Netflix seems to forget why it became popular

I’m not exactly sure when Netflix forgot why it became popular, but for some reason the company thinks that it’s a really good idea to delay being able to provide releases to its customers. In order to gain some titles with its streaming service, so you can watch movies and stuff from your computer on Netflix, Netflix is making deals with movie studios to not start sending out movie releases until 28 days after the movie has come out on video.

There’s a reason why Netflix was beating Blockbuster video. Not because it has a great volume of dvds, but because it was able to deliver new releases just as fast as Blockbuster, but for much cheaper. Now, they’re pretty much giving away the store, so to speak. If Blockbuster is the only one able to deliver movies to people on release day, it might SERIOUSLY hurt Netflix in the long run.

Seems kind of dumb, but who am I to comment on that? It’s not like I’m some big studio executive or anything. Anyway, here’s the link to the Associate Press article.

Blog to be changing very soon

(This is being cross posted from my original site, where it’s really intended to be relevant, and to the new one that will eventually be replacing it…this one)

I’ve been kind of ignoring the little messages at the top of the screen for the last few weeks (could have been months, and I might not have even noticed), but Blogger, which is owned by Google, is removing ftp access for its blogger service. What this means might not make a lot of sense to people who aren’t all into the hardware side of blogging, but for someone like me, it’s HUGE. For the longest time, I’ve really enjoyed using Blogger to make my blog. I was able to configure it to be exactly what I wanted, which meant having to hack the code a bit (all legal, of course), but I got it to be exactly what I wanted. What was most important to me was that the blog was actually hosted on my own website’s server. I learned a long time ago that when you don’t do that, you are at the mercy of some other company and how good its service is. I used to use Xanga some years back, and they constantly had hardware problems, so Blogger was my solution.

Well, they’re ending ftp service for Blogger, which means I have to look for a different service. Oh, I can stay with Blogger if I want, but basically what it wants me to do (in order to use littlesarbonn.com) is to do a DNS change to my system so that THEY host my blog, and that my web site is now completely pointing over to the service provided by Google. In other words, my web site will be completely hosted by Google, which means that at any moment, Google can completely cut me off if for some reason it doesn’t like my content.

Unfortunately, Google has been known to do that. Oh, they don’t advertise it, but I know a number of controversial people who have had their Google GMAIL accounts completely deleted on them for no reason they can fathom, other than someone didn’t like who they were and what they were saying. Or it could be a technical glitch. Either way, that’s not the kind of organization I want to entrust my daily writings to.

Unfortunately, this leaves me with two options. Go to another service, or pay more money to my own service provider to add a blogger service from it. Pair.com, which is my provider, uses Moveable Type, and I’m not really all that enamored with it. It has a bit of a learning curve I really don’t want to try to figure out any time soon. I then looked at Word Press, but the only service they really offer that I would want is almost as bad as going to Moveable Type. So, I may end up just using their free service, which I’ve established already some months back at http://sarbonn.wordpress.com. It’s not really a solution to my problem, but I don’t really trust Google all that much, so I’m going to be moving my blog over to Word Press’s free service and see if that works out for me.

I might change things as I look further at Moveable Type. I just don’t feel like spending hours learning and configuring something that might just not be worth the expense.

For the most part, those who follow my blog on Facebook shouldn’t see any difference. I’m pretty sure I can use the same linkage anyway. But for those who follow the site itself, it might be more difficult. The fortunate thing is that The Adventures of Stickman and the Legospaceman comic is hosted directly on my server, so it doesn’t need a blog service in order to make it work.

Either way, I’ll keep you informed.

If You Want To Save Money, Don’t Spend Money

I was reading an article today on CNN Money’s page about three ways you can save money. The link to the article was “Save Money Now! Three Great Deals!”

Let’s examine the three deals first and then I’d like to make a small comment.

1. Fly At A Deep Discount
2. Get Cash For Appliance Clunkers
3. Tee Off For Less

Okay, the first one says that you can save money by using special promotion codes to book air travel. Um, okay. That’s nothing new. And the deals aren’t always THAT great, even though they want to hype the thought they might be BECAUSE PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO FLY ON LOUSY AIRLINES THAT ARE NOW CHARGING YOU FOR CHECKED LUGGAGE.

The second one says you can save money by using promotions for appliances to replace your older equipment. Now, this could be a good thing if the incentive was to get rid of resource using clunkers, but not everyone really has that need, and you kind of have to decide if the price you’re going to be paying overall is really going to garner a savings down the line, or just make back the money you spent buying the new appliance.

The third one is to save money on golf courses by calling and asking if there are any discounts available. Duh. Okay.

Having read that article, I’ll put forth three alternative ways to save money:

1. Don’t fly anywhere. Don’t travel unless you absolutely have to.
2. Use the mediocre appliances you already have if they’re not consuming more energy than necessary.
3. Don’t golf. It’s a stupid sport anyway, kind of like NASCAR is a sport. Whenever a sport involves people who can perform it while drinking beer, it’s not really a sport. It’s a diversion.

The point is: If you really are trying to save money, don’t spend more money than you have to spend on entertainment. If you really like golfing, then make sure you allocate a certain amount of money to golf, and all will be fine. It’s a luxury, so treat it as such. If you’re having trouble paying the rent, golf needs to take a backburner to paying the rent, the car payment, the loan shark or whatever Maslowian need that needs to be fulfilled.

This goes back to one of my biggest pet peeves, and that’s department stores where a clerk will ring me up and automatically say: “You saved $50 today by buying this coat” right after I just handed her $150 for a coat that was originally marked up for $200. No, I did NOT save $50; I lost $150 in the transaction. A savings means that I GAINED money, not spent it. Whenever I hear that statement, I want to pull out my glock (which I should point out that I saved $33 on by buying it on sale at Walmart) and open fire on every cash register in the joint. But instead, I smile, thank her, and go dump my head into a barrel of water.

Anyway, just saying….