- Today is off to a *stellar* start. #
- Awesome. John Legend and The Roots cover Arcade Fire: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKXKJc5DmT4 #
Twitter Updates for 2010-09-27
- Awesome job, CBS. I like that I'm listening to the game. #
- If you saw something odd from my twitter, well, twitter has a pretty big exploit. I was checking it out. #
- Also, the Patriots defense should learn how to tackle. #
- Dear Carolina Panthers,
Apparently Matt Moore *is* better than Jimmy Clausen. Please put someone in who can throw to Steve Smith.
Thanks. #
- And, it's pretty awesome that CJ Spiller is sitting on my fantasy bench. #
- @fraggle22 How could you possibly know that Charles Batch could still throw the ball? in reply to fraggle22 #
- Is it just me, or is Ninkovitch horrible in space? #
- Our front 7 gets blown up on every single play. I don't understand it. #
- @wintermatt Your boy Clausen sucks. #
- If I lose fantasy this week because Janikowski shanked a bunch of kicks, I'll be unhappy. #
- Or, if I lose because the SD line couldn't give Rivers more than 3 seconds to throw, I'll also be unhappy. #
- As long as Brandon Jackson and the Green Bay D score less than 36 pts, I win. #
Twitter Updates for 2010-09-26
- Holy crap, we have a running game. It's almost like our offensive line decided to play today. David Wilson has looked great. #
- Ok, let's march down and do it again. Put 7 more on the board. #
- Yeah, I'll get pumped up about a punt after the atrocious offensive drive the Hokies put together. #
- Wow, great blitz pickup by Darren Evans! #
- I'm so sick of how undisciplined this team is. This is on the coaching staff. #
- Though, that's a pretty BS call. The over-protection of the punter is ridiculous. #
- And that was the latest flag I've ever seen. And a horrible call. #
- This is a horribly officiated game. #
- Down inbounds, not in the end zone. Why would they even review this? I hate the ACC. #
- Eat it BC. The crew got one call right in the half. #
- Thanks Tyrod. I apologize that our offensive line would get beat by a high school d-line. You're still good. #
- @gobblercountry Have we ever had a worse o-line? in reply to gobblercountry #
- @gobblercountry Maybe -- but they still had Render and Brown, didn't they? This line is atrocious. Yet, we are winning. in reply to gobblercountry #
- Big time play by Drager. Let's bury them. Do not settle for 3. #
- This is why we will never, ever win a title. Our coaching staff has no brains and no balls. Oh well, at least we have "heart" #
- What an atrocious set of plays, with atrocious blocking, an atrocious execution. Why do I watch these games? #
- Why don't we run the quick outs and WR screens early in the game? Our WRs are better than our RBs right now, so let's use them. #
- Watching the premiere of Supernatural after cranking out all of my errands. Probably the most slept on show on TV. #
Five Stars Just Isn't Enough
I'm a Netflix addict. I joined in January of 2004 and since then I've rented about 430 movies (so I get through a little more than 1 movie a week). With Netflix's "Watch Instantly" streaming, I've watched a bunch more movies and TV shows that way as well.
And, every time I watch something on Netflix (or in the theater or online or on TV or ... wherever), I rate it using Netflix's scale. Everything gets 1 to 5 stars. Over those same 6.5 years, I've rated 1780 tv shows and movies (yeah, I realize I'm a freak).
But one thing has always bugged me: five stars isn't granular enough. The scale, as it Netflix has it, is basically:
1 star = hated it
2 stars = really didn't like it
3 stars = liked it
4 stars = really liked it
5 stars = loved it
I'm mostly ok with the ends of the spectrum. I don't need a lot of gradations between "hated it" and "really didn't like it"--if I hate something, I'll probably never watch it again. If I "really didn't like it", I'll probably never watch it again, but maybe I'd watch a scene I liked if it popped up on HBO. Likewise, with the high end: five stars is for something that's perfect (or almost perfect); 4 stars for something that is really, really good, but maybe not the greatest ever.
It's in the 3 star range that things get tricky. There are loads and loads of movies that I've given 3 stars because I didn't dislike them enough to be 2 stars, but they weren't good enough to be 4 stars. So, what I end up with a big huge bucket of movies in the 3 star range. Except not all 3 star movies are created equal.
For instance, just recently I watched Green Zone and The Goods. Green Zone is a pretty good action movie, a bit of a message, but gets pretty heavy-handed towards the end. It's a good, solid movie. If I had half-stars, it's probably a 3.5 star movie. I liked it, would watch it again, but it's not a "great" movie. The Goods had its moments, but I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it again. I'd like to give it 2.5 stars. Sadly, Netflix doesn't let me do this. They both get 3 stars, and people thing I'm insane for rating Bridget Jones' Diary the same as Boy Eats Girl or Shutter Island the same as Semi-Pro.
I threw my ratings into Excel (thanks to a nify script to extract ratings from Netflix's site), and what you see is a pretty typical bell curve.
It's a little biased towards the high side of the chart, which is to be expected: I don't go out of my way to rent movies I don't like. But, the peak in the middle is a little high, and the left side a little low, since I don't have a way to differentiate between movies that are ok (the aforementioned "Goods") and that are pretty good (Green Zone, etc.).
With half-star ratings, I'm pretty certain what you would see is the middle peak brought down significantly, and a bit more gradual rise -- a lot more of those 3 star movies become 2.5 star movies, some become 3.5 stars (and likewise, some of the 2s become 2.5s and some of the 4s become 3.5s). As I mentioned, there'd be many fewer movies moving between 1 and 1.5 and 5 and 4.5--there's already a filter there: I have to really like or really hate something for it to get 1 or 5 stars).
Why do I care? Well, I don't really. I do think it'd be nice if I could be a bit more accurate. From Netflix's perspective, I'm not sure they care: five options makes it easier for your everyday Netflix person to rate movies without thinking about it. It probably also makes the suggestion engine a bit easier, since people have to make a decision (it's like a survey: you get better results when you make people make a choice).
Mostly, I only wanted to explain why I rate crappy movies the same as good movies. I don't have a choice. (Also, I have weird taste in movies.)
Twitter Updates for 2010-09-25
Twitter Updates for 2010-09-22
- Finally bought the Klaxons new album on iTunes. It's mostly awesome because of the Catstronaut. #
- @fraggle22 Agreed. I'm using the web interface now, and waiting for an update to Twitterrific, since I think that will let me manage better. in reply to fraggle22 #
- @fraggle22 Also, you barely get work done anyway. in reply to fraggle22 #
Twitter Updates for 2010-09-21
Twitter Updates for 2010-09-20
Twitter Updates for 2010-09-19
- No, I'm not paying attention to my Hokies (they're winning ... ). Except they can't stop ECU. #
- Also, why can't I get the new twitter? I wanna play with it. #
- And, we'll be losing at the half. No Ryan Williams in the second half, and a defense full of freshmen ... oy. #
- Back on top. If the defense can step up and do *something*, we can get this team rolling. #
- Hey, who are these Hokies? Getting stops and rushing the ball? If I see a fumble here, that'll make more sense. #
- Go for two. Make it a two score game. #
- Of course not. Our coaching staff lacks any sort of common sense ... or balls. #
- Hokies have finally remembered that they used to be good. Maybe this will be like 1995. 0-2 to start, finish 11-2. #
- And that, right there, is why we will never win a championship with our current coaching staff. Grow a pair. #