As happened last year, we went to Cousin S’s birthday party which included a bounce house. Also like last year, B and I went into the bounce house to have some fun with the kids. Finally, like last year, one of us refused to pose for a bouncing photo. Can you guess who it was?
Was it me?
Or was it B?
Click to enlarge and see just what she’s doing with her finger.
I love science. NHL does too. So when I heard about James Lu Dunbar and his The Universe Verse series, I just had to check out his work. I’ve heard it compared to a mixture of Carl Sagan and Dr. Seuss. This is a very apt comparison.
I read the first of the series, Bang!, to NHL and JSL. The book starts out before the Big Bang. They describe the tiny speck that the Universe began as and then the tremendous explosion of the Big Bang. The book covers energy cooling into matter, the formation of the basic forces (such as gravity) that dictate how matter behaves. It goes on to describe the first atoms, how they gathered together into stars and finally how some of those stars became supernovas.
All along the way, the narration rhymes in a manner that would make the Cat in the Hat proud minus made up words. All of the weird looking words here are actually scientific terms and are used validly. This is a book that could be used by high school physics students. It really takes difficult to understand terms and simplifies them without losing any of the wonder of it all.
Of course, considering the weighty subject matter, reading this to a 4 year old and an 8 year old was a risky proposition. JSL was a bit bored by it, but I didn’t really think he’d enjoy it. Honestly, the only reason he listened in was because NHL and I were reading it and he didn’t want to be left out.
NHL, my science geek-in-training, loved it. He definitely didn’t understood all of the physics that was described, but I really didn’t think he would. What he did understand, though, was that this was an extremely entertaining story of how the Universe was formed.
The second book in the series is called “It’s Alive!” After a quick rehash of how the Universe was formed, condensed to a mere 3 pages, the book discusses planet formation, the beginnings of life, Evolution, biology, DNA, the food chain and more. Unlike the first book, this one is in full color. (Bang! was in black and white.)
I initially planned on reading this to NHL, but changed my mind. My concern wasn’t about him not liking the book, but for brief references to sex. Mind you, these are done within the context of evolution and genes combining. There is absolutely titillating about the presentation. Still, the word was there and I didn’t want my 8 year old asking questions I wasn’t ready to answer just yet. Here’s the panel in question. I’ll leave it up to you whether or not you’d show this to a third grader.
There’s still one book that hasn’t been released yet. After reading the first two, I eagerly await James’ final book of the trilogy. Reading his blog, it appears that this will cover (in part), agriculture and civilization forming. If the quality of the third book is as good as the first two, this will be one set that every classroom should have.
The two currently released books in the Universe Verse series can be purchased for $12.95 for the first book and $15.95 for the second. You can also e-mail him and he’ll send you the PDFs for free. These will definitely be eBooks that I’ll keep and go over with NHL and JSL as they get older. I’ll even re-read them myself just for the pure fun of it.
Disclaimer: I received the first two books for free as PDFs, however, as mentioned above, anyone can do this. No review was required and all opinions expressed above are my own.
A couple of months ago, there was an uproar over Netflix pricing. Netflix decided that they needed to separate their DVD and Streaming offerings. Thus, people would need to pay for each plan separately. The net effect for most people, though was a price increase up to 60%.
Needless to say, folks were *NOT* happy. Many people talked about cancelling one of their plans or leaving Netflix entirely. In fact, the loss was projected to hit one million users. It didn’t help when they announced that they’d lose the Starz titles on streaming.
I myself toyed with cancelling. We love both their streaming service and their DVD-by-mail service, but it was just going to be too much money. Still, I couldn’t give up access to that many titles. Plus, there was another issue.
I heard rumblings that the Streaming Only plan was limited to one stream. I contacted Netflix about the limit and they confirmed this. They added that I could get more streams by paying for DVD plans. 2 DVDs-At-A-Time got me 2 streams. 3 DVDs would get me 3 streams and so on. I questioned how this gelled with the claim of separating the DVD and Streaming offerings and didn’t get a clear answer. (Just a “we’ll ask our manager and get back to you” that never materialized.)
I figured that perhaps this was an “on paper only” limit that wasn’t enforced. This hope was bolstered by reports from my Twitter followers that they had watched much more than 2 streams at the same time despite being on Streaming Only. Then, it looked like Netflix decided to enforce the restriction. They claimed that users weren’t restricted, but people kept seeing errors when they tried to view more than 1 stream.
Clearly, things were not heading well for Netflix. They had shot themselves in the foot and were bleeding profusely. It was time for quick and decisive action. In a blog post, Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO of Netflix, apologized for the pricing snafu. At this point, I was ready to forgive him. He could have made it all better, addressed the problems, and I would have gone back to being an avid Netflix supporter. I might have even forgiven the price increase. Instead, he shot his other foot.
You see, Netflix is going to be dividing into two different companies. Netflix will handle all of the streaming services. Meanwhile, a new company called Qwikster will handle the DVD-By-Mail services. This makes no sense for a few reasons:
Queues Will Be Separate
Currently, if you want to find a movie to watch, you load up Netflix, type in the title’s name and you can see whether it’s available via streaming or whether you need to add the DVD to your queue. Once the split occurs, you’ll have to log into your Netflix account to check whether it is available via streaming. If it isn’t, you’ll have to log into your Qwikster account to add the DVD to the queue. This is two separate searches that used to be one search. Customers don’t like having more work added to perform simple functions.
User Accounts Will Be Separate
Since they will be separate companies, billing and account information will be separate. Need to update your credit card number? You can’t just sign into Netflix and do it there. Now you need to sign into Qwikster as well. Like before, more work = unhappy customers.
Bad Social Media Planning
As Gizmodo points out, Netflix doesn’t own the @Qwikster name on Twitter. This would be a problem if it was just some average person. Unfortunately, the person who owns it is a “foulmouthed pothead” (Gizmodo’s words). Netflix now must either pay the guy a lot of money to get the Twitter handle or get another handle and deal with constant confusion caused by someone who was there first. This could have been solved by a free search on Namechk.com or any other similar service. You don’t announce a service until you have all of your ducks in a row.
Where Do We Go From Here?
So what am I going to do? Well, it really pains me to cancel the DVD-by-mail, but I think that’s what I’m going to do. I don’t want to. I really value the service. However, at every turn, it seems Netflix is trying to tell me that they intend on making it harder for me to be a customer.
So focusing on just the streaming, I have two main questions for Netflix going forward. First of all, will the streaming limit still be in place? If my kids are watching a streaming movie on the Roku in the living room, will my wife and I be unable to stream to our bedroom Roku? Will additional streams be available as a purchased add-on? If so, how much will they cost?
In addition, the blog post claims that more streaming selection is on the way. Honestly, I won’t mourn the Starz loss that much. I went to look at the Starz content and the first 10 pages or so only revealed a handful of movies I’d like to see. If Starz is demanding tons of money for a poor selection of content, then Netflix was right to ditch them. The problem will be what they do with the saved money and how they negotiate for streaming rights.
You see, in the past, Netflix has used their DVD rentals as leverage. They agreed to withhold DVD rentals for 30 days in return for lower DVD prices and more streaming selection. With the offerings separate, though, they can’t do this. They will need to negotiate for streaming offerings on their own. If history is any guide, the studios won’t want to play ball. In their mind, streaming reduces DVD sales. (Never mind that I would have either rented or done without all titles I saw via Netflix.)
If this separation is for real, they’ve weakened their studio negotiating position. If Quikster-Netflix will still negotiate as one unit with studios then this split is purely a matter of making customer’s lives harder.
Either way, it’s a bad move by Netflix. Now they have two feet bleeding. They need to act fast because they have little time to turn this around. I’m not sure they can, to be honest, but to have any chance, they need to start making intelligent, customer-friendly decisions and FAST!
Arrr, me hearties. Today be Talk Like a Pirate Day. We be big Disney fans and me boyos love that scurvy scallywag
Captain Hook.
The little landlubbers also love Jake and the Neverland
Pirates, I thought this be quite appropriate.
Especially because me boyos
met Sharky and Bones at Disney Social Media Moms Celebration.
So pepper ye speech with “arrrr’s” and “avast’s” me hearties. Shiver me timbers!
As I mentioned yesterday, I tend to avoid getting medical attention for myself. It isn’t a macho “I don’t need no stinkin’ doctors” kind of thing. Instead, it’s more of a “I need to do all this stuff for everyone else, how can I take time out to see the doctor/take medicine?” Sometimes it’s also a “We have so many expenses, how can I spend more money at the doctor’s for me?” thing. If it’s something serious like antibiotics, I’ll take my medicine on time and if I have a fever, I have no problem going to the doctor. It’s the little things (insect bites, allergies, nose bleeds) that I avoid seeing a doctor about or taking medicine for.
My Aloha Friday question for today is: Do you avoid seeing the doctor or taking medicine because you are too busy doing things for other people or to try to save money?
Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.
Aloha #105
