Author: Kent

Reader, writer, arithmeticer. Proprietor of Newsome.Org, a tech, music and life blog.

Why Netflix Needs to Rethink Its Programming Controls

I was going to comment on this via Twitter, but I couldn’t make my point in 140 characters, without looking like an extremist.  And that, I am not.  At least not when it comes to content accessibility.

I’m generally on the side of those who argue that most content should be made available, and that filters should occur on the individual level.  If content is filtered on the front end (e.g.,  by the people who control access to content), the choice is taken away from the individual.  Philosophically, that bothers me.  Plus, I have a much broader view of what is interesting than a lot of my friends.  I’m a Simpsons and Southpark fan, whereas many of my fuddy-duddy friends turn their noses up at those shows.

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But there are lines, and it looks like Netflix has stumbled over one.

Davis Freeberg reports that Netflix is streaming (e.g., allowing users to watch instantly) the Death Scenes movies.

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I’ve never seen these movies, and I’m not going to get into any detail about them.  But I am aware of them and what they contain.  Davis describes them:

For those not familiar with the Death Scenes series, it’s a collection of extremely graphic video clips that show the murder and execution of countless individuals.

Look, I’m not sure why anyone would want to watch this stuff.  But that’s not my point.  I view this sort of like smoking and barking dogs.  I don’t care if it happens, as long as it doesn’t affect me.  My issue is that Netflix has these films online and immediately available for any of its users to watch.

Let’s talk about porn.  We all know its out there.  People feel all kinds of different ways about it.  But one thing almost everyone agrees on is that it should not be available to anyone, at any time, at the press of a Play button.  Imagine the outrage if Netflix suddenly added hundreds of adult films, with no restrictions.  Didn’t some network get in trouble because of Janet Jackson’s one second boob shot?  Something else I don’t really want to see.

There is a nuance here, that needs to be explored.  When I say that I’m on the side of those who argue that most content should be made available and that I think certain content should be harder to access, I am being consistent, and pragmatic.  You generally have to jump though some protective hoops to access the sort of content that is deemed inappropriate for certain viewers.  It doesn’t mean you can’t see it.  It simply means that others don’t have to inadvertently see it.  It’s a reasonable balance.

There is no reason to treat these Death Scenes films any differently.  Surely, Netflix knows that kids are among its most passionate users.  The Death Scenes movies are inaccurately described as documentaries, and the info pages make them seem like horror films.  I can easily see how someone could begin watching these films without knowing what they are getting into.  I’d love to know what the Netflix folks were thinking when they made these films so easily accessible.  I think I know what a lot of their customers are going to think.  They’re going to think about whether Netflix is appropriate for their kids.

Netflix does offer some parental controls.

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But there are lots of problems with them.  One, the levels are not sufficient.  The Death Scenes movies are “Not Rated.”  I don’t know that any of the above levels would block them.  Maybe checking “R and below” would block them.  But what about acceptable movies and documentaries that are also not rated?  I don’t want to block a lot of acceptable stuff to avoid a little unacceptable stuff.  Plus, any filter you put in place applies to all viewers.  I’d be fine prohibiting some members of my household from watching R rated movies, but others would rightfully rebel.  I’m not going to change and then re-set filters every time someone wants to watch a movie.

Netflix needs to be more proactive in its programming choices, and more robust in its control options.

Calling All Mix Masters: Turntable.fm Rocks

Back in college, I was a DJ at one of the local bars.  It was a fun gig, and, at least in my selective memory, I had mad skills.  Mad skills, I tell ya!  I’d love to show my mix skills around the house, but my kids hate my Allman Brothers records about as much as I hated my parents’ lame Vic Damone LPs.

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Now, maybe I can find a willing crowd, thanks to Turntable.fm.  Turntable.fm lets you create shared listening rooms where you and your friends (or strangers, if you prefer) can take turns queuing up and playing songs.  You can search for songs already on the site (I had mixed results doing this, with some songs being incomplete) or you can upload your own.  The uploading process is fast and easy and, importantly, MP3 tags are recognized and processed accurately.  Once you upload songs, they remain in your playlist until you remove them.  There are limitations on how often artists can be played per hour, which indicates that the required licensing is in place.

I created the Rancho Room, dedicated to less known alt. country, southern rock, country rock, classic rock & whatever else sounds good.  Some old-timers will recall the original Rancho Room, a chat room I developed, circa 1995, where we had some hilarious times back in the day.  Anyone remember those collaborative stories we wrote?

The best way for social network fledglings to understand Turntable.fm is to imagine a shared, streaming radio station, with a rotating playlist created by the people in the room. I have no chance of getting enough friends in the room at the same time to create any kind of a real-time scene.  But what I – and hopefully others- can do is upload some good songs, play them for my own ears when I want to hear them, and maybe some other folks will stop by to listen.  If I can get a little traction, maybe some of my friends will create their own playlists and, who knows, if we happen to be listening at the same time, our songs will be meshed into a collaborative playlist.

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There’s a rating feature for songs, but I haven’t enticed anyone else to create a playlist yet, so I ‘m not sure how it works.  Once I get some of you onboard, we’ll try it out.

You can share your DJ status to Facebook or Twitter with a click of a button.

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I’ve tried a lot of socially oriented music apps, and some of them are fun.  But I haven’t seen any others with as much “fun” potential as Turntable.fm.  In a universe of half-baked ideas tossed haphazardly into the social networking space, I think Turntable.fm is really onto something.  I like this app.  A lot.

At the end of the day, the Turntable.fm experience probably depends on your ability (or lack thereof) to get a core group of users to populate your room.  You can probably solve this hurdle by creating a public room.  I’m hoping to limit my room to people who enjoy the same sort of music I do, so the Rancho Room is unlisted for now (fear not, you are invited).  I know a lot of people who love the same music I do.  Can I get them to try the service?  That’s a good question.  At least there’s no way it will end as badly as my 2005 Flickr experiment did.

One thing I don’t like is that users have to sign up and in before they can visit a room.  That seems like an unnecessary hurdle to growth.  Sure, people should have to sign up to create a room, and maybe to DJ, but folks should have the ability to visit without signing up.  An easy way to handle this would be to allow a limited number of “guest” listeners per room.  I also don’t like the degree to which the service is tied to Facebook.  If you have a Facebook Friend who uses the service, you’re in.  But what if I want to invite a (lower case) friend who isn’t on Facebook?  Does that work?  I could make this app rock, but these limitations make it harder than it should be.

So.  Do you like alt. country, southern rock, country rock and/or classic rock?  If so, come on in and take a listen.  If you like what I’m trying to do, drop me an email or Facebook message, and I’ll send you a DJ link (I have to have an email address to invite you to DJ, unless we are Facebook Friends).

Here’s my playlist, so far.

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As a songwriter, tech blogger and music fan, Turntable.fm lies at the crossroads of my interests.  I’m pretty excited about it.

Come on in, and take a listen.

GoodSongs: New Robert Bobby Record

I don’t have many rules, but one of them is that whenever Robert Bobby does a new record, I’ll review it.  I can’t overstate how much I like some of his work.  Most particularly Genuine Queen of Milwaukee.

10 or so years later, this is still one of my favorite songs.  The line “you ought to see her Adam’s apple, man dance” [Robert tells me I had that last word wrong] is one of the best ever put to music.

Enough about that.  Just one day after Genuine Queen was among the first songs I added to my Turntable.fm listening room (look for a full review of Turntable.fm tomorrow), I got a review copy of Robert’s brand new record, with The Robert Bobby Trio.   A Brief History of Time is available now at CD Baby.  You can buy a CD or download MP3s immediately.  And you should, because this is a really good record.

A Brief History of Time is not as country-ish as my favorite Robert Bobby songs, but it is full of good Americana and acoustic blues music.  It has been described as “a perfect blend of singer-songwriter, folk, Americana & blues!  Like John Prine only cheaper!”  That’s not a bad description.  A Brief History of Time, the title track, sounds like good Prine in his prime.

This record was recorded live in the studio, which gives it a more immediate sound, with some of the energy of a live performance.  It’s all about the picking and playing.  Bill Nork’s dobro and mandolin tracks are uniformly excellent.  Robert’s guitar work is stellar and Robert’s wife, who plays a mean bass, demonstrates that Robert is not the only musician in the family.

Wild About My Loving would have fit right into a Townes Van Zandt & Guy Clark set list.  Great guitar and mandolin.  The Peace Song doesn’t tread any new ground lyrically, but again the guitar work is stellar.  Ain’t No Way, a remake from an earlier record, is a fantastically wistful number.

Rocking My Baby Back Home picks up the tempo a little, with an acoustic rockabilly vibe.  My favorite song on the record is Hearts Like Atoms Split, probably because it sounds the most like the older Robert Bobby songs I have listened to for years.  When Strangers Start to Cry also has the country sound that I like so much.

I was prepared not to like One Meatball, based on the title, but it got me with a Stray Cats vibe, a good story and, I know I sound like a broken iPod, some excellent guitar work.

At the end of the day, I don’t like this record as much as I like some of Robert’s older stuff, such as Genuine Queen, Lucinda Williams (great tribute song to a great artist whose older work I also prefer) and The Best of All Possible Worlds, but that’s sort of like being critical of the Rolling Stones because every record isn’t Exile on Main Street.

Go buy this record.  It’s highly recommended.

Google +1 Plus Google Apps Equals Nothing

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The internets are all worked up today over the release of Google’s latest attempt to be meaningful in the social networking arena: Google’s +1 button.  It sort of reminds me of the excitement over the soon to be shuttered Google Wave, which was actually an awesome application, and the probably soon to be shuttered Google Buzz, which isn’t.

Being deeply in love with most things Google, most particularly the Chrome browser, I’d love to give +1 a try.  Except that I can’t.  Once again Google Apps users- yes, some of whom (not me, yet) are paying customers- are left out of the premiere party.

No worries says Google, again- Apps users will soon have the ability to use Google Profiles, and +1.  Soon may be a relative thing, however, given that Apps users still can’t use Buzz, over a year later.

Look, I realize this is not a huge deal.  But here’s the thing.  I would venture that Apps users are among the most loyal Google users.  People who would jump right in and do their part to kick-start just about any new Google app.  I know that, like a digital vampire, I have turned every Internet Explorer and Firefox user I can find into the walking Chrome.

I don’t understand why Google can’t roll features out to all users- including its most avid- at the same time.

I’d love to write about using +1.  Instead, I’m writing about the fact that I can’t use +1.  That’s a lose, lose equation.

Anyone want to +1 me up, since I can’t play?

Editing in the Cloud: The Killer Feature that Gives Google Music the Cloud Advantage

googlemusicI was pretty excited when Amazon beat the crowd that matters to the cloud with the Amazon Cloud Player.  Since I buy all of my music from Amazon, it is convenient to have my music purchases sent directly to my Amazon cloud, for immediate playing, and downloading only as needed.

I was so excited, in fact, that I bought a bunch more cloud space and began the arduous process of moving my huge music collection to the cloud.

But there was a little problem.  Like many audiophiles, I am pretty anal where my music tags and artwork are concerned.  If I see a mislabeled genre or mixed up album cover, I need- who am I kidding, I simply must have- a way to quickly fix it.

On the Amazon cloud, that’s not all that easy to do.  Amazon doesn’t (yet) provide a way to edit song or album details from the cloud.  You have to download the songs you want to fix, delete them from the cloud, fix them locally and then re-upload them.

That’s sort of a drag.  Figuratively and literally.  I also find Amazon’s music uploader less than elegant and not very reliable.

With Google’s recent introduction of Google Music, there is a new competitor in the cloud.  While it’s early,  I think I slightly prefer Google’s look and feel.

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But probably not enough to outweigh the ability to send my Amazon purchases directly to my Amazon cloud.  However, I quickly discovered a feature that tips the scale decidedly in favor of Google.  It’s much more appealing than Lady Gaga.  It’s the ability to edit from the cloud!

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Sweet!

At the end of the day, the process to get my new music from Amazon to Google Music is pretty simple, and automated.  I configured Google Music Manager to monitor my Amazon download folder, and automatically upload whatever shows up there.

I agree that Apple may one day deliver a cloud-dominating knock-out punch, but that may take some time, as you can never count out the innovation adverse music industry (as an aside, I get a few dollars from BMI every quarter or so, and I still can’t abide the obstacles these organizations keep tossing on the path to access).  They may be trying to protect someone’s income, but I’m not certain it’s the songwriters’.

In any event, I’m pretty excited about Google Music.  The 20,000 song limit will prevent me from moving all of my music there (at least until cheap extra storage becomes available, like Amazon offers).

But as of now, it’s leading the race to become my default music manager.  Stay tuned, however, because the race is just beginning.

Is There Even One Decent Facebook App?

If there is, I’ve never seen or heard of it.

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I’ve largely come around on Facebook as the only efficient way to keep up with people who don’t share my love of things nerdy.  That includes about 99% of my friends and every member of my family over 13.

The fact is that Facebook is simply inevitable.  Resistance is both futile and isolating.

But Facebook has a huge problem.  No it’s not the fact that Microsoft saved Facebook from itself by taking the bait and grossly overpaying for Skype.  It’s the apps.

It’s the fact that none of them are worth a crap.  I have spent far more time filtering out stupid Facebook apps than I have using them.  In fact, I have 74 apps filtered out of my Facebook stream.  The list grows constantly.

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From Hearts to Hugs to Best Friend Quiz to Egg Buddies to anything Ville to Mafia Wars to various sweepstakes.  None of it is worth a crap, and all of it is junk.  Unless I want to become a mouse clicking zombie in service to some developer’s bank account, not one of them benefits me in any way.

It’s the fact that it seems like most Facebook apps  are malware.  I am now conditioned to look for a warning- “Do not click on this or that”- whenever I see an appish-looking post in my Facebook stream.  Facebook apps have the same trust level as links in spam.

It’s the fact that, even if an app is technically not malware, you have no idea what it can access, and what it, in turn, discloses and to whom.  You have more privacy at a nudist camp that you do on Facebook.

In sum, the entire Facebook app ecosystem is broken.

It needs to be demolished and rebuilt from the ground up.  There’s just no way to salvage any kind of trust out of the chaos that Facebook has created.  Facebook needs to take a page from Apple’s book and worry about protecting its users, not serving them up as fodder to scammers and shady apps.

It should happen.  But until people vote with their filters, it probably won’t.

Up Against the Day, Redneck Mother

I was thinking about writing a Mother’s Day post, but OmegaMom already wrote the best one I’ve ever read [update: sadly OmegaMom’s blog is gone and the domain was purchased by spammers; I removed the link.].  That post should become the Pledge of Orphans, to be recited by us all on maternal occasions.

My mom was, almost all of the time, a super-cool lady and someone I really enjoyed talking with.  It’s uncanny to me how many of my core personal values come directly from her.  Both good- she was moderate, politically, in a region that based on my Facebook stream is rife with hardcore conservatives (or, as I like to refer to them, haters).  And questionable- I have absolutely no tolerance for poor performance, as my kids will attest.  Ask my kids what to try means and they will roll their eyes and respond, “to fail with honor.”

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Mom has just entered her teenage years in heaven, Nirvana, Jannah, Valhalla, the great hereafter, or the cold, cold ground, depending on what you believe.  In a nutshell, I am convinced that there is a higher power deserving of praise, but when I dive into the details of traditional Christian teaching, I run into trouble- particularly as it relates to heaven.  What do you do there all day?  What about babies?  What if you have more than one long-time spouse, etc.?  The devil is in the details, I guess.

The best description of heaven I’ve ever heard was by the angel Castiel in this past Friday’s Supernatural episode. And, no, I’m not kidding.

I wrote a short story inspired by the last time I saw my mom, and a song about the last night I spent at her house.

Now, I’m the husband to a mother.  My girls, particularly, like to hang out with me.  I pretend that it’s because they think I’m cool and fun, but it’s probably because they know I’m easier to manage.  When they skin a knee, they fly right past me, asking where Mom is.  I suspect that’s almost always the way it works.

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The second best Mother’s Day message I read this year was from a guy I work with.  He’s from New York, but he likes country music.  He is the best email writer I know.  I think he writes emails the way songwriters write songs.  He penned a hit earlier this morning:

As seriously as we take our jobs,
there are no jobs more important than the ones mothers do, day in and day out.
I often think of my own mother and the core values she instilled in me early on–what could I be without them??
So to all of you who have (or had) wonderful mothers, to all of you who are married to wonderful mothers and most of all, to all of you who ARE wonderful mothers –
I wish you and your mothers a very Happy Mother’s Day!!

Happy Mother’s Day, mom, wherever you are.  Happy Mother’s Day, Raina.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers.  Mothers who have raised your [children] so well.

(On the origin of redneck mothers, for the curious)

Blogsy Breakfast

Since the day I got my iPad, I have been frustrated by how hard it is to write and publish a blog with it. The WordPress app is an exercise in frustration. Recently I have read a number of positive articles about Blogsy. So I’m giving it a try.

Initial impressions are very positive. Clearly it handles photos and videos well, accessing them via your Flickr, Picasa or YouTube accounts.

The holy grail of mobile blogging applications will always be adding links. Blogsy has a promising approach:

Select the text you want to use for your link on the ‘Rich Side’
Open the browser and find the site/image you wish to link to
Place your finger on the ‘Blogsy Link Button’ (the button to the left of the address bar)
Drag it to the text you selected.

Links will always be a challenge on a handheld, but Blogsy makes it about as easy as possible. Assuming this post shows up the way I intend it to, Blogsy will definitely become my mobile blogging tool of choice.