A Case for YouTube Videos

Several days ago my truck informed me I needed to change the oil. I managed to get into the specialty service station on Christmas Eve as the establishment had no customers at the time. The last time I had the service performed, they had me stay in my car but this time they invited me into their 4-person waiting room. They had a television going with various YouTube videos playing.

My oil change only took a few minutes and I have to say that I enjoyed watching some of the YouTube videos while I waited. I didn't have the option of selecting which videos I wanted to see. Instead the television just showed some of the popular videos that only lasted a few minutes each. The first video showed some guys in Australia that have a large tower where they drop various objects. The series I watched extolled the virtues of some really strong tape. They made a landing platform out of the tape on a steel frame. The objects started out small like a ball made out of rubber bands. The tape held and so they moved up to larger objects. Next came a small anvil and once again the tape held. They progressed through a number of objects with the final item dropped being a giant 500 pound fist made of metal. The tape didn't break but it did lose its grip on the metal frame.

The interesting thing about the videos is that anyone could walk in for a service appointment and not require any background as to what is going on. When it is time to leave, you don't feel like you are going to miss something important. If you really want to see what happens as the objects get larger, you can just go home and pull it up on YouTube.

I came out of the oil change feeling entertained and like the service happened quickly. As someone that creates YouTube content I now have something to aspire to. Perhaps someday I will create a video interesting enough that strangers getting an oil change will enjoy watching it.

Merry Christmas - You've Got Jury Duty

Yesterday I got in my truck to head up to the ski resort and got the message that I needed to change my oil. Sure I could ignore the message for a bit but I am one of those people that likes to take care of such things as quickly as possible. Today after skiing, I gave the local oil-change service company a call to see if they are open on Christmas Eve and changing oil. They said they were and also that they didn't have any customers at the moment. I quickly drove the quarter mile to their shop and quickly got in.

It made me proud to get something done so fast and not have it hanging over me. When I got home, I checked the mail before going inside and saw that I have been summoned for jury duty. My pride disappeared into humility. This is one of those civic duties we all have as Americans and we should be happy to perform. Unfortunately we all feel it can be a giant time-sync and nobody really wants to do it. To make matters worse, I got the notice on Christmas Eve. Fortunately I don't have to report until February but I don't think it made for a good Christmas gift.

Excel Trick: The UNIQUE Function

Yesterday I found myself spending more time in my Excel sheet with 32,000 rows and 44 columns. One of the columns listed video games. As there are a finite number of video games that is much less than 32,000, I wanted to get a list of them.

I did a quick search on the Internet and came across a large number of ways to list out all the unique values in a column. Some seemed overly complex. I typed one formula into the spreadsheet cell only to have it do nothing. Eventually I tried Microsoft's site and discovered the UNIQUE function. It is as simple as it sounds. You put it in a cell with the range of cells that contain your values and it creates a list with each unique value filling that column. It is as simple as using the following fromula:

=UNIQUE(B2:B32000)

If I put the formula in cell C2, all of the unique video game names will populate the C-column. It worked pretty well and I then had a list of all 800+ video games in the spreadsheet.

Excel Trick: Computing an Average of Filtered Data

As everyone in the office seems to be out early on Christmas break, I am using all this time without meetings to do some analysis work. Yesterday I did a lot in Excel and came across yet another trick that I want to remember and so I thought I would put it here. Hopefully it helps somebody else out there.

The spreadsheet I am playing with has over 32,000 rows and 44 columns. Some of those columns don't have any data and so I have been filtering the rows to see just the data I am interested in analyzing. Yesterday I created a filter to see all the rows that had values in one column and reduced the number of rows down to 16,000. That cut my data in half but is more data than I can casually scroll through.

I removed my first filter and filtered on another column and got the number of rows down to 4,000. That is approaching an acceptable amount of data to review. I wanted to reduce it even further and so combined the 2 filters and reduced the amount of data to 1,500 rows. These rows turned out to be key for my analysis. Now I needed to average the values in a 3rd column.

I tend to use Excel a lot but don't consider myself a power user. Well at least not yet. I used the AVG function and got a number. Then I removed my filters and discovered that average did not change. That means that the AVG function works on cells even if they are hidden by a filter. Instead I needed to use the SUBTOTAL function. It only works on viewable data and can be used for a number of different calculations.

The first parameter in Excel's SUBTOTAL function is a number that signifies the mathematical calculation you want to perform. The numbers correspond to the following:

• 1 = Average
• 2 = Count of all values even if they are blank
  
• 3 = Count of all values that are not blank
  
• 4 = Maximum
• 5 = Minimum
• 6 = Product
• 7 = Standard Deviation if the data represents a sample
  
• 8 = Standard Deviation if the data represents the entire population
  
• 9 = Sum

There are more, but you get the idea. Personally if I was the creator of Excel I would have associated sum with the number 1 as I think a subtotal is a sum and not an average of values. I guess Microsoft never won any awards for being intuitive.

Once I used the SUBTOTAL function the math worked out and my hypothesis about the data turned out to be true. Furthermore I can go above and beyond the simple statement that customers in group A are more valuable than group B. I can say they spend 20% more and that is a significant amount.

It Must Be Christmas Break

This evening I am trying to fix a date for a meeting at work after the first of the year and I keep getting automatic e-mail responses from people saying they are out of the office until after the first of the year. I will continue working until Thursday evening but I wonder how productive I will be. If anything relies on other colleagues, probably not very.

I woke up early this morning and had a call with my counterparts in Europe. Then I took a call this evening with Japan. That makes for a very long day in the office and so I made sure to take a break this afternoon around lunch and spent an hour on the ski hill. There is a marked difference between the skiers of last week, those that ski a lot and ski well, vs. today where people skied much more erratically, an indication of vacation skiers. I remarked to my wife that it must be Christmas break already.

On my call this evening we all signed off with, "Merry Christmas and have a happy Holiday." Things are really winding down and everyone is eager to celebrate the end-of-year break. Perhaps I will be able to get a number of projects done for work as I won't have any interruptions.

Probably the most helpful comment I can make in today's blog post is that I hope all your Christmas shopping is done. I have received a constant barrage of e-mails letting me know that the time has past for online retailers to ship stuff before Christmas. Of course there are some exceptions as next-day-shipping is always an option. My advice though is to visit a good old fashion store if you still have Christmas shopping to do.

Bad Christmas Movies

There does not seem to be an end to bad Christmas movies on all of the various streaming services. In an effort to break away from the traditional Christmas movies, I have tried expanding what I am watching this Season. Unfortunately you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a good movie. For the record, these are the Holiday movies worth watching and where you can find them:

• It's a Wonderful Life on Amazon Prime
• The Santa Clause on Disney+
• The Santa Clause 2 on Disney+
• Home Alone on Disney+
• Home Alone 2 on Disney+
• White Christmas on NetFlix
• A Christmas Story on several different streaming services including Amazon Prime
• I'll be Home for Christmas on Disney+
• Miracle on 34th Street (both versions are good) on Disney+
• A Christmas Carol on on Amazon Prime
  

I would publish a list of movies to avoid but it is a long one. Please let me know in the comments below if you have found a good movie I should add to my list. Also, there are a lot of movies that take place during Christmas but that doesn't make them Christmas movies. Die Hard is not a Christmas movie!

Resending a Calendar Invite in Microsoft Outlook

I find that you learn the most about something when you try to use it for something new. Last week I sent out a Microsoft Outlook invitation to a bunch of people across different parts of Sony. One person declined the invitation due to a schedule conflict. He then asked if we could reschedule for a different time. I responded that with so many people on the meeting invitation I had to select a time where I knew most people could attend. He then worked on changing his schedule so he could be a part of the meeting. Now I needed to re-invite him to the meeting.

It is very easy to add someone to an existing meeting but I have never had to add someone to an Outlook calendar invite who previously declined the meeting. Sure I could cancel the meeting and send a new invitation to everyone on my list. That seemed like a lot of work that might annoy everyone who responded that they could attend the meeting. So I looked up the proper steps according to Microsoft and it turned out to be rather simple.

The first thing to do is open the calendar invite and remove the person that originally declined the invitation. Outlook will send out an update to just that one person saying they have been canceled from the meeting when you save the updated invitation. Then add them back to the meeting and it will send out a new notification to just that one person asking them to accept or decline the invitation. Nobody else will get notified of the changes, which is exactly what I wanted for such a large number of people attending the meeting.

I use Outlook constantly but occasionally get to try things that are outside what I have done before. This trick is probably very intuitive if you stop and think about the steps to follow. I appreciated being able to look up the solution and get the software to do what I wanted. Hopefully this trick helps you too.

Holiday Travel

My company has set up a special webinar on how to cut down on stress during the Holiday season. The area I would like to focus on is that of Holiday travel. I have traveled a lot through the years and have some suggestions that may help should you be traveling during this busy period.

I will bypass all of the tricks on how to get inexpensive airline tickets as I assume it is already too late to get a good deal. About now, the only trick you can leverage is flying on Christmas day. Nobody wants to do that and so it is when you will find the lowest prices on flights. In the future, the most inexpensive days to fly are Tuesday and Wednesday. That is a trick I use a lot.

Tip #1: Pack lightly. I always tell people there are 2 types of luggage on flights: carry-on and lost. If you are flying for your holiday travel then try to pack so lightly you can carry everything on the plane. Should you be bringing gifts for others, look into shipping those packages or have them delivered to your destination instead of your house. Also remember that gift cards are light and don't take up much space.

My wife and I spent a week in Fiji and both packed in small backpacks that fit under the seat in front of us. Now I know we just needed flip flops, a t-shirt, and a swimsuit but we packed in the same backpacks when we went to Europe for a week. It is also the same backpack I take for my week-long trips to Japan.

If you are driving, packing light also has its advantages. Should you get a flat tire on your journey it will be significantly easier to pull that spare out of your car if it isn't overloaded. You also have a lot less to worry about forgetting on either end of your trip.

Tip #2: Prepare for the Weather. What good are all of those weather websites and apps if we don't use them to help with our Holiday travel. Going someplace warm, you don't need that extra jacket. Going someplace cold, make sure it gets packed. More importantly, mentally prepare yourself for the weather and effect it will have on your journey. If you are flying and you see a storm on your travel dates, prepare to spend extra time in the airport. More than likely you will be delayed.

If you are driving, you have some flexibility in your schedule whether you realize it or not. Storms don't last forever and you have the option of leaving before it arrives or waiting it out. Sure you may be later than expected but you will cut down on the chances of being in a weather-caused accident. I am a great driver in the snow but that will not protect me from someone who isn't.

Tip #3: Remember why you are traveling. People travel over Christmas to spend time with family and friends. Travel can be stressful and it doesn't do any good if you show up at your destination grumpy. Think about who you are going to see and the importance of those people in your life. If you have a bad travel experience, think about how you can share it as a funny story instead of a stressful one. It will help others understand the trial you endured to get there without making anyone wish you hadn't come.

Once I flew home from the Bay Area and my flight got routed to Boise because of thunderstorms. All I could do is call my wife and tell her I would be a few hours late. Everyone on the flight was upset about the delay except me and the guy sitting next to me. We both knew each other because we took the same flights every week. We laughed about the experience and made light of the situation. When I arrived at home, I didn't bore my wife with a story of trials and hardship. Instead I shared how Ben and I kept throwing our arms in the air as the plane dodged and dove around thunder clouds as if we were on a roller coaster. I think she appreciated me being happy to see her and not sour about the difficult flight home.

My Personal Dashboard

I do a bit of volunteer work using my amateur radio skills. Sometimes this allows me entrance into community emergency operations centers or EOCs. They tend to look like NASA's mission control or at least what we see of it in movies. There are generally large screens showing all sorts of information that is helpful for dealing with an emergency that might be taking place.

Lately I have been thinking about information I find useful as I go about my daily routine. After all, I generally spend most of my day at my computer for work and have my personal computer next to my work one. I thought I would give a rundown of what my personal dashboard looks like in the hopes of giving others ideas of what might help them.

I would say that the most often visited application on my personal computer is my e-mail. About 90% of the e-mail I get is immediately deleted and so while I spend a lot of time looking at it, the information isn't that useful. 

Next I have my web browser open and have 4 tabs that I constantly view. It doesn't matter if it is summer or winter, I am always looking at 4 websites. One of those is weather.gov. This is where most news organizations get their information and so instead of picking my favorite local site, I just go to the source. In the winter, I focus on the forecast for Alta ski resort. In the summer, I shift down to my own neighborhood.

The second website I check is for my stock portfolio. Right now the market is pretty depressed and so I only check it daily. When the market is up, I probably check it 3 or 4 times a day. Naturally when I am looking to invest, I spend a lot of time here.

My third website is that of my YouTube channel. I like to see if I have any comments to respond to as well as see how many people are viewing any of my videos. I don't have a lot of daily views but it is interesting to see trends and how the weather effects the number of views. Let's just say that in May of this year I was seeing 8,000 views in a single day.

Finally I have this blog in the 4th tab of my browser. I don't check to see how many views a post is getting. Instead I keep the window open to remind me to post something every few days. I only get about 10 reads of each post and I never get any comments. This is in sharp contrast to my YouTube channel where I average around 150 views every day.

Inventorying what I have in my personal dashboard has me thinking. Are there any other tidbits of information I should be reviewing on a daily basis? Perhaps traffic? As I work out of my home, I don't see the need to keep a traffic map open. It is nice to know it is there if I need it though.

PlayStation 5 Consoles Available

I just received an e-mail from Sony Interactive Entertainment letting me know that they have PlayStation 5 consoles available for purchase. You can go to https://direct.playstation.com and buy one without having to wait in line. It even ships to your home.

I know that COVID caused some severe supply chain interruptions but having to wait 2 years for the latest video game consoles seems a bit excessive. Knowing that there is finally enough product to meet consumer demand is encouraging. Hopefully it signals the end of supply shortages for automobiles as well.

Please remember that I used to work for PlayStation and am a fan of their product so I am not completely unbiased.

Digital Privacy

This afternoon I checked my personal e-mail and received a message claiming to be from my company. While I work for Sony, my personal e-mail is through a domain that I own and it looks like another company. The message claimed to be from the admin account and said that I had 3 undelivered e-mails because they were SPAM. My e-mail account has a different filtering mechanism and I would never get an e-mail from the "admin". I had a link I could have clicked but I'm sure the results would have been nefarious. This is what is known as a Phishing attack. Paying attention helps ensure I don't inadvertently install a virus or malware on my computer. This has the potential of releasing all sorts of personal information to bad actors that can steal my identity, drain my bank account, and ruin my credit.

Your digital privacy is very important and you should do everything you can to protect it. Being aware of potential phishing attacks is only one step of many. I also limit the information I share with various websites where I have login accounts. I never provide my social security number nor do I provide my birthday. There are many websites that require a birthday simply to verify age. I use the same fictitious date for such occasions and avoid providing my real birthday if I can help it.

Another trick to maintaining your digital privacy is to limit your payment information. There are a lot of websites that want to make purchases as simple as possible and so they offer to store your credit card information. Then you just have to hit the "purchase" button and it automatically bills your credit card. I actually have my primary credit card memorized and re-enter the information every time I make a purchase from infrequent accounts. It only slows me down a few seconds but gives me piece of mind every time I receive an e-mail about websites being hacked and payment information stolen.

One final word of caution is to severely limit who has access to your bank account information. This includes debit cards. Once someone gets into your bank account, it is very difficult to get your money back once it is gone. By using credit cards for all payments, you have a level of protection that ensures you don't lose any money. You just need to notify your credit card company about fraudulent transactions and they will credit your account while they investigate. You may have to provide additional documentation but most credit card companies will catch the invalid purchases before you do.

Unfortunately there are some thieves out there and the ubiquity of the Internet makes it easy for a small number of bad guys to inflict harm on a large number of good ones. Taking your digital privacy seriously will help reduce damages. I just wish there was a sure-fire way to keep yourself 100% secure.  

Why So Many Apps?

Lately it feels like there is an app for anything you want to do. I am not a fan of loading up my mobile phone with a ton of applications (or apps) that I rarely use. After all, isn't that the reason we have the web? You can create the same thing you would use an app for with a general HTML page.

Right now I have about a dozen apps I should install on my phone. Instead I prefer to use my browser and have not loaded them up. Whenever I try to use IMDB on my phone to look up an actor, it suggests I load the app. Naturally I decline and just use the web interface. It does what I need. I also use the Google page instead of loading the special Google app. The web works just fine.

This evening I used the website for Virgin Pulse to input my healthy habits for the day. Sure I could load up another app on my smartphone but don't want to. There are many more examples I come across weekly and wonder what I can do to let vendors know I don't want another app. Why? For the simple reason apps take up space on my phone and I prefer to save that space for important stuff like cool pictures or videos. Perhaps you feel the same way.

A Neat Trick in Excel: VLOOKUP

Lately I have been doing a lot of data analysis. One of the tools I have been using is Microsoft Excel and I recently learned a new trick using VLOOKUP. I thought I would put the information here in case I ever need it again. Oh and it may help you as well.

Most of the time I work with data, I use a relational database. That allows me to join various tables to replace cryptic values with more descriptive ones. A classic example is that of an EMPLOYEE table that uses a department number instead of the name. The database will then have a lookup table that converts the number into the name. This saves a certain amount of space and makes for much more efficient queries.

You can do the same thing in Excel using the VLOOKUP function. In my spreadsheet I have 2 tabs with the first being the employee information and the second being the department. Let's assume the employee tab has the following information:

	A	B	C
1	Firstname	Lastname	Deptno
2	Matthew	Bennett	10
3	Mike	Smith	20
4	Sara	King	30

 Now let's assume that those department numbers translate to something much more readable like:

	A	B
1	Deptno	Name
2	10	Research
3	20	Operations
4	30	Finance

You can use the VLOOKUP function in the 4th column of the table to include values from the department tab. It has the following syntax:

VLOOKUP(LookupCell, TabName!StartCell:EndCell, PasteColumn, Match)

So the LookupCell is that of the number that we want to convert to descriptive text. In the example above, we would use the column C values. 

The next values to fill in are that of the lookup table. While we could have them on the same page of the workbook, I find it easier to list them on a different one and call it the "department" tab. There are only 3 values and so we would start in column A on the second row. We would then run to B4.

The PasteColumn corresponds to the column number on the lookup tab that contains the value we want to show. Our descriptive text is in the 2nd column and so we would use the value "2".

The Match parameter indicates if we want to use an approximate or exact match. This example uses an exact match and so it should be set to "FALSE". I haven't tried doing an approximate match and so I am not sure of a use case for setting it to TRUE. Perhaps I can play with it for another blog entry.

Now let's put it all together. In cell D2, I would use the following value:

=VLOOKUP(C2, department!$A$2:$B$4, 2, FALSE)

I would then copy that formula and paste it into cells D3 and D4.

If those dollar signs confuse you, that is to hold the values constant regardless of what cell you paste the formula into. Otherwise Excel will adjust the reference. In the above example, the C2 reference doesn't have the dollar sign and will be converted into C3 when you paste it in the C3 cell.

This really helped me with some analysis I did and so I hope it helps you too.

In Person vs. Joining From Home

Today begins the annual Sony Technology Expo Fair or STEF. It is a chance for different research and development groups to showcase the work being done. In the past, I have been able to attend in person but this year I am attending from the comfort of my own home. Unfortunately I am not able to share any upcoming technology due to my confidentiality agreement. Let me just say that there are some very interesting things on the horizon.

This morning I woke up early and had to give up my usual morning exercise to attend the first group of meetings. I didn't mind though because should I have wished to attend in Japan, I would have had to catch a flight Saturday morning and missed a lot more than just an hour or two of my daily workout. Furthermore I was not feeling 100% this morning. I would have had to excuse myself from an in-person meeting for about an hour. Instead, I could bring my laptop to the couch and lie down while I recovered.

Today I hosted a series of meetings on AI and Data. Those meetings are now done and I can relax for the rest of the week. Had I made the trek to Tokyo, I would still have 4 more days of meetings and events to attend. Instead I can return to my normal schedule and get real work done.

All of the convenience of not having to get on a plane does come at a cost though. There is something to be said for meeting people face-to-face and shaking hands. It is also easier to have a lot more energy leading a discussion. By the end of today, I felt like everyone was so worn out, they couldn't wait for the last presentation to end even though it was very interesting and effects 125 million PlayStation consoles.

Fortunately the restrictions from COVID are loosening and next year I will be able to attend STEF in person. It is a great event and I love seeing all the cool stuff coming out from other parts of Sony. While I get the idea from online presentations, there is nothing like seeing the new lineup of televisions and other consumer electronics.

Technology Can Help Make Smart Decisions

Today I went skiing with the adult members of my family and we had quite the adventure. We started at Alta and went looking for leftover powder from yesterday. We skied over to the Supreme chairlift only to discover all the new snow had been skied out. We probed along the ski run looking for newly opened gates to see if we might find something fun to ski. All of the gates remained closed because of high avalanche danger and so we stayed on the main run.

Next we headed over to the Sugarloaf chairlift and traversed over to the Collins side of the resort. We had a bit of a hike but made some good turns and found some unskied snow. Unfortunately it was a long way to go for only a few turns. We kept looking. When we got to the bottom of the Collins chairlift the line looked very long compared to the Wildcat lift which only had a few people in it. Not wanting to wait in line, we headed up Wildcat. At the top, we had a decision to make. We could stay at Alta or we could drop into Snowbird via the Keyhole gate. It is this decision where technology could have helped yet we trusted our own intuition. Well I trusted mine and my wife gave me the look that said she didn't.

There are several options for moving between Snowbird and Alta. Before even considering skiing both resorts in the same day you need to have an AltaBird pass. Otherwise you are stuck in one resort or the other. We all had the requisite pass and wanted to take advantage of it. We knew we could use the Keyhole gate to get from Alta to Snowbird. The trick was how to get from Snowbird back to Alta. One option is to take the public bus. That is always the last resort as we came to ski, not ride a bus. There is also the option of dropping into Mineral Basin and taking the Baldy Express chair back to Alta. Unfortunately it is too early in the season and Mineral Basin isn't open yet.

As we sat on the top of the Wildcat chairlift deciding which way to go, we knew we couldn't use Mineral Basin but knew we could use the Armpit gate on Baldy to get from Snowbird to Alta. With that as our plan, we headed to Snowbird. In hindsight, we had all of the tools necessary to augment our decision. We should have pulled out a mobile phone and checked to make sure we could use the Tram to get up to Baldy. Given the tram closure, we could also leverage the Little Cloud chairlift. Furthermore, we could have verified that the ski patrol allowed people to ski on Baldy. Remember that the avalanche danger was high enough at Alta that we couldn't guarantee Baldy would be skiable.

Armed with only the intuition that we would be able to get back to our car at Alta, we headed to Snowbird. We definitely found the fresh powder we wanted. Those turns at the top of Keyhole are the stuff skier's dreams are made of. Then we carefully threaded our way down the narrow chute that gives Keyhole its name. Once on the main runs at Snowbird we headed to the tram so we could get back to Alta. This is where the adventure began.

We got to the tram and found it to be closed. We are not sure we would have known that while still at Alta as the closure seemed to happen as we got there. The reason for the closure was high winds at the top of the mountain. A quick check of the weather on the Snowbird website would have told us that the winds approached the maximum speeds for tram operation and we might be flirting with a closure. We explained our desire to return to Alta in the hopes of a suggestion from the Snowbird staff. I threw out the idea of heading over to Little Cloud and hiking from it to the top of the tram so we could get to Baldy. Chairlifts can run in higher wind speeds than the tram. Unfortunately Little Cloud was temporarily closed because of avalanche activity in the resort.

We saw our options decreasing with every idea but had a few more. Next we headed up the Peruvian chairlift. From there we had 2 options. We could try to make the short hike up a very steep face which would put us on Baldy. The second option was to ski down to the condo complex below and make the mile walk to Alta. I didn't want to wear everyone out and I do enough hiking so I suggested I would make the hike up to Baldy, get to the car, and drive down to pick the rest of the party up at Snowbird. My wife wanted someone else to go with me and so I picked the kid that kept up with me best while hiking earlier in the season. We started the climb and got about a third of the way up before others on the trail told us that ski patrol had just closed Baldy because of avalanche danger.

That left skiing down to the condos and hiking the mile to Alta. We tried to find other ways to get to Alta as we skied down towards the condos but couldn't find one. We pulled off our skis, threw them over our shoulders, and started walking. It didn't take long to find a ski trail. We put our skis back on and skied across the snow. We found another parking area and pulled skis off to walk through before putting our skis on for the last time. We had to skate up a few slight inclines but we made it to Alta and got the car.

We never wanted to take the bus and that turned out to be a blessing. Right now the public transit system in Salt Lake can't find enough drivers and so they have suspended bus service at Snowbird and Alta until later in the month. It turns out, the bus was never an option. Once again, a quick Internet search would have told us that our absolute fail-safe option wasn't an option after all.

Ultimately we had the technology at our fingertips to help us make an informed decision. Knowing the buses were not running might have been enough to keep me from making the wrong decision to head into Snowbird. In the end though, I did get a good story out of the experience. I also hit my step count for the day before noon.

Ode to a Good Friend, Dusty Boren

Last night I was practicing guitar so I could play "Silent Night" for a group of women at the request of my wife when I received an important text message. One of my good friends, Dusty Boren, passed away yesterday. That is one of those messages you don't want to receive in a text but it is the quickest way to let a large number of people know about an event in a very short amount of time. Dusty's health has been in decline for the past year or so and so the news was not unexpected.

Dusty was born about 2 months before me and so we are the same age. I first met Dusty and honestly avoided him. He had Down's Syndrome. I didn't have much experience with it and felt uncomfortable around him. That didn't keep him from coming up to me and proclaiming that I was his buddy. I quickly realized that I didn't need to be uncomfortable around Dusty and to just return the kindness and friendship he showed me. Needless to say we quickly became good friends and have remained such over the past decade or so.

Most people with Down's Syndrome struggle with weight but Dusty was an exception. He made sure not to overeat and always got out for exercise. That means he would come by my house daily either by walking or riding his bike. When I was not at home, my wife would tell me he stopped by. When I was at home, I would sit down on the front steps and share 5 or 10 minutes with him before he continued his walk or bicycle ride. Sometimes I would help him fix a flat tire or pump one up that needed a bit more air.

Some of my favorite memories with Dusty are when we went skiing together. Every year he attended the Steve Young Classic held at Snowbird. This is an event where Steve Young invited a bunch of sports celebrities to lift the spirits of people with any type of disability. During the ski race, Dusty always seemed to win and everyone made a big deal out of it. That was a lot of fun but the most fun I had during those events is when I took Dusty on the chairlift further up the mountain. Dusty skied very well given that he only went once a year. He even braved Snowbird's half-pipe and did amazing. The half-pipe is my favorite memory of skiing with him and has me smiling as I type this.

The physical limitations placed upon him during his mortal life probably brought a lot of heartache to his parents and family. They didn't bother Dusty one bit. He always seemed happy and his smile was contagious. May we all be a bit like Dusty and forget our trials so that we lift those around us and put a smile on everyone's faces.

Multitasking in Microsoft Teams is Painful

I have spent time working on multiple projects for my employer today and one of the tools we use is Microsoft Teams. I discovered a serious flaw when it comes to multitasking with it. The interface does not lend itself to switching between multiple projects as easily as a web browser. It cost me a lot of productivity today and I need to remember that in the future.

When you are in a browser you can open up multiple tabs for different websites and keep them all open at the same time. If you see a link that you want to visit but don't want to navigate away from your existing site, right-click on the link and it pulls up another tab. I generally only have 5 tabs open at a time. After that it gets too confusing. I wish Microsoft Teams had something similar.

We store a lot of files in Microsoft Teams so that we can share them easily instead of passing them around in e-mail. They are stored in OneDrive but most people share the link in the chat feature. Today I had two different presentations I started working on within Teams. When I needed to make an update in the other presentation, I would go look for it and lose my place in the first presentation. Then to make matters worse, I would get a chat message and lose both presentations.

There are some workarounds that would have allowed me to keep both presentations open in different windows and still be able to answer chat messages. Unfortunately that requires a bit of preparation before starting to work on the presentations in Teams. By the time I figured out I tried to do too many things at once, I had already wasted a lot of time. In the future, when I go to work on a presentation found in Microsoft Teams, I will be sure to open it in the stand-alone PowerPoint application so I don't have to keep searching for it after interruptions. Hopefully this tip helps you if you are a Microsoft Teams user.

Christmas Ideas for 2022

Every year I try to post ideas for Christmas gifts related to computers and technology. I find it gets harder ever year as I try to come up with new ideas. After all, it is not hard to go back through old postings and see my recommendations from previous years. So what are some new ideas this year?

New Video Game Console - Yes I used to work for Sony PlayStation and now I work for another part of Sony and so it is easy to expect I would recommend picking up a PlayStation 5. They are still hard to find but not impossible. I have also seen several deals on the XBox Series X and Series S consoles. Which one you get really depends upon the person you are getting it for. If it is for your son and all his friends have XBox consoles, he will want to play online games with them and so I recommend an XBox. If all your son's friends play on the PlayStation then go for that console. I do not recommend just getting a new console because you found one in stock. Make sure it is the console that is wanted.

Video Games - Here you have a lot to choose from. Be sure to ask those probing questions about if there is a game the person on your list wants to start playing. I am not a fan of sports games and so I would be disappointed with one. I am an anomaly though and so don't base a game purchase off my preferences. Find out what games are wanted and then try to find a great deal on them. If you have no idea what to get and that someone on your list is a fan of Star Wars, I highly recommend "LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga" as it has games for all 9 movies. That is on my list this year.

A Quadcopter or Drone - When I worked in Research and Development at PlayStation we had a number of quadcopters on the floor and would race them around the office. It was a lot of fun. DJI has emerged as the drone vendor of choice and they make quality stuff. There are quite a few models to choose from and which one you get is determined by your budget and list of features. If it is a first drone, I recommend a budget version. More than likely it will meet with tragedy and you will know if it is a good replacement gift for next year.

Portable Bluetooth Speaker - I have a number of Portable Bluetooth speakers scattered throughout the house and use them all the time. Both my wife and I have small ones that put out nice sound and are great when you don't want to wear headphones or ear buds. They can range in price from $40 all the way up to $100's. I wouldn't suggest any lower than $40 unless you are willing to gamble with quality.

Another Robot Vacuum - My house has multiple levels and our current robot vacuum cannot go up or down stairs. To solve that problem my wife will carry the robot to another level and let it run until the battery dies. A better solution is to have a robot vacuum for each level of the house. Don't tell my wife, but that is probably what she is getting this year.

Hopefully there are some new ideas in this year's list and I have helped you out. If not, feel free to leave a comment about what you think would make a great gift.

Christmas Tree is Up

I like to use the Thanksgiving break to decorate the house for Christmas. Setting up the tree is actually a lot of work as mine is a custom tree I built several decades ago. I have a vaulted entry way in my house with a nice semi-spiral staircase. It is a very narrow area for a tree and so I custom built ours to fit perfectly. We then use the stairway to help decorate the tree. It works well but takes forever to set up, light, and then decorate. My wife and I have been working on it since Thanksgiving day. Fortunately we only really spend and hour or two each day. This evening we finally finished putting on the Christmas tree ornaments and it looks amazing.

One thing that has really helped speed up our decorating efforts is LED Christmas lights. Before we replaced all of the lights on the tree with LED's we would spend countless hours hunting down burned-out bulbs. It is nice to know that when I plug in the lights, they will just work. Thinking back on this Thanksgiving weekend about technology I am thankful for, I would have to say LED lighting is on that list.

Does Black Friday Still Exist?

This morning I rode up the chairlift with someone that works for a large online retailer where I asked about Black Friday and if it still exists because people do so much online shopping. To help illustrate the point, I got an e-mail on Monday and ordered a expensive ski jacket online at a huge discount. It arrived today and I didn't have to wake up early or stand in a line. In fact, I went skiing on Black Friday and had an excellent day. The person we rode the chair with said that her company had coupons that didn't get sent until Black Friday. She expects it will have more of an effect for Cyber Monday, which is where most online retailers see the largest number of purchases for a given day.

I watched the news last night before heading to bed and they said a lot of people were out shopping but we didn't have the crowds as has been seen in years past. The shoppers interviewed enjoyed being able to find great deals without having to deal with large crowds. I didn't see any stories of women and children being trampled by large and unruly crowds. I'm happy about that.

My wife and I have long since given up on quantity over quality when it comes to Christmas gifts. We spend a lot of time thinking about what people really want for that special day of the year. That has not always been the case as young kids care more about the number of packages they get to open, not about if they want what they are receiving. This year we know exactly what we will get for each of our kids. While we could wake up early on Black Friday and try to save a few dollars, ultimately it is easier to just go to our trusted sources for what we are looking for. After all, time is money and a great deal on something you don't plan to buy is worthless.

Thankful for Technology

I have had a nearly perfect Thanksgiving today and so I thought I would post some thoughts about the technology I am thankful for right now. After all, I do try to focus that in this blog on technology.

My oldest daughter and my youngest son are both in Ohio celebrating this special holiday. We would have liked them to join us in Utah but that just is not possible because of work schedules and the cost of travel. While my middle two children joined us with family and friends, my oldest and youngest joined in on the celebration with a video call. Furthermore it didn't cost any money for the call. Think back 30 years ago when you counted minutes for long-distance phone calls because every one cost money. The ability to make video calls is one thing I am very thankful for.

This morning I got to head up to Alta and go skiing with my family here in Utah. We had the luxury of riding on high-speed detachable quad chairlifts. When I first started skiing, everything was slow-fixed-grip chairlifts. The new lifts whisk you to the top of the mountain in about a quarter of the time of the old ones. On cold days I would turn into a popsicle long before reaching the top. Now I hardly spend any time at all and that is perfect for when I am skiing with my grandchildren who hate riding the lifts but love skiing.

In thinking about this post, I thought about some of the bad things associated with technology. There are computer viruses, identity theft, and other woes we did not have to worry about 20 years ago. Fortunately the conveniences technology provides greatly outweighs the problems. If it was the other way around, we would stop using it. So life moves on and while it may not necessarily get easier, technology at least makes it more efficient and for that I am thankful.

Delivery Drivers Contributing to Porch Pirates

I don't know about you but it seems that the delivery drivers in my area are helping contribute to Porch Pirates. This morning I ordered something from Amazon and it arrived this evening. I didn't think anything about it until I decided to check my e-mail before heading off to bed. I saw that my package had arrived thanks to an e-mail. I have a doorbell but it never rang. I was in the next room and never heard a knock. Someone looking for a chance to steal a nice large package of mostly air could have plenty of opportunity while I am at home watching a movie.

The Amazon driver is not alone. It is rare that a delivery driver from FedEx, UPS, or DHL ever rings my doorbell. I have sort of gotten into the habit of opening the front door and looking on the porch every time I walk by. It is actually starting to annoy me. Fortunately I have never had a delivery stolen but I hear about them on the news all the time.

I guess one way to ensure I am notified about deliveries is to turn on the motion detector for my Ring doorbell. Right now it is off because I was getting too many false alarms. I have a bird that likes to nest near my front door and when he flies in or out I get a notification. Ring already sends me too many messages no matter how I change my settings on my phone and so I have motion detection turned off.

Ultimately I will keep things as they are simply because I have not had any deliveries taken. The moment that changes, I may have to turn on my doorbell's motion detector and live with all of the false alarms. On the plus side, I can go out and shoot the nesting bird with a Nerf dart and help keep him from pooping all over my front steps. That usually discourages him from sticking around.

YouTube Season

I seem to have found a bit of a following with my YouTube videos that focus on the Top 5 Ski Areas of North America. That means that ski season is also YouTube season for me. I tried putting together some videos over the summer but discovered I couldn't easily run up to the ski resort and get more content when needed. I have also found that ski videos don't really get watched during the summer.

My most popular video has just passed 70,000 views, which I think is a lot. I know I would get a lot more if I was a 20-year-old girl trying on swimsuits but that isn't what I am interested in sharing. When I look at other ski videos, I am doing fairly well. There are only a few that get more views and most are less than that.

I am also discovering the content the people want to see. The videos I have the most fun making are about backcountry ski trips but they only get a few hundred views. Show something controversial like which resorts have the steepest slopes or the best powder and you rack up the views. Controversy also means you get people disliking your content and leaving mean comments. I try to respond kindly and let them express their opinion. Hopefully it is paying off.

Lately I have been getting some very nice complements from people that seem to like my videos. That is gratifying but I can't let it go to my head. Fortunately there is someone that will come along and tell me I am an idiot for suggesting a particular ski area and so I think I am staying fairly grounded. If I get back up to 8000 views per day like I did at the end of last season, then I can't make any promises.

Goodbye Comcast, Hello Google Fiber

A couple of months ago I had construction trucks in my neighborhood laying down Google Fiber. They told us it wouldn't take long before the service would be available and we all assumed 6 months to a year. Then a few weeks ago, I got a card in the mail saying it was ready for installation, should I be interested. I was and so I scheduled an appointment for them to bring it into my house.

A week before the scheduled installation, a worker showed up and dug a shallow ditch in my front yard so he could lay the cable up to my house. While it was the easiest path for him, I would have preferred the fiber-optic cable enter my house on the other side. They would have moved the box on the outside of the house if I put in a change request. Instead, I came up with a better solution and brought the line into part of my unfinished basement. They can run 250 feet of fiber optic cable without any problems and that allows for a lot of flexibility.

One nice thing about fiber optics is that you can run it next to electrical wires and there won't be any interference or signal loss. That made it very easy to snake the cable through the truss beams in my basement and bring the access point all the way to my office where we set up a WiFi access point. Google then set up another access point in the family room.

Both Comcast and Google claim to be providing Gigabit speeds and so the service should be the same. Unfortunately my first speed test with Google Fiber came back 10 times faster than Comcast. I am not sure why the speeds differ that much for the same service but I have a few ideas. Unfortunately it would be speculation so let's just assume that not having to worry about electrical wiring solves a lot of problems when it comes to Internet speeds.

So what caused me to switch Internet service providers in the first place? It boils down to the price I was paying and the notoriously poor customer support from Comcast. I'm saving myself $22 per month in costs and Google showed up within 6 minutes of when they said they would. Comcast gives something like a 4-hour window of when they will show up at your house. Now I hope I don't need to rely on that customer service ever again but it is nice to know it is there if I need it. I'm very happy with the switch and Comcast lost a 25-year customer.

Causal Analysis: The Buoy Pop

I spend a lot of my time looking at data. Sometimes I get the chance to look at trends and perform causal analysis. What is causal analysis? It is looking at data and figuring out when one event causes another. A good example is that is the old-time belief that the rooster crowing in the morning causes the sun to rise. Don't laugh, that was an actual belief. We all know that it is the rising sun that causes the rooster to crow and not the other way around.

A more complex example of causal analysis is in correlating wine drinking with good health. There was a study done that indicated people that drink a glass of wine a day are more healthy than those that don't. On the surface it would seem that everyone should drink a glass of wine every day. Unfortunately life isn't that simple. There are a number of other factors that need to be taken into account as well. The reality is that if you can afford to drink wine, you can also afford proper healthcare. It is not the glass of wine that makes someone healthy, it is affluence and the ability to get proper medical attention when needed. They never mentioned that in the study.

Yesterday I came across a very interesting article about the "Buoy Pop." There is a scientific buoy in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that can predict a snow storm in winter for Utah 2 weeks before it happens. This is important if you are a skier and want to know when the next powder storm is on its way. Meteorologists discount the buoy because the best they can do is predict storms 10 days out with only 20% accuracy. How can wave height indicate a storm 14 days away? This is where data science comes in and says there is some other phenomenon at work that meteorologists have not yet identified. Before continuing, the "Buoy Pop" is only 66% accurate, not 100%. Still that is significantly better than what professional weather forecasters can do.

In order to do proper causal analysis, I would need to gather all possible variables and apply a number of statistical algorithms to see what the actual cause of the snow storm is. All I know for now is that something that causes the storms to arrive also sends a nice wave under a specific buoy in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Ultimately the "Buoy Pop" is a nice statistical problem for me to think about but it doesn't effect my actions much. I purposely live in Utah near the ski resorts so that I can take advantage of powder storms as they arrive. For someone who has to travel to ski, I would definitely study when the buoy pops and plan a trip to my favorite Intermountain ski area.

Feeling a Bit Under the Weather

Saturday I started developing a slight cough. It is now Wednesday and I am feeling a bit under the weather. It could be that I keep waking up early and heading to Alta where I spend an hour hiking up the mountain and skiing down. That probably won't help me feel better but I do admit that I feel rather good even during the hike up. Unfortunately my cough has gotten worse.

I have gotten to the point where if I had to go into an office, I would probably opt to work from home so as not to spread my germs and get anyone else sick. I only wish that whomever gave me the cough had done the same. I have a sneaky suspicion though that it came from a family member as I don't really interact with anyone else.

Fortunately the world of COVID made it possible for me to work from home on a regular basis. It is normal to attend meetings using Zoom, WebEx, or Microsoft Teams. Now we just need to take advantage of the technology and not go into work when we are sick. I know that isn't possible for every job but if you can use it, then please do.

A $49 Smartwatch Just Doesn't Cut It

Last Friday I received a nice surprise before leaving to do some hiking in Zion National Park. My replacement smartwatch arrived from Suunto even though I was told not to expect it until Monday. It showed up and I had time to charge the battery before the drive down to Cedar City, Utah. That means I left my cheap temporary replacement at home. I haven't used it since I took it off.

I will admit that I did get used to one or two features of my $49 smartwatch. First it is very thin compared to the Suunto. Of course it doesn't have a GPS and that does take up space. It also is noticeably brighter but that comes at a battery cost. It also had a tendency to light up the room in the middle of the night when I went to check the time.

The thing I missed the most on my Suunto is all of the various sport modes. We hiked around Zion on Saturday and it recorded our path. I can then go back and look at where we walked on my Smartphone app. It also recorded average and maximum heart rate. I never figured out how to do that on the temporary watch. Yesterday and today, I hiked and skied Alta. There is a ski touring setting that records all of the stats one could possible want, including time going up, time skiing down, vertical feet climbed, heart rate information, and a lot of other data that can help determine if you are getting stronger or not. I really missed not having all of that information. It may sound useless until you start to use it and then you find you can't live without it.

One nice thing about my temporary watch is that it does have an off button. I have charged the battery and will put it back in its case. Then I can use it should my Suunto have to go back to the service department in a year or two. I do hope it is longer than that though.

The Smartwatch Saga Continues

Yesterday I wrote about my temporary smartwatch while I wait for my Suunto 9 Baro to be repaired. Before posting to my blog, I checked the status on the Suunto customer service website and could see that they had received the watch but had not done anything with it. They publish they have several statuses but the fact that mine continued to say "Received" led me to believe they had not yet looked at it.

This morning I woke up to a text from DHL saying they had a package for me arriving on Monday. That's nice but I don't have any orders I am expecting and so I didn't click on the link in case it was a phishing attempt or worse. I went down to my computer and had two more messages from DHL. They also had a lot more information and so I knew they really did have a package for me. My inbox also contained a message from Suunto with an update about my watch.

It is important to note that my Suunto watch was well past the one-year warranty and so their message surprised me. They told me that they couldn't fix my watch and were sending me a new one free of charge. They also explained that they removed the band from my original watch and were sending it with the new one. I am pleased that Suunto stands behind their products and is replacing my watch at their expense. I am also confused.

The text and e-mail from DHL now made sense combined with the knowledge from Suunto so my package on Monday would be my replacement watch. What confuses me is that the replacement watch is coming from Hong Kong and my watch band is in Ogden, Utah. I would have expected some sort of an update from the service center saying they were working on the watch, couldn't repair it, and were sending it overseas for further evaluation. That would explain how my new watch is getting my old band. Maybe I will be getting 2 packages in the near future and one will contain the replacement with the other my old band. Ultimately I am happy to know I am getting a new watch and I didn't have to pay for it. I also didn't have to pay for shipping.

This experience reinforces my idea that you want to go with name brand smart devices. I am sure Apple would have done something similar. As for my inexpensive no-name temporary replacement. I'm sure I would be out the $49.99 I paid for it.

A Temporary Smartwatch

Last week my wife found a very inexpensive smartwatch at Amazon and ordered it for me. I think she got tired of listening to me complain about me not having my Suunto 9 Baro. I'd provide a link to the watch but at $49.99, I'm not sure it will be around very long. There are pages of equally inexpensive smartwatches and they probably all come from the same factory in China. The watch showed up on Saturday and I have worn it everyday since then.

I figured the moment I got a replacement watch, my primary watch would be repaired and returned. Nope, it is still at the Suunto Service Center waiting for them to replace the battery. At this point it has been 6 weeks and I wonder if I will ever see it again. I hope so. I love that watch. Just be forewarned that if you have a Suunto watch that needs service, it may take longer than the advertised 14 business days.

The first thing I noticed about my daily habits with the temporary replacement watch is that I am paying attention to my daily step count again. When I didn't have something telling me how far I walked every day, I stopped worrying about it. Now I am fighting daily to make sure I hit my goal of 10,000 steps per day. That is a lot of walking and I took it for granted before. A month off and I have gotten lazy. If you have the slightest concern about your personal fitness, I highly recommend having a smartwatch.

The other thing I noticed about the new watch is that I don't trust the manufacturer nor do I trust its software. I had to install a new app on my smartphone and it naturally wanted all sorts of access to information on my phone. I didn't give it any. I especially didn't allow it to read my location service. That sort of defeats part of the smartwatch experience as it can't track distance walked or where I am. As I really am only concerned about my step count, I can live without actual distance. The last thing I want is data from my smartphone being used for nefarious purposes. I guess that is one of the reasons my Suunto cost so much more is that it had its own GPS receiver. I never had to turn on location services for my smartphone.

One more thing about my temporary smartwatch is that I didn't think I would worry about checking my sleep data. I actually am. Lately I feel like I have been getting the right amount of sleep and so I checked it on my watch. I confirmed that I am.

I am not going to replace my Suunto 9 with this inexpensive smartwatch. The more costly watch has enough features to justify the cost and I eagerly anticipate its return. While I wait, this temporary one works well and helps my fitness level. In other words, it is doing its job.

Video Game Review: Horizon Forbidden West

Friday night my wife went to dinner with her siblings. I opted to stay home and finish up Horizon Forbidden West. What a great game! Now I am probably partial as I used to work for PlayStation and this is an exclusive title that I got for free when one of my former colleagues gave me a download code as a parting gift from the company. I also played the precursor Horizon Zero Dawn all the way through and enjoyed it so much I earned every trophy in the game (also known as Platinuming).

At the end of Horizon Zero Dawn you discover there is more to the story and another cataclysmic event about to happen to earth. Horizon Forbidden West is that continuation. You continue to play as Aloy and move from the Intermountain West to the West Coast of the United States. There are new lands to explore and more people to discover that are even more bloodthirsty than the previous game. Naturally you show your excellent fighting skills and are immediately accepted by everyone except the bad guys who try to kill you. While you pretty much have combat mastered with the robot dinosaurs from the previous game, you get to meet more advanced versions as well as superior robots with an extraterrestrial origin. The only downside is you don't get to keep your invincible armor from the first game. Its batteries are dead and that became a foreshadowing of what would happen to me in a lot of battles . . . I died.

If you enjoyed the first game, you probably will the second as well. There are various quests to complete and friends to meet along the way. Not all weapons are created equal and so be sure to use your interactions to learn about what works best for you. My son ran through the game and focused on the main story at the expense of side quests. I found those extra missions added to the story and I enjoyed searching out different areas in the hopes of gaining experience. When it came time for the final battle, I did very well and sort of breezed through it. I think I enjoyed the game much more than my son.

Today I got an e-mail from PlayStation congratulating me on my accomplishment of finishing the main story of the game. They also reported that I spent 116 hours playing the game and earned 47 trophies. I still have 14 more to go to Platinum the game and will probably do that over the next week or so. My son's total hours played came in at much less than that. I guess I took my time.

Horizon Forbidden West has an ESRB rating of T for Teen because of language, mild sexual themes, and violence. To be honest I didn't notice any strong language but I am sure it was there. As for violence, there is a lot of that and the blood to go with it. The story also includes hints at same-gender relationships, hence the mild sexual theme warning.

I highly recommend this game to anyone looking for a 100 hours of pure entertainment. If I had not gotten a free copy of the game, I would have had no problem paying the $65 when it first came out so I could play it on my PS5. It is also available on the PS4.

Android Gift Cards

This post originally appeared in November of 2011. Google then de-listed it because it was classified as SPAM. I asked to have it reviewed and they posted it now even though the information is outdated. For completeness, I am leaving it in the blog.

 

I am in the process of putting together my annual gift guide and I started to do a bit a research on Android Market gift cards. Guess what, they don't exist. I think it is a shame because they would make perfect stocking stuffers. When you look at Apple's iStore and compare it with Google's Android Market, they look very similar. The biggest difference though is with music. You can get iTunes gift cards from a number of retailers because most people use them to buy music. While there is some music found in the Android Market, it is mostly used to sell apps. I did see that they have a number of movies for rent and my hope is that this will spur Google to get someone selling Android Market gift cards. There is one positive aspect of Google not selling gift cards though. I have noticed that a number of free applications found on the Android Market actually cost money at the iStore. Angry Birds is a good example. There is a "lite" version on the iStore, but the complete version is available for free from the Marketplace. Perhaps not having gift cards sold all over the place is actually a good thing. What do you think?

Keep It Simple

I am working on a project at Sony related to customer data consent that I made way too complicated. As a customer, you control what vendors can do with the information you provide them. In most of the United States, purchasing a product or service requires you to opt-in to a data agreement for the company using your data before you can make the purchase. California and Europe have laws that require vendors to allow you to opt-out of letting them use it. While nobody wants their personal information sold so another company can send you unwanted advertisements, vendors often use your information to customize your experience with their product. For instance a video streaming service can use your previous viewing history to recommend new movies or shows that you may be interested in watching.

The conversations I participated in a few weeks ago led me to believe that my team would want to keep track of various levels of data tracking for our customers. I felt we should have a number of different flags for how much data we can share. For instance, we should keep track of if people will let us sell their personal data to receive advertising e-mails. Ultimately we don't need to keep track of that because: 

1. Nobody in their right mind would want to receive more junk e-mail
2. Sony doesn't sell our customer data to other companies

I created a number of other consent flags I thought people wanted to keep track of only to discovered they similarly are not needed. Ultimately all my team needs to do is keep track of being able to customize our users' experiences or not. People that opt out of letting us use their data get the most popular recommendations while everyone else will have more a more personalized experience.

California has the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and Europe has the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that impose very strict requirements on what companies can do with your data. They came about because certain companies decided they could make more money by selling customers' data than actually selling products. These laws are there to protect you from such bad actors. Unfortunately that means companies that sincerely have your best interest in mind have to do a lot of explaining so that you will allow them to use your data for your benefit.

Laws meant to protect ultimately complicate things. I am discovering that I need to then unravel the complexities and try to keep things simple. Simple systems work, complex ones tend to be much more fragile.

Fat Bear Week

Yesterday I received an e-mail that mentioned Fat Bear Week. With such a humorous name, I had to investigate and ended up voting in the contest that is run annually. I wish I would have heard about the contest sooner to help send traffic to the site as it is actually a great event and something everyone should know about.

My youngest daughter spent the summer in Alaska as a kayak guide near Valdez. I knew she would be spending the entire summer living in a tent and one of my concerns for her was that she might have too close of an encounter with a grizzly bear. She is now back home and had plenty of experiences meeting various bears, including one just outside her tent. Fortunately none of her bear sightings required medical attention but it exposed a fear I have about man-eating bears. I think we all want to keep our distance from them.

Fat Bear Week is a contest put on by the staff at Katmai National Park. It started in 2014 and gives viewers the chance to vote for the brown bear that has gotten the fattest during the summer from a diet of salmon. They show before and after photos of specific bears and anyone can vote on their favorites. They also have short bios for all of the bears in the contest so you get to know a little about each contestant. The reason it appealed to me is because of all the before/after photos I see for people dieting and this looked similar, only in reverse. Bears spend the summer building up fat stores so they can hibernate all winter. It is especially important for female bears who give birth mid-winter. If they do not have enough fat reserves, mothers will not give birth that year.

Yesterday I voted for my favorite bear and he ended up winning the contest: bear 747. His bio mentions that it is only fitting that his tag number is the same as that of Boeing's largest commercial jet aircraft. He also won the 2020 Fat Bear Week contest.

Fat Bear Week is a great use of the Internet because it allows everyone to view one of nature's most powerful creatures without being in danger. While I have a healthy fear of grizzly bears, it made them more personal and helped me want to protect them. I probably won't write a check to the Save-the-Grizzly-Bears foundation but I am more aware of their needs and apt to support measures relating to their habitat as opposed to falling back on my fears and the attitude of "protect the humans at all costs."

When I found out about Fat Bear Week, I let everyone in my family know. My kayak-guide daughter responded that she had been voting all week. I guess that shouldn't have surprised me as she is a fan of all things related to Alaska. Now I just need to add it to my calendar for next year so I remember to join in the fun.

I Have a Spare PS5

Last week I received an e-mail from PlayStation letting me know I would be given the opportunity to purchase a PlayStation 5 at the manufacturer's suggested retail price. On Wednesday, I was told to log into the PlayStation Direct site on Thursday at noon using a special link to purchase the PS5. At 12:01pm on Thursday, I logged in and found myself in a virtual queue waiting to purchase the coveted console. I was told the line was about an hour long. 10 minutes later, I was let in and purchased the device. It then arrived at my house on Saturday at 1:25pm.

This is my second PS5 and so I didn't purchase it for myself as I already have one. I got it for any of my family or friends that want one and didn't want to pay the scalpers for it. So far, nobody has taken me up on my offer to sell it to them for what I paid, $536.24. I used to work for Sony Interactive Entertainment and am contractually not allowed to sell it for a higher price than I paid. While I no longer work for PlayStation, I do work for Sony and am honoring the agreement just to be sure. I would hate to have Sony cut off my account, which is something they could easily do.

I sent out messages to all of my family members on Saturday and everyone declined my offer. Next I talked to a few people that have expressed interest in the past about getting a PS5. They are still thinking about it. I am reluctant to advertise too widely about my device as I don't want someone buying it only to turn around and resell it for a profit. I looked at the usual retail sites like Walmart, Gamestop, Best Buy, Target, and a few others only to confirm the console is still hard to find. It is.

If you can convince me you will keep the PS5 for your own use and not resell it for a profit, you are welcome to buy it from me for the price I paid.

What I'd Like to See in the Metaverse

Yesterday I posted about the Metaverse. Today I would like to dive a little deeper and share what I would like to see. Given the recent pandemic we all have learned a lot about our tolerance for staying inside. I recently visited Disneyland and chose the dates I did because it was supposed to be empty. Everyday it was crowded and full to capacity because travel restrictions have lifted and that is what people want to do: visit places they haven't been able to because of COVID-19. I also recently tried to book a trip to Zion National Park as it has been a few years since I have been there. Hotel rates are $600-$700 per night in the town just outside the park because so many people want to visit. In order for me to stay home and spend more time inside, the Metaverse better offer something really special and unique.

I love skiing in the winter and rock climbing in the summer. I also enjoy spending time on my bike or sailing. How can you create a world that has a better experience than the activities I enjoy outside? Let's start with exercise.

Today I went for a beautiful bike ride at lunch. Soon the weather will turn ugly and while I have the equipment to ride outside in the pouring rain, I will probably ride inside on my stationary bicycle. Currently I just put in my ear buds and listen to music. I don't use my over-the-ear headphones because they get all sweaty and nasty. I doubt I would ever put on virtual reality (VR) goggles for the same reason. Perhaps I could set my indoor bike up in front of a TV and bike in a virtual world. I have an unused 60-inch television in my office that I could use for such a purpose. Furthermore it is capable of 3D movies and could create a wonderful indoor biking experience. While that does require glasses, I wear sunglasses on my daily ride and so it wouldn't be that much of a bother. The important thing to remember is that I can't be expected to wear cumbersome goggles while I exercise.

I mentioned how I visited Disneyland a few weeks ago. How much is it worth to me to visit an online version of the park in the Metaverse? Probably not much even though you wouldn't have to wait in line for hours on end to ride the rides. There is something about having the wind in your face and feeling the motion of the roller coaster as you experience Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, or Thunder Mountain Railroad. That would be hard to replicate at home even with smart devices like an Internet-controlled fan or a perfectly timed bucket of water. However the more gentle rides like the Jungle Cruise, Peter Pan, or Snow White could become a more magical experience than they are at the theme park. I also would like to see earlier versions of the park. Perhaps even visit the park I remember as a child. I would pay real money to experience opening day at Disneyland which is something only possible in VR.

My daughter has a shirt that says, "Hike the Crimson Canyon of Mars National Park." We have robots on the red planet right now collecting high-quality images of our planetary neighbor. NASA could easily put together a VR experience without the unnecessarily long and dangerous space flight to get there. That is something I would like to see. I would also like to see all of the places in the world that are difficult or dangerous to visit. I have sailed a relatively small boat through several massive storms and I don't want be put in such a dangerous situation again. However I wouldn't mind being able to appreciate the power of Mother Nature from the comfort and safety of my living room.

Unfortunately the visions I am describing do not suit the tastes of all. There are bound to be online destinations that offend in the same way we have websites of the same genres now. As I said yesterday, the Metaverse is here now and so hopefully we can apply some of the same barriers to keep our children from wandering into the dangerous destinations soon to arrive.

What is the Metaverse

Today I watched a presentation on the Metaverse and the speaker began by talking about what it is not. He prefaced those remarks by saying that he would be breaking a fundamental rule by so doing. I don't fault him for it as quite a few people are trying to define what it is and a number of companies are working to help create it in the hopes of making large fortunes.

Before continuing  I have to go back a few years when Facebook changed it's name to Meta. Facebook was created as an online social site where people could go share the highlights of their lives. With the passing of time they realized that people will continue to evolve with how they interact online and it is no coincidence that Meta is one of the leaders promoting the Metaverse. It would not surprise me if they try to trademark the name as it so closely matches their own company name.

Ultimately the Metaverse is already in existence and is simply how we interact online. Just as any technology evolves, so will the Metaverse. Right now we use a computer, tablet, smartphone, or game console to interact online. Those tools that we use will evolve to include virtual reality (VR) headsets and augmented reality (AR) glasses. There will be other inventions to come along so that it might evolve into an environment similar to the OASIS from the movie Ready Player One. Unfortunately that is our interpretation of the Metaverse and most likely it will be different. Just as we currently have multiple devices capable of browsing the Internet, the Metaverse won't require VR glasses, they will just be helpful to get the full experience of the environment.

One of the topics that surfaced in the presentation I watched included current video games. There are a number of wondrous worlds created for the latest video games and it would be enjoyable to spend more time in them. Often times we are rushed through the action adventure story and never get the chance to stop and enjoy the environment we are in. I feel that way about my current game, Horizon: Forbidden West. While I could just stop, sit on a rock, and watch a sunrise in the game, there isn't enough sensory stimulation in my current interface to make me want to stop. Perhaps that will be there in the future.

There are some other video games that could become building blocks to the Metaverse. The two big ones mentioned are Roblox and Minecraft. Both allow you to build and create things. I always tell people that Minecraft is like Legos without the mess. The reason they are important is that they show how users can add to their existing game environment. Imagine being able to create your own world and then watch how popular it becomes as others come to explore it. It reminds me of my YouTube channel and the importance of acquiring new viewers. Of course some will want to keep their worlds to themselves but there is an inherent trait in most to share their art with others.

Right now the Metaverse is in its infancy and is built on the current Internet infrastructure. It is how we interact socially online and will grow and blossom as we create more content for it. Will any one company control it? I hope not. I also hope that it becomes a benefit for us instead of another waste of time.

I Miss My Smartwatch

A few weeks ago I noticed that my watch was having difficulty holding a charge for any length of time. A quick Internet search revealed that the rechargeable battery probably needed to be replaced. I boxed it up and sent it to the Suunto service center in Ogden, Utah. Suunto even provided me with a UPS label so I didn't have to pay for shipping. At least not yet.

The service center has had my watch for 3 weeks now and probably will for a few more as they have a large backlog of devices to fix. I really miss my watch. While it is helpful for telling time, it actually does so much more and so I eagerly await its return.

A lot of millennials don't wear watches because they just look at the time on their smartphones. I figured I would give that a try until my watch is sent back. All I can say is that pulling my phone out to check the time is kind of a hassle compared to looking at my wrist. I don't check it enough and find myself being late to quite a few appointments. For this reason alone, I am thinking of picking up a cheap watch to use until my Suunto 9 is returned. Fortunately a lot of the millennials that have refused to wear a watch have fallen in love with Apple's Smartwatch and have started wearing them. This doesn't explain why they are still always late but let's hope that gets better.

The second thing I have noticed is that I am not exercising as much as I did when I had my Smartwatch. I still try to get out for my daily bike ride but I have stopped taking as many evening walks. The exercise feature of most Smartwatches allows you to track distance walked, steps taken, and pulse. These are all great indicators of how much exercise I am getting and something I track daily. I really miss this information and am thinking about getting a cheap Smartwatch with these features until my primary one is returned.

I used to constantly check my sleep quality when I first started wearing my Suunto 9. Fortunately I have learned what habits contribute to good sleep and don't check it nearly as often as I am sleeping very well. When I don't have quality sleep at night, I know it and adjust my habits to fix it. I guess that is something I don't need in a temporary replacement watch.

My wife is probably tired of listening to me complain about my missing watch. Last night she suggested that I find a temporary replacement until mine is returned. I guess I had better set a budget and minimum features I can't do without. If I use the health features on my phone, I can probably just get a simple watch that is waterproof and tells time. Time to go do some research.