Everybody Staze...

Nobody leavz...

You are here: Home / Archives for 2011

Archives for 2011

Steve Jobs

By

While the web is filled with memorials, testimonials, quotes, etc about Steve’s passing, I figured it only appropriate that I say something… since while I am a System Administrator by profession, I am a Mac user by lifestyle. From the computers I’ve used at home since I was 5, to the servers I work with today, I work with Apple hardware. I’ve always loved Apple hardware, even when they made rather uninspiring devices during period between Steve Jobs’ leaving, then returning to Apple. I wouldn’t call myself a cultist, but I would call myself a skeptical believer. Apple has made some missteps in my mind (killing the Xserve, the rather drastic changes in 10.7 server, etc), but I do believe that what they do they do because they truly believe “this is how it should be”. It’s not just a “this will make us money” or anything like that. Steve, and Apple, both thought they were taking something that was imperfect, and bringing it closer to perfection. And he realized that perfection was out there, somewhere just beyond reach, so you had Apple products that evolved from generation to generation.

What hit me yesterday was that Steve basically bookended his career with the birth, and the (arguably) death of the personal computer. The Apple I/II, and the Macintosh were largely the birth of the real personal computer, and with the release of iOS 5, you have an iPhone, iPad that can be used PC free, which some argue has brought about the end of the PC era. I’m not sure if I agree with that, but it certainly is a step toward the lifestyle where we may have an actual computer at home, or work, but day to day, our lives will largely be played out on phones, tablets, etc. This is already the case for most of us, and will only become more so for others as time passes.

[Read more…]

Netflix

By

A lot has been going on at Netflix as of late. First they raise prices by up to 60% in some cases. Now, they’ve come out and said “oops, our bad, we raised prices because we’re splitting the company into two orgs, one for streaming (Netflix), and one for DVD-by-mail (Qwikster ((Let’s not even get into the fact that the name is an abomination of English))).

Excerpt from email sent to all Netflix subscribers:

For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn’t make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us). So we moved quickly into streaming, but I should have personally given you a full explanation of why we are splitting the services and thereby increasing prices. It wouldn’t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.

So here is what we are doing and why.

Many members love our DVD service, as I do, because nearly every movie ever made is published on DVD. DVD is a great option for those who want the huge and comprehensive selection of movies.

I also love our streaming service because it is integrated into my TV, and I can watch anytime I want. The benefits of our streaming service are really quite different from the benefits of DVD by mail. We need to focus on rapid improvement as streaming technology and the market evolves, without maintaining compatibility with our DVD by mail service.

So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are really becoming two different businesses, with very different cost structures, that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently.

It’s hard to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”. We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name “Netflix” for streaming.

[Read more…]

Two sets of tires

By

This is going to be a rather long post, so first, some backstory: We picked up our ’07 Prius Touring in December of 2006. It came stock with 16″ (P195/55R16) Bridgestone Turanza EL400 tires. As usual, stock OEM tires are generally low wearing (they’re cheaper, and they tend to be quieter). They lasted us about 26k miles. At that point (Sept 2008), we purchased Bridgestone Potenza G019 Grid’s, which was one of the few options available for the car at the time. There were no real low rolling resistance (LRR from here-on) available at that time. These were decent tires, for a while. We lost some MPGs with them, but that’s normal for new tires (new tires have higher rolling resistance than worn ones). What we didn’t expect was that they became exceedingly noisy (by the time we put 40k miles on them, they sounded like mudding tires on a truck). Turns out, they were cupping quite badly on the inside edge. Speaking with the local Firestone manager, he said it was pretty common with those tires, partly because they’re unidirectional (when you rotate them, you basically have to keep them on the same side of the car). But that should only explain one side cupping… all four were cupped significantly. Reading online, this seems to be a common complaint, so I’d imagine it’s something with the design.

Anyway, we just bought some real LRR tires to replace the Potenza’s (as the shop said they were getting near the end of their life, and the cupping noise was beyond bearable): Bridgestone Ecopia EP422’s (review of them in the coming months). And man oh man, are they sweet. The car feels like it’s floating, and it’s as silent as can be. Anyway, now that I’m done with the Potenzas, I figured I’d do some comparisons on mileage, and in a way, how rolling resistance really can matter.

[Read more…]