Netflix goes from beloved brand to laughingstock in just weeks

Missteps by online video service Netflix have turned a once-beloved brand into a laughingstock.
First, the company bungled its message about a rate increase on July 12. (See press release and company blog post.) Then, it tried to apologize but ended up enraging subscribers by splitting its DVD-by-mail service (to be called Qwikster) and streaming service on Sept. 18. (See company blog post.)
Finally, today Netflix flip-flopped and said it wouldn't go through with Qwikster and would keep the websites for the DVD and streaming services integrated. (See press release and company blog post.)
Comedians have had a field day with how Netflix confused and angered subscribers with its seemingly hasty decisions.
Netflix was parodied in a “Saturday Night Live” sketch on Oct. 1 and at CollegeHumor.com on Oct. 6. Landline TV was out with a parody video on Sept. 19.
Cartoonists also dinged Netflix. The Joy of Tech (see above cartoon) and The Oatmeal were among those mocking Netflix in comics.
Netflix’s Qwikster service now ranks with Coca-Cola’s New Coke among major corporate blunders. Now Netflix must work to rebuild its reputation with consumers.

See Netflix parody videos at One Stop Video.

South Dakota mancation: National parks and the great buffalo roundup

I recently took a four-day mancation to South Dakota with my brother Bill and my 8-year-old son, Chris. It was a short trip, but jam-packed with the kinds of things guys enjoy.
We flew into Rapid City, S.D., on Saturday morning Sept. 24 after an unplanned overnight stay in Denver. (Our plane from Washington, D.C., was delayed because of mechanical problems and we missed our connecting flight that Friday night.)
On our first day, we drove across the state line to see Devil’s Tower National Monument in northeastern Wyoming. The huge column of rock is a spectacular, one-of-a-kind sight. No wonder Steven Spielberg chose to film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” there.
The weather was warm and sunny and a number of climbers were ascending the tower. We took the paved path to the pile of boulders at the base of the tower, admired the view, took some pictures and moved on. After all, we had a schedule to keep.
After lunch at the hard rocking Ponderosa Cafe in Hulett, Wyo., we drove to historic Deadwood, S.D. We stopped by Saloon #10, a bar and museum that celebrates Old West figures like Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane. There, actors reenact the fatal shooting of Hickok. I got to play one of the poker players at the table where Wild Bill was shot in the back. I even had a few lines of dialogue.
On Sunday Sept. 25, we drove out east to odd-ball tourist trap Wall Drug in Wall, S.D. After picking up some souvenirs, we drove to the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site.
We experienced the Cold War arms race between the U.S. and Soviet Union up close by visiting a silo containing a decommissioned intercontinental ballistic missile. Hundreds of such weapons of mass destruction used to dot the landscape of South Dakota and the Great Plains. Many have since been dismantled. But others remain as a deterrent to aggressors of the U.S.
After that we toured Badlands National Park. The otherworldly landscape was amazing. The park is a geological oddity and a great place to find fossils. It’s not very hospitable to life. Signs warn of rattlesnakes. Even the cute prairie dogs carry the plague.
We then drove west to Custer, S.D., for the night. We ate pizza at Pizza Works, a pizzeria housed in an old opera house and silent movie theater. It was the restaurant’s last night of operation for the tourist season. They will reopen next May.
On Monday Sept. 26, we got up early and drove to Custer State Park in Custer, S.D., to witness the annual Black Hills buffalo roundup. This event was the reason we timed our trip when we did.
The Custer State Park Buffalo Roundup is an awesome Old West experience. Cowboys and cowgirls on horseback (and in pickup trucks) drive a herd of about 1,300 American bison over the hills and into large corrals. The roundup is critical to maintaining a strong and healthy herd because the park can only support so many buffalo during the winter.
After the roundup, park staff sort, brand and vaccinate the herd for the buffalo sale, held in November. Every year the park auctions off 200 to 500 head of live buffalo. They’re purchased to supplement an existing herd, to start a herd or to eat.
We didn’t stick around to see the bison up close in their holding pens. Instead we drove to Wind Cave National Park to the south. Wind Cave was the first cave to be designated a national park. It features one of the longest cave systems in the world and notable for its rare boxwork calcite formations.
After that, we made a pilgrimage to Mount Rushmore National Monument. Chris and I saw the monument from the sky days earlier on our flight to Rapid City. Now we got to see it up close.
Seeing Mount Rushmore is a patriotic experience. The 50 state flags line the entry way and columns note when each state was admitted to the union. The sculptures of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt are fantastic in their scale and detail. We hiked the base of the monument to get a closer look.
With our trip nearing an end, we drove back to Rapid City. We stopped at Dinosaur Park, a quirky attraction on Skyline Drive overlooking the city. The park was dedicated in May 1936 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The seven dinosaur sculptures were constructed by the city of Rapid City and the Works Progress Administration.
We then drove to downtown Rapid City where we took some goofy pictures with the presidential statues that mark the street corners. I also admired an alley that blazed with color from graffiti artists appropriated named Art Alley.
We had dinner at the Firehouse Brewing Co., where I ate a buffalo burger. You can’t go to South Dakota without eating some bison meat. Then it was back to the hotel to rest before our early morning flights out of town.
Now it’s time to plan next year’s mancation.

Magazine cover boy Steve Jobs

In addition to cool gadgets, Steve Jobs also turned out a lot of magazine covers.
Every time Apple came out with a sleek new iPod, iPad or other product, magazine editors invariably would put his mug on their covers.
With his death this week, Jobs is on the cover of the latest issues of Time, Bloomberg Businessweek, The New Yorker and others. (See coverage by The Atlantic, Forbes and PCmag.com.)
Sam Kuo of Kuo Design has compiled a gallery of 101 magazine covers featuring Steve Jobs. And that’s only through August 2010. He badly needs to update it. Soon.

Update: Sam Kuo e-mailed me Oct. 8 to say that he's "trying to catch up on all the covers. Stay tuned!"

Interviewing Steve Jobs

I was fortunate enough to interview Steve Jobs once. The August 2002 phone interview was in the context of his role as CEO of Pixar Animation Studios.
I had been trying to interview him for some time to talk about Pixar’s amazing track record and the company’s plans to ramp up production to one film a year.
I missed him the first time he called and he left me a voicemail message. Thankfully he tried me again later and we spoke for about 15 minutes about what makes Pixar films so special.
He was clearly passionate about the films Pixar was producing. The studio had released “Monsters Inc.” that year and was finishing production on “Finding Nemo.”
At the time, he was chief executive of both Apple and Pixar. Both companies shared Jobs’ perfectionist streak.
I asked him what the key was for maintaining quality movies at Pixar.
“Everyone will tell you that story is the most important thing, but hardly anyone really walks the walk,” Jobs said. “What happens (elsewhere) is that when the story’s not good enough and the production machine is moving and needs to be fed, people will just keep making the movie that they know isn’t the greatest. But some people, Pixar among them, will stop and say: ‘Wait a minute. This just is not as good as it needs to be.’”


Art: Steve Jobs tribute art by Hong Kong design student Jonathan Mak. Jobs died Wed. Oct. 5.

TSA a prime target of political cartoonists

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration has been the subject of frequent scandals and citizen outrage. But it’s been great fodder for political cartoonists, including Investor’s Business Daily’s Michael Ramirez. (See above sample.)
Here are some online galleries of other TSA-themed political cartoons:

About.com Political Humor

U.S. News and World Report

MSNBC PowerWall

Chimp Planet part 1 and part 2

America’s disgust with the TSA could be an issue in the 2012 presidential race

The United States has always prided itself on its principles of personal freedom. But reactionary politics after 9/11 have created a police state at our nation’s airports. And that mindset is spreading into other sectors of American life.
Under the guise of greater security, American citizens have seen their constitutional rights eroded. If you want to fly a commercial airline today, you lose your Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches. That amendment states that people have a right to be “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” unless there is probable cause of criminal activity.
But today blue-gloved agents of the U.S. government, working for the Transportation Security Administration, can grope you in full-body pat-downs, take X-ray images to see what you look like under your clothes, and dig through your personal belongings at will at the nation’s airports.
A famous quote from Founding Father Benjamin Franklin is appropriate here: “Those who would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
The TSA is an example of the expanding scope of the government into the lives of its citizens. The mandate under President Obama’s sweeping health-care law that citizens must buy health insurance or face penalties is another.
U.S. Rep. Ron Paul has been gaining supporters in his Republican presidential bid with calls for smaller government. Paul says he would abolish the TSA and privatize airline security. He believes the agency has infringed on the privacy rights of passengers while doing little to keep the country safe, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The Associated Press reported Monday that Paul is “proving to be a force in the 2012 contest.” While few believe he will capture the GOP nomination, he could play spoiler to early front-runners Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the AP says.
Republican candidates should pay more attention to libertarian voters and less courting of the religious right, if they want to win next year.
A citizens’ petition on the White House website to abolish the TSA has garnered nearly 25,000 digital signatures. It only needed to get 5,000 signatures to be submitted for review and get an official response, according to Forbes. The White House says it will respond to the petition to abolish the TSA in a “few weeks,” Forbes says.
Meanwhile the TSA’s Gestapo tactics have caught on with metropolitan police departments who harass and arrest journalists and citizens who try to videotape their officers in public. (See articles on Gizmodo and Techdirt.)
And the National Football League this year is instituting TSA-style pat-downs at stadiums before games.
This has got to stop.

Art: Terrific political cartoon by Ben Garrison of Grrrgraphics.com.

TSA-type screenings spreading like a disease

Football fans attending today’s NFL matchup of the Denver Broncos vs. the Green Bay Packers were inconvenienced by long lines as the Packers instituted new security screening procedures.
As the kickoff to Sunday’s Broncos-Packers game approached, “long lines of fans waiting to enter (Green Bay’s) Lambeau Field still stretched deep into the stadium’s parking lots,” the Associated Press reported.
The NFL is pushing for pat-downs at stadiums to improve fan safety, USA Today reports.
So, the practices of the reviled Transportation Security Administration have been adopted outside of the nation’s airports.
What’s next? Pat-downs before entering shopping malls or movie theaters?
Techdirt skewered the NFL’s decision to implement TSA-style security theater in a recent article. This is not a good trend for America.

Art: One of several funny TSA-related imprints for bumper stickers, coffee mugs and other products offered for sale by Zazzle.