Month: February 2014

Dallas Sanders: In 2008 I had a rare chance to take a bus trip from S. Korea to N. Korea. Here is what I wrote of that adventure I’d love to take that bus ride.

I don’t recall what I took in my bag the first time to the hospital when we had Sloane, but I did try to pay a little more attention the second time around. There’s tons of advice for what mothers should pack, but what about the dad? The first thing you need to know is […]

Good review of the Olloclip — I haven’t had one since the iPhone 4. It was neat, but I never used it and it always accumulated too much pocket lint. I think Stephen Hackett used my Olloclip more than I did.

I’ve got a pretty good system that works for me: keep the inbox empty by either putting tasks in task management apps, doing it, or delegating it. Lopp’s system is a bit much for me, but I know about 10,000 people who could use this — and in doing so make my life easier.

This is quickly becoming my most favorite iOS app: Reporter’s random prompts to answer a survey had made tracking the year a breeze and helped me to investigate questions that would have been impossible to answer using other methods.

Snow forecasts in Washington state are pretty horrible. I actually am not sure they have ever accurately predicted snowfalls. Anyways, my favorite weather blogger, Cliff Mass posted a couple of articles on why forecasting is really hard sometimes. A bit weather-nerdy, but insightful. On the missed Washington snow forecasts: Weak disturbances that develop on fronts, […]

Rachel La Corte: Gov. Jay Inslee said Tuesday he was suspending the use of the death penalty in Washington state, announcing a move that he hopes will enable officials to “join a growing national conversation about capital punishment.” Legal weed? Check. Same-sex marriage? Check. No death penalty? Check. Lots of things being done in Washington […]

“You can’t please everybody, Microsoft. So stop trying.” — Paul Thurrott

Chris Bowler’s thoughts on Writer Pro are largely mimicking mine right now. It’s good, I have faith in it, but it’s not wowing me right now.

Food to Fitness: Whiskey is beneficial for preventing cancer. It is high in anti-oxidants which help in restricting the growth of cancer cells. Whiskey contains ellagic acid which is a natural phenol anti-oxidant. Works for me…

Bruce Schneier: The Review Group believes that moving the data to some other organization, either the companies that generate it in the first place or some third-party data repository, fixes that problem. But is that something we really want fixed? The fact that a government has us all under constant and ubiquitous surveillance should be […]

While I was on leave Editorially announced that they were shutting down. As Pat mentioned, this is a service that was used heavily on this site, and was quickly becoming universal among the editor-freelancer workflows. It was and is the best of the lot of services like it. I was granted early access to the […]

The three Ps: Being pooped on. Being peed on. Being puked on. Perfectly normal for parents, and after the first few times it stops bugging you.

Claire Cain Miller: Thanks to Plus, Google knows about people’s friendships on Gmail, the places they go on maps and how they spend their time on the more than two million websites in Google’s ad network. And it is gathering this information even though relatively few people use Plus as their social network.

I stirred up some controversy on App.net today, but among this was an incredibly salient point. Before I get to that, a little context. The conversation ((Or whatever you want to call it, I don’t care.)) was about Google and the topic of this conversation was “Evil”. You can now see why I was involved. […]

A fantastic, free, Lightroom plugin that analyzes the metadata of your photos like you are the NSA. See what aperture, focal length, shutter speed, and more that you use the most of. It’s pretty interesting to see the break down. I tend to shoot around f/2 at 1/60th with a 35mm (full-frame equivalent) focal length. […]

Looks like it’s back to Google Docs, Ben: Today brings some sad news: Editorially is closing its doors. The application will remain available until May 30, at which point the site will go offline. Editorially is — was — a collaborative writing tool which was used right here at TBR. In fact, I have the […]

Bruce Schneier on recent Snowden revelations: As fascinating as the technology is, the critical policy question—and the one discussed extensively in the FirstLook article—is how reliable all this information is. While much of the NSA's capabilities to locate someone in the real world by their network activity piggy-backs on corporate surveillance capabilities, there's a critical […]

Guys, very sorry but a few hundred of you are getting legitimate email confirmations from me via aweber.com. This is because I need to send you a one time email pertaining to your account on this site. I am very sorry, and hoped to avoid this, but I cannot keep getting my email flagged as […]

Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald: As a result, even when the agency correctly identifies and targets a SIM card belonging to a terror suspect, the phone may actually be carried by someone else, who is then killed in a strike. According to the former drone operator, the geolocation cells at the NSA that run the […]