Posts from — June 2008

I meant to post about an issue close to my heart a while ago…

Netflix will soon be abandoning separate profile queues for one account.

This is absolutely ridiculous because it is such an awesome feature. You see, I only want one movie at a time. Back when I had my own account and was receiving 3 movies at a time, I realized it was a bit much for me. So, I canceled my account and started my own profile on my brother’s account, only receiving one movie at a time, which suited my tastes. My brother and I did not have to compete as to who’s movie got to ship next. Instead, he was doing his own thing with his one queue and I was doing my own thing with my own queue. When I returned a movie, the next film in my queue would ship. The movie would arrive with my name on it.

Anyways, you get the picture.

But after September 1, my queue and profile will simply go away.The queues will not even be merged. I don’t want to resort to competing for movies. My brother said that I can make my own account again and only do the 1 movie at a time option. Not only will that be a pain, but it will also be a bit more expensive than just getting that 1 more movie from my brother’s account.

Not cool, Netflix. Not cool.

David Pogue of the New York Times discusses this in his blog here.

UPDATE: Due to the overwhelming number of complaints, Netflix has decided to keep the profiles feature. Woohoo! This means I can go back to mooching off of my brother’s account.

So here’s the thing - I don’t really consider myself a geek. Maybe halfway there, but not really. However, compared to some people, my ‘normal’ would be considered incredibly geeky.

Case in point:

I was hanging out with my good friend Noureen the other day. I went for lunch with her and her husband Kamran when the discussion came to the Sex and the City Movie. The two of them liked it while I had never seen it or the show it was based off of. They talked about the character Samantha, who I know to be Kim Catrall so I just offered my take on her:

Me: “Yeah, I just know her as the Vulcan in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country”
Kamran: “She was in that show?”
Me: “No, just in the movie.”
Kamran: “Was she an alien?”
Me: “She was a Vulcan.”
Noureen: “What did she look like?”
Me: “She was a Vulcan.”
Kamran: “Yeah, but what did she look like.”
Me: “She was a Vulcan.”
Noureen: “Vul…can?”

I mentally slapped my forehead at that point. I kept on repeating “Vulcan” because I assumed they would know what kind of character she played based off of that one word description.
“She had pointy ears.” I finally said.
“Ohhh,” they both responded. Now they got it.

Note to self: Not everyone knows anything about Star Trek so don’t assume they do.

Update: The Kimchi Ninja conducted a poll to discover if the general public knows who Vulcans are.

Yahoo published an article today about airport scanners:

Scanners that see though clothing installed in US airports

They have one of these at SFO. My sister was told to go through it when she was on her way to Egypt but argued her way out of it. I saw the massive scanner as I made my way through security when I was going to England, wondering what I was going to do or say if they said I had to go through it.

Luckily for me, I just got a pat down.

I have to admit, these scanners scare me a bit because of all the detail they give. My brother was wondering what the big deal was when we were discussing it a while ago and I was like, dude, don’t you know how intrusive these things are?

According to the article, a lot of activist groups have issues with it as well:

“People have no idea how graphic the images are,” Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union, told AFP.

The ACLU said in a statement that passengers expecting privacy underneath their clothing “should not be required to display highly personal details of their bodies such as evidence of mastectomies, colostomy appliances, penile implants, catheter tubes and the size of their breasts or genitals as a pre-requisite to boarding a plane.”

Fortunately, you can apparently choose between the scanner or the pat down if security singles you out.

USA! USA!

Over at PC World, there is a list of the top 100 “tech gems” as picked and voted on by PC World editors and readers. For no special reason whatsoever, I went down the list and picked out the sites/tech products that I either utilize or have used a bit.

1. Hulu - I have used once or twice.
2. Apple iPhone
3. Facebook - Ok, ok, I admit I’m on Facebook. Happy?!
4. Windows XP - still on my HP laptop!
9. Rock Band - I don’t have it but I’ve definitely played it.
10. Wikipedia - I heart this
11. Netflix
14. Craigslist
17. Apple Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard - Came pre-installed on my Macbook Pro
19. Twitter
21. Mozilla Firefox 3
22. Safari (mobile browser, free) - makes browsing the internet on the iPhone just like real life!
23. NPR.org - Although I admit I don’t visit as much as I should
25. Google Maps (Street View)
26. Apple Macbook Pro (Penryn series) - My first Mac!
30. Flickr
41. Google Gmail
46. Yelp.com
48. The Consumerist - This blog recently earned a place in my RSS Feeds.
52. NYTimes.com - I probably visit the tech page the most.
81. Youtube - Hasn’t everyone used this site?
90. Ubuntu Linux - I’ll be installing this on my HP any day now…
92. Digg
99. Lifehacker - Once again, I added to my RSS Feeds not to long ago

Image from iMuslim