The Lewis Show

I awoke to a day of rage. It wasn't even about anything political or remotely serious. It was concerning Netflix and their recent changes to their streaming and DVD models. I wanted to express a few thoughts about this and pose a few rhetorical questions, just like I do for every post. I will give the short of this post though, I think splitting streaming with physical media is a good idea and more forward thinking than we realize. Last night around midnight I received an email from the CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings . In his email he apologized for his arrogance and lack of communication about the state of his company. After skimming through all of that mundane and unnecessary banter, I found the real meat of this email now residing in millions of inboxes. He wants to split his company into two parts. He wants to keep Netflix, the native company streaming only. After some price changes last month, I had gotten the hint pretty quick that they want to push customers into watch...

You know, sometimes I might hint that my life is fairly uneventful. Not that I complain, I just like living a simple, boring life with the exception of my vacations and adventures with Janine. This last week has seen quite a bit of action. Let's see if I can recap with pictures. Dexter seemed unfazed by the earthquake Last Tuesday, the 23rd, in the early afternoon hours, the ground began to shake. At first it sounded as if someone in the floor above decided to drop a file cabinet, which happens quite a bit up there. They are lawyers. Not long after my initial reaction, did I realize I was in a classic California style earthquake. The ground was swaying with the building. I could feel the ripples that comes with a shallow earthquake, and I began to calmly walk from the building. I can't recall the last time I had been in an earthquake. I remember one about a 5.5 magnitude in Los Angeles at one time, but this one felt serious enough to leave the building. Come...

While it seems elitist to tell others how to use Twitter, I've come to believe over the past four years of use, that some people do not realize when they are becoming more a pest than a friend. So I made a short list, fifteen points to consider when composing those precious tweets. Please feel free, Twitter users, to use as many as possible. Thou shalt consider the person reading your tweets before posting all tweets as you would prefer to be tweeted to. Thou shalt not Twittascope. Thou must use check in tools smartly and sparingly. Again, sparingly. One does not benefit from knowing about that quick check in to pick up toilet paper. Thou shalt not live tweet everything. One or two tweets will do. Seventeen tweets will not do. This includes sporting events.  Thou shalt not retweet more than once an hour or three times a day lest your privilege to retweet are quickly taken away from you. Thou shalt not post a link without at least a word or two of description. Th...

The platform wars in a funny little nutshell.

It was decided months, probably years ago that Janine and I would catch the last Harry Potter flick with the devoted on the Thursday evening of its release. Without disappointment  we were treated with a grand finale. My strongest feeling centers around this being the close for another chapter with new and exciting chapters beginning now. I'm sure there will be other flicks that inspire people to wear robes and carry carved sticks, but the feeling for me isn't around the pomp, it's about the two lifetimes that I have lived since I started following the series. In 2005 I started to reluctantly watch the series after heaps of mocking by accidentally watching the third movie on DVD. I was quickly able to pick up on the hype and quickly became a part of it myself. I'm left with many great memories in Lynchburg and here in Richmond of meeting with friends and watching this movie. It's not the movie, it's the events wrapped around it that stick out to me. ...

Innovation is a great thing. It helps us move from our comfort zones and it helps us to learn new things. The web is a great example of seeing good ideas put to work. I recently discovered one of the biggest innovations I think I have ever seen on the net. Turntable.fm is a music discovery site remixed and remastered. The premise comes from Pandora's internet radio stations. Instead of having an algorithm play songs that align with your preferences, there are endless rooms ready to take on anyone's genre and tastes. The twist is the ability for five people to spin records, if you will, DJ'ing to their audience. The audience then has the power to vote each song up or down by clicking on Lame or Awesome. Over time the DJ's amass points that allow them to unlock new avatars or characters. This is why the internet was made. This is a site dedicated to maintaining the strong winds of social networking, mixing in great music, and allowing people to discover new artists a...

The view of New Orleans from the sky. The city is rich in history be it French, Spanish, Creole, American. New Orleans is probably one of the more photogenic towns I've seen. The culture and vivid colors came as advertised. A city where tragedy is ingrained in its DNA. They know and celebrate life and even death. This is truly a unique place!