OFFTOPIC: Netflix (was: Re: [lug] Revoution OS movie tonight at CU)

[Matthew Snelham]

On 15 Feb 2003 02:38 AM or thereabouts, Sean Reifschneider wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 14, 2003 at 11:33:51AM -0500, Joseph McDonald wrote:
> >How is Netfilx? I'm so annoyed with Blockbuster that I've been
> >considering going with Netflix. Can you let us know how you like
> >it?
> 
> NetFlix is great...  It's a DVD rental service that's fairly popular
> with geeks.  It's run by e-mail and a web browser.  You select movies to
> rent via a web-site, then they send you the top N DVDs via mail -- you
> rip off the front sheet from the envelope to get at the DVD, which turns
> the envelope into a pre-paid, addressed envelope to return the DVDs in.
>
> If you have a friend who is signed up to NetFlix, mention them when you
> sign up and they get some bonus.

NetFlix service is really great if you're a heavy DVD viewer (would normally
rent 2-3 a week), or if you have eclectic tastes not catered to by your
local Blockbuster.   The turnaround time for your DVDs depends on how far
you are from a fullfilment warehouse.  Expect 5-7 days from the time you
drop a DVD return in the mailbox, and the time you get the next selection 
in your queue. 

Also, an irrelevant factoid for those who might be interested (and to try
to put the thread on-topic ;-)...

NetFlix.com migrated, just before Christmas, from Solaris to Linux for
their application and web servers.  This move increased their load capacity
per server enough that they halved the number of machines required to run
the site.  Evangalism you can build a business case on. 
 
--Matthew
infinite at sigalrm.com