Syzdekistan

Netflix sent me this email:

Dear David,

You spoke, and we listened. We are keeping Profiles. Thank you for all the calls and emails telling us how important Profiles are.

We are sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused. We hope the next time you hear from us we will delight, and not disappoint, you.

-Your friends at Netflix

Of course, they also sent this to a friend that doesn’t use profiles. Still, the crackpots have spoken and Netflix listened. If only Fox had listened about Firefly…

A few days ago, Netflix sent me an email saying that are eliminating their profiles features:

We wanted to let you know we will be eliminating Profiles, the feature that allowed you to set up separate DVD Queues under one account, effective September 1, 2008. Each additional Profile Queue will be unavailable after September 1, 2008. Before then, we recommend you consolidate any of your Profile Queues to your main account Queue or print them out. While it may be disappointing to see Profiles go away, this change will help us continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers.

Currently, we have two profiles. One for me and one for Hot Wife and I was considering adding a third for the Princess. We’re pretty light Netflix users and unless I am traveling, we often have movies sitting at home for weeks or months. Still, I find it very hard to believe that that they are getting rid of system that really provides a lot of harmony for two or more people with differing tastes. I can’t believe they are asking users to print out their data because they can’t consolidate multiple movie queues.

They are deleting the additional queues and all of the ratings you’ve made for those queues. I find this insulting and will be canceling my account, putting it on hold, or downgrading my account if they continue with this incredibly unfriendly action to their customers. The Netflix blog has over 1,000 comments regarding this change. Many customers are incensed. Almost 3,000 have signed an online petition and I did as well. Hopefully, Netflix will be shamed and will come to their senses.

Technorati Tags: Netflix

I have been keeping snakes and other reptiles for over 15 years. Hot Wife is very understanding and allows me to have an entire room for my collection of critters. However, once in a while I’ll leave a cage lid loose and something will get out. These mistakes aren’t very serious (and, coupled with the fact I get harmless bites occasionally, are why I keep nothing venomous) and usually I find the snake in a corner of the reptile room. I have a leopard gecko which is an escape artist who I can reliably find in the reptile room’s closet. Sometimes the escapees make there way under the door and into the next rooms which are a bathroom and a laundry room. Snakes have turned up under the washer or dryer and one memorable time we were going out the door and Hot Wife came into the garage saying there was a snake in the laundry room. She asked if I wanted to catch it now or later. I said now because who knew where it would be later. I grabbed my snake tongs and plucked the adventurous fellow from behind the dryer.

On two occasions, I’ve had snakes go missing for a long time, over a week. Both times, I found the animals by noticing strange cat behavior. When the cats are starting intently into a space, they are hearing a snake back there. Once was back when I lived with my parents and the little patch-nosed snake was drinking from a saucer under a plant in my mom’s window full of house plants. About a year ago, my cat alerted me to a snake that was behind some book cases. It’s embarrassing to have your pets go missing but at least I’ve always found mine. I’ve never had a pet end up in my neighbor’s toilet, for example. Here are some excellent tips on finding snakes in your house.

And here is one of escape artists, a gopher snake:

I’ve been lucky enough not to have to buy a car since 1999 and am dreading when that day comes again. Paul has been describing his joys in looking for a vehicle and had a link to this great article about the inside story of selling cars. Check it out — it’s a fascinating article.

From the National Weather Service:

RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LAS VEGAS NV
140 AM PDT WED JUN 18 2008

…NEW TEMPERATURE RECORDS SET IN THE MOJAVE DESERT YESTERDAY…

THE LOW TEMPERATURE AT MCCARRAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT YESTERDAY JUNE 17TH DROPPED TO 87 DEGREES AT 557 AM PDT. THIS READING BROKE THE PREVIOUS RECORD HIGH MINIMUM…WHICH COULD ALSO BE CALLED THE WARMEST LOW TEMPERATURE…FOR THE DATE WHICH WAS 80 DEGREES SET IN 1999 AND 2000. THIS ALSO TIED FOR THE SECOND WARMEST LOW TEMPERATURE EVER RECORDED IN JUNE WHICH WAS ALSO RECORDED ON JUNE 16TH 2000 JUNE 28TH 1994 AND JUNE 29TH 1977. THE ALL TIME RECORD HIGH MINIMUM FOR THE MONTH OF JUNE IN LAS VEGAS IS 89 DEGREES AND WAS SET ON JUNE 30TH 1994.

THE HIGH TEMPERATURE AT NEEDLES CA REACHED 115 DEGREES YESTERDAY. THIS SET A NEW RECORD HIGH FOR JUNE 17TH. THE OLD RECORD HIGH WAS 114 DEGREES SET IN 2001.

From XKCD:

Chunks of concrete from Saturday’s launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery splash into the water. News and photos from Spaceflight Now:

The Apollo-era launch complexes, modified for the space shuttle, must endure enormous pressures and extreme heating when shuttles take off but its not yet clear what caused the damage, what might be required to fix it or whether the debris could have posed a risk for Discovery. Based on photos from cameras around the pad perimeter, the damage appeared to occur after Discovery was well off the pad.

Technorati Tags: NASA, space shuttle

I just finished reading an excellent book by Jeffrey Bennett called Beyond UFOs: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Its Astonishing Implications for Our Future. This book details on a layman’s level, the state of the science and technology being used to search for life beyond earth.

Bennett does an excellent job explaining the process of science and the development of scientific ideas starting with ancient ideas about the universe and how scientific though has progressed (in fits and starts) to the current day. He also explains how scientific thought and religious beliefs can coexist and do not inherently contradict each other.

The book continues by examining the question of “What is Life” and the process of getting life started. After looking at the requirements of life on a planetary and star system scale, the book looks at the possibility of life throughout the solar system and then beyond. Bennett looks at the probability of extraterrestrial intelligence arising an asking the question: “… If civilizations really are as common as it seems they ought to be, shouldn’t we by now have some real evidence for their existence?” Finally, Bennett looks at the social and cultural changes that we could possibly face if we learn of intelligent life in the universe.

This book is easy and enjoyable, and I recommend it for anyone who has an interest in astronomy, UFOs, or science. Even non-scientists would find it interesting. You can buy it here or look at the book’s website here.

The space program is one of the few things in my life that thrills me. I get an indescribable rush of emotion when I watch a Shuttle launch or one of our robots sends back an amazing image. It makes me proud to be an American; and, even more so, proud to be an inquisitive human striving to understand the universe.

Phil Plait, an astronomer who runs a great site called Bad Astronomy, feels the same way. He really captured this feeling in the following video.

It really is a wonderful and amazing time to be alive.

Technorati Tags: mars

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter which was acting as a radio relay for yesterday’s landing of the Mars Phoenix Lander snapped this amazing picture of the Lander under a fully-unfurled parachute.

From a JPL press release:

Camera pointing for the image from HiRISE used navigational information about Phoenix updated on landing day. The camera team and Phoenix team would not know until the image was sent to Earth whether it had actually caught Phoenix.

“We saw a few other bright spots in the image first, but when we saw the parachute and the lander with the cords connecting them, there was no question,” said HiRISE Principal Investigator Alfred McEwen, also of the University of Arizona.

“I’m floored. I’m absolutely floored,” said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. A team analyzing what can be learned from the Phoenix descent through the Martian atmosphere will use the image to reconstruct events.

HiRISE usually points downward. For this image, the pointing was at 62 degrees, nearly two-thirds of the way from straight down to horizontal. To tilt the camera, the whole orbiter must tilt. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was already pointed toward the expected descent path of Phoenix to record radio transmissions from Phoenix.

McEwen said, “We’ve never taken an image at such an oblique angle before.”

Technorati Tags: mars, NASA