Netflix and Chill

Let's start with the latter one, while it can still be measured:



That's not Celsius, kids. It's been this way for most of the past 48 hours, with even lower readings popping up in other friends' posts from near and not too far.  This same snarky app does say we're going to hit double digits by later this morning, and actual above-freezing temps by tomorrow! Yay!  At least we've been spared snow this time for the most part; what remains from January (and a few blizzard plowpiles from December) has frozen solid in this, and that makes it easier to see any patches of it while going on walkies. They've been shorter; in this cold with a wind, your fingers and thighs feel it even through woolly gloves and heavy pants.

Notwithstanding that, Eleanor and I went out in that cold last night for our second Friday night outing in two weeks. Our friend Bianca started painting in a new medium last year, using coffee as the tint for her works born out of anger and activism about the May 16 Tops murders and the general state of racial affairs all over and here in particular.  She's especially upset about the recent unsolved murder of a Buffalo State student found dead on UB's campus; Bianca's worked for student housing at both schools, including specifically the kid's BuffState dorm.  Still, she does it with kindness and positivity that even a cold wind and her own physical limitations can't keep down.



The artist, speaking about her work.



Not intentionally a picture of Eleanor's back; I mainly kept it in the shot to show the perspective of this row of prints. Bianca's cane in the previous picture is what she uses on better days, and she often has to use a wheelchair, so she put these set of her prints at chair level for those of us who are, or will be, seeing things that way.

The show was at a gallery/store called Book Arts, a sibling to the Just Buffalo literary program that runs the Babel speakers series and many other programs for writers and readers.  (Here's their promo for the opening and the continuing exhibition.)  They also have a nice collection of snarky Valentines cards:



I especially liked the one on the bottom row that Spock got for T'Pring.  I'll have to go back and pick one to warm Eleanor's heart next weekend, because nothing outside is going to right now;)

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Which brings us to the streaming version of hell.

Netflix is the daddy of the streaming services. From beginning as the DVD shipping service that killed Blockbuster (or didn't), it ventured into its own online subscription programming. Starting out with a subsidiary called Red Envelope Entertainment, named after its signature mailer, that made films for DVD distribution (we still run into one from that "studio" from time to time), it eventually turned into the streaming service it and many others have since become. The US adaptation of House of Cards, and Orange is the New Black, became the biggest hits from 2013. The delivery option lives on, mainly for old fogies like us, and the pricing remains blended for monthly delivery of, for us, one-at-a time in either DVD or Blu-Ray format. That remains how they maintain their back catalog of non-current, non-small-b-blockbuster films; they do not offer online rental or purchase options like Amazon Prime and others do.

Prime quickly became the second major source for original content separated from dedicated cable channels. (At one time, Bezos had offered to buy Netflix, and they had previously offered to sell the entire thing to then-Big-B-Blockbuster, but each suitor was turned down.) Our original flatscreen TV had access to these and NBC's original online effort Hulu, if we connected the computer by VGA cable to the screen.  Once we finally Got Smart and replaced it with the current Samsung, it pulls in the internet signal directly, and at least ten other services have supplemented those three. Some, like Tubi and FreeVee, are free of subscription fees and are entirely ad-supported. Apple TV, Disney+ and HBO Max have subscription fees that each run a few shekels a month each but have no ads, and the latter is free to us because our mobile service is part of the ATT/Warner/Discovery empire.  NBC's newer Peacock is a blend of these, and Netflix is also rolling out a cheaper monthly "ad tier" service. It's increasingly hard to keep track of what show/film is showing on which one(s), and for how much if it's a purchase or rental. Though we've now ditched all our cable TV service and cut that bill almost in half from the days of the set-top box, the streamers together make up a big chunk of the difference- and we don't even pay for them all.

Some come as free or free-ish add-ons to other things we have: HBO Max with the cell phone plan, Prime with the monthly Amazon charge for that whole empire. The others, though, are paid for every month. Apparently, though, it's not enough to keep all that quality programming going, because Netflix has been making noise for some time about slamming the brakes on the longtime pratice of password sharing.  We're not talking about password theft, or mass dumping of them on a message board for any old user to glom onto. No, it's parents in both directions: letting their own college age kids or empty-nest grandmas watch on their dime, or letting the divorced-parent kids have access to the same account no matter which house they're watching in.

In earlier days, the service not only looked away when this was happening, it outwardly embraced it:




The other day, word got out of the steps the service planned to take to implement the new regime of One Account In Da House:

According to the streaming giant's help center, which updated its FAQ pages for countries currently in the midst of the crackdown (Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru), Netflix accounts will remain shareable but only within one household. (The U.S. may be next up in the first quarter.)

As a result, Netflix will require users to identify a "primary location" for all accounts that live within the same household. Users will need sign into the home wifi of the primary location at least once every 31 days to ensure their device is not blocked.

The company said it will use information such as IP addresses, device IDs, and account activity to determine whether a device signed into the account is connected to the primary location.

When someone signs into the account from a device that is not part of the primary location, or if the account is accessed persistently from another location, it will likely be blocked.

To bypass this, the main account holder will need to verify the device through a temporary code. Once verified, the traveling member can watch Netflix for seven consecutive days. It’s unclear if you can request multiple temporary codes following the seven-day period to avoid paying for an additional account.

Within milliseconds of news of this new system going on the US help page, the Internet lost its collective mind. That narrow definition of a "household," the tie to Wifi and IP addresses for verification, the rigamaroles that would be required for paying users when traveling or even alternating between home and office, the effects on teachers showing Netflix documentaries in their classrooms.  Plainly, they stepped in it, and by the following morning, the backtrack had begun:

The news that Netflix would be blocking devices without a full explanation of what that would mean for people who travel for a living, students in college who live away from their parents, people with multiple homes, and more was not well received by users — whether they were subscribers or those who stream on a subscriber’s account.

However, those new rules were removed from the Netflix website as of Wednesday, Feb. 1, leading to confusion as to exactly what the world’s largest streamer was planning for its already-announced initiative. It turns out, according to a Netflix spokesperson, that those rules are in fact currently in place, just not yet in the United States.

“For a brief time yesterday, a help center article containing information that is only applicable to Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, went live in other countries,” the spokesperson told The Streamable. “We have since updated it.”

The Netflix spokesperson confirmed that if and when the company was to make a change that significant, it would not begin rolling it out without first communicating the details to customers.

Much better. Now go back and renew Paper Girls and Standing Up as your penance:P