The End of Cable (In My House)

Posted on by

I finally did it: I cancelled cable.

This has been a multi-year process. A few years ago we dropped all but the local channels, Discovery, WGN and Versus. We still needed cable for the reception, in particular, and we loved Versus (Tour de France, hockey games) and Discovery. But then Comcast removed Versus from their basic service and Discovery stopped showing good shows.

In addition, we moved. In Hillsboro, where we used to live, Comcast’s Basic coverage cost $10 per month. In our new house, 16 miles away, it costs $21. And in last month’s bill we found out they are raising the rates, less than one year since we signed up here. To say the least I was annoyed. Since I reduced my plan to Basic six years ago, we lost channels and got more lousy programming in exchange for more than double the price.

In that same time period all the local channels went to digital high definition. I started investigating antenna, thinking if we can get the local stuff free we can live without the other programming. [1] My first thought was what happens if I unplug the cable, switch the tv to antenna and searched for local channels?

Lo and behold, we get every one of them, perfect quality, plus a couple of others we either didn’t get or didn’t know about on the cable box!

Now… I have $24 per month to spend on entertainment. Hulu+ maybe? Amazon Prime? Or maybe we wait for the next, great thing that actually gives us compelling content to watch. [2]

—

[1] This, of course, excludes Mythbusters, which we can’t find when new episodes run anyway. Turns out some old episodes are on Netflix anyway (and more on Amazon Prime!) so we still get our fix when we need one.

[2] Spent some time last night looking at these options. Hulu probably isn’t for us but Amazon Prime is compelling. There is a lot of stuff there that is not available on Netflix Watch Instantly. Plus, free two-day shipping and one free Kindle rental per month.

Breaking Rules: Either Business Model or Product, But Not Both

Posted on by

I have a theory that you can only have one earth-shattering change at a time when it comes to building a business. What is the thing you a going to do that breaks the status quo?

Most technology businesses break on product. Salesforce.com was a great example of this. No one had made CRM software available in the cloud before them. Nike was a break through in product, too.

But some companies are a break through in business model. Google, I would argue, was one of these as no one had proved that people would pay for that kind of ad placement before on the web, in an open market competition. There were hints it would work but no one had truly been successful with it before. Dell is another example, at least when the company started. At that time all computers were sold in retail stores. Dell went mail order, reducing costs and becoming a new, low cost provider in the industry.

The theory, though, is that you can only break one rule at a time when you start a company. You can either be a revolutionary product with a proven business model or you can be a revolutionary business model with a proven product. You can’t be both.

The Search For Simple

Posted on by

From Insanely Simple by Ken Segall (Amazon, Kindle, Powells):

What makes Apple stand out in a complicated world: a deep, almost religious belief in the power of Simplicity. As those who have worked with Apple will attest, the simpler way isn’t always the easiest. Often it requires more time, more money, and more energy. It might require you to step on a few toes. But more times than not, it will lead to measurably better results.

I’ve been obsessed with simple the past few years. I get frustrated by computer complexity, business complexity, even personal life complexity. There just isn’t enough time in the day to deal with any of it. (And that has become even more apparent since I had kids six years ago.) I haven’t been able to put a word to it as well as Ken Segall, the author of this book does, but it has been there.

I look at other people’s products, I look at my own products, and get frustrated with everything that needs explanation or isn’t obvious, simple, intuitive.

I bought an Android phone this weekend and its complexity struck me immediately. Maybe some of it is my lack of familiarity with the platform, but its nit-picky way of doing things drove me nuts. Hiding things in a menu drawer, navigating through email, the lack of consistency from app to app. (The hardware is magnificent, simple and responsive.) I love my iPhone (and iPad) for just that reason. I loved my BlackBerry before that for the same reason. And I loved the PalmPilot back in the day for the very same reason.

So this has been my struggle since the dawn of time: how do I make working with numbers simple? powerOne was amazingly simple compared to what came before it. Teachers, students and professionals in all walks of life loved it for that reason. But just as BlackBerry made the PalmPilot look complex and iOS made the BlackBerry look complex, powerOne doesn’t feel so simple anymore.

The evolution continues.

Reason #345,968 I’m Glad I Don’t Live In Florida Anymore

Posted on by

I’d like to say that I am shocked and surprised, but I lived in Florida for 6 years and while I never heard anything like this, I heard plenty of other oddities:

One man was shot to death by Miami police, and another man is fighting for his life after he was attacked, and his face allegedly half eaten, by a naked man on the MacArthur Causeway off ramp Saturday, police said.

(Here’s the Miami Herald’s original story and the follow-up.)

There were lots of oddities about that place when I lived there. No one drove the maximum speed limits. The number of murders was unbelievable. There were neighborhoods you didn’t drive into, and they would be just couple of blocks from multi-million dollar homes. I remember one story about an escaped mental patient carrying an AK-47 rifle down the middle of a major road. No one was hurt. Of course, the dead German tourist thing happened right before I moved there. Nothing like this, but these other stories are so routine they don’t even make the paper.

We went to see The Avengers this weekend. I turned to my wife at the end and said if there is any one lesson from these super hero movies, it is that living in New York City is a very dangerous place. It seems NYC gets destroyed every year!

I was kidding about New York. Not so much about Miami.

What Would John Cleese Do?

Posted on by

Absolutely hilarious post (at least to my weird sense of humor) from Nick Bradbury on a pair of shoes that fart when wet:

One recent rainy morning, I stopped at the grocery store after walking my dogs in the park.

As I strode into the store I realized that my wet shoes were making farting noises with every step. I tried walking more slowly, but that just resulted in slower, deeper farts.

So I paused for a moment, too mortified to move. Then like any geek of good conscience, I asked myself, WWJCD?

“What would John Cleese do?”

I don’t usually post stuff that I don’t have a comment about, but hey! it’s Friday before a long weekend. And this one cracked me up.