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Olympics Go Live – PyeongChang 2018

@iAmAviG

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March 31, 2017

The biggest threat that faces NBC every other year during the Olympics is: Spoilers.

And with social media abuzz at every medal and record breaking attempt, it makes it hard for NBC to get people in front of their TVs for their primetime coverage.

But PyeongChang 2018 is going to even the playing field for NBC. With a 13-hour time difference (from the East Coast) the primetime coverage will be the launch of a new day for the Olympics and be able to show off great coverage Live.
This likely also means that the Today Show will be able to cut to live “local Primetime” events.

Meanwhile, in previous years they have done a primetime show live on the East Coast, and then aired it later (in local primetime) across the country. But this time it’ll be shown live across the country…8PM Eastern, 5PM Pacific.

And similar to last time, the Olympics can be found on any and every channel owned by NBC and their mobile platforms.
Last summer was found as wide ranged as NBC, NBCSN, USA and CNBC.

Video Game Hall of Fame Finalists

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March 30, 2017

The video game Hall-of-Fame opened in 2015 with a hall that was headlined by Pac-Man, Pong, and Super Mario Bros, and rounded out by Tetris, Doom, and World of Warcraft.

A year later The Sims, The Oregon Trail, The Legend of Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, Space Invaders, and Grand Theft Auto III were added to the prestigious list.

And on May 4th they will announce this year’s inductees, but for now they’ve just announced the nominees, and if it were up to me here is the Class of 2017:

  • Pokemon Red and Green – This is the only one that was nominated before, both in 2015 and 2016, and was the start of a generation of outstanding video games
  • Windows Solitaire – We’ve all been bored and opened this one up, even when we didn’t know how to play (at first)
  • Tomb Raider – Had a greater reach than just video games, leading to movies starring Angelina Jolie in the lead role
  • Mortal Kombat – We all remember when we successfully executed that finishing move to perfection and buried our opponents
  • Donkey Kong – Barrel rolling gorillas remind me of my time spent in the Congo
  • Wii Sports – This was the first game that really changed the “Human movement video game” world, and the start of a great YouTube era of “people throwing controllers through their televisions”

The remaining six nominees are:

  • Final Fantasy VII
  • Halo: Combat Evolved
  • Myst
  • Resident Evil
  • Street Fighter II
  • Portal

Now if previous predictions are an indicator, you can successfully say that I will be wrong on all six of my picks.

Google Assistant

@iAmAviG

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March 29, 2017

Google Assistant is now rolling out to more phones, replacing the typical Google search bar and voice commands.

With that in mind, here are some tips and tricks to try with your fancy new tech toy:

  • “OK Google” – Those two magic words will wake it up and bring the assistant to life.
  • Go thru the settings and customize it to your favorite sites
    • Home Control: Connect that smart house to your Assistant so that she can flip those switches off as you go to bed.
    • News: Sort through which news sources you trust most, and which ones you want to hear from more frequently.
    • My Day: Let Assistant know what to include in your daily summary.
    • Shopping List: This feature utilizes Google Keep
  • All valid practical commands for Google Assistant:
    • Play Bohemian Rhapsody on Spotify
    • Watch Family Guy on Netflix
    • Did the TrailBlazers win last night?
    • Wake me at 8:15
    • What time is my flight?
    • Call Prince Al-Waleed (must have the Prince’s number in your contacts first)
    • Show me pictures of my car
    • Take a selfie
    • Turn on flashlight
  • Bored? Let it entertain you, just say “I’m bored” and it’ll provide the following (or you can ask for them directly):
    • Tell me a joke
    • Play a game
    • Play trivia
    • What have I got in my pocket?
  • “Sing Happy Birthday” and she’ll do it in the right tune…no more Aunt Edna croaking it out.
  • Have some fun and tell Google Assistant: “I’m feeling lucky”

EasyPay Xpress MetroCard

@iAmAviG

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March 28, 2017

One of the downsides for having a MetroCard in NYC is that people need to wait in line to refill them…or they swipe and it says the dreaded “Insufficient Fare”.

But none of that should be a problem if you subscribe to “EasyPay Xpress”. The card automatically refills when it drops below a certain level, and you still get the 5% bonus that standard users get.

So now when you swipe it’ll just say “Go” and you never have to wonder if you have enough left for a ride back home.

EasyPay Xpress also gets you deals and discounts across the city. These discounts include:

  • $10 off at Madame Tussauds
  • 25% off at the Star Wars Discovery Center (although if it’s anything like some of their other exhibits, I would stay far away even if it’s free)
  • 30% off at Perfect Crime
  • And MORE

Also, if you lose the card they will cancel the old one and send you a new one with the full remaining balance on it!

NYC Service Request Tracking

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March 27, 2017

So you see something, you say something. You file that 3-1-1 service request for a blocked hydrant, for broken plumbing, for a downed tree, or even that ginormous growing pothole.

You then log in the next day and pull up your service tag in hopes of seeing it updated with some positive result.

But do you ever wonder how many others have filed similar requests (the answer is usually zero) and how frequently your area pretends to care about the laws?

Well, now you can log onto the 3-1-1 Service Request Map and see how things progress on your block.

Enjoy!

Go aWaze

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March 23, 2017

About a year ago I figured out why Waze didn’t work well for me, but like a glutton for punishment, I always try things again to see what else can go wrong.
And Waze didn’t fail me.

For starters, signing in without Facebook was more of a hassle than it needed to be (and the amount of apps that require Facebook activation these days is ridiculous, but that’s another story), but thankfully I’ve gotten Google SmartLock straightened out for the next adventure.

For a map app, they are pretty bad at giving directions…not offering the shortest or fastest routes. This is proven by actually driving (the same routes I took every day) and was originally given to me by Google Maps, and getting there ahead of their “estimated time of arrival” on the original route.
Now some may argue that “the time changes as you drive”…and I’ll argue with: Google Maps is spot on 95%+ of the time on their initial “arrival time” guesstimation.

On that note, even though they are owned by the same company now, the maps from Waze are super clunky, they don’t look good, and aren’t ideal to look at while driving.
They don’t make it easy to see your future route and are insanely difficult to plan “alternate routes” on, especially since they don’t relay other times to you in the same ways that Google Maps does.

Lastly, they are a major drain on data plans. In three days of standard usage it drained through 50% of the data that Google Maps did in 21 days of usage last month…at that rate it would use 350% of the data that I would use for a normal useful mapping system.

Sleep As Android

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March 21, 2017

I’ve recently been testing a sleep tracker, Sleep As Android, in an effort to see what I can do differently to get a full restful night’s sleep.

The app is obviously available on Android and comes with a free two-week trial (and afterward is a one-time fee of $3.99) which includes a few solid features, including:

  • Sleep Cycle Tracking – Shows you a graph of your sleeping period, from “Awake” to “Rem” and “Deep Sleep”
  • Smart Wake Up – This will set an alarm for you, within a half hour period, and will pick the ideal time in your sleep cycle to wake you up…personally this doesn’t work for me most days, but on a weekend, this could be ideal.
  • Lullabies – I find things like this to be counterproductive (as random thunderclaps wake me up), but they have a variety of sounds to help people get to sleep <Including white noise, oceans, and storms>.
  • Alarm Clocks – These alarm clocks include smart locks to ensure that you can’t just roll over and turn them off, including QR codes, and math problems.
  • Sleep Recording – Records noises throughout the night, including snores, room noises, and anything else that might jar you awake throughout the night.
  • Smartwatch compatibility

One of the things I like best is that while it has smart watch compatibility, it is not necessary to wear one.
Personally, I can’t wear things on my wrists when I am trying to sleep, so the app allows you to just have the phone nearby on your bed to track all these movements.

NYC Fails Snow Cleanup

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March 17, 2017

Remember those days when it would snow one to two feet, and the city would shut down for a day or two, yet when it reopened cars could drive around and people could cross streets.

Yet this week it snowed a whopping 7.6″ in Central Park, and the city shut down the subways for a day, yet through it all…nothing got done.

Legally, New Yorkers had four hours to clean their sidewalks once the storm wrapped up on Tuesday…yet yesterday morning, 36+ hours after the storm finished, walking in Times Square included crosswalks with piles 2 1/2 feet high impeding safe crossing.

Meanwhile, driving into work this morning, 60+ hours after the storm finished, 6th Avenue was a snow nightmare in the West 40s, with mounds and slush everywhere…but don’t worry, there were plenty of bulldozers and dump trucks around the area this morning, all focused one Avenue over on the St Paddy’s Day Parade route.

Mayor De Blasio needs to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it…unless of course he thinks that the city did a fantastic job, in which case he may be delusional…

Brackets 2017

@iAmAviG

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March 16, 2017

Let’s be clear: While I follow almost all sports, I honestly don’t understand how people follow college sports.
Unless you went to the school, how do you ‘root for a team’?
You certainly aren’t rooting for the players, who change every year or two…the only thing that people can root for is a coach/system that you want to get behind and hope they succeed.

With all that said and done, today is the start of March Madness…and I’ve entered into a variety of tournaments…all of which are based on pure luck and hopefulness because I have no idea what I’m doing.

I am in three brackets, two Pick 8’s, and two survivor pools. So for those interested in this sort of stuff, here is who I have for the big moments.

FINAL FOUR
– Bracket 1: Duke, Arizona, Louisville, UNC
– Bracket 2: Villanova, Gonzaga, Louisville, UNC
– Bracket 3: Villanova, Gonzaga, Kansas, Kentucky

PICK 8
~~For every round they advance you get the points equal to their seed~~
– Set 1: Notre Dame (5), Cincinnati (6), Maryland (6), SMU (6), Miami (8), Wichita State (10), Rhode Island (11), NC Wilmington (12)
– Set 2: SMU (6), Dayton (7), Seton Hall (9), Vanderbilt (9), Marquette (10), Kansas State (11), Middle Tennessee State (12), New Mexico State (14)

Survivor
~~While sharing my survivor picks now would be futile, as they will update on an almost daily basis, here is who I’m starting out round one with~~
– Set 1: #4 West Virginia, #4 Purdue, #3 Baylor, #3 Oregon, #3 UCLA
– Set 2: #4 Florida, #5 Notre Dame, #6 Cincinnati, #6 Creighton, #5 Iowa State

Xbox Game Pass

@iAmAviG

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March 15, 2017

Two and a half years ago Electronic Arts launched EA Access, and finally Microsoft and Xbox is catching up to the future of gaming.

In the next few months Microsoft will be rolling out “Xbox Game Pass” and for $9.99/month you get access to a full library of games.
They are promising over 100 games from the Xbox One and 360 collections, and a rotating stock to choose from.
And as long as you are a subscriber you can continue playing whatever you download.
Meanwhile, these games are not streaming and laggy, but rather downloaded to your device like standard games.

And while services like this usually include only second-tier games, they are promising some big names on opening day including Halo 5, Payday 2, and SoulCalibur II.

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