Recommended: River on @netflix

Netflix knows I'm a Simon Pegg fan (who isn't?) and so it recently recommended Hector and the Search for Happiness.  It took me about 23 minutes to realize "This is a really good movie, one Lori will really enjoy."  For New Years she finally watched it with me.  We really enjoyed it.  So I'd recommend that, too.

It's just about 23 minutes in that Stellan Skarsgård appears in a small role.  I don't know if that was coincidental or not, but Netflix started recommending River to me.  And now I'm recommending it to you.

River is a drama set in modern-day London.  A dark, gritty drama that follows John River (Skarsgård) and his partner as they, well, the less you know going in, the better, I think.  I knew a tiny bit, but I hadn't been spoiled.  It's a six-part mini-series.  I think it would be difficult to tell it any quicker, a lot would be lost if it were a movie.  (In some ways, it felt like watching a Denise Mina novel.  I also got a little bit of an Awake (NBC, 2012)-vibe.)  The ending left me really satisfied and by the end, I really had only one question remaining that I didn't fully understand, but I suspect that was intentional.

I enjoyed the London setting, often at night - it was dark, rainy and gritty, so foreign. Well, not the rain part.  The only time I felt like I was taken out of it was when I spied a Subway restaurant in the background of a shot.   Man, those are everywhere.

Feed Sift (05/15/2015)

-1-

WEBURBANIST.COM -- Touching Art: Raised Prints of Famous Paintings for the Blind

-2-

ENGADGET.COM -- Stanford Scientists Make Leukemia 'Grow Up' and Eat Itself

-3-

LIFEHACKER.COM -- Your favorite imaginary friend returns for a third and final season of Moone Boy!

-4-

LITMUS.COM -- Apple Watch Favors Text Version and Breaks Links - I have to ask... as an email marketer, it seems like a 'why even bother?' Maybe for simple transactional alerts or if we get our own MIME-type, but until then, this is just painful.

-5-

LIFEHACKER.COM -- Learn How to Easily Detect Counterfeit Bills

@CBS took my advice!

Though at $6 I think they got greedy. I know I won't be subscribing.

Here's my original post (Dec. 2013) suggesting the idea.

Here's Engadget's coverage (Oct. 2014) of CBS's new offering.

(Ok, ok, I know I'm not the only one that had this thought.)

The Sift (June 27, 2014)

It's been awhile since I've posted one of these. But here's five links that captured my attention recently that I wanted to share.

SETH GODIN -- Deconstructing Generosity

KLEINER, PERKINS, CAUFIELD AND BYERS -- Internet Trends 2014. Every few years someone clues me in that there's a new IT out there. Always an informative and dense read.

ENGADGET -- Broadcasters' backup plans for thwarting Aereo include live TV streaming Jerks. Oh... wait... That was my idea.

ENGADGET -- US Supreme Court rules Aereo's streaming service is illegal under copyright law. Jerks.

INC. -- Cups: A Coffee Startup Taking on Starbucks

Recent Netflix

Some interesting Science Fiction I've watched recently. Descriptions are mostly from Netflix, click any title to open in Netflix.

Upside Down - Adam lives on a poverty-stricken world, while Eden (Kirsten Dunst) is from its affluent twin planet, and their love sparks an interplanetary incident. Social stigma, family and government forces work to keep them apart, but they'll stop at nothing to be together.  The two planets revolve around each other with a large corporate building at the center that joins the two, or that each planet has its own incompatible gravity - things from one planet will burn up if you attempt to somehow move them to the other planet.

Delete - A viral threat almost triggers a nuclear meltdown, giving reporter Jessica Taylor and her hacker friend Daniel an inside track on a grim reality: an artificial intelligence has become a conscious entity with the sole purpose of destroying the world. Seth Green in a small role. Really high production values, good acting, great sets and mostly feels like a plausible story, except if an AI really has that much power, it would have employed traffic cameras and satellites sooner and sent more people (not just police) after them. Only when they tried to do a smoke effect did it feel like they weren't able to pull it off.

Invasion: Earth - Earth becomes a battleground in a full-scale intergalactic war when the Royal Air Force erroneously shoots down an unidentified flying object. With the planet's future at stake, can the world work together to protect itself? Still watching this one, haven't fully worked out what's going on here, but it's interesting.

TiMER - In this comedic fantasy, science has facilitated the search for a soul mate via biotechnological implants that count down to the moment one is supposed to meet his or her match. But Oona (Emma Caulfield) is worried: She's nearly 30, and her TiMER isn't ticking yet. Will her dream guy get snatched up by someone else? John Patrick Amedori co-stars in this film from first-time writer and director Jac Schaeffer. This isn't heavily sci-fi, it's just a romantic comedy set in the real world where one additional technological element exists. But I liked it.

Safety Not Guaranteed -
A team of journalists (including Aubrey Plaza and Jake Johnson) are dispatched to find out who's behind a classified advertisement seeking a companion for time travel, with payment on return. After tracking down their oddball prey, the team has to decide how best to approach their subject. Does he actually have a time machine? Do you actually care? An interesting movie that keeps it low-key and doesn't try to be more than it is. It's that low-key approach that makes it feel very relatable.

Battlestar Galactica - Deep in the universe, cybernetic Cylons have all but wiped out the human race, laying waste to the Twelve Colonies of Man. Cast out, the few survivors aboard the Battlestar Galactica search for a so-called 13th colony: the mythical planet Earth. This TV series grabbed me from the start. It's overall uneven (and long!) and leaves some questions, but I liked how completely they had defined this universe.

Caprica - Set on planet Caprica decades prior to the war fought in Battlestar Galactica, this sci-fi series follows the work of tech tycoon Daniel Graystone as he tries to assuage his grief over tragedy by developing cyborgs he dubs Cylons. In the style of BG, this single-season show was filled with twists and turns and constantly shifting alliances.

Free Idea: Digital Dollars @CBS

Les Moonves, CEO of CBS, has been quoted that he's not interested in trading "analog dollars for digital dimes" and that's why a lot of CBS content can't be found online in strictly legal channels.

He likes the money he receives from advertising as well as any fees that are received from cable and satellite companies for retransmission.  (I don't know if CBS receives money for CBS, but as part of the Viacom family, it's integral in negotiating new deals with cable companies - when they ask the cable company to add Teen Nick-at-Nite Classics en Espanol 3 and the cable company doesn't want to and so Viacom yanks CBS.)

But he can't figure out how to make money with videos online. The advertising rates are much smaller, the audience is much smaller, compared to the Neilsen ratings. (That's the small group of people who track their viewing habits - the ones who control whether your favorite shows live or die.)

At the same time, there's a company in New York called Aereo that's come up with a novel idea. They've got tiny little antennas (about the size of a dime) that pick up broadcast signals. You can "rent" their antenna and the video is delivered to you via the internet. They're marketing to people who want to receive broadcast channels but can't put up an antenna or who can't put the antenna in the right place to receive the channels they want. No, you can't subscribe unless you live where you could theoretically receive the broadcast channels. Since each person is assigned their own antenna, Aereo says they're legit. CBS and others are suing claiming illegal retransmission (over the internet). They also include a DVR offering.

Cutting the Cord, three weeks in

Canceled DirecTV yesterday. When Lori called to cancel, they asked why.  She said we were trying to save money and they offered to continue the subscription, but for $30 less per month.  So if you have DirecTV, definitely call and try to cancel.

Last week DirecTV's DVR didn't record Survivor for some reason. We plugged in the laptop and went to CBS.com and watched it.  This week it recorded fine.  We're watching tonight.  It'll be interesting to see tomorrow if it will let us watch recorded stuff off the DVR or not.  We made a list of everything that was on it.  When we turn it on this morning, it just says that nothing's authorized, so we can't get to recordings on the DVR or any channels, not that this was a surprise. The iPhone app registers an "unknown error" - guess they never bothered to write error handling for lapsed accounts. The DirecTV2PC app on our laptop also loads up, shows the shows and then responds with a generic "An error has occurred." alert if you try to play anything. Not surprised, but thought it was worth a shot.

Thanks to the way CenturyLink and DirecTV do their billing, we haven't purchased our Roku yet. We had to pay for this month and then wait to figure out who's going to send us a refund.  When I had been researching the Roku, I started getting ads from Amazon advertising it for $10 less than it was listed on their site.  But when I'd click through the ad, it would show the full price and not the advertised price. An email this morning from DirecTV confirms end of service, but it's all about additional ways they might bill you for more stuff.

Hulu Plus charges sales tax. Whatever. Still, a little bit of a surprise.

Our daughter's had frustration with the Wii remote going to sleep while she's watching Netflix.  She's not remembering to wake it up and getting deeply frustrated when her little brother interrupts her and she wants to pause it or rewind a little bit.  Often the Wii will need to be restarted or the Airport Express will need to be restarted before it will play well without stuttering or the app crashing.  May have to move the router and printer over and wire in the Wii directly or try to encourage more devices to plug in downstairs.  Or buy another Airport Express, but that's a last resort.  (We have to keep unplugging the router and plugging it back in before we print, so maybe it's just a problem with the refurbished router.)

Our big TV was someone's cast-off about 8 or 9 years ago and they had lost the remote. Thanks to Sony and Samsung's website, it was super easy to set up the Blu-Ray and VHS remotes to control the TV.

Cutting the Cord, 2 weeks in

Ok, so we're firmly committed to cutting the cord. Ironic since there is no cord because it's satellite that we're doing away with, but so perhaps we're dissing the dish.

Netflix - We signed up for the Netflix free trial and we've been loving it. Watching TV on my iPad has totally changed my habits, though not always for the best. I watch TV while doing a lot of my chores now, but sometimes I don't move as quickly because I've been watching the screen. I discovered and watched all of The IT Crowd and have started watching Battlestar Galactica and Archer. The profiles are pretty neat.  Netflix on our Blu-Ray player doesn't work because it doesn't support the resoluton of our TV.  Thanks for that Samsung.  Netflix on the Wii works well, but earlier today there were too many devices connected to the Airport Express and it couldn't connect to Netflix. Had to put some stuff in Airport Mode before it would connect. Will have to keep an eye on that see if we need to move the Airport Express and hardwire it.  We've also encountered the issue where Rachel watching something in the living room and Lori watching something in the kitchen and I couldn't watch something on the iPad because you can only do two streams at once.

Hulu Plus - I haven't really used it, but Lori has. She complains that there's still a lot of commercials in The Voice.  They give you an entire week of free trial.  How magnanimous of them.  Apparently all children's shows are commercial free, that's cool. So the trial's already over so we got our first charge for that.

Amazon Prime - haven't used it much even though we've had it for over a year now.  We just save money on the free shipping and discounts on recurring shipments.  It's difficult to find things and it's a mix of free and paid and even if it's free to stream, it shows purchase options so you have that "wait... am I about to buy something" panic that comes with having one-click purchasing turned on.

DirecTV - we're deleting stuff we know we won't get to before we cancel. And that is becoming a bit of a challenge in and of itself. The contract ends 10/23 but the next bundle payment to CenturyLink is 10/20.  So we have to pay for another month of DirecTV and then call and cancel and wait to get a refund.  So might need to wait on the Roku box so as not to destroy the budget.

What we haven't done yet is sat downstairs together to watch stuff in a non-DirecTV way except for the few random things via the laptop, usually when the DirecTV DVR fails to record or corrupts the recording. It'll be interesting when we do make the switch-over.  Bought an extra power cord for Lori's laptop so we can more easily move it.

After that, then we'll take a hard look at cheaper cell phone options. And then the security system nd local phone line - you're next.

Feed Sift

Five things I wanted to share.

-1-

Words Are Hooks, Words Are Levers - Another good reminder that words mean things, better if we agree on what. (Seth Godin)

-2-

The Last Stand of Walter White - A looong look at Bryan Cranston and his role on Breaking Bad and his life before, during and after. (GQ)

-3-

LEGO Brooklyn: Artist Recreates Borough with Plastic Blocks - man, to have that kind of time and that many Legos... dang. (Web Urbanist)

-4-

Five Ways to Do What You Want When You Want - a great skimmable reminder that we do have control over the chaos of our lives and that we can easily optimize and improve things. (Unclutterer)

-5-

Freeze and Explode by Cassettes Won't Listen (h/t Zen Musings)

Cutting the Cord, Day 1

At our last house, I literally cut the cord. The cable TV to the house was strung from a high pole near the back of our house into a tree, and then at an angle down to the corner of the house. It was unsightly. The power line was also unsightly, but it was more to the side over the garage so it was less obvious. I cut the cord at the house, wound it back to the property line, cut it again and threw it in the trash. We'd never have cable. Satellite TV was good enough for us. When we moved here, we assumed being on the north face of a hill covered with trees that satellite coverage was impossible, not to mention the frequent overcast skies, so we went with cable. Later a salesman convinced us that satellite TV was in fact possible.  So I've had cable or satellite for the past 21 years. I shudder to think how much money that's cost.

We are going to attempt to "cut the cord" and give up cable/satellite. We've had enough of the high prices and paying for stuff we don't want. Did you know, whether you watch it or not, over $5 of your bill each month goes to ESPN?

We've inadvertently been preparing ourselves for this for some time now - a few summers ago when nothing was on, our friends loaned us DVDs of Vampire Diaries and Bones. We binged on those and then Firefly and really enjoyed the ability to watch a single show night after night - it was continuity in our crazy lives. And then when the new season started, we ended up doing that with most shows - letting a lot of episodes build up before we'd watch that show. It also made the experience even easier - instead of remembering the storylines and plot points of a lot of shows at once and having to wait a week to see stuff progress.

Canceled Shows

So we've really gotten addicted to watching shows as sets. Letting them pile up on the DVR and then watching the lot as a whole. It offers us continuity and escapism. There are certain shows, like Vampire Diaries and Breaking Bad that don't build up, but for the most part, we'll let 5 or more episodes of a show build up before we watch them.

The downside to this is that the warts are more apparent as well. Things that might be annoying in small doses become unwatchable en masse. And it also makes it more of a snap judgement on new shows.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

We've been watching this since the beginning. Lori gave up part-way through the whole Laurence Fishburne/Nate Haskell thing. I stuck around. Lori came back for Ted Danson and we were really impressed. He brought new life and new sensibilities to the show, but the show began to take back over in the creepy, annoying way it does to where by the end of last season we were only sort of caring and we suffered through this season to reach the end where once again, a cliffhanger with people shot and people in jeopardy Gil and Sara probably having marital problems and us just not caring at all.

@CBS: We're not going to take this anymore!

If you don't recognize the title of this post, shame on you. Go here (Wikipedia) and here (YouTube). [Language warnings on both.]

I love this interaction (image below) on Facebook. Zoom in to read it. Time Warner Cable has dropped CBS and they're trying to get people to call Time Warner and complain. Or switch to a competitor like DirecTV or DISH.  Oops... guess they're fighting with DISH right now, too.

But people are starting to wise up. We are no longer sheep without a voice, at the whim of an elite few who will tell us what to watch and when to watch it. Change or die, right?

Time to tell CBS and Time Warner that we're not their pawns. (Sorry, I realize that's ironic.)

I'm leaving you, @DirecTV

Dear DirecTV,

I was really excited to return to you after a long, long gap. Finally I once again lived in a place with the appropriate southern access and a cable system I'd had enough of.  A lot had changed since the last time. I still remember the boxes being delivered to my office and me running home on my lunch break to mount the dish on our apartment balcony and make the adjustments necessary to get a signal. Good times. The software was cludgy and slow and the DVR regularly ate The Amazing Race.

And then we moved to a house that couldn't see you and we went with Dish.  And then a new house and we didn't think any sort of southern access was possible and we went with Comcast.  But that got old and someone swore we really could get a southern view and that weather wasn't really the deterrent that it used to be.

And for awhile, things were good. But then, the emails. More and more emails, more and more irrelevant. (Oh, and for a time, impossible to read on an iPad or iPhone. Thanks for making me only complain three times over six months before you fixed it. You're welcome, by the way.)

But the more the email market matured, the more we looked at what's possible with data, the farther and farther away you seemed to get.  Take this email, for instance:

Missed Opportunity 2 (A Work-Related Post)

So got this email the other day from DirecTV.  The good news is that they took my advice are finally previewing their emails on iPhones and iPads.  For the longest time, they were using line heights less than the font making it impossible to read.  I finally complained to their customer service and now their emails are readable.

But this email is dumb.

We already know that they know how what channels we watch and for how long.  First, it would be stupid for them not to know this kind of information.  Secondly, they so much as admit it every time negotiations get contentious between DirecTV and one of the media companies insisting that they carry channels no one cares about like ESPN Ocho or Nick Jr. Jr. or Disney Family After Dark.

So here's what gets me... they didn't need to send me this email.  Or they could have made it a small include on another email.  Instead, what I see is DirecTV taking something away.  Nevermind that it's not something I even care about.

Bottom Line: They should use their data to market, inform and communicate smarter.

Also amused that it takes place on April 1 and they refer to it as the OWN Network (Oprah Winfrey Network Network). 

Netflixing

I think Lori and I have unwittingly been preparing ourselves for a post-live TV reality... it all started when we discovered Firefly long after it had been canceled.  We watched all of the episodes followed by the Serenity movie all in one fell go (an episode a night).  Shortly after that, we were loaned the first season of Vampire Diaries and the first few seasons of Bones.

We really started to enjoy the consistency - no matter what the day threw at us, we could head downstairs at the end of the day and escape for 44 minutes to the storyline/world we'd been in the day before.  It certainly beat trying to keep all kinds of stories and arcs in our heads week after week, especially if there was a shocking cliffhanger or reveal.  Not to mention shows that were brand new - what if we invested in them and they got canceled?  (Like 666 Park Avenue... Lori ditched it, but I was still watching it.)

So we started just DVRing everything and letting it pile up.  There's a few things, like the half hour comedies and Amazing Race and Survivor (and ironically, Vampire Diaries) that we'll watch very soon after (same night if possible) but the rest of it, we just watch all of one show and then move on to the next one.  (It was hard going to that kind of schedule with Person of Interest and Once Upon a Time.)

So we just got caught up from Elementary this week.  I'm glad that we started recording that one because it's been really entertaining and now I'm a little bummed that we're done with it for awhile.  But we're back in Hawaii (Five-O) where it's warm and sunny and by the end of the week not sure where we'll be... Storybrooke, New York or any number of made-up towns in California with The Mentalist crew.  Or Vegas.  Or D.C.

It's also helped me to realize that certain shows I end up not wanting to continue like Grimm).

How I Watch TV

I can't just watch TV.  I'm often frustrated that things don't move quickly enough or entertain me enough.  So often I'm doing Free Step on Nintendo Wii Fit Plus while using my laptop or iPad or both.  I can plow through Google Reader quicker with two screens or clear out a bunch of email.  The music stand was a birthday gift from my Amazon Wish List and it's pretty convenient.

Oh, and what I'm watching on TV is something we've DVR'd, sometimes months ago.  Have fun with that, Neilsen.

Comcast vs DirecTV

So we recently switched from Comcast to DirecTV.  And I have to say, it's not been all aces.

Without further ado, here's my list of reasons why Comcast is better than DirecTV.

1. The DirecTV DVR does not have a clock on the front.

This concludes my list of reasons why Comcast is better than DirecTV.

Happy Endings

"Happy Endings" is a show on ABC that I suspect is underappreciated.  It seems like it should have been on NBC.  Six people, three men, three women, so I guess it probably reminds of Friends.  I can't believe they went on the air with the name and I wonder if they are hurting themselves with the name.

Even more odd, they seem to be playing the episodes out of order.  But even that seems right -- I think if they had played in order, I might not have liked some of the characters as much.

The characters:
Brad (Damon Wayans, Jr.) - married to Jane.  We've also already met his dad, played by Damon Wayans.
Jane (Eliza Coupe) - hilariously competitive.
Alex (Elisha Cuthbert) - left Dave at the altar as the origin/starting point of the show.
Dave (Zachary Knighton) - moves in with Max (sneaks back to the old apartment he shared with Alex because the shower is clean but Alex thinks it's because he still has feelings for her)
Penny (Casey Wilson) - "her own gay husband" - very neurotic
Max (Adam Pally) - a non-sterotypical gay guy, very messy apartment ("That's bird poop.  There's a bird in here.  Alive.") finds out that some guy is living in his attic.

The show is blisteringly funny.  Like funnier than 30 Rock (shut up, Kevin).  I hope ABC gives it a chance.  The show takes place in Chicago.  Or a generic studio lot city scene.

Some selected quotes...

“Meet my friends, Ione and Atticus. She has a blog about zines and he won the mustache contest three years in a row.” — Toby, introducing fake hipster Penny to his friends
“I don’t care.” — Atticus
“See that guy? [Gestures to guitar player] He’s right-handed; he refuses to play with his dominant hand. It’s too commercial.” — Toby
“He’s huge in the abandoned gas station circuit.” — Ione
“What do you think?” — Atticus, to Penny
“Oh, uh … over it.” — Penny
“Totally, super over it.” — the hipsters

“Hey everybody! Look over there! Sofia Coppola‘s playing badminton with Jason Schwartzman!” — Max, distracting the hipsters from the fact that Dave’s food truck has no food

“I’m sick of being your beard. I mean, for someone who behaves nothing like a gay guy, you have even less of an idea how to act like a straight guy.” — Penny, in response to playing Max’s girlfriend of three years in front of his parents

“Operation Beard was a huge success. I owe you big time. If you ever want to get into a country club and you’re looking for a fake white husband, I’m your guy.” — Max, to Jane after she pretends to be his girlfriend at dinner

The good news it's already been picked up for a second season.

What I Would Have Said

Monty Brinton / CBS (enhanced by me)

Watching Survivor. They're devoting a lot of time to a conversation about the two young women who want to quit. It's really amazing. They are so deluded. They have no clue. I love that the rest of the players are mad at them.

I would have said, "Yes, this may be one the most demanding things we've ever had to do, but we can see the end. There will be times in your future, that while maybe not as physically challenging, they will test you. And here's kicker - you will not know when that testing will end. Also, at least one of you, because you're young and pretty, even if you don't win, have the potential to springboard from this into an entertainment career. The opportunities, if any, available to a quitter will be far less."

Lori adds (and I'm paraphrasing) "Don't think of 11 days. All you have to do is make it one more day. Then tomorrow, you need to make it one day."

And lastly, I wouldn't allow them on the jury. And they shouldn't have gotten a chance to give final words even if the second one got cut off.

They should be shown to their little cabins, kept isolated from the other eliminated players, fed only rice for the rest of the game, then held backstage, their seats left open at the reunion.

(Of course, who are we kidding?  I would get voted out much sooner.  I have no illusions that the game is tough.  But I wouldn't quit.)

Odds and Ends 75

-1-

LAST PERSON BLOGGING -- Great Website for Calorie Counters

-2-

INHABIT -- MIT Introduces Paper-Thin Solar Cells

-3-

ENGADGET -- Ford adds race-ready TracKey to Mustang Boss 302, leaves no doubt about who's in charge

-4-

MASHABLE -- “U.S. News & World Report” Goes Digital-Only

-5-

SETH GODIN -- The Bright Line of Small Differences

-6-

SIGNAL VS. NOISE -- On Writing: How Conan wrote his pitch-perfect "People of Earth" letter

-7-10- Videos after the break... Christmas flash mob, hot cross phones, PC envy and slip-sliding away...