Richard Linklater

Available: Bernie, The Newton Boys, School of Rock
Missing: Boyhood, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight, Dazed and Confused, A Scanner Darkly, Waking Life

I'm certain I've streamed Dazed and Confused and A Scanner Darkly.

I think movies come and go on Netflix. There one minute, gone the next and then back again months later.

For example, there's Bunraku, a chop socky flick. I watched it, recommended it to some friends who found that it was gone. The Aviator and Fargo were DVD only and then they were both on streaming.

I just hope Netflix doesn't completely blow up their back catalog stuff. As a film buff, it's one of the main reasons I keep the subscription. Of course, I have the DVD package as well, so I can get most stuff. I love streaming, but it's not the end of the world to have to wait for a DVD of a Jodorowsky film, considering there was a time I'd have to order it on 16mm from Criterion in order to see it.

[update: I just noticed that Netflix has taken down all the Jodorowsky movies. Those fuckers. I hope someone realizes there's room in the market for a streaming service that's modeled on the old fashioned independent video rental store.]

And what if my website isn't intended for a mobile audience at all? I'll readily admit I'm stuck 10 years in the past with my web design, but a few of my sites are intentionally not built for mobile because the content they have is not intended for mobile and if you told me you're using your phone to access the site, I'd get a puzzled look and say "but why?".

Can I set a "X-intentionally-not-designed-for-mobile: true" header?

I watched this some days ago (/. isn't the place to read things first anymore) and came away half impressed and half underwhelmed.

The speech recognition part is nice, and that's understating it a lot given the complexity of the topic. That for a demo they'd use examples they made sure work nicely is a goven. That it can understand fairly complex, disorganized questions is really cute. No, seriously, on this I am impressed.

But it is clearly still very far from human. It lands smack middle in the uncanny valley. It becomes incredibly clear when it talks about population numbers and lists them down to the last digit. Not only is that typical computer-ish, it's also vastly less useful than a human who would tell you "about 80 million".

When I ask my personal assistant device how long it'll take to get to city X, I'm not interested in an answer that says "3 hours, 57 minutes, 48 seconds". I want to hear "4 hours", because we humans understand it's an estimate anyways and a few minutes more or less doesn't matter anyways.

Then again, when I'm building a bomb and ask my phone for the recipe, I'd like to have exact numbers. Again, a human would understand that in this situation, "about 200 grams" is not an ok answer.

This intelligence is still missing, and it's crucial.

They just round 2.2 pounds to 2 which makes the math easier in that chemical induced haze.

People get testy about changes. If a politician pushes a change and the majority don't like it then he's not getting elected. I don't know why they bother mentioning this because it's got as much chance as an ice cube in hell and so does the jackass proposing it. I, personally am okay with the change as I can do the conversions fine and I lived in Spain and Germany for a total of about 4 and a half years. On the other hand I don't care if they don't change it either as I don't see any real benefit. Ambivalent I am.

Well sure, there's England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, and Australia.

She didn't get her cut.

Apparently, the head of a company that produces Canadian TV is butthurt about the fact that Canadians will go to extra inconvenience to avoid being stuck with her product and gain access to the US market. Intellectually dishonest and largely nonsensical argument; but the motives are clear enough.

She is going to need a downright brilliant propaganda team to convince anyone that paying for netflix is 'stealing'; just because she doesn't like it.

There's really not much difference between using a VPN to gain access to US electronic markets and using a car to gain access to US malls. Is it 'stealing' when a Canadian drives across the border and buys something in the US? Even by the standards of self-interested bullshit from incumbent monopolist assholes, this is unimpressive work.

The average American has very little to any interaction with anyone outside the US at all

(not counting tech support calls)

And that's what hobbles US products in the rest of the world.

I know, right? Nobody buys American products in the rest of the world.

Hell, last year, the US only shipped $1.623 trillion worth of goods around the globe, including over $219billion in machines, engines and pumps and $172billion in electronic equipment. And $135billion in vehicles. And $125billion in aircraft and spacecraft.

If we'd only adopt the metric system, we might sell some stuff.

The US is already metric. It was the second country after France to adopt the metric system in the 19th century

Of course it is. Just try to buy a 400mm lens by calling it a "15.748 inch lens" and see what the guy at the camera store says.

Personally, I don't understand why people have browser history turned on at all. I build a lot of computers for people (by happenstance it's a hobby) I build a dozen or so per year. The FIRST thing I do after the first boot is install Firefox (my preference), permanently turn off browsing history, install AdBlock+, install HTTPS Anywhere, then launch Windows update and go watch a movie.

I've never seen history help anyone. But I've seen it cause all sorts of embarrassing accidents, fights with spouses, legal trouble, etc... Is there actually a use for it?

Just like most of the inhabitants of Europe don't understand that the USA is mind-boggingly huge and is only bordered by two countries.

And that football is played with helmets.

So is this the "Change we can believe in"?

And no, I'm not making fun on democrats. I'm making fun of anyone that thinks their party cares about them or their country at all.