A week or so ago, we caught our first glimpse of the Xbox One which will be launching later this year. This was the first speech in a three part rollout and it focused mostly on the TV and entertainment options in the box. (Part 2 is E3 for games and then part 3 is Build where they’ll talk about developer stuff.) With all the talk about TV, the internet was once again buzzing about the possibility that the Xbox will be a DVR or that it will allow you to connect tuners to it.
I have no inside information, but there’s no way this is ever going to happen. First of all, those of us who are willing to connect to cable TV with anything but the box from the cable company is extremely small. On top of that, DVRs are a stopgap measure for a dying medium. Do you really think that in 10 years we’re really going to have to cache content locally? It’s ridiculously inefficient for cable companies to simultaneously pump 100s of channels to millions of individual consumers who then put that content back on hard drives to watch it later. Sooner or later (and we’re already making big strides in this direction) we’ll just pick the content we want to watch and it will appear on our TV. Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon are showing us what that might look like and the cable companies will either jump on board or they’ll die a slow death.
So with that future ahead of us, why would Microsoft, a company that also sells TV and movies digitally, want to invest any time in a solution that’s not going to be needed before the Xbox One hits the end of it’s lifecycle?
Now that we’ve restarted our Netflix streaming membership thanks to Arrested Development, I think we’ll probably keep it going for a while. This gives us access to more online streaming content than we had with just our Amazon Prime membership and Comcast streaming options. So now the problem becomes how do I figure out which service has the content I want? That’s exactly what 
If you’re building a campfire to cook your food, there’s a lot of wasted energy. A company called 
I’m usually left with way more books that I want to read than I have time to read, so keeping track of them all can be a hassle. After trying a variety of methods, I’ve landed on 
You may have heard about a new currency called 
With our son coming any day now, I feel like we’re about to really ramp up our battery usage. For the past couple years, I’ve been investing in Eneloop rechargeable batteries. They hold a charge very well in storage and can be found at a decent price. I charge them with a 
“You’re still here?” That’s the question I get from people at work who know that Tyla is about ready to pop. There’s no baby yet, but we’re really getting close. The due date is June 6 but we’re about smack dab in the middle of the “normal” window for birth. The national average for first time moms is that they go five days past their due date which would put us at about a week from now. They won’t let her go more than two weeks past the due date so one way or another he should be coming out before the 20th!
Arrested Development was cancelled after only three seasons. The ratings must not have been where they needed to be, but I think the show gained quite a bit of popularity when it came out on DVD. At least I know that’s how Tyla and I got into it. We were both thrilled to find out that years after it was cancelled, Netflix had put up the money for a fourth season! We renewed our streaming membership to get a crack at the episodes when they were released on Memorial Day.
When you hang out in the same groups and same areas for a long time, it’s easy to think that you’re getting to be a pretty good skier, hiker, etc. Skiing at Crystal always reminds me of this. You can ride up the Forest Queen list and hear people talking about how incredible they are (on blue and green beginner runs), but if you head out to the Northway lift, you’ll see people throwing backflips off cliffs and not bragging at all. Living in the Pacific Northwest, there’s always someone nearby who is infinitely better than you. We have some incredible outdoor athletes around here!
Shingles
But anyway, from a geek perspective, I found this interesting enough to blow right through that “Too Much Information” barrier and blog about it:
Concern that I would give my newborn son a disease sent me to the doctor much earlier than I would normally have gone. That was a great move because catching it in the first 72 hours makes it much more treatable. The doctor said there was no concern about passing it on to my pregnant wife or to my newborn son. We double checked with our OB and she completely agreed. Woohoo!*
So while this week has not been at all fun, I’m very happy that it won’t affect my wife or my son!
PS. Please note that advice was given in my specific case. Don’t extrapolate to your situation. Talk to your doctor!