TL;DR IndieTV

0^th, The Fine Brothers. (Mostly about the flak YouTube earners got [due to jealousy], but also this:) How many people truly want to watch short form television style content inside the web? We’ll tell you how many. TONS. Hundreds of thousands, millions, but you know why they don’t watch your show? Because you have not built a connection to them, because you haven’t built a personal brand and experience for them to climb aboard and want to support, because you don’t have a real reason for the show to be distributed online beyond just “making something”, and surprisingly a lot of the time because you haven’t created a very good show not just for the web, but for any platform.

1^st, Barrett Garese. Stop making short-TV or short-films and putting it online and calling it "online entertainment". It's derivative, and TV does it better already.

2^nd, Barret's followup. We’re going to start having to think of the medium first, and the story second.

3^rd, David Nett. Where Barrett is wrong, in my opinion, is in the underlying assumption in his tip: that we want to be pioneers in online entertainment. Rather than whipping ourselves into a frenzy over Barrett’s perfectly sound advice, I believe a creator should ask him or herself plainly, “what am I trying to make? Am I trying to make a TV show, and the web is the best current distribution option for my show?” If the answer is yes, then in my opinion Barrett’s advice simply doesn’t apply.

4^th, Marc Hustvedt. There’s a flawed point of logic in the argument that web video should always be something different than what’s on TV or film.

Finally, New Mediacracy (via) which lead me to the others. Barrett Garese, Brett Register, Craig Frank, Jamie Blair, along with NM regulars Chris McCaleb, Zadi Diaz, and Steve Woolf get together. Conversation really needed David and Marc, but what do you want? Your money back?

Friends with Lauren Hudson

I was on Facebook today, and noticed that I had a friend request from Lauren Hudson (from April 8th, if that gives you an idea of how often I check Facebook. Which is never, actually, I was only on because I noticed a friend request from Ken). So, who is Lauren Hudson?

I'm not sure.

BUT, I saw that I had 15 mutual friends with her. So, I looked at that list, and they were predominantly people from the CEB, or people associated with people from the CEB. Unfortunately, I couldn't see Lauren's full profile unless we were friends. So I accepted a friend request from someone I didn't know (this is the first time I've intentionally done that).

Well, only the single photo (the profile picture), sparse Info (18 year old bisexual interested in friendship, dating, and networking), and that's pretty much it. She has close to 900 friends though. And the messages on her wall...

Justin Abel eracvm,lorjktgopaejlpvjporjktgv,pckpt5ojkvopaetjkoijolgvji,lijghiovj,wrvojirtwoicvj,oij

Drew Scott

Hey hey, we use Earth languages here!

Justin Abel

Is this girl even an earthling?

Justin Abel Kommunikation ist der Schlüssel! who are you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...

Tyson Cox Has Lauren responded to anyone?? I sent her a message but haven't heard back from her..

Timothy Dane Lawrence

no response at all.

Allie Friese Are you a real person?

Isaac Kuula

i second that...

Michael Fuller What up how are you who are you

Justin Abel Ms. Hudson, have we spoke?

Washington Leifi i dont know you.... but hey thanks for the add..... we should get to know eachother.....

Adam Ovenell WHO YOU!

Daniel Pierce

Yuuuuppppp!...lol

Phillip Rabideau And you are?

Bryan Dunn

I'm smelling a bot.... 600 friends and no other activity...

And (I assume) so on. Most of the wall posts are like that. So, this is the future we live in, where bots pretend to be 18 year old bisexuals in order to gain our friendship. Oh robot, you know me so well.

Does anyone else remember when Facebook was an actually great, functional site? It's a shame that great, functional, helpful sites don't make as much money as spam-filled social crapfests.

Mental Floss

Recently ran across the Mental Floss shirts. Most shirt stores have a couple good ones (and because I couldn't think of anything else to post today*); here are some of my faves.

(in random order)

*and tomorrow is not looking too good either.

Television Piracy

Here's why I don't think that downloading TV shows off the Interwebs is a real threat to broadcasters:

I can get better quality picture and sound for FREE over the air with a simple antenna. Plus, I can get THAT faster than I can download it (often before it is even available for download).

Downloading has some advantages, I guess, but I have a DVR to capture off the air, which gives me most of them anyway.

And yes, for quality one can download the hi-res versions of a show, but a single episode of House is about as big as every episode of Important Things with Demetri Martin combined.

Just an observation.

(Also, if you ARE a downloader, and you have a fast enough connection, check out Hulu. Some of their streams are faster and higher-quality than your average cap, and the commercials are shorter than over-the-air)

Busey on Business

Wow. Watch this and tell me if it blows your mind. Show/Hide


Business wisdom from Gary Busey, and there's a lot more where that came from.

The videos are to promote Grasshopper, which used to be called GotVMail. What is Grasshopper?

Well, it's a lot like GoogleVoice, except it costs $50 a month instead of being free. That's almost all you need to know, but I will point out one more thing: the site gears itself towards entreprenuers, right? Well, how good are the Grasshopper entreprenuers if they can't change the links from the videos‽ The name changed in MAY.

If this is their level of quality and attention to detail for their OWN business, I don't think I want their help.

Just sayin'.

The Busey videos are entertaining though.

TopFive is Gone

They actually appeared to have stopped making lists last August.

I didn't notice because I don't read them anymore. I imagine a lot of others went the same way.

See, I used to love TopFive. Back in, say, 1996, they were really funny. Then they spread out into Little Fivers, and those were less funny. Then they had a subscriber program, where you would get an ad-free list.

And then they stopped giving you the whole list if you weren't a subscriber. They'd cut off the top half (eg, the funniest half) in the e-mail, and you would have to go to the site for it. This is when I stopped reading.

You're going to give me ADS and NOT THE LIST? Thanks, but no thanks. And that's not mentioning the drop in quality of the main lists. The top contributors had gone off to be funny on their own and the people left were... meh.

So, I'm sorry to see that TopFive is not producing at the moment (but may come back), but it doesn't really affect me. TopFive stopped producing for me years ago.

Phoenix Has Bad Luck...

...shopping online. In this review: KungFu4Less.

Executive summary:
I ordered some kendo equipment, including a shinai case. They apparently ran out of shinai cases, so they removed it from my order without asking if that was OK. I told them to cancel the whole order.

A few days later, they send me a coupon, and upon checking their website I see that the shinai cases are marked as back in stock. I place a second order, identical to the first.

They canceled the whole order without any notification at all. I didn't even know they canceled it until I checked the status.

KungFu4Less is pretty terrible, and although their prices look good, I don't think I will ever shop there again.

Details:
So I'm in Kendo club at EWU. I wanted to buy some kendo gear, and some froogling led me to KungFu4Less.com.

Prices seemed OK, so I placed an order for a gi, hakama, and shinai bag. They e-mailed me an order confirmation.

I also told my friend about it, and she placed a similar order.

Then they e-mailed me a second confirmation, with the shinai bag removed. It seems that they are out of stock, so they just took it out of the order.

What the hell? Companies can do that?

I've never had a company change my order without asking for confirmation on my part.

So I e-mailed and canceled the order (probably a good idea anyway, since I think I might have ordered the wrong gi size). But upon checking the website, the shinai case is still listed! But the owner tells me that no, they aren't actually in stock.

Here is the complete first communication (even the parts that expose me for the dick I am): Show/Hide
No no, that is not OK. You can't just DROP an item from my cart and
ship me the rest without asking. Because, I'm going to have to order
that again from somewhere else, and that's going to cost shipping
there, so I might as well order my gi and hakama there TOO. See?

Also, how is the shinai case not available for ME, but it IS available
for my friend [redacted] who placed her order AFTER MINE?

DO NOT SHIP MY ORDER without a shinai case. No shinai case, no order.
---
Phoenix

Okay we will cancel your order.

Jim Sul

Thank you. I'm sorry for the trouble. I was just very surprised.

Also, when I went back to the website, you still list the shinai case?
Is it available? Or no?
---
Phoenix

No problem at all Sir... Unfortunately that item is still out of stock. We are very sorry.

Jim Sul

A few days pass, and then I get a coupon from KungFu4Less. Maybe this is a sign? The shinai cases are back and they still want my business? I place another order (this time with the correct sizes). I got a confirmation e-mail shortly.

Then I waited.

And waited.

After more than a week had passed, I went back to the order confirmation e-mail and followed the link to check the status of the order.

It had been canceled.

No notification, no anything, just canceled.

I e-mailed them again, and was summarily chewed out by the owner.

Some highlights:

"You seem to not like the way we run our bussiness, so I ask you to stop placing orders with our company."

"Did you think we were going to ship your order??"

"TAKE A MOMENT AND THINK ABOUT THAT."

"Yes I canceled your order... We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone and that includes you. You are a very difficult person and I do not want you or anyone like you as a customer. I'm sure you have heard that alot, if that bothers you.. oh well."

"You are one insignificant person who is complaining because he didn't get what he wanted. Grow up."

Awesome.

Here is the full gory transaction: Show/Hide
You canceled my order without ANY notification at all?

This is the worst shopping experience I have ever had.
---
Phoenix

Dear Sir,

As per your request, we could not ship your order complete, so we cancelled like you requested.

Jim Sul

You canceled one order on my request.

Then you sent me a coupon. When I checked your site, it appeared that
the one item that was missing from my first order was back in stock.
I placed a second order.

You canceled the second order without any notification. You didn't
say "We don't have this item". You didn't even say that you canceled
the order.

There were two DIFFERENT orders.
---
Phoenix

Dear Sir,

You seem to not like the way we run our bussiness, so I ask you to stop placing orders with our company.

Jim Sul

I will stop placing orders with your company, and instead I will start
telling everyone I know about the terrible service I encountered.
---
Phoenix

You truley are a very difficult. You make a big fuss about about one item being backorderd and want to cancel your entire order. We were more than happy to accomadate you. What did you think we would do when you place the exact identical order a few days later. Did you think we were going to ship your order?? Did you think we would run the risk of shipping your order incomplete? Of course not, you already told me how you wanted us to treat your orders. Your exact words were "if you cant ship my order complete, then I want to cancel my order." Well guess what... WE CANCELLED YOUR ORDER.

Jim Sul

It wasn't an identical order. It seems you didn't look at it.

It also seems that you say items are available on your site when they
are NOT available.

You didn't say the item was backordered, you just removed it from the order.

My issue isn't that you canceled my second order, it is that you
canceled it WITHOUT NOTIFICATION. Just like you removed an item from
my first order WITHOUT NOTIFICATION. Do you see that part that is
causing the problem? When you change things without telling the
customer, that is BAD.

If you didn't want me to order again, why did you send me a coupon? I
thought "OH, the item is back in stock AND he sent me a coupon! He's
not a bad guy at all, I guess I will order from him again."

I guess that was too much to hope for.
---
Phoenix

Dear Sir

I am the owner and operation of Kungfu4less.com and I do my best to give mu customers what they want. Sometimes, in bussiness, your gonna have items that are not in stock. I sent you a notification that one of the items you order was not available. You called me and wanted to cancel your order. Wasn't that email a notification that an item was backorderd??? Obviously I didnt just cancel an item from the order and ship it like you claim. Had I have done that, I would not have been able to cancel the order. On this new order, I sent you another email letting you know that the entirre order was being cancelled. Again, doesn't that email act as a notifying your order was being cancellation?? You keep saying we adusted your order without notification, yet you were able to reply to both notification that were sent. TAKE A MOMENT AND THINK ABOUT THAT.


Jim Sul

For the first order, you did not send me a notification that one of
the items was not available, you sent me an order confirmation with
the item removed. I sent you an e-mail saying that I didn't approve
that change and canceled the order.

That was not an e-mail notification that the item was backordered.
You said nothing about it being backordered, only that it was no
longer available. These terms are not identical.

I didn't say that you shipped the order without the item. Of course
that did not happen.

You say that you sent me an e-mail notification that the second order
was being canceled? To what e-mail address did you send that
notification? Because, I did not receive it.

Reply to what notification? For the second order, I replied to the
order CONFIRMATION. There was no notification that you canceled the
order. I only found out that the order was canceled because, after
waiting a week with no shipping notification, I went to the website
and checked the status of my order.

Look at the history in these messages. There was NO NOTIFICATION of
the order being canceled. Please take a moment and think about that.

You seem very angry at what has happened, but everything that has
taken place was in your control. You claim that you sent out
notifications, but I did not receive them. That is the root of the
problem.
---
Phoenix

Dear Sir,

All notifications are sent out automatically when ever an adjustment is made to an order. This includes the confirmation email that is sent when you place an order, as well as any tracking email there after. I could not changed the status of your order without an email automatically being generated. If you did not recieve that email, I do appologize.

Jim Sul

I didn't get it because you didn't send it. If your system is broken,
that is unfortunate.

I'm sorry we couldn't be customer-merchant, and I appreciate your
(current) polite tone, but it was still a terrible shopping experience
and I'm still going to tell everyone I can about it, including the
messages you've sent me today.
---
Phoenix

You are amazing. Even when I try to be civil you are rude and obnoxious. Apparently you have nothing better to do. Yes I canceled your order... We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone and that includes you. You are a very difficult person and I do not want you or anyone like you as a customer. I'm sure you have heard that alot, if that bothers you.. oh well. I ask you now to move on. I can care less what you write about our company. You are one insignificant person who is complaining because he didn't get what he wanted. Grow up. I can assure you, our business will thrive without you.

Jim Sul

Don't shop at KungFu4Less.com!

(See how I still link to the site? Apparently I reward companies that screw me over by giving them more traffic.)

You Shouldn't Use Dropbox

I signed up to the beta for Dropbox (a service that backs up and syncs all of your files in a certain folder over the Internet). Since I work on multiple computers, I thought it would be a handy tool.

And it WOULD BE, if the developers weren't so clueless.

For example, during installation in Windows, it will close ALL of your Explorer processes. Without warning.

I mean, I can understand that it has to close them to add itself. I get that. But the lack of warning is dumb (I lost a couple of deeply-nested folders this way).

But that's not the big one. The big one is when you set your Dropbox directory.

No matter what you specify, it will APPEND "My Dropbox" in Windows. Supposedly, this is to protect people from installing into their root directories (people are dumb), BUT it also won't allow you to install to ANY root directories, even on OTHER DRIVES/PARTITIONS. Which is to say, you can't even have F:/My Dropbox (also, appending a subdirectory with a *SPACE IN IT*?). So the best you could do would be F:/Dropbox/My Dropbox (which is a lot of header for the path of EVERY FILE in your Dropbox). It's dumb.

But even THAT'S not the REAL BIG ONE. The REAL big one is that it will append "Dropbox" in Linux! *NOT* "My Dropbox". So, if you dual-boot on your machine, you can't point both Dropbox directories to the same location! You're forced to sync EVERYTHING TWICE, in two different places, taking up twice the disk space. WAY DUMB.

The current official "solution" is to use an OLD version of Dropbox that isn't as retarded. Seriously, that's what they tell you to do. They've known about this problem since version 0.6.394 and now we're at 0.6.402 and it's STILL NOT FIXED (months have passed).

The Dropboxers just seem to have NO CLUE, which does not bode well for the tool. At this point in time, I have to recommend that people AVOID DROPBOX LIKE THE PLAGUE. It's definitely not ready for prime-time, and it is getting WORSE. I think I might have to close my account there, because it's getting to the point where I don't feel I can trust the people behind it (if they're THAT clueless).

It's enough to make me feel all RANTY RANT!

How to get free Starbucks drinks

Short version:

1. Buy a Gold card and a drink. Pay $25.
2. Return Gold card. Get $25.
3. Go to step 1.
   

Long version:
Starbucks has a new Gold card. It costs $25, and you get 10% off your drinks for a year (and some other benefits, like access to the wifi). Also, you get a free drink when you buy it.

Most importantly, you have 30 days to return it if you change your mind.

I know this, because I thought that the Gold cards were like the regular Starbucks cards, where you pay $25, and you have a $25 credit on the card. Well, that's not the case. When I found that out, I returned my Gold card, but they of course did not charge me for the drink they gave me when I got it. So, free Starbucks. ^_^

Offer good while supplies last, or until they close this loophole.

Finding Businesses in Google Maps

Random thought of the day:

Looking for a clothing store near the hotel I'll be staying at in Lacey, I began to wonder what the other nearby businesses were. I can clearly see these large buildings with expansive parking lots, and no idea what business is there.

So, why don't businesses put their name on their roof? With satelite imagery (like Google Maps) becoming mainstream, this is an advertising venue they are totally missing out on. How much could it possibly cost?