Law: Edwin Stegman

As an attorney, I enjoy Edwin Stegman's articles. He has a diverse legal background, so his ideas tend to be both realistic and individual-oriented. Here is an excerpt from a June 2009 article on how to reform the legal system:

Motions for summary judgment (MFSJ) were originally a summary procedure to deal with the practice of debtors filing unmeritorious answers to delay collection of their debts. CCP §437c, enacted in 1931, required 10 days’ notice for a motion for summary judgment. The motion is no longer “summary.”

Instead of 10, the motion now requires 80 days notice, if by mail. The court may grant a continuance to conduct discovery; then the judge has 90 days to rule, the loser has 15 days to file a motion for new trial and the court has 60 days to rule. Therefore, it can take more than a year for a creditor to obtain a judgment to collect a debt. As a result, collections specialists say the MFSJ has become so slow, cumbersome and expensive ($200 filing fee) that they rarely use it.

So we’re back to pre-1931 and debtors can again file unmeritorious answers to delay collection of their debts.

Oh, the irony.

Kiplinger's Interview with Robert Shiller

Interview with Robert Shiller (June 2009):

http://www.kiplinger.com/magazine/archives/2009/06/interview-with-robert-shiller.html

People think that because we have only so much land, and it is getting scarcer, housing prices must rise. But offsetting that is the decline in construction costs, so it balances out...

The figures show that the market is relatively low-priced now. Based on history, we should get something like 10% real [after-inflation] annual returns from stocks for years to come...

The French philosopher Montesquieu said that history is littered with wars and that it would be great if we could create some peaceful methods of diverting humans from their aggressive tendencies. Business is one peaceful alternative.

Shiller always seems to make a lot of sense. I'm not sure I agree that stocks are a sure thing right now. The article doesn't indicate where the S&P was at the time of the interview.

What if Iran Had a Revolution and Not Enough People Cared?

Andrew Sullivan is doing a great job blogging about the mini-revolution in Iran. Here is one email, from Iran:

WE NEED HELP. WE NEED SUPPORT. Time is not on our side, waiting and making sure means more casualties, more disappointment, more brutality.

The most essential need of young Iranians is to be recognized by US government. They need them not to accept the results and do not talk to A.N government as an official, approved one. They need help by sending true information. All the medias are under arrest or close control. Help them have the information.

They only try to show the fraud to the world. Help them please. You can not imagine the level of brutality we saw these two awful days.

Steve Jobs' Stanford Commencement Speech

Funny: Charlie Brooker

Hilarious article on great books:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/09/charlie-brooker

Nice to see the British haven't lost their wit.

Netflix Finally Addresses Online Captioning Issues

In mid-May 2009, I reported that CEO Reed Hastings had confirmed that Netflix would not take an active approach to captioning its online content. The online community reacted immediately to CEO Hasting's comments. As of today, the Facebook group, "Netflix Watch-Instantly Needs Closed Captions!" had 983 members--most of whom joined after my review of Netflix's annual meeting was published. According to some reports, Netflix recently received thousands of inquiries regarding captioning online content.

Netflix finally issued a statement regarding captions yesterday. Click here to see it. The gist of the statement was that captioning would be supported on a specific Microsoft media player in about one year:

Captioning is in our development plans but is about a year away...I would expect to deliver subtitles or captions to Silverlight clients sometime in 2010.

One reader, Chris, wasn't buying Netflix's explanation:

I am not personally affected by Netflix's lack of subtitles but from reading multiple deaf consumer's complaints about Netflix's lack of support of Closed Captions I can sympathize with their point of view. from a technological standpoint I would say that Netflix has totally failed. I've been able to view DivX movies with subtitles for at least 7+ years. And it in no way required bringing the text into the the video. In fact all it required was a simple time-stamped .txt file that took up maybe 10-20 KB (that is 0.001% the size of a normal Netflix movie). There should be ZERO reason why Netflui/Silverlight can't support the use of .SRT. files and be able to EASILY support CC in multiple languages. Quite frankly I think Netflix has really disappointed a non-significant size of its customer base and is hiding behind non-existent "technological difficulties" as an excuse.

Personally, I view Netflix's response with cautious optimism. After receiving thousands of inquiries about online captioning, Netflix now understands that its cavalier approach to the issue was unacceptable. Also, by publicly declaring that online captioning will be available in some format in "about a year," Netflix has committed itself to a particular date. If it fails to provide online captioning by July 2010, its reputation and perhaps share price will suffer.

To be continued...

Update on June 15, 2009: I forgot to add that celebrity Marlee Matlin gave her support to online captioning via Twitter:

[from her friend] I called Netflix and talked 2 one of corporate offices Over 8000 letters & phone calls about #caption this month! YES!!

Update on July 10, 2009: I recently tried to enjoy Gran Torino, but it didn't have TV captions or DVD subtitles. I called customer service, and she sent me another DVD after assuring me the DVD had captions. (NFLX lists Gran Torino as a closed captioned film.) The second DVD also didn't have captions.

I noticed the DVD cover was gray. It turns out that gray-colored DVDs are made specifically for Netflix and may be different from other publicly-sold DVDs. In this case, it appears the studio, Warner Brothers, didn't provide Netflix with a captioned DVD. No one had apparently figured this out. Netflix and its contract lawyers should ensure that all of its specially-issued DVDs have captions. Why would any studio want to prevent hearing impaired people from enjoying their product?

Update on April 18, 2010: Netflix has finally captioned some online videos, but only 100 so far. More here. Looking at hulu.com's options, which have included captioning and now transcripts, I am still disappointed with NFLX.

Daily Show on Socialism

I don't watch much TV, but I love the Daily Show clips online. Here is one on socialism:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=225126&title=the-stockholm-syndrome-pt.-2

I couldn't hear much of it, and it doesn't have captions, but I still cracked up. As media shifts from the television and radio to the internet, the pace of captioning isn't keeping up at all. The lack of captioning bars most online media from hearing-impaired persons and many senior citizens as well.