Category: netflix

07:35 – I finished the group on impression analysis yesterday and got started on the group on gunshot and explosive residues analysis. I had intended to include with the kit tiny specimens of firearms propellants (smokeless powder, black powder, Pyrodex) and explosives (dynamite, RDX, PETN, and so on). By “tiny”, I mean specimens of maybe 50 mg. Call it a tenth the size of an aspirin tablet. I was surprised to find that it’s illegal to mail these things. Not just under the Small Quantity Exemption, but period.

Fortunately, I checked the SQE rules. Until now, all of the hazardous materials I’ve been including the kits has fallen under paragraph 334.2(a) or 334.2(b), which qualify up to 30 mL or 30 g of material, respectively, for shipping under SQE. Paragraph 334.2(c) exempts “1 g (0.04 oz) or less for Division 6.1 (Packing Group I) materials”. I wasn’t sure what was included in Class 6 until I looked it up. It turns out to be “Toxic substances and infectious substances”. Alas, explosives (including firearms propellants) are in Class 1, for which there is no SQE (or ORM-D) waiver. That means it’s simply illegal to mail Class 1 materials, no matter how small the quantity. So I’ll have to fall back on telling readers to get their own specimens, which actually isn’t as difficult as it seems at first glance.

Barbara and I have started watching the shortened season three of Crossing Jordan on Netflix streaming. (The actress who plays Jordan was pregnant, which resulted in a season of only 13 episodes.) Fortunately, I happened to notice a post on a forum that mentioned that NBC had run season three not just out of order, but *really* out of order. So, instead of watching the episodes in the order they were broadcast, which is the order that Netflix streaming has them in, we’re watching them in the order they were intended to be broadcast:

1. episode #13
2. episode #7
3. episode #3
4. episode #1
5. episode #12
6. episode #2
7. episode #4
8. episode #9
9. episode #5
10. episode #6
11. episode #11
12. episode #8
13. episode #10

09:18 – I did go ahead and make up one liter of the 0.1 M IKI solution from solid iodine and potassium iodine. A tenth mole of each in 20 mL of water forms a brown-black sludge that looks like tar. So, with the IKI I already had on hand, I now have enough to make up 40 or so 30 mL bottles. Once the other liter finally goes into solution, I’ll have enough for 30 more.

I almost finished the glass and plastic analysis group of lab sessions for the forensics book yesterday. I’ll finish that today and start on the fingerprinting group. That’s a pretty large group, but I should be able to finish it this week.

Speaking of forensics, Barbara and I recently started watching Crossing Jordan again. We’d already watched the first season, which was released on DVD some years ago. But there was then some issue with music copyrights that for several years made it impossible for the studio to release seasons two through six. In March, all six seasons showed up on Netflix streaming, so we started watching it again where we’d left off.

The cast is good. The writing is generally competent, if not great. Sure, they put their characters in a lot of unrealistic situations, but that’s TV. What’s interesting is how they present forensic science. Unlike Bones, with its imaginary forensics, with minor exceptions Crossing Jordan sticks pretty much to the real deal. Yeah, they sometimes do things that are imaginary in 2012 and would have been really imaginary in 2002, like putting two blood samples into a desktop gene sequencer, punching a button, and four seconds later having Southern blots show up on the computer display, which flashes “DNA MATCH!”. But overall they get the science pretty much right. They also get the personality traits right, particularly with Bug (a forensic entomologist) and Nigel (a forensic technician).

We’re also well into season three of Heartland, which a lot of people think of as the Canadian version of McLeod’s Daughters. We liked the first couple seasons of McLeod’s Daughters, but it quickly went down the tubes after they killed off Claire. As long as Heartland doesn’t make the mistake of killing off Amy, they should be good for a 10 or 15 year run. The cast is first-rate, as is the writing.

Over the years, I’ve rated several hundred series and movies on Netflix, and given fewer than a dozen of those five stars. Heartland gets five stars, at least so far.

07:43 – It’s amazing what a difference a tiny little thing like a comma can make. I saw the following on Wikipedia last night:

1520 – Citizens of Toledo, Castile, who were opposed to the rule of the foreign-born Charles V, rose up in revolt when the royal government attempted to unseat radical city councilors.

I think what they meant to say was:

1520 – Citizens of Toledo, Castile who were opposed to the rule of the foreign-born Charles V rose up in revolt when the royal government attempted to unseat radical city councilors.

I was reminded of Oscar Wilde: “I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.” Non-writers think he was kidding; writers know he wasn’t.

With the taxes finished, I’m back to working heads-down on the forensics book. Yesterday, though, I spent some time putting together a basic web site for the science kits. As of now, all I have is landing pages for the chemistry kit and the biology kit. I need more than that, ideally before the biology book hits the bookstores.

13:02 – Here’s irony. Barbara and I have been watching Heartland on Netflix streaming. They have the first two series: 13 episodes in series 1 and 18 in series 2. Series 3 and series 4 are out on DVD, and series 5 is currently running. (Netflix Canada streaming has series 1 through 4, but I won’t complain too much since it’s a CBC program and Canadians generally get screwed on Netflix streaming anyway.)

So, a few minutes ago, I decided screw it. I’d just upgrade our Netflix account from streaming-only to streaming + one DVD at a time. The change took effect immediately, and I headed over to my disc queue to add Heartland series 3 and 4. The only problem was, Netflix doesn’t have series 3 and 4 on DVD. They don’t even have series 2. Incredibly, they don’t even have all of series 1. They have, on DVD, just the first half of series 1. Geez.

Of course, I could just torrent down series 3 and 4 and even series 5 through the latest episode that’s run. But that’s a pain in the petunia, so (much though I hate the idea) I may actually buy the DVDs for series 3 and 4, or at least series 3. I see that Amazon sells those two seasons for $27 and $40 each.

07:58 – UPS showed up yesterday with seven or eight large boxes, so we now have about two thirds of the components needed to build the first batch of biology kits. I have a few more small purchase orders to get out this week for the biology kits, but otherwise I’ll be working heads-down on the forensics book re-write.

I signed up for Amazon Prime yesterday, and last night Barbara and I watched our first Amazon streaming video. It was the first episode of Inspector Lewis Series 4, which Netflix doesn’t have on DVD, let alone streaming.

Pretty clearly, Amazon is doing everything they can to make it difficult for people to watch free streaming videos on their service. Instead, they really, really want you to pay for the video. Incredibly, there is no queue for free streaming titles (although there is a queue for purchased or rented videos). To watch a free video, you have to search for the title each time. For example, after we watched episode one of Lewis with our Roku, we switched back over to Netflix to watch an episode of Scrubs. To watch the second episode of Lewis, I’ll have to search for it again, using the arrow keys and virtual keyboard on the Roku.

Amazon’s attempt to force people to pay for videos that they can watch for free leads to a ridiculous situation. When I clicked on the first episode of Lewis, Amazon gave me a choice. As a Prime member, I could (a) watch the video for free, or (b) pay $2.99 to watch it. Guess which one I chose. At least the default option was to watch it for free. I wonder how many people choose the second option.

I read about people who are dropping Netflix streaming and substituting Amazon Prime streaming, which strikes me as ridiculous. Not only is Amazon’s catalog a tiny fraction of Netflix’s, but Amazon intentionally makes it as hard as possible to find and watch free videos. We’ll be treating Amazon Prime streaming as a supplement to Netflix, but nothing more. If we want to watch something specific and Netflix doesn’t have it, we’ll try Amazon. But that’s about it. And I’m sure that that’s exactly what Amazon hopes we’ll do.