Shocking The Senses

Netflix and their Price Hikes

// July 13th, 2011 // No Comments » // Entertainment, Technology, Thoughts

Netflix is upping their prices, presenting new plan options.

I understand the need for companies to increase revenue to stay effective and profitable.

However, I have one big beef with the recent Netflix price hikes.  The timing is rather suspect.  I know from chatter on the net, and from my own social circles that a lot of people have been high tailing it from their expensive cable providers for more cost effective services like Netflix.  I am one of them.

Plus, ironically, the past three days (at least in my neck of the woods) have revealed serious latency issues with Netflix’ service.  Screens loading slowly, movies taking three times longer to buffer, etc, etc.

I saved hundreds a year making the move to having my XBox be the primary source of video entertainment.  It helps with day care, my son’s illness, and living in general.

So, when I receive an email that states there is to be a 30% price hike to my subscription, I got a little perturbed.  Yes it’s only a few bucks, but then so is a shift from $3 for a gallon of milk to $7.

I may be making a mountain out of a mole hill but all the different events unfolding concurrently puts a sour taste in my mouth.  The reliance of people shifting to Netflix from cable being just one factor.  It comes across as profiteering.  That may be a bold claim, but the basic evidence gestures that way.  As it stands, I probably will drop the disc mailing service, but I really don’t want to.

Evil Dead 4

// July 12th, 2011 // No Comments » // Entertainment, Filmmaking, Thoughts

Excellent…

http://www.sfx.co.uk/2011/07/12/evil-dead-4-on-the-way-confirms-bruce-campbell/

Men Women and Decisions

// July 8th, 2011 // No Comments » // Thoughts

My day to day life has me interacting with people of all types. Introverts, extroverts, feelers, thinkers. Some of them come across as confident, regardless of their “type”. Some of them are overly shy. If I were to babble on about the different personality types, I would bore both my reader and myself.

One thing that everyone shares and is required to do every single day of the week: making decisions. Whether it’s what you’re eating for breakfast or laying off an employee, this is a necessary skill at least on some level, for everyone that breathes on this whole planet.

Why is it then that the trend I observe is a non-committal stance from certain individuals based on, oh I don’t even know, feelings?  I don’t “feel” like doing this or that.  I don’t want to hurt a person’s “feelings”.  When faced with a decision, especially simple ones, where is the wishy washy attitude stemming from?  With my wife for instance, I know it is the desire to please me.  I do the same thing with her at times.  However, why is it necessary for this type of attitude in the work place?  Folks will dance around a decision and never commit to one avenue or another because of some deep concern about other people’s feelings.

I guess in short, I’m becoming increasingly sick of political correctness.  That may be the core of the issue.  My advice would be to put on your business hat, look at your possibilities and choose one.  Plus, have reasoning ready as a response to questions about your decision!  Your subordinates would think more of you when they ask why and you have an answer instead of “because!” or “We can’t make soandso mad!”.

Two things businesses of all types need… communication and some level of transparency.

But, that’s another post.

Google Plus First Impressions

// July 8th, 2011 // No Comments » // Technology, Thoughts

I received an invite to Google’s new social networking site, Google Plus.

At first, the interface really resembles Facebook.  Your profile pic is on the top left, the “Stream” is in the center, where you receive updates from friends.  On the right are widgets which contain various items.  Friends list, recommendations, etc.

Of course right now the service is tremendously responsive, considering that it is not public yet.  Like with other social network sites, you can post pictures, links, status updates and such.  What really stood out at first was the “Circles” feature.  It is honestly a little bit like Facebook groups, with a key difference.

“Circles” are always there, in your face.  When you post a new update, when you’re adding friends and when you’re manipulating your friends list.  You start off with 4 circles.  Friends, family, acquaintances and following (which is a little Twitter-esque).  Moving a person from one circle to the next is as simple as drag/drop.

I’ll comment more as I dig through the site.

Space Shuttle Atlantis Launches

// July 8th, 2011 // No Comments » // Science, Technology, Thoughts

Successful launch, up and away in the final flight of the current space program.  Momentous.

Sorry, Losing Weight was Easy for Me.

// July 6th, 2011 // No Comments » // Science, Thoughts

It has been about three months now since my wife broke her toe.  Before then, we’d been on a diet/exercise program and loss well over 10% of our body weight in the matter of about 2(ish) months.

We used Live Strong.  Their dieting program, Daily Plate, is a free nutrition tracker and (like some other companies) has a gamut of foods in its database.  Their system would track calories of course, but also protein/carb/fat ratio, sodium intake vs. daily requirements. etc.  Most importantly, it’s free!

Just input your intake on a meal-time basis, and input whatever exercise you do and it will give you a calculation versus your allowed maximum caloric input per day.  It is simple, under the caloric intake meant you were burning more than you  consumed.  Over the intake meant you would be burning less than you consumed.  I must give props to them for simplicity of use.  They have an iPhone app too, both free and paid depending on your desire for ads or not.

And by the way. small meals in between large ones kept me from ever getting very hungry and I tell ya, an egg white or two, usually boiled, right before bed really did the trick for night hunger.

(They also had badges that were a fun stroke to my competitive ego.  Things like consecutive diet days, consecutive exercise days)

So, three months later now, I’ve gained most of the weight back.  I really was dieting to do it coinciding with her personal goals, so she had a buddy to go along with, but I was happy with the results too.  We’re talking about getting back into the diet again recently and I’m really struggling psychologically with it.  I know living life at a healthy weight is, well, healthy.  However, the ease at which I lost pounds by simply monitoring my caloric intake and caloric exercise burn and undercutting the total by ~400 calories a day makes me reluctant to commit to a specific time frame.  If I want to lose 8 pounds by November, I need about 4 weeks.  I’ll start in October!

So as many scoffs as I might get regarding weight management, it really is a matter of self discipline.  Pick a program and stick to it.  Don’t worry about carb only or protein only diets, or metabolic spike diets, or <insert fad> diets.  Just be vigilant.

Try it once like that and when you see that it can work (don’t cheat and try to lie to yourself too), you’ll realize that weight management is a matter of fried vs baked and pop vs. water.