part of the message. Is the part of the message that is true and less truthful than if the whole message were true? Does God only work with those who “get it”, or does God work with those who love him and strive to serve him even if they don’t completely “get it”?
Why is it Christians assume the devil only attacks by injecting false-hood into the church? Why wouldn’t the devil also try to steer the church away from truth or away from a better understanding? Seems to me the devil will not only try to lure us away from the truth but prevent us from moving towards a better understanding of truth as well. If he already has the church where he wants them, then he will work to keep us there. Hence the need to exercise caution and the need to actually evaluate that which is new or different.
So how does Rick Warren come into play? Well, there are those that feel Rick Warren is not teaching a biblical message. They will not accept any part of his message because they feel part of the message is not biblical, therefore Rick Warren is being used by the devil to lead many astray. Some people will even go so far as to say God is not using Rick Warren at all. To all of these people I would like to ask why? Why wouldn’t God use someone of another faith, another denomination to reach people? Does God only use those who have all the answers? And if no one has all the answers, then does that not mean God uses fallible humans, those who do not have all the answers? Does that not mean that God will use the Rick Warrens of the world to reach many with the message of God’s love and forgiveness?
Tonight I became a little bored with my surroundings and was thumbing through the bible when I stumbled on a text that I believe addresses this very issue.
38 John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” 39 But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. 40 For the one who is not against us is for us. – Mark 9:38 – 41 ESV
What I take this to mean is that truth is truth no matter who speaks it. That God will use people who may not have all the truth (imagine that) to reach those hungering for truth. I think for reasons we may not be able to fully understand, God uses mans imperfections to reach others right where they are in life. And for what ever reason God does not always try to fix our imperfections, or our incorrect beliefs right away. Maybe it’s because we as humans relate best to those with equal imperfections. After all, “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” – Romans 3:23 ESV
My father-in-law once told me that the great thing about buying flowers for your wife is that you can photograph them. So that’s what I did with my wife’s Valentine’s day flowers. I shot these with a Canon Rebel XT, Sigma 28-80 using the 80mm Macro function. Good or bad, these images have had very little done to them in Lightroom. Some cropping and some auto toning was about all I did. Enjoy!
It’s not the warmest where I live. You could say we only have two seasons, winter and summer. Between those two it is more often winter than summer around here. Even though it is still winter and even though just last week we had temperatures of -20 at night, there are still a fair number of Ducks in the area. I don’t know if these ducks are the dumb ones, or if in this economy they just couldn’t afford the flight down south.
So, I set out to find some of these ducks in hopes of some photo opportunities. In the end I probably deleted half the shots, and only have one or two I really like.
Here are four from today’s photo opp:
300mm f/11 @ 1/80 sec.
120mm f/8 @ 1/500 sec.
300mm f/8 @ 1/250 sec.
300mm f/5.6 @ 1/1000 sec.
I received a digital camera as a birthday / Christmas gift this year and now am trying to learn how to take pictures. This is not as easy as one might think, but it is proving a bit fun.
One of the lenses I already had was a Sigma 28 – 80, f/3.5 – 5.6, with a Macro function. Over the Christmas holiday I played a little bit with the macro setting. Sadly though I have seen the difference between my little Sigma, and the lens my FIL has, a Canon 100mm Macro f/2.8. That Canon macro lens just takes gorgeous pictures. The Sigma just can’t compete with the details the Canon Macro lens is able to show. Still, I had fun and believe that with some practice I can still get some good pictures from my little Sigma lens.
Here is my first attempt at shooting flowers with a macro lens:
The light spots in the top left can be a distraction, but I also find it some what intriguing to the picture.
These two pictures are the same except one was taken 1 stop under exposed and one was taken 1 stop over exposed. Even though the picture is the same, I think the two exposures create two interesting pictures.
This picture showed me I need to work on better framing of the flower. I also focused on the lower portion instead of the top. Unfortunately it’s the top that grabs the most attention.
These last two pictures are the same except the last one is cropped. I find it interesting how cropping a picture creates a “zoomed” look.
Well, there you go, my first run at taking Macro pictures. Feel free to toss me some advise, I suspect I will be needing advise for some time to come. 
Related articles
- Magnifying Glass Macros (pixiq.com)
- My best lens for flower photography is a 640mm (pixiq.com)
- Macro photography – which Aperture? (pixiq.com)
- Larger than Life – The Real Macro Realm (pixiq.com)
This is a great 15 minute TED.com video where Johanna Blakley discusses the lessons from the fashion industries free culture. These lessons can be applied to so many different aspects of life, culture and business.
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- The Many Ways In Which Fashion Copyrights Will Harm The Fashion Industry (techdirt.com)
- Lessons From Fashion’s Free Culture – Open & Free! (owengreaves.com)
It appears that Docky was made a separate project from Gnome Do which also means what I had initially installed and posted about was using an older version. So I took some advise from posters on another site, and took a look at the separate home of Docky now as well as looked at the Cario project. In the end I stuck with the Docky after having a very good conversation with one of the developers (ricotz in IRC channel). The developer even talked me into installing the development version (2.1) and so far I am very pleased with it. Some of my complaints from the “gnome do” install have been resolved and it just looks so much nicer with a few more basic options.
A nice feature with this install is the ability to right click on an active icon and click on the option to “pin to dock”. As silly as it may sound, it is very nice and very easy to add an application to the Dock when you can do that as well as drag and drop.
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- Main Menu coming to Docky Via GnoMenu (omgubuntu.co.uk)
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I am a PC, Mac, and Linux user. At night I dual boot between Vista and Ubuntu and during the day I use a Mac almost exclusively.. As a result, there are many things I like about using my Mac at work and would not mind seeing them on my home desktop. Since buying a Mac right now for personal use is out of the question I have to make do with what I already have. At any rate, one of the Mac features I actually like is the Dock. For those of you who are not Mac users, the Dock is basically a bar at the bottom of the desktop where application icons can be displayed that will launch the application once clicked on. It’s attractive and useful and I have wanted one on my non-Mac desktops for some time now.
So, once again I went searching for that “Mac like” experience on Linux which lead me to the Gnome Do website (http://do.davebsd.com/).
Installing does not immediately create the Dock in the picture, but changing the preferences is pretty easy and painless. Once installed I simply launched the settings/preferences window and quickly found what I was looking for under the “Appearance” tab. Under the “Selected Theme” simply select “Docky” form the drop down window and you will have the desired dock at the bottom of your desktop. I did change the “Icon Size” slider and did make some minor changes to the “Docklets” list. I do need to note that trying to scroll through the “Docklets” window was my first taste of possible instability. I was able to scroll through it of sorts, but the contents did not seem to really scroll as much as they visually stacked on top of each other when using the slider controls making it a little harder to filter through the list. Best way to filter through the list is by clicking on an option and then using the arrow keys.
The default install has some basic application icons but the Dock will only be useful if the applications you use on a regular basis are the ones installed in the Dock. For me, I want easy configuration as well as use. Anything short of that and the Mac experience is already gone as is the desire to use the Dock. Fortunately, Gnome Do is very easy to use and configure. To remove an icon simply drag the icon out of the dock as if you were moving it to the desktop, just like on a Mac. To install new application icons you simply drag them to the Dock and they will be inserted into the Dock, just like on a Mac. For my use, I removed some of the default icons, added the application icons that I use on a regular basis and got rid of the bottom tool bar that is default with the Ubuntu installation of the Gnome desktop. But getting rid of that bottom tool bar meant I no longer had easy access to the trash bin so I selected “Trash” can display from within the “Docklets” menu under the “Appearance” Tab.
For me, that’s all there was too it. I have pretty simply desires so my configuration was pretty simple. Will I continue using Gnome Do? For a while, but I am unsure if I will have the patience for long term use with what appears like stability issues. Twice I have had the dock disappear and the only way to bring it back was to relaunch the application. All though active applications should display (and do display) a white dot under the icon, some applications also launch a second icon in the Dock. A good example of that is the dual TweetDeck icons in the first screen shot. I have also had one instance of trying to add an icon to the Dock in which my system did not like the act of dragging and dropping the icon so I received a pop up error message but lost all ability to click out of the error message or even gain access to the rest of my applications or desktop. Ultimately I was forced to Cntrl + ALT+ Delete to bring up the Ubuntu shutdown/reboot window. Because I was unable to navigate any of the application windows, I was unable to actually select a reboot or shutdown and was forced to wait for the automated shutdown timer to countdown to zero and shut down my laptop. Once I rebooted I was able to add the application that had previously froze my desktop.
Also, unlike the Mac when I minimize a window it disappears. You can click the application icon which will usually bring the window back up or you can “Alt + Tab” to cycle your way through the list of open applications. I would prefer if the minimized window disappeared from my visibly active applications but was simply lowered to the right side of the Dock. As it is, at least once when the Dock/system seemed to be glitching, I was unable to relaunch the application window when clicking on the active Dock icon. But, will this be a common user experience for me, or just a fluke? I don’t know, only time will tell.
So, if you are looking or might be interested in a Dock “launcher” then take a look at Gnome Do (http://do.davebsd.com/). It is a simple, attractive enough, and easy to configure Dock. The big question for me will be stability and usability for my personal usage habits and like I said, only time will tell.
I was reading the blog post “Hypocritical, Irresponsible and Seriously Profane” over at “Sacred & Profane“. Like my last post, Heidi was talking about the Hypocrisy of pro-choice people towards those who choose to have large families. One of the readers posted a comment that to some degree argues the “other side” of this argument. So I thought I would offer a few thoughts regarding the readers comment.
“But, if I’m remembering correctly, you want your choice, but you don’t necessarily want to allow others their choices in the cases of abortion… No one is trying to stop you from having more children, but there are certainly people trying to stop others from having (completely legal) abortions.”
First, I am not a pro-life person who supports killing doctors or blowing up buildings. I do believe abortions are wrong and even believe it was bad law constitutionally speaking, but I do not believe that justifies killing doctors or those seeking abortions. And, even though I believe Roe vs. Wade was bad law, it is still currently the law as the commenter points out.
As to the claim that “No one is trying to stop you from having more children” I would say that is false. Currently it may not be a major movement, but there is a movement and a desire by a growing group of people to limit other peoples family size. The current trend is based mostly around the environmental movement. I think after what we have seen our elected officials do over the last year we should all realize that the ability to regulate family size is not all that far fetched. The health care (Obama Care) law alone gives potential power and reason to the Federal Government as well as our fellow citizens to limit family size. Now that we all have to pay for everyone else’s health care, it will be much easier to complain about the family of 3, 5 or more. Never mind that we actually need much larger families to support the every growing demand for Government services and mounting debt. And lets not forget that President Obama has brought in advisers (czars) John Holdren – Science czar, and Cass Sunstein – regulator czar, both who have been documented as proponents of the population control movement. Mr. Holdren has gone as far as to promote population control through our food and water supply.
Now, regarding not allowing others to choose abortion I would simply like to highlight the breakdown of choice between the two points of view. If abortion was outlawed, women would still have choice. But, if the choice to have children or the quantity of children is regulated then there is no choice but simply the law. So, even if you take abortion away there is still far more choice then if society or Government starts regulating women’s fertility.
Lately I have been acknowledging (to myself) the high level of hypocrisy from the left. “They” want the right to criticize others, but how dare you criticize or question them. “They” want freedom of speech, but how dare you think you are entitled to the same freedoms. “They” want America to leave other countries alone, to not force our way of life on them, to not get involved, but “THEY” want to force their views of population control, and abortion on these other countries. Odd isn’t it? Sounds like typical leftist hypocrisy to me. Ya, Ya I know, it’s not just liberal Democrats that are hypocritical. But still, I do believe it tends to be liberal politicians who display more dangerous societal hypocrisy. Cheating on your spouse while running a “family values” campaign is hypocritical, but not damaging to society to the extent of attacking peoples freedoms, undermining other peoples and other countries family values, etc. We should all be free to choose, so long as we do not choose life. After all, who in their right mind would choose life over abortion? Choose many kids over one, two or even none at all?
Anyhow, here is another video from the Population Research Institute highlighting the attempt to force other countries to legalize and promote on demand abortions.
