Earlier this week, Toyota announced that it would be killing the Scion brand, its entry level car brand aimed at first time car owners. Scion may not have pioneered the “no haggle, no hassle” form of car buying, Saturn started it, but they continued in that tradition and I would argue made a bigger impact with it by focusing on college kids and recent grads. The death of the company felt like a long time coming, largely due to what felt like a lack of interest from Toyota, though what really put the nail in the coffin was the move toward ride sharing services, primarily Uber, and a sharp decline in car ownership among the college age demographic.

If 2015 had large overriding themes in the world of technology, among them would be the proliferation of devices, continued move toward mobile, smartphones most among them, and the internet of things. What all these themes have in common is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for companies of any size to build experiences for their users on all of the devices said users would like to interact with. A typical user in 2016 may use an iPad while on the couch, a Mac at home, a Windows computer in the office, an Android smartphone, Ford Sync in their car, Xbox and Roku for their TV, and Amazon Echo in the kitchen.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading (ok listening) of big life altering experience themed books, like hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in Wild, the Appalachian Trail in A Walk in the Woods, and Mt. Everest in Into Thin Air, and it got me thinking about what I want to one day check off. Our culture, and particularly generation has been recognized as focusing on experiences rather than destinations or things in life, and I’m no different.

As an update to my previous post on creating an Alexa skill to control Nest thermostats, in which we got an account pin manually, and used this for making calls to the Nest API, I was able to use the account linking methodology in Alexa to allow any user to authenticate with their Nest account, and thereby control their thermostats without this tedious step and code changes. Here’s how to do it.

It is a blisteringly cold, but sunny January Monday afternoon and the call of the wild speaks to Hershey. The wind carries the whisper of his forbearers hunting through the wood and plains. The scent of snow and squirrels wafts like dead leaves upon the air. Bundling up in galoshes and a fleece line coat, Hershey and I (also in winter clothes) head up our street where a hidden path joins the trail system of the state forrest.

Going into the running season of 2016, ok we are still a way off, but still, I wanted to share my favorite running gear. It’s only been about two years of real running for me, so I haven’t found the best items everywhere, but for the most part, I’ve at least found things that work well enough for me to finish three marathons and ten halves. Many of these items would work fine for other activities like cycling as well.

Every year in New York City, millions gather around Times Square to revel in memories of the previous year, celebrate the upcoming one, and see the ball drop. At midnight, the immense ball descends the tower, and confetti sprays across the whole city. Revelers cheer, toast, kiss, or possibly do all three. Several blocks uptown, another group, a somewhat smaller and less warmly dressed one, watches fireworks in Central Park, and begins running a four mile loop of the park on the stroke of midnight.

As 2015 draws to a close, I wanted to check back in on the resolutions I publicly made last year. Most were running related, and I made some good progress, while others were more wide ranging and I did well on some there as well. So let’s check in on those I made last year. Increase Speed - My PR in 2014 was a 1:54:00 at the Runner’s World half, and I aimed to best this, possibly even get down into the 1:30:00s.

There are meals in life that are great for many reasons. Sometimes a waiter can stand out as very knowledgeable, or perfectly figure out your likes and preferences and tailor suggestions to you. Other times a setting may make the meal, such as our incredible seafood on the Croatian Island of Hvar under the night sky with the sea breeze drifting in. Sometimes instead the food can speak for itself and be perfection of a specific technique or wildly imaginative.

With all of my software projects I’ve been working on lately, I decided about a month ago to get into some hardware hacking as well. Arduino seemed like the obvious choice due to its fast growing popularity, great support, and the fantastic starter kit. I ordered up the starter kit and over the past month, worked through the 15 sample projects to learn the ins and outs. After completing these, I decided a binary clock would be a cool first self led project.