Netflix And No.

I recall reading recently - no, watching a longish video - about Netflix's slow crumbling. But they now reckon they have the problem in hand. So anyway here's that video. It's a year old so form whatever opinion it brings you.

But Imma have my doubts about this though - in this recent article they say "added 8.8m subscribers" but how many are just waiting out their current subscription and then hauling ass? I know I would be. If I were a Netflix customer, at any rate. 

I've enjoyed my entertainment as much as the next person when I was somewhat younger, but started my teen years looking for the few techie shows like The New Inventors and Julius Somner-Miller. What I'm saying is that I never really considered Netflix a service I'd pay for, and going to the movies once every few months was enough for me to satisfy my need for blockbusters and amusement. We now have some streaming and watch a few entertainment shows but our day includes a lot of background of news and podcasts and techie articles and politics and ... 

What I'm saying is that to us, Netflix has always been a bit of a waste of bandwidth and money, so we've found ourselves with a better-value subscription that has a good selection of entertainment and documentary and informative content, Nebula, Youtube, and whatever other indie sites there are out there.

But now they've gone and done this bait-and-switch, removed a subscription level that people obviously liked, and are faffing around as though they're going great guns when as far as I can see their existing subscribers will be looking for a platform that's more honest and stable. I would.

I just finished an article about Patreon doing much the same things, adding things people don't want, trying to wrangle more money out of their creators. And how many of them are as a result disillusioned and thinking about Ko-Fi and other alternatives. That instability and level of BS is what kept me from having much to do with Patreon at all.

What about you? Netflix freak or Netflix-freaked?

The Fat Bears Story

The Katmai National Park and Preserve’s Fat Bears Story.

I'll report it like a mainstream media article first:

Sisters Breaking Traditional Molds On The Road To Reproductive Success

Two Alaskan Brown Bears are going where no others of their kind have gone before. And it's proved successful for them.

Factoids You Need, To Appreciate The Story

Unprecedented Fat Bear extended family first spotted in 2022. 

909's cub goes to live with auntie 910

909jr is into its 3rd year of life, 910jr now in its 2nd year.

So The Story So Far

909, at a year older than her sister 910, has her first cub, 909jr. The year started ordinarily enough, but when the following year proved to be a rich and successful year for Fat Bear contestants, and when her sister 910 also had a cub, 909 and 910 did something that other Brown Bears never did  - they moved around together, foraged and fished together, and their cubs played together through the entire season.

It's unknown if the group hibernated together but there may be a non-zero chance that they did. (Ed: this is supposition on the part of the reporter and was not a confirmed scientific opinion.) The following Spring, the amazing thing that happened was heartwarming: 909jr stayed with auntie 910, freeing 909 to go off and (presumably) mate again. 

If true, and if 909jr and 910jr learn a newfound sense of society, then the reproductive advantages of such a strategy may prove a turning point for the 909/910 group and perhaps one day for all brown bears.

Now I'll go back to my own style.

I'm going to be looking for one particular Fat Bear Tale in 2024, the one about 909 coming back with another cub and probably that cub also leaving her in 2025 to go live with auntie 910 while (presumably) 909jr goes out on its own. And then returns to a social group it remembers fondly. 

Just imagine - by being free from her cub, 909 is able to have another cub sooner than she would normally have been able to. By forming a family unit, these two ladies have created a way to fit more cubs into a given period of time. By being together for various generations, the cubs will begin to form habits conducive to more social behaviour, and if they stick it out for a few more years, their group will begin to grow, with "nursery aunties" and "mother aunties" making a noticable bump in fecundity. 

This shows several things:

1. It's generally the females of solitary species that form socially cohesive groups because they're bound to raising infants, and many paws make light work.

2. It only takes a "right" combination of genes to create a greater likelihood of social cohesion emerging.

3. Since such social groups are more likely to be closer genetically, the trait concentrates in the group.

4. Also, since the cubs have been reared and raised in atypically larger groups, they'll themselves begin to form social groups like this more readily.

And I think that perhaps it's also a good overall simile for how ANY organism becomes more successful through being more social. Why isn't it seemingly working for us any more?