I’m starting the first week since August that won’t have me going any farther from home than Metro can take me. (Each of those trips made sense on its own as a business proposition, but halfway through I could not stop thinking “what have I done?”) That is an exciting thought.

A week without my team playing baseball: not so exciting. Sigh.

10/7/2014: Our Relationship with the New Social Network Ello: It’s Complicated, Yahoo Tech

I’m instinctively suspicious of hype over a new social network without much of a track record, but in this case I think the record supports my cranky-old-man reaction.

10/7/2014:  Can We Protect Privacy in the Smart Home?, Tech Cocktail Celebrate

I interviewed Jeff Hagins, CTO and a founder of the home-automation firm SmartThings, about where the “Internet of Things” idea is taking us. The two big takeaways: Hagins is interested to see what Microsoft can bring to home automation (me too), and he’d be happy to see this progress lead to a home without light switches (not so much).

10/11/2014: October 11, 2014 — Josh Centers and Rob Pegoraro, Tech Night Owl

I talked to host Gene Steinberg about (among other things) my Yahoo column of two weeks ago critiquing Apple’s unwillingness to talk in public to its customers online. Also on this episode: TidBITS managing editor Josh Centers.

10/12/2014: What’s new in Google Voice: MMS, USA Today

Google’s belated expansion of multimedia-messaging support to most carriers besides Verizon invited a column; Verizon telling me that it plans to remedy that omission made it a more news-worthy piece.