christian ross

Netflix, behind the scenes

We have been Netflix customers for a while now and have no complaints about the service whatsoever. The wife and I have discussed it before noting that package design and the timeliness of each order must be due to the fact that they are automated in some way or another. Boy was I off.

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2007/08/23/netflix/

46 warehouses with approximately 50 employees in each. At an average of 700 DVD’s an hour the sum total of DVD’s sorted and delivered daily is about 1.6 million. Wow. I’m not all for cutting those jobs but surely someone could help them with a better system.

Slightly related:

The Netflix DVD sorter/re-packager job reminds me slightly of a story my buddy Rob told me a while ago.

When he was a kid, he moved to a small Texas town and attempted to make friends. On one occasion he asked a local boy what his father did and the response was something along the following…

Rob: What does your dad do?
Kid: You know how some nails are silver?
Rob: Yeah
Kid: Well, you know how some nails are gold?
Rob: Yeah
Kid: My dad paints the silver ones gold

Umm, as much as I hate having students loans still, I am slightly thankful for them just in the fact that I’m not painting nails for a living.

IE8 to be officially released today

Thought it won’t be pushed to auto updates right away, you can get your copy from Microsoft’s site around Noon EST.

Here’s to hoping I get the opportunity to bad-mouth it far less than I have for their last two versions.

It is now time for IE6 to go away forever. Hear that corporate America? That’s death knocking on your technological door.

Even with all the hoopla of a new browser, I can confirm that you will always browse happier running a certain open-source web viewer.

Random links to start your Friday

Bora Bora
A few more articles/pictures like this and you can kiss my American-rear goodbye: http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-trw-borabora,0,5854436.special

Daft Punk
It’s like Dance Dance Revolution for your fingers: http://www.najle.com/idaft/. Couple it with the YouTube hands version of the song and you can not only impress your friends but also build dexterity.

Gowalla
iPhone owners, sign up for and play Gowalla. It was created by a local shop here in town called Alamofire who incidentally also launched a pretty new website (and stole my idea for page scrolling) this week and also happen to have a dotcomrade of mine on staff. If you have facebook, they also made a game called PackRat. Apparently it was big and fun.

Google Voice
Only available to those who made the beta of Grand Central (unfortunately, not me) right now, Google is rolling out a new feature that will have both Skype and your local phone company banging their heads on their respective desks. Voicemail, central numbers that all forward to, Voicemail transcribed to your email inbox and text messaging are just a few of the features they boast. World domination to continue.

GE Augments Reality

Have a webcam? Prepare to be amazed.

Watch and the give it a test at plugintotheSmartGrid.com from GE. Unreal.

TV on the iPhone

With Apple and Adobe’s dispute over getting Flash to play on the iPhone always in full-force, it’s nice to see that somebody is smart enough to get video onto the iPhone in a different direction.

Just announced this morning is a free app from CBS called TV.com. While it is still only CBS (the only thing worth watching on the eye network is Letterman) it is step in the right direction offering a number of shows from several of their networks.

Fingers crossed that NBC/Fox are working on a Hulu option.

(via Gizmodo)

My former church home is going viral

This is the church that – when I decided to get out of bed in college – I attend on a semi-regular basis. Funny thing is, I consider them one of the most conservative churches in their area. Pretty surprising to see them using social media like Youtube to promote.

TED Talks – David Merrill: Siftables

A pretty sweet new way of interfacing with computers and technology from MIT Grad Student David Merrill. He’s smart.

(via Tacia Aspen)

Nerd post

Every now and then I have to out myself as a computer nerd. My excitement of the following solidifies my status for another week or two. We just moved from our satellite dish to Verizon for TV to combine both our Internet and TV on FiOS. Along with saving $70/month over our previous setup, they also upped my bandwidth for Internet access as well.

A quick screen-grab of my most recent speed test on it:

For those out of the nerd-know, its REALLY fast.