What’s shipping out of your Netflix queue?

I recently reduced the number of movies in my NetFlix queue to twenty-one titles, only seven of which are currently released. I did this because I have been waiting on those titles for many weeks, some for months.

The hypothesis is that people with shorter lists might be getting shipments from what little they wanted while folk like me with longer lists, mine was near one hundred, were being made to wait for popular titles — since we have alternative choices from further down in our lists which they ship instead.

If they couldn’t ship me a disc I was expecting Netflix to do one of two things, probably both. Tell me to add more titles to my list and/or put shipments on hold until a title I wanted came into stock. They did neither.

Legally download all The Beatles music, free?!

UPDATE: According to this arcticle “Legal Beatles MP3 archive goes dark” at boingboing.net Norwegian Broadcasting misunderstood their licensing agreement and they’ve had to pull 212 podcasts and their associated tracks! I only downloaded the first 14, how many did you get?

Helen Suzman, the first* person I ever voted for, dies at 91 …

Straight out of school until she retired in ’89, I voted for Helen Suzman’s Progressive Party. I’ve never voted for a political party that ever came to power, but I don’t ever regret supporting Helen’s unique anti-apartheid efforts.

Helen was not only enlightened but affluent and resisted movements that tried to cripple apartheid by crippling the country’s economy. I witnessed so many people escaping South Africa’s crumbling economy in the mid 80’s — our doctors, lawyers and engineers were welcomed in the UK, Australia, Canada and the USA. Concentrating amongst those of us left behind the die hards clinging to white power who couldn’t and wouldn’t leave the country, essentially making the task of liberals edging the country towards democracy that much harder. Helen stayed and used her wealth and influence to change the country.

Helen lived in the elite suburb of Houghton, an enclave of walled in estates which typically epitomised the privilege of the white minority in a largely impoverished black majority country. I recall some conservative students accused her of being removed from the consequences of democracy, that she wouldn’t have to live it the same way that most whites would have to. Rather than defend the moral point, as most politicians would, she simply shot back that she had more to lose than the average white if democracy didn’t work out. So true, to the point and convincing!

Rest in peace Helen, your work is well done!

*Not only was Helen the first person I ever voted for, the party she created and the subsequent forms it morphed into were the only ones I ever voted for. In 2012 I aim to become a US Citizen — opening up a whole new opportunity for me to do some good with my vote. I’m looking forward to that as much as I did when I cast my first vote.

Suggested reading: The New York Times obit “Helen Suzman, Anti-Apartheid Leader, Dies at 91”

Work around the iDisk error code -36: Keep iDisk Sync: On …

When trying to mount my iDisk in the Finder>Go>iDisk>my iDisk I get the following “Your iDisk cannot be accessed. Your member name or password may be invalid. An unexpected error occurred (error code -36).”

This happens whether or not I’m signed in via System Preferences>MobileMe or not, even after rebooting, fixing permissions and/or deleting my URLMount folder from Systems>Library>Filesystems. I’m using Mac OS 10.5x through several versions (now 10.5.5) with the Firewall down on a PowerBook G4 on an AirPort wireless network. I don’t have the exact same problem using my Intel PowerBook, I get the -35 error instead, where logging in and out of MobileMe from the System Preferences sets things right — for a little while, at least.

This isn’t a fix, but I can work around the annoying iDisk error code -36: If I go to my System Preferences>MobileMe>iDisk and start iDisk Syncing, then sure enough, my iDisk mounts and, after it has synced up, I’m able to use my virtual disk. It does, however, require a large amount of hard disk space but it brings with it the convenience of using my iDisk offline, which isn’t very often.

When I turn iDisk syncing off, I lose the virtual disk again: Listen up Apple, you need to fix this .mac, .me or MobileMe thing. Instead of acquiring alternate domain names for marketing it, try fixing it instead! Remember your Apple ad suggesting Microsoft to spend more on fixing Vista than on advertising it? People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

Gilbert Potter

GC1Y8TK: The challenge, for those landing on this page from a geochaching clue is to locate Stage #3, a Town of Huntington historical sign marking the one time residence of Gilbert Potter, which hides the directions to the final Stage #4 of a multi-stage cache …

Gilbert Potter 1725 – 1786

Gilbert Potter, a resident of Huntington, now buried in the Old Huntington Cemetery on Main St., was a patriot of the American Revolution, a doctor and a commissioned officer Gilbert Potter as listed on page 512 of Frederic Gregory Mather’s book “The refugees of 1776 from Long Island to Connecticut.” He was known for the patriotic saying “I am determined to live and die free.” The cemetery in which he is buried, also known as the Old Burial Hill Cemetery, is considered by The Long Island Paranormal Investigators to be a haunted site,

Happy New Year …

Here’s wishing you happiness, health and prosperity for 2009!