Category: Uncategorized

NPR: “So the streaming service plans to release the film in theaters and online at the same time, an emerging strategy in the industry. But some major theater chains are not playing along: AMC, Regal, Cinemark and Carmike have refused to screen it.”

It looks like Netflix is making a full out assault on a couple fronts; Cable and Movie Theatres. 

The theatres better get their act together or they’ll be declaring bankruptcy. Forward thinking movie theatres, like Alamo Drafthouse, won’t be afraid to welcome ideas like this.

Medium: “This year, we’re looking for outstanding technologists to become members of Global Health Corps. If you’re 30 or younger, have an undergraduate degree, and want to use your skills for a social good check out some of these opportunities to become a GHC fellow.”

I guess the Global Health Corps is an ageist organization? What is wrong with people over 30? Do brains stop functioning?

I’m going to sound like a bitter old man for asking that, but my brain hasn’t stopped functioning. I still feel like a kid in many ways. I love technology and still love creating technology. Why couldn’t a 47-year old man do this work? It’s an honest question. I’d love an honest answer from Global Health Corps.

Mediabistro: “Twitter is what we wanted it to be. It’s this realtime information network where everything in the world that happens on Twitter—important stuff breaks on Twitter and world leaders have conversations on Twitter.”

The article is about Instagram vs. Twitter active monthly users, but that bit about Twitter being a realtime information network is the important bit. Twitter has been that for many, many, years. All the talk recently is about Twitter screwing with the timeline so it’s more like Facebook. Doing that would take it from a stream of data to a stream with a dam at its head. It would no longer be Twitter.

Maybe Twitter should do some speciality versions of its stream that cater to an algorithm. I’d love to look at it from time to time. For everyday use I definitely prefer the full stream of data, unmodified, as it happens.

You can’t make this crap up.

I have to be away from home tonight, it happens. I charged my Verizon JetPack and stuffed it into my bag, along with my Mac and all the charging cables I’d need (it’s amazing how many), and headed out.

Before leaving town I stopped by Best Buy because they have good deals on prepaid data cards, my JetPack is pay as you go. This was mistake number one. I asked the lady behind the counter if the card I picked up would work with a Verizon MiFi (JetPack), she replied “Yes” so I purchased the card and got on the road.

After settling in for the night I grabbed the JetPack and fired it up. This is a real hold your breath moment with this device. I’ve used it about a dozen times and something always goes sideways. Tonight was no exception. After the browser pops up and does its connecting thing I get a message that says it can’t update my account and I should dial an 800 number. Fine. I call the number and figure I need to give them the numbers off the prepaid card to get things going. The machine on the other end of the phone gives me the option so I type in the numbers on the back of the card, get confirmation it worked, and hang up.

It still doesn’t work. I dial the 800 number back and wait for 30-minutes before a tech support representative answers the line. I tell him what’s going on and he informs me that the card I purchased won’t work with my JetPack, it’s only for phones. Mental note, Best Buy employees are full of baloney. Great. I thought I got a great deal on 3GB of data, turns out my money can be applied to the JetPack, but it only buys me 128MB of data. Good grief.

The technician says he can apply my purchase to my account and get me going. After the shock of learning how little data my $20 will buy me I ask him to apply it to my account.

The tech says something like “Oh, um, it’s not going to let me do it. Our system won’t let me do it and I don’t want to mess up your account any further.” What the heck does that mean? How can you mess up my account? And further, what’s this further stuff? Is it already messed up?

So mistake number one: trusting Best Buy. Mistake number two: buying a Verizon JetPack. Maybe that was mistake number one and trusting Best Buy was mistake number two? Either way, here I sit, no data connection and plenty of work that needs doing (no, I don’t have tethering on my phone account.)

Maybe tomorrow morning I can get a connection down at the coffee shop.

BlogWorld: “On April 14th 2015 we will induct the first class of honorees into The Podcasting Hall of Fame at the Podcast Awards Show.”

I have two people in mind for the first class of inductees: Dave Winer and Adam Curry. Both played early roles in making the distribution of podcasts easy.

A quick test. I’m hoping to post some photos of our upcoming trip. Let’s see how this looks.