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3D printing in space… I told you so
Back in July, I wrote about how current 3D printing technology could be applied in long-distance travel -or even space travel- in exciting ways. And, now, it’s actually happening.
Told you so. ;)
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
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Watch Shaq do math. Awesome.
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To pin the Dock to the corner of your Mac's screen →
This one is really for me… I lose this Terminal command every couple of years and then, when I get a new Mac, I can’t find it again. So, here it is for posterity (I hope). :)
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An inspirational thought from Steve Jobs
The killer combination of insight and clarity is what made Jobs so inspirational. He knew what to say and how to say it so that people would listen. This is such a simple, obvious lesson… but nobody ever told it to me until Steve did.
When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is to just live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money… That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you… and you can change it; you can influence it you can build your own things that other people can use.
Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.
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It’s been a while, but I’ve got some comments on the same-sex marriage issue.
Please watch this video. It’s a well-delivered presentation by the 19 year-old son of two women in Iowa to the Iowa House of Representatives. He is compelling, convincing and articulate. It’s fantastic. I can’t argue with a single thing he says…
But I still disagree with him.
I’ve written about this idea many times but it bears repeating: my goal in discussing contentious issues like this one is not to try and change anyone’s mind (although that may occur). Rather, my goal is to identify, with clarity, precisely where disagreement lies so that we might better understand each other. The fact of the matter is that, on this issue, the two camps generally argue about different issues.. and this is why resolution is so elusive.
While everything Mr. Wahls says in his presentation is true, he doesn’t begin to deal with the objections many people have to same-sex marriage. I am not going to list them here (here is an excellent version of some) because I don’t want to talk about the argument. Instead, I’d like to simply point out that this sort of presentation, while compelling, isn’t going to move this issue any further towards resolution. I applaud Mr. Wahls’s cause and initiative, agree with everything he says and applaud the obviously excellent job his two mothers have done in raising him.
But I still don’t think their union should be called marriage and, what’s worse, he didn’t even try to understand why.
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How the @PreyProject helped me recover my stolen notebook computer for free
I walked away from the table for about ten minutes and, when I came back, my computer was gone.
The idea that my laptop was stolen off of a table in the school cafeteria took me almost a week to absorb - I was that unwilling to believe that either a student or co-worker would be capable of theft. However, when the missing machine –Thin Lizzie, my 11” MacBook Air– hadn’t turned up for a week, I began to arrive at the ugly conclusion that someone I knew had stolen it.
Before you ask, no, I wasn’t able to track it via Apple’s “Find my Mac” service. Why? Because I was stupid enough not to enable it. No, I didn’t have a good reason, I just didn’t do it. You should do it. Right now.
Anyway, Lizzie was gone and I didn’t have a way to get her back… until I remembered that, about two years ago, I investigated a couple of those “track my stolen computer” applications. There are a number of them and I didn’t even remember if I had installed one but, after a bit of investigation, I found The Prey Project and, lo and behold, I had a username and password for the site and my machine was indeed registered with the service.
In a nutshell, once you download the free Prey application and install it on your device, you’re all set. Once it’s installed, Prey simply contacts its server every time your machine connects to the internet and asks, “Am I missing?” The server responds, “No, you’re good,” and Prey goes back to sleep.
However, once you flip the “My machine is missing” switch to ON on the website, Prey goes into action the next time your machine checks in and records all sorts of yummy information, including a photo via the webcam, a screenshot, the name of the logged-in user, what applications are running and the machine’s physical location based on IP-address triangulation. Very cool.
So, long story short, I turned on the switch and… nothing happened. At least, not for three or four days. But then, out of the blue, I got a report from Prey which included all the sordid details, including this flattering photo of the jerk who stole Thin Lizzie:
In addition to the photo, Prey gave me a location via Google Maps, a screenshot of an intimate online chat he was having with a lover and plenty of information about his wifi network, user name, running applications, etc. Just a crazy amount of information.A colleague of mine showed the photo to a couple of the school’s maintenance staff and they recognized him: he was on a crew that had been contracted to install some equipement in our theater. We called the cops, since the guy was on-campus at the time and, when they arrived, I showed them what I knew. They called for backup, arrested the creep and, when they cuffed him and put him in the back of the squad car, he confessed. Rather than ask his wife and kids to come to school with the computer, he sent a co-worker to his house to get it and, that afternoon, I got my laptop back.
Here’s the craziest thing: he had reinstalled the operating system and Prey worked anyway. I can’t make a big enough deal out of this: I’m a pretty knowledgable geek and, if I had stolen a laptop, I would have done exactly what this guy did and considered myself safe for it. Despite the fact that he erased all of my user files, Prey caught him.
In case you skimmed the article, here are the high points:
- Prey is free.
- It’s a one-click install.
- It stays out of your way until you need it.
- When you need it, it works. Well.
You should install Prey today. It runs on Mac, Windows, Linux and Android.
