Re: [FRIAM] perplexed by netflix
Four thumbs up for three idiots. It was very good movie for the Maker movement. On Apr 1, 2013 7:43 PM, Sarbajit Roy sroy...@gmail.com wrote: Dear Bruce If you liked 3 Idiots, you may enjoy its even better prequel - Munna Bhai MBBS. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374887/ Sarbajit On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 1:10 AM, Bruce Sherwood bruce.sherw...@gmail.comwrote: Despite all this, we experience a very low fraction of unreadable DVDs from Netflix. Presumably DVD players vary in their ability to deal with flaws. Also, more and more we along with everyone else streams when possible, so the DVDs we order are often the less popular kind and so have not had a lot of use. An example I'll recommend is the superb 3 Idiots, a fairly recent film from India that is just wonderful along many dimensions. Read the description somewhere. I've heard it's being remade in many countries including the US (the original is in Hindi with much admixture of English, but with excellent subtitles). It includes two of India's biggest stars, and they're terrific. Bruce On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 12:13 PM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote: One thing to consider is that as time goes on, the disc population 'ages' - probably discs are only replaced when they are completely broken, or enough people complain. -Arlo James Barnes I think there may be a little more going on than this. It feels like a soft tragedy of the commons. Disc-based Netflix is going on at least 8 years old now, it seems unlikely that the halflife of discs being shipped around and handled by random people is more than months, rather than years. I think the *only* way discs get retired is if they are reported nonfunctional by a customer. I don't think there is anything more than casual inspection happening at the remailing centers (our closest may be ABQ?). It seems likely that something more subtle (or blunt?) is going on. Perhaps many people are depending mostly on streaming movies (as we are) and many may not bother to report a bad disc and simply return it in frustration. A positive feedback loop could emerge with the more bad discs they find, the more likely they will just send the movie back without watching. Another aggravator may be if the remailing centers have changed their inspection and possible automatic cleaning policy. I would imagine that they might have a process for very simply cleaning the DVDs when they come in or before they ship out. It seems likely that the tragedy of the commons may be a hard one to resolve. - Steve ==**== FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/**listinfo/friam_redfish.comhttp://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] perplexed by netflix
That's amusing, Cody. There certainly was a lot of clever extemporaneous mechanical and electrical innovation in the film. Bruce On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 8:33 PM, cody dooderson d00d3r...@gmail.com wrote: Four thumbs up for three idiots. It was very good movie for the Maker movement. On Apr 1, 2013 7:43 PM, Sarbajit Roy sroy...@gmail.com wrote: Dear Bruce If you liked 3 Idiots, you may enjoy its even better prequel - Munna Bhai MBBS. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374887/ Sarbajit On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 1:10 AM, Bruce Sherwood bruce.sherw...@gmail.comwrote: Despite all this, we experience a very low fraction of unreadable DVDs from Netflix. Presumably DVD players vary in their ability to deal with flaws. Also, more and more we along with everyone else streams when possible, so the DVDs we order are often the less popular kind and so have not had a lot of use. An example I'll recommend is the superb 3 Idiots, a fairly recent film from India that is just wonderful along many dimensions. Read the description somewhere. I've heard it's being remade in many countries including the US (the original is in Hindi with much admixture of English, but with excellent subtitles). It includes two of India's biggest stars, and they're terrific. Bruce On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 12:13 PM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote: One thing to consider is that as time goes on, the disc population 'ages' - probably discs are only replaced when they are completely broken, or enough people complain. -Arlo James Barnes I think there may be a little more going on than this. It feels like a soft tragedy of the commons. Disc-based Netflix is going on at least 8 years old now, it seems unlikely that the halflife of discs being shipped around and handled by random people is more than months, rather than years. I think the *only* way discs get retired is if they are reported nonfunctional by a customer. I don't think there is anything more than casual inspection happening at the remailing centers (our closest may be ABQ?). It seems likely that something more subtle (or blunt?) is going on. Perhaps many people are depending mostly on streaming movies (as we are) and many may not bother to report a bad disc and simply return it in frustration. A positive feedback loop could emerge with the more bad discs they find, the more likely they will just send the movie back without watching. Another aggravator may be if the remailing centers have changed their inspection and possible automatic cleaning policy. I would imagine that they might have a process for very simply cleaning the DVDs when they come in or before they ship out. It seems likely that the tragedy of the commons may be a hard one to resolve. - Steve ==**== FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/**listinfo/friam_redfish.comhttp://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] perplexed by netflix
One thing to consider is that as time goes on, the disc population 'ages' - probably discs are only replaced when they are completely broken, or enough people complain. -Arlo James Barnes FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] perplexed by netflix
One thing to consider is that as time goes on, the disc population 'ages' - probably discs are only replaced when they are completely broken, or enough people complain. -Arlo James Barnes I think there may be a little more going on than this. It feels like a soft tragedy of the commons. Disc-based Netflix is going on at least 8 years old now, it seems unlikely that the halflife of discs being shipped around and handled by random people is more than months, rather than years. I think the *only* way discs get retired is if they are reported nonfunctional by a customer. I don't think there is anything more than casual inspection happening at the remailing centers (our closest may be ABQ?). It seems likely that something more subtle (or blunt?) is going on. Perhaps many people are depending mostly on streaming movies (as we are) and many may not bother to report a bad disc and simply return it in frustration. A positive feedback loop could emerge with the more bad discs they find, the more likely they will just send the movie back without watching. Another aggravator may be if the remailing centers have changed their inspection and possible automatic cleaning policy. I would imagine that they might have a process for very simply cleaning the DVDs when they come in or before they ship out. It seems likely that the tragedy of the commons may be a hard one to resolve. - Steve FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] perplexed by netflix
Despite all this, we experience a very low fraction of unreadable DVDs from Netflix. Presumably DVD players vary in their ability to deal with flaws. Also, more and more we along with everyone else streams when possible, so the DVDs we order are often the less popular kind and so have not had a lot of use. An example I'll recommend is the superb 3 Idiots, a fairly recent film from India that is just wonderful along many dimensions. Read the description somewhere. I've heard it's being remade in many countries including the US (the original is in Hindi with much admixture of English, but with excellent subtitles). It includes two of India's biggest stars, and they're terrific. Bruce On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 12:13 PM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote: One thing to consider is that as time goes on, the disc population 'ages' - probably discs are only replaced when they are completely broken, or enough people complain. -Arlo James Barnes I think there may be a little more going on than this. It feels like a soft tragedy of the commons. Disc-based Netflix is going on at least 8 years old now, it seems unlikely that the halflife of discs being shipped around and handled by random people is more than months, rather than years. I think the *only* way discs get retired is if they are reported nonfunctional by a customer. I don't think there is anything more than casual inspection happening at the remailing centers (our closest may be ABQ?). It seems likely that something more subtle (or blunt?) is going on. Perhaps many people are depending mostly on streaming movies (as we are) and many may not bother to report a bad disc and simply return it in frustration. A positive feedback loop could emerge with the more bad discs they find, the more likely they will just send the movie back without watching. Another aggravator may be if the remailing centers have changed their inspection and possible automatic cleaning policy. I would imagine that they might have a process for very simply cleaning the DVDs when they come in or before they ship out. It seems likely that the tragedy of the commons may be a hard one to resolve. - Steve ==**== FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/**listinfo/friam_redfish.comhttp://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] perplexed by netflix
Dear Bruce If you liked 3 Idiots, you may enjoy its even better prequel - Munna Bhai MBBS. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374887/ Sarbajit On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 1:10 AM, Bruce Sherwood bruce.sherw...@gmail.comwrote: Despite all this, we experience a very low fraction of unreadable DVDs from Netflix. Presumably DVD players vary in their ability to deal with flaws. Also, more and more we along with everyone else streams when possible, so the DVDs we order are often the less popular kind and so have not had a lot of use. An example I'll recommend is the superb 3 Idiots, a fairly recent film from India that is just wonderful along many dimensions. Read the description somewhere. I've heard it's being remade in many countries including the US (the original is in Hindi with much admixture of English, but with excellent subtitles). It includes two of India's biggest stars, and they're terrific. Bruce On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 12:13 PM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote: One thing to consider is that as time goes on, the disc population 'ages' - probably discs are only replaced when they are completely broken, or enough people complain. -Arlo James Barnes I think there may be a little more going on than this. It feels like a soft tragedy of the commons. Disc-based Netflix is going on at least 8 years old now, it seems unlikely that the halflife of discs being shipped around and handled by random people is more than months, rather than years. I think the *only* way discs get retired is if they are reported nonfunctional by a customer. I don't think there is anything more than casual inspection happening at the remailing centers (our closest may be ABQ?). It seems likely that something more subtle (or blunt?) is going on. Perhaps many people are depending mostly on streaming movies (as we are) and many may not bother to report a bad disc and simply return it in frustration. A positive feedback loop could emerge with the more bad discs they find, the more likely they will just send the movie back without watching. Another aggravator may be if the remailing centers have changed their inspection and possible automatic cleaning policy. I would imagine that they might have a process for very simply cleaning the DVDs when they come in or before they ship out. It seems likely that the tragedy of the commons may be a hard one to resolve. - Steve ==**== FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/**listinfo/friam_redfish.comhttp://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
[FRIAM] perplexed by netflix
Recently I thought I'd re-try out the DVD rental system of netflix: Last time I had it all the DVDs I got would play just fine. This time around of the 8 DVDs I've gotten so far only one played without any issues. It took a bit of digging to get a email adress they have several a dvddstribute and info that looked promising. Did something change in the last year since I last had DVD rentals as part of my netflix plan? FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] perplexed by netflix
Gil - My wife and I reduced from 3 to 1 about a year ago since we were using streaming for most of our watching. We don't watch as many DVDs as we used to, so it is hard for me to be sure. My instinct is that the incidence of problems with DVDs *IS* higher than ever since we joined in 2005. On the other hand it is like 1 in 8 with a problem not the other way around. I'm not sure what device you are watching them with, have you trie dmore than one? Our Macbook Pro SuperDrives are very touchy. I also have a bottle of Cleaner and Conditioner that seems to both do a good job of cleaning surface problems but also filling small scratches. The disks we have had problems with have had obvious problems like a crack or a deep gouge. Hope this helps. - Steve Recently I thought I'd re-try out the DVD rental system of netflix: Last time I had it all the DVDs I got would play just fine. This time around of the 8 DVDs I've gotten so far only one played without any issues. It took a bit of digging to get a email adress they have several a dvddstribute and info that looked promising. Did something change in the last year since I last had DVD rentals as part of my netflix plan? FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] perplexed by netflix
We're still all DVD and all Blue Ray. We get maybe 1 in 10 with a problem, usually a scratch. One potential issue may be an old DVD player. New features on DVDs can require at least a software upgrade to the player. Ed __ Ed Angel Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab) Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico 1017 Sierra Pinon Santa Fe, NM 87501 505-984-0136 (home) an...@cs.unm.edu 505-453-4944 (cell) http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel On Mar 30, 2013, at 9:53 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: Our current fail rate is 1 in 3, so we switched to digital only. On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 6:43 PM, Gillian Densmore gil.densm...@gmail.com wrote: Recently I thought I'd re-try out the DVD rental system of netflix: Last time I had it all the DVDs I got would play just fine. This time around of the 8 DVDs I've gotten so far only one played without any issues. It took a bit of digging to get a email adress they have several a dvddstribute and info that looked promising. Did something change in the last year since I last had DVD rentals as part of my netflix plan? FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
