Ryan Matthew Pierson

A Blog of Ersatz Savvy

Vampirina is an episodic cartoon show about a young vampire and her human friends. Vampirina, ancient by human standards, appears to be a 10-year-old child with blue skin and batwings in her hair. The show features her two in-the-know human friends and a clueless neighbor boy that is determined to capture the supernatural for his web show.

If there is one thing companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are making abundantly clear with their new generation of products, it’s that the role of desktop and laptop computers is changing. 2020 will bring with it a new cloud-reliant wave of devices that may have all the features and functionality of last year’s models, but that operate on comparatively smaller software platforms.

For the past 10 years, I’ve had a recurring obsession that completely overtakes my media consumption habits for weeks at a time: Pawn Stars.

In the software development world, a full stack engineer is someone that has a diverse set of skills that span multiple levels of the development flow. The same is true for technical writers, where having skills that go beyond the ability to write good content come in handy.

For generations, Rocky Balboa has served as an inspirational character personifying the pursuit of dreams in the face of insurmountable odds. Rocky is more than an underdog story. It’s a series of life lessons shared through the eyes of one of the most recognizable figures in cinema history.

Nest is a great brand for introducing anyone that has thought about making their home a ‘smart’ home to ‘smart’ home technologies. Nest, which was purchased by Google in 2014, has a host of smart home products including a thermostat, smoke alarm, and indoor and outdoor cameras.

Being an expecting...

What legacy will you leave when you’re gone? Will what you have done matter in 100 years? These are questions that I’ve been asking myself a lot recently.

Earlier, I wrote about the Nest Cam being my baby monitor of choice. It still is, though it isn’t an optimal always-on solution. You have to be near a smartphone, tablet, or PC to see the live stream.

Enter the VTech DM111 Digital Audio Baby Monitor. This inexpensive, always-on audio monitorin...

Move over, Amazon. UPS isn’t giving up its grip on delivery services just yet. In fact, UPS is testing its own drone delivery system – and this one can be based anywhere a UPS truck can roam.

One of the toughest challenges for delivery services is getting to hard-to-reach customers in rural areas....

Have you ever wondered what the Ewok translation of “Are we there yet?” is? Do you want to be able to offer a Wookie a drink in her own native tongue? How about the best escape plan should you find yourself in a Tusken Raider camp? This is exactly why Ben Burtt wrote the Star Wars Galactic Phrase B...