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Tonight, I am watching sports on Twitter on my Amazon Fire TV. Earlier this year, Twitter won the rights to stream 10 NFL games. The games are premiering this week and this has started Twitter down a road of live content. They have slowly beefed up their live offerings, most likely to get prepared for the NFL Season, but there was a problem with the discovery of these videos. I feel like I didn’t know about a lot of the content unless someone was tweeting about it. Experience

This summer, I watched both the RNC and DNC conventions stream live on Twitter. The experience was actually enjoyable on the mobile app. There was something cool watching the conversation fall in while watching. It would great to be able to either be able to minimize the video or play it in the background while you interact with something other than the app. The Game

The Jets/Bills game last week was streamed by two million people and watched by something like 50 million people on TV.

This is a step into something different and into something new for live sports. Live sports is one of the hardest things to watch if you cut cable. The NFL is especially tough to watch because it is big business. It also has a number of exclusive deals with companies and the TV deals just bring in new numbers.

This Twitter deal feels like an experiment but doesn’t feel like a natural fit. I know that the day after the game I heard people ask “Hey, did you see the game on Twitter?”

It is exciting to see companies make these deals that open up the content more and don’t put them behind walls.

Uber finally introduced its self-driving cars to the world. They were rumored to have been working on this technology for quite some time but I don’t think we have ever seen it until today. Uber has a small fleet of cars in a few neighborhoods in Pittsburgh. This type of automation has been in Teslas for quite some time now and Tesla even just released an update.

This Uber trial feels like something different. I have watched a lot of videos of people using the Tesla Autopilot but this was that next step into not owning your own car.

I must say, when I first watched this video, the first thing that came into my mind was this felt like cars that are available to you 24 hours a day that will drive you on short trips. Making Car Owning Option

Could this make owning a car something that becomes optional? Could this make people have one-car households and supplement transportation with Uber rides? There are some towns where travel is just a giant pain in the ass. This could allow us to rethink transportation once we get to a certain level of sophistication with this technology. I know we are far off from this utopia where software drives us around but, you have to admit, this is exciting and it’s fun to think about how this could change our lives.

There are some things about not having to worry about car ownership that would be a giant pain reliever for people. Safety

Safety is going to be the biggest question as this technology develops. The first crashes of any level are going to be covered by the news and talked about heavily. That is what makes the small trials Uber is doing in Pittsburgh so important. Being able to get this thing on the road in real world situations is only going to help with the software development and find issues or any potential problems. Future

Just this weekend, a person from Lyft said that the majority of rides in about five years will be from self-driving cars. The technology is not going away. We might think that these things are far away but things rapidly change and technology is evolving faster than ever.

Just image one day in the future you will be able to call an Uber and just sit in the back and enjoy some Netflix. There may or may not be a driver in the car.

Pebble is always one of those companies that I think are underrated, as they really the whereabouts on a lot of interesting things over the last number of years and were the first to market a wearable that is interesting, looks good, and had some sort of functionality to it.

This year they took to Kickstarter to launch their new watches. They released a new product called the Pebble Core. The Core is a new type of wearable that seems to be a frontrunner. It looks very small from the mock-ups. It has a 3D radio built in and you can use apps like Spotify to play music. As you can imagine, it looks like there’s some GPS function as well.

This, to me, is a lot more interesting than any other watches The connected watch is something that has a lot of the stuff we’ve wanted for a long time with battery life considerations and what not. There have only been a handful of watches. This item is actually really low priced.

I don’t know if anyone has ever run with one of those armbands that hold your phone but it is a giant pain in the ass. It’s something that I know I never wanted. Running with Fitbits are nice for the tracking part but having the connectivity with it but you know being extremely little bit that you know. This is just a fascinating product and I can’t stop thinking about some of the use cases.

DC Alexa integration is also interesting as it was a silent attempt to take over the world. Alexas has voice commands during a run or some sort of fitness activity of any type. Your phone is going to be huge. It’s going to be something that is pretty interesting.

Connected devices are different than their own devices. End of hardware devices heats up as we say Google to launch. We will get more details in a couple weeks with their own digital system. Amazon starting to connect a lot of different third-party devices is the biggest. Being able to check your weather and traffic on your run before work; it keeps you productive during your run. It’s pretty interesting.

The Core lasts 20 hours with the single charge and it only cost around $100. Another thing that people seem to somehow get right but no one seems to copy a really good battery life in their products. I’ve been a Pebble user for quite some time and after a number of years, I can tell you that the battery life is still really impressive. I’ve seen some pretty poor performance in some testing and I’ve used some other products.

The device should be released early next year and it will be interesting to see if anyone tries to go after this market.

via GIPHY

Six years ago, I bought the beauty you see. It was my first foray into the Android ecosystem. I had an iPhone 3 something-or-other before this device, but for the last six years, I have been solely working with Android on my phone for a daily driver.

Apps on Android have always been the second-class citizen to their iPhone counterparts. I would always cringe when I would try out a new app and see iPhone UI elements pop up. It happens way more than you’d think. Then there were apps like this:

Look at those buttons and input fields. I know it was a different time back then, but the experiences on the apps were all so scattered and random. It was even worse than just a browser website. It was just a “whatever” kind of feeling. Those grey buttons made me want to become a designer. I didn’t know what they were supposed to look like, but they gave me such a reaction.

Then came Material Design. Material Design, in some cases, caused this copycat mentality. Everything used some of these boilerplate UI elements and apps all started to look the same; slide out menu on the left and a floating action button on the bottom with some buttons that had the cool wave function when you would press on them. Things felt great to use, but it was like what happened when people found bootstrap. Everyone had a bootstrap grid with those buttons on their websites. Apps That Go Above

There was a period of time where it was all the same, but that was ok. We went from the gray buttons to higher standards. I want to call out some apps that handle the material design really well.

Is there something that has always been on your to do list? Have you always wanted to do something and it just has been sitting on your goals sheet year after year? Podcasting has always been one of those things that interested me. I have always been told that my writing is very conversational and that I am a good story teller. I always wanted to play around with this medium. So, naturally, I decided that I needed to buy an expensive microphone to start this. I found a microphone that would be good for podcasting and I ordered it. I recorded one really nervous and unplanned podcast on it. Naturally, it has sat on the shelf every day since.

The last few weeks, I have been stuck in a rut with my writing and haven’t been satisfied with what I have been doing. My wife had a great idea to walk around with my phone and do some speech to text on some ideas. Apparently, I need to buy something to get anything that I want done. So, I ordered a lapel microphone for my phone so I could walk around and start recording.

Next, I needed an app to record myself. I make everything so difficult. The setup that I found was using this group messaging app, Roger, that has IFTTT support. I can easily talk and the output raw mp3s into a dropbox folder.

So, every morning I started to record some audio. There was plenty of just horrible recordings. My favorite one was when I was whispering for no reason. It was like I didn’t want my cat to hear me speaking.

You can’t be afraid to suck. You have to spend time getting the junk and the bad out. The suck is going to happen and don’t let anything stop you. Find the fastest way to get something done and get one finished in whatever you are working on. Then worry about getting the nicer equipment and the better software.

We must never forget the adventure time quote, “Dude, sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.”

Growing up, there were only two rooms in the house that had air conditioning. We would all fall into those rooms on days when it was too hot. I always remember that feeling of walking from the cool, air conditioned room, opening the door to get out, and hitting that wall of moisture and heat.

The summer is always a time that my mind associates with the movies. Overtime, my once weekly ritual has become, “we can wait till Netflix.”

Things started to changed last winter when “The Force Awakens” reminded me of the joys of going to the movies and how much fun it can be to surrender your complete attention to something else for two hours. Theaters

Theaters have become an escape for me, but I don’t go to the movies to see a particular movie anymore. Normally, there are about two movies a year that I am generally excited to go see. But lately, I have been liking to go to the theater more often.

The movie theater is one of the last places where it is socially unacceptable to look at your phone. While I was having my moment of Zen in the movie theatre, I was looking around and there was very few people. This was a film that you would expect more people to show up to during the prime time showing.
VR the Answer

Lately, I have been thinking about ways to detox from my life with technology. It has become all too much for me to take in. Naturally, VR has been something that has been mentioned for movies and to be installed in theaters.

There is something that is gross about sharing a VR headset with a stranger, but I wanted to think about what movies I would want to watch in VR and would not make me sick for two hours. There were a lot of questions that I wanted to ask. Video on Demand

Lately, I have been purchasing/renting a lot of content from Amazon and Vimeo. I feel like these distribution channels allow me to consume a lot more interesting content that ever before. If you don’t live near an indie movie house, some films are hard to come by. But, services like Vimeo allow creators to get their film out to audiences. I would love to know the split and how Vimeo compares to iTunes.

The rise of niche streaming services has been interesting. I subscribe to a few of them to get even more diverse information into the picture.

It forced me to open myself up to a new content age, new rules of film, and not just watching whatever.
What’s Next?

How many people watch a movie at home with their phone next to them? I know that sometimes when I am watching a move the phone gets looked out way too much. I think that takes away from the movie. My attention is getting broken up. It is different, I think, with a TV show than it is with a movie. We are trained to have commercial breaks. That is what I love most about the theater and that is what keeps me going regularly.

I started this year with a new thing that I want to implement my life. I wanted to take either a good or a bad habit and give myself 30 days to see if that is something that I should be doing in my life. Can I hand over my life and document those results?

All the things that I found that would be the most helpful about this was the fact that I was starting to feel bad. I was interested in and I wanted to try so many different things and that I had this insatiable thirst. This allowed me to find The Sweet Spot to work in. What I noticed was that working with such constraints and some uncomfortableness provided some really interesting results in other aspects of my life. I found that given you know the opportunity to put myself on the top deadline ,I put myself in some sort of closure making every day slightly uncomfortable.

Comfort can be an enemy or it can control us. This practice started last year but it really ramped up this year. It has definitely changed stuff, other habits are back today, and there’s certain things that I’ll never do again.

I know it’s something we find that optimal self and making me, even on a micro scale, experience new things and try some things that I would normally never try, like eliminating TV from my life. I’ve already seen some results of that and is something I’m trying to figure out a way to incorporate in my day.

For me, it’s just about keeping that experimental phase open. I think that’s the key right there; not to be afraid anymore.

I am becoming obsessed with the thought of starting my company. I got so into the idea that sometimes I would shut down projects and leave things unfinished. I thought to myself “This won’t make enough money.” or “This is just too small.”

I have countless notes of unused ideas and random thoughts that I thought would be game changing. But, I would never finish, I would never do what it took to get those ideas into the real world. I failed, but I never gave up. I kept trying to generate ideas and keep researching new technologies. I have thoughts on iOS apps, watch apps, tv apps.

I was worried too much about becoming something and having this set of achievement. I wasn’t making something for myself I used the desire for profit as the force of my creativity. That will only get you so far. If the drive is just money then sometimes it is hard to push through those tough times. Late nights after already working 8 hours during the day.

I need to take other people’s journeys as a mere learning experience and something to replicate. Their stores are out there just to help me in my journey and my path.

I launched two of my ideas a few months back. I got one customer, and I lost him. I have never felt such a swing of emotions. The sign up was just a sensation of joy, but that cancellation left a pit in my stomach. It is something that I think about every day. I have tried a few different methods but haven’t gotten another customer yet.

I launched an email newsletter, and I only have two people signed up for it. It seemed like it would be an effective tool, so I did it.

I am going to keep doing and creating things and trying to get my ideas out into the world. They will probably all fail if we look at the stats. But, the thing that will never let get in the way again.

Soylent is a meal replacement, available in both liquid and powdered forms. The company has released a few intonations of their drink. Last year, I order a case of their 2.0 formula in the ready to drink bottles.

I was excited about the prospect of something that is simple and would take care of certain nutrients. However, the drink was too tough for me to drink. The taste and consistency were just too hard to for me personally. I even tried to make some of the suggested recipes, but it was just something that I couldn’t make work for me.

Conceptually, I really like the drink a lot; a readymade drink that has a ton of good shit in it. One less food decision to make in the day.

Recently, Soylent announced a new product: a bar labeled as a, “Food Bar.”
Food Bar

The bar claims to have 12.5% of your daily nutritional requirements. Soylent, as a company, wants to create items that give you all of what you need in each serving.

The packaging of the bar is super simple and is just labeled “Food Bar.” You can see that carrying this around and leaving a few at your desk at work will get some conversations going.

The drink was something that was not for me and was something that I have no desire to ever drink again. But, the bar actually tastes ok. Going into it, I was expecting something terrible. First Week

I decided to try to work the bar into my diet as much as possible. Could this be something that I could sustain and could this be something that would work for me?

I had a bar each day at different times of the day, sometimes in the morning and sometimes at lunchtime. I tried to never have it later than that.

The thing that I noticed was that it surprisingly made me feel full. The bar, at just 250 calories, was something that was very fulfilling. The taste was pretty good, but not good enough to want to eat five of them. It really tasted like and overcooked sugar cookie with some caramel mixed in. Next Up

Soylent has its first product that could go mainstream. It is tasty and I really felt great. I had no strange effects like I have had with other protein bars. I felt like I had more energy and I ate a lot less over the week with them. I think they are going to stay in my food arsenal. Next up, I am going to see if there a coffee drink will make the cut.

Soylent’s mission is “to expand access to quality nutrition through food system innovation.” Healthy eating and eating well is a huge pain point for many people. Soylent is a company that is trying to do something different and something that is easy. I hope that it becomes more than just a niche thing.

My gaming nowadays is usually limited to a few hours here and there. My Steam playtime for this year has been 20 hours of NBK2k17 and 10 hours of Metal Gear. My machine is an Alienware “Steam Machine” just in case performance becomes an issue.

According to Wikipedia, “No Man’s Sky’s gameplay is built on four pillars — exploration, survival, combat and trading. Players are free to perform within the entirety of a procedurally generated deterministic open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion (1.8×1019) planets”

I really don’t know much about the game, gameplay, or story line. I didn’t really know the story behind it or who even makes it. The visuals just pulled me in and made me watch the release date and the progress. I still don’t know if I understand the whole thing.

This game felt like the start of something new, the start of the next wave of gaming. This “procedurally generated” universe sounds like something that could only be achieved with some true firepower. I have been missing around with Google Cardboard a lot and have been researching a lot about the Vive and Octus. Both are just too expensive for me to try out right now. But, I think that we need to start rethinking games and their experiences. Day 1 – Hour 1

I finally got the game running. I installed it, and it booted and loaded well. It was nice that the game was a minimal download, coming in at around 3 gigs. But, I wasn’t really sure what to do. I was just dumped on the inside of a planet. I was given a mining laser and told to fix my ship. I had to figure out most of the other stuff on my own.

The game starts off by not showing most of the story and right away. I stumbled across some engaging elements, but I really didn’t know if they would turn into anything or mean anything. I am addicted

The world is massive and I have been able to visit and explore some various different planets and environments. As I was on the lookout for some rare minerals to power up my blaster and my spaceship, I couldn’t help but wonder if this is the kind of experience I would want to consume with a VR headset. It is slow and a mythical game with a lot of walking and exploring, and I found myself looking overhead a lot, watching planets and what is going on inside of them.

There are plenty of things you can find wrong with the game, but there are many things that are just enjoyable. I had an audio book on while exploring this new planet and it was a relaxing and enjoyable experience. I would be very curious to see if there is a way to get this running on one of the VR headsets. I am not sure of the technological challenges, but this is something that I want to dive in with.

If you want a first person action game, this is not it. This just feels different and I am glad that I am on this journey, wherever it might go and whatever we might end up seeing along the way.