I repeat: Gladly.

When I got an e-mail from Reed Hastings a few weeks ago, I was not surprised at the decision to move toward streaming as a main focus – that’s where most everything is going.  We spoke at length about it on that week’s Ramble & Review.  I can’t remember the last time I bought a software program from a store on a physical disc – literally everything is available for download and installation, and the publishers send you the license keys in e-mail.  This rule has only a few exceptions, but I won’t dive into that here.

I was, however, upset in finding that I would have two separate accounts and two monthly payments for what I consider the same service: streaming and DVD delivery.  I wasn’t happy, but I couldn’t just cancel.  Netflix’s business model has effectively shut down the brick-and-mortar video rental stores, including the two of them in my small town.  When it comes to DVDs, postal delivery is the only choice we have now.

Today, the public speaks.  Reed (via the Netflix team) sent me another e-mail this morning:

Dear Benjamin,

It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.

This means no change: one website, one account, one password…in other words, no Qwikster.

While the July price change was necessary, we are now done with price changes.

We’re constantly improving our streaming selection. We’ve recently added hundreds of movies from Paramount, Sony, Universal, Fox, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, MGM and Miramax. Plus, in the last couple of weeks alone, we’ve added over 3,500 TV episodes from ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, USA, E!, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, ABC Family, Discovery Channel, TLC, SyFy, A&E, History, and PBS.

We value you as a member, and we are committed to making Netflix the best place to get your movies & TV shows.

Respectfully,

The Netflix Team

And with this, I am happy.  One bill, one set of credentials, one place for my movies.  I just couldn’t see a reason to separate the DVD and streaming into two entities.  Netflix is for movies and entertainment – it should all be in one place.  If I could imbue any significant change to their model, it would be to make only one copy of a movie available – if you can stream it, there’s no need to ask for it on DVD.  Even if you’re one of those people who copy every DVD so you can watch it any time, it’s all the same.  You can stream it from Netflix just like you can from your media server.

That is, of course, only until the copyright holder’s agreement with Netflix expires.  Then some things aren’t available anymore, leaving customers clamoring for that one show or feature film they missed back in 1989.  I think Netflix will eventually get to stream every motion picture and TV show ever published, but it will take many more years, droves of lawyers, and possibly billions of dollars in court costs, license agreements, lobbying, and – lest we forget – paying your Netflix subscription at least until then.

I work away from home during the week and have considered helping my daughter use her Gmail account so I could send her things and get her reading even more than she already does (she’s awesome, by the way – nearly two grades ahead in reading). She could also use some experience on the keyboard and some general computer skills. After all, she’s six and has no time to waste becoming proficient with computers.

We had just situated ourselves on the couch with my laptop when I realized I’d forgotten the password I had set for her years ago. My wife couldn’t remember it either. We were able to answer some security questions (which I set up in the first place) and reset the password. She wanted the password to be her lambs’ names (Stella and Martha), so we tried StellaMartha for the new password. Google didn’t like it because it was susceptible to a dictionary attack, and absolutely refused to allow it. Some sites will only warn the user about these types of things, and others simply ignore it and will let you use anything. Google goes a bit out of its way to ensure you are protecting your account more than you might at your favorite poker site.

I took this rejection as a challenge to my daughter: she could take those words and still use them, but change them to Leet speak, or 1337. Read the Wikipedia article on Leet for more information.

I never told my daughter what Leet was and had never really explained any of it to her before, but I told her to make substitutions for the letters using symbols that approximate the letter, such as 8 for B, + for t, and so forth. She caught on immediately. Before I was finished creating ‘Stella’ in another form, she was giving me symbols to use. “Daddy, we can use that pipe thing for an ell!” The password we came up with was 5+3||AM@r+#4. I told her she didn’t need to replace all the letters, but she seemed to be having fun. She’s also successfully logged in to Gmail several times by herself using this cryptic collection of symbols*, so the complexity hasn’t really posed a problem.

My point here is that it shouldn’t be very hard or take a long time to create a strong password that you can remember. If I can teach my six-year-old how to create a strong password, I hope I can teach you too.  Simply take a word for something you’ll remember and change it to 1337.  Try to make sure you don’t have two letters right next to each other, and you should end up with a fairly complex password that will be very difficult for a computer to break.  It’s the first step in securing your identity and it should be a high priority for anyone who wants to keep their information safe.  The password above comes from a 96-character set, and a 12-character password gives 612,709,757,329,767,363,772,416 possibilities.  At a billion passwords per second (supercomputer speed) it would take over 19 million years to go through every combination.  I’d say that’s as secure as I need it to be.

I have bestowed upon you great skills – now go use them.

*Disclaimer: this is obviously not the actual password we used.  And yes, we really do have lambs in our back yard – welcome to SouthGeek.

Everyone is welcome and there are reportedly already over 10,000 people registered for the course.  Apparently there’s no limit to the number in attendance, but there is a deadline: online registration ends September 20, and class starts on October 10.  There is one drawback to the free course, though: you still have to buy the book.  I’d recommend the book if you’re serious.  In fact, you’d have to be really serious.  Used copies are going for around $90.  Even the Kindle edition is over $100.

Artificial intelligence (AI)  is, simply put, computers learning about the world around them.  AI drives projects like the DARPA Grand Challenge and parts of Google search.  It’s what does voice recognition so well on your Android phone and routes your call to the right person when you call a big company.  AI can lead to a world of opportunities, all of which can also spark an idea for the next Sci-Fi thriller.

Also, I believe this is a prime opportunity to get at least a feel for what classes are like at Stanford.  I’ve always wanted to go to one of the big schools myself and find out if it is any tougher than the college courses I took.  I know I didn’t go to a school as highly regarded as MIT or Stanford, but I still had to take integral calculus, and it still nearly tore me in half.  A little sophomore course in Artificial Intelligence can’t be that bad, can it?  Read more about the offering here.