The views and opinions expressed in this blog by Kyle Brady are solely his own, and do not necessarily reflect those of Intuitive Industries LLC, their clients, the sponsors or advertisers of this blog, or other employers Kyle may have.
You might be interested to know that there's two different kind of posts on this blog: "Thought of the Day" and "Normal". The "Thought of the Day" category is a once-a-day random tidbit, usually a funny video or picture, and the "Normal" is just what you'd expect from a blog like this:
Unicorn-Butterfly Soup.
--Kyle
p.s. the subscription options to the left (psst! <---- that way) reflect the same content options
(Me) One of the many people who don’t like you, and find your “startup” attempts pretty worthless.
(Jason) 1. Clearly you don’t hate me, you’re obsessed with me. Why else would you email?
2. Your advice is based on what success exactly?
Best j
(Me) 1. No. I emailed you because I like getting the people I’m offending riled up.
2. a) I’m 20. You’re an old man. I have time.
b) I’d rather have no success than the “success” you’ve had. Training a bunch of monkeys to manually type in the results from Google is not running a startup- it’s a low-level temp agency for manual data entry. And I wouldn’t even begin to call Mahalo, or any other number of Web 2.0 startups, a success.
Not the best.
(Jason) Blahblahblah….
Now consider this: Jason thinks of himself as a god among men, with lots of experience and success that he can rain down upon us from his own slice of Heaven. But when you respond as defensively and immaturely… doesn’t that ruin your credibility?
Just a little.
posted on October 10th, 2008 at 1:58 pm by Kyle - Comments
I just turned on my XBOX360 for the first time in awhile, and it worked fine. Then I ran the update (v2.0.6717.0), it reboots, and… I get black and white video.
Not only that, but two funny symbols appear on the screen that won’t go away (see photos below). The green one looks like the power ring on the XBOX itself, and the red one might be an “i” or a symbol for a harddrive.
Calling tech support…
— —
Update (8/15/2008 7:15pm PST): After some very worthless tech support (why did I even hope?), it has to be sent in for “diagnosis and repair”, which could take 6-8 weeks. Great.
posted on August 16th, 2008 at 6:19 pm by Kyle - Comments
If you haven’t heard or noticed by now, Facebook is in the process (or is finished?) rolling out a redesign of … pretty much everything. Check out www.new.facebook.com to activate it. But I’m not here to analyze it like everyone else, even though I think it’s a pretty cool update.
I’m here because they screwed up.
I’ve been keeping an eye on the “applications” page, because I had a feeling that something was going to happen… and it did.
Click, because it’s relevant.
See all the things I’ve circled in red? Most of those are applications I’ve never added. Ever. And in the case of “Bumper Sticker”, “friendbinder”, and “Top Friends”… those are ones that were added and removed (before the design change) within a 24 hour period.
My first question is: what the hell?
Is Facebook just randomly letting applications access my data, and decide that I’m now a “user” of them? Because, if so, that’s not only stupid and wasting my time… but it’s also a huge privacy concern.
My second question is: what the hell?
I’ve tried to remove ALL of the ones that I circled in the screenshot… they won’t go away. They disappear from my profile, and from some of the settings pages… but remain on others. Which would lead me to believe they’re not really gone, they’re just pretending to be.
My third question is: what the hell?
There have long been rumors that Facebook doesn’t actually delete any data, they just “delete” it. Instead of removal, a field is changed to tell the rendering engine “Hey! Don’t show this!” - which might make sense in some cases, but not as an overall policy.
This is solid proof that they do exactly what people have been whispering about… besides the whole “delete my account” controversy, of course.
My fourth question is: what the hell?
I’m actually out of “Items for Hell” at this point.
Your Mission
This needs to be fixed immediately. Check your applications page, see if you’ve got anything weird going on. Send them feedback (using the “send feedback” button… obviously), regardless of whether or not you have this problem… they need to know that many people care about this, and it’s kind of a big deal.
p.s. Yes, I’m still using Vista on this computer. But that’s because I haven’t gotten Ubuntu running yet… the RAID-1 array and the supersexy, but “too new”, combo optical drive are creating major problems.
I decided to try and cook “protein muffins” last night instead of protein pancakes, and the end result tasted OK but proves that cooking anything more than eggs or ground beef is too difficult for me:
Burnt, Odd-colored, and Tasty!
posted on June 21st, 2008 at 10:16 am by Kyle - Comments
I’ll be the first one to admit it… I love Netflix. With my addiction to all-things-SciFi, getting movies on a regular basis is great, and it lets me quickly catch up on all the movies that were before I become genre-sentient (or alive). Through it I’ve come to love many “great” series: The Terminator, Rocky, Rambo, Die Hard, etc.
But there’s one thing that really bothers me: Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” Feature.
In a new era of digital media, where you can have movies delivered to your home or stream them to your TV, you’d think the company that has pioneered (and continues to innovate) this market would make a better and more informed decision.
The FAILboat
Let’s take a look at what happens when I try to watch a movie through my computer using Netflix:
Yep. That’s right. I can’t. All because I don’t run Windows SP2 or higher, or use IE. Who would, in this day and age, restrict such a wonderful (and potentially highly revenue-generating) thing to such arkane requirements?
Demographics
Netflix, I think you should take a look at your demographics. Let’s do a quick analysis.
The audience that made you popular were geeks. Highly technically adept people that typically run the software they want, and spurn anything made by Microsoft. (Granted, this isn’t always true, but it’s true enough to work with.)
Your current userbase is most likely comprised of well-off white collar families, movie buffs, and geeks. Throw in a handful of college kids (who are probably highly technical as well), and you’ve got it.
Take a look at the recent browser metrics. If you believe even the lowest estimates, ~15% of the Internet uses Firefox. Not IE, but Firefox. And, given your userbase, I’m betting your server logs show something closer to 35%. Would you like to put odds on that?
While it’s difficult to get a solid number on the amount of non-server computers running Linux, the numbers are growing. Dell and ASUS, among others, are now offering Linux as the pre-installed OS… not to mention the unbelievable growth of Ubuntu, a flavor of Linux.
Do The Math
So, movie geniuses… do the math. Even if “only” 20% of your users are on Firefox, and maybe 10% use Linux, why would you alienate such a large amount of your paying customers? Just because they don’t conform to the money-hungry agenda of Microsoft doesn’t mean they should be punished. Choosing a better, and free, alternative should be something to celebrate.
We may not be Anonymous, but we are angry nonetheless.
Technology
While we’re at it, don’t give us the “technological restrictions” excuse. Anyone who’s worked with streaming media can tell you this is a load of crap. The only reason you can legitimately say your system is IE-dependent would be due to an ActiveX control… and in that case, you’re just FUBAR’d already anyways.
I’m not sure how the current system works, but I see there really only being two ways for you to stream through a browser:
Using a Flash-based Player
Embedding a Streaming Video File
Flash is one of the most universal things on computers in this day and age… YouTube doesn’t restrict their viewers to Windows + IE only, why should you?
And, if it’s a streaming file, there’s an easy answer too. People on Windows + FF should have no problems accessing a streaming file, even if it’s in some Windows format… it will just automagically open Windows Media Player.
We are rising, join us while we still like you!
Those of us on Linux + FF know MORE THAN ENOUGH to be able to run a streaming file in a media player. Maybe it doesn’t work when we click. But that doesn’t really bother us, because we get what we want, and know how to do it. Chances are we already have the media player (and codecs) to support the format… all we need is the location of the stream. Which is very easy for you to give us.
Conclusion
In the end, any reason or excuse you can provide for these restrictions comes down to pure and utter nonsense. You need to resolve this issue, before your users get more frustrated (which may hurt you in the long run), and especially as the market share for Firefox and Linux continue to grow at unprecedented rates.
———————————
Update (6/9/2008 12:32pm PST): Neil from Netflix (confirmed via IP address) posted a snarky rebuttal in Comment #1. See my equally snarky reply in Comment #2.
posted on June 8th, 2008 at 11:51 pm by Kyle - Comments
[This is my first substantial post in a long time, so just as a warning: it's going to be long, full of things no-one will like, and probably very very angry. It's like I have a stockpile of feelings.]
Paradise? Am I talking about Heaven, The Afterlife, The Halls of Valhalla? No. I’m talking about the blogosphere of tech-news reporting.
The Golden Age of Grotesque
Even as little as a year ago, the portion of the blogging world that discussed/”reported” news on the tech world was very diverse and original. You could go to any number of the most popular blogs and find long opinion / editorial pieces, and little gems of news that wouldn’t be on the others. In a word: they were the opposite of mainstream media (”MSM”).
This was a good time.
The Dope Show
But then, something happened. Blogs like TechCrunch, GigaOm, ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, Gizmodo, etc. began to cover the same things: the most popular internet applications and their progress (Facebook, Google, etc.) and then alot of shiny AJAX bullshit that shouldn’t even exist. And not just individually, but they would rehash the same subjects over and over again (on the same blog), even when it was seen the same amount of times on their friends/competitors.
The Tech Blogosphere
mOBSCENE
The last few months this is what the world of tech blogging looks like:
Facebook
Google
“Google Killers”
“Digg Killers”
Microsoft Sucks
Twitter
“Twitter Killers”
VC Investments
[stupid things that serve no purpose but get funding anyways]
And repeat. It’s like you put a newspaper in the washing machine every night, and read it in the morning. The same news, just jumbled around a little bit.
(S)aint[s]
There are a few diamonds in the rough at the moment, the few originals that do what they feel like, even if it’s not politically correct or even always based on hard facts. Which makes it interesting.
Valleywag
Uncov
Scoble
Valleywag is like a tabloid for Silicon Valley, without all the aliens and pregnancies. Uncov is probably my favorite thing ever, because he/they bash all of the things about “Web 2.0″ and the industry that I absolutely hate (read: stupid crap), and he has a basis in reality that most bloggers don’t: real knowledge, coming from an engineering background. Scoble (”Scobleizer”) is not always interesting, but when he is… man he is. Oh, and people love to hate him, and I like to see the backlash from even just simple statements.
Oh yeah, MSM!
Cake and Sodomy
What sparked this? Aside from being tired of reading the same things on 140,000 different blogs about the same stupid things that don’t matter (or do, but have been rehashed to death), it’s simple: these blogs will only cover your startup/application/company/whatever if you meet at least one of three requirements.
You’re Famous
You Have VC/Angel Investors
You’ve Created a Mashup
I know I’m not the only one who’s noticed this, and yet I haven’t seen anyone else gripe about it. Hello, people? Yeah the Internet called, it wants to give your soul back, you spineless tool.
Mechanical Animals
The reason I bring this up is that I’ve recently launched my first web service/application, mySHOUToutLOUD. We spent some money on Facebook advertising, which turned out to be pretty worthless, but I also thought I might get some coverage from the blogs that (you would think) care, so I sent this email:
We thought you’d be interested to hear about the v1.0 Launch of our service, mySHOUToutLOUD, as of January 1st, 2008. As a new consumer complaints vehicle, we hope to have success in letting individual consumers have a voice in the public eye, in order to help their problems / concerns be resolved with any product or company.
We have attached the press release for this (PDF), but you can view other details at the press site: http://press.myshoutoutloud.com
Hopefully you find this informative, and give our new service a try.
Here’s to a brighter future for the consumer public!
–
The mySHOUToutLOUD Team
“real consumer complaints, for real people”
The press release that was attached can be found here. What happened? Nothing. No reply emails. No signups from the people who check this stuff out.
I got a great reply email from a few people over at Wired and San Jose Mercury News. Does that feel good? Knowing that MSM is more professional and has more basic courtesy than all of you couch slobs that make money from doing nothing?
Oh, Hello! I didn’t see you there, Michael Arrington!
User Friendly
So, in closing, here’s my suggestion to you wannabe-journalists who cover only what Arrington thinks is interesting:
Get your thumbs out of your asses, lose some weight, and find your spine. You wonder why MSM doesn’t see you as a threat, and even CSE didn’t give you “credentials” (albeit diminished) until this year? Probably because of things like this.
—-
P.S. Mahalo sucks.
P.S.S. All song titles courtesy of Marilyn Manson.
posted on January 11th, 2008 at 6:53 am by Kyle - Comments
It’s like a festival of hate… everyday I see more and more anti-Mahalo posts, or even anti-Jason Calacanis (the guy behind it who thinks he’s God, when in reality he’s pretty much nothing).
Have you heard of ‘Mahalo’? No? Well, here’s an excerpt from their FAQs:
Mahalo is a human-powered search engine that creates organized, comprehensive, and spam free search results for the most popular search terms.
Hm. Ironically enough, uncov has writtenabout Mahalo many times, each time speaking to what degree of “fail” it is. That’s really no surprise…
Are You Stupid?
Read this. It’s from Jason Calacanis’ blog. Does it make you laugh so hard you wet yourself? It should. Why? I think it’s pretty obvious… it takes at least 24 hours for a page to be created on a topic, and only if they get enough requests for it. The example shown is “grey wolf”, which you would think is common enough to warrant a page.
Thank you, Stewie. You said it so perfectly.
I’m Sorry…
I’m sorry, but I thought Google already did this. Maybe I’m wrong, but when you search for something in Google, you always get results. And, chances are that you get exactly what you were looking for within the first result or two. It’s like magic, except that it’s created by a computer. Which means that there is no delay time, no time wasted on “people search” or other such craptastic nonsense.
Kompubers R Kool
In this age of “Web 2.0″, you’d think that people would understand how the Internet works. Or at least that you can use a “search engine” to “find” certain “things” on “teh Intorwebz”. Without the “help” of “human beings”.
Were there enough ironic quotes there for you to get my meaning?
Stop It.
Let’s be serious for a second. Google became popular because it returned results on exactly what you were looking for, all the time. And it was simple and uncluttered. So that begs the question: why, in God’s bloody name, do you think you can compete with Google? More importantly, how can a relatively small group of underpaid and probably not-very-educated people do better than a computer?
Keep it up, Mahalo Guides!
Here’s some simple facts (you = Mahalo):
You will never be able to produce results for every topic people want to know about.
Your results will never be as relevant or up-to-date as real search engines.
You are not a search engine. “Engine” implies algorithms. Which are not made of people.
You are a “glorified” wiki. And I mean that in the sense that you over-value yourself, because you are worthless, and are actually of less value than a wiki devoted entirely to kiwi fruit.
I Think…
I think you should quit. I would say “while you’re ahead”, but you’re clearly not ahead. You’re living somewhere around 1992, dial-up and everything.
Stop wasting VC money. Stop wasting people’s time. And, most importantly, stop making real engineers and programmers look bad by pretending you know what you’re doing.
Jason Calacanis, you are a stupid stupid bastard with a self-inflated ego of worthlessness.
posted on November 12th, 2007 at 8:45 am by Kyle - Comments
