Mac OS X Hints:

Here is a way to disable sleeping when pressing the power button on 10.9.2.

Great tip. That action is incredibly annoying.

Apple:

There iTunes Festival has made a tradition of hosting some of the biggest names in music. The app has been updated to feature the iTunes Festival at SXSW.

If you aren’t lucky enough to attend the iTunes Festival at SXSW, the app is the next best thing.

Ars Technica:

I’m not shocked that the middle-aged me didn’t learn anything new in the first episode, at least not in terms of science. But the people involved in the show include some of the best in the business of communicating science, and I expect I will learn enough about the craft to make tuning in for more worthwhile.

I never saw the original Carl Sagan version (it wasn’t available to us in Canada when I was a kid) and the relentless promotion of it makes me squirm a little but I’ll certainly tune in to at least the first episode. How about you? Did you see the original? Will you watch this version?

CNNMoney:

“We’re very, very concerned about it,” said David Teater, senior director at the nonprofit National Safety Council. “The auto industry and the consumer electronics industry are really in an arms race to see how we can enable drivers to do stuff other than driving.”

This is the flip side of putting more and more technology within arm’s reach of the driver. I know I’m an outlier on this but, as a motorcyclist, these kinds of technologies scare the crap out of us.

MacStories:

The problem with iCloud Tabs is that they’re limited to Safari, so if you’re using Chrome or Firefox on OS X, you can’t access the tabs that you have open on your iPhone or iPad. For this reason, Josh Parnham has devised a simple and clever solution: CloudyTabs is a menu bar app that lists iCloud Tabs open on all your devices.

I’m surprised at how often I access them and how useful iCould tabs are.

The Sweet Setup:

Between losing an iPhone, never-ending security issues, and the NSA, having an account accessed by an outsider is more likely than ever. While having a good password is critical, enabling 2-Step Verification is a great way to ensure data you’ve stashed in an online service like Gmail or Dropbox is limited to your eyes only.

Yes, 2-Step verification can be a PITA but trust me, “getting hacked” is a bigger one.

The Week:

According to a recent study by Ookla Speedtest, the U.S. ranks a shocking 31st in the world in terms of average download speeds. It falls behind countries like Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Uruguay.

How did the country that literally invented the internet fall behind so many others in download speeds?

It’s the same situation here in Canada – little competition means no incentive to get better/faster.

Observatory:

Historically, Apple has been very smart about strategy, while Microsoft has been very … shall we say … un-smart.

Now that Microsoft’s new CEO Satya Nadella has appointed Mark Penn to the position of Chief Strategy Officer, it’s a whole new ballgame, right?

Not so fast.

From what we know of Mark Penn, the gap between the quality of strategy at Apple and Microsoft isn’t about to shrink.

Ouch. Ken Segall is very unimpressed with Mark Penn.

Missed the Oscars last night? Tivo on the fritz? Didn’t care enough to watch live? Well, here’s the TL;DR version of last night’s show.

The Guardian:

It sounds like the stuff of science fiction: seven keys, held by individuals from all over the world, that together control security at the core of the web. The reality is rather closer to The Office than The Matrix.

What a bizarre, convoluted system. But it seems to work.

Dave Etchells:

Try to imagine this scenario occurring in the US, or perhaps most any country other than Japan: You leave a camera bag with US$7,000+ of gear in it sitting in a train station. Station personnel may find it that night, or it more likely sits there till morning. The rail line people go looking for it, find it, & forward it to a more convenient location for you to pick it up the next day. When you retrieve & open it, everything is exactly as you left it, all US$7,000+ of gear undisturbed & still inside.

This is a common story in Japan. It’s a generalization but you are more likely to get your gear back in Japan than you are in many other countries.

Vanity Fair:

Just who are those unrecognizable Oscar audience members sandwiched between the stars this Sunday? To get a better understanding of the behind-the-scenes responsibilities of these glammed-up Oscar gophers, we tracked down a seat-filler from last year’s Seth MacFarlane-hosted ceremony.

I’ve read a lot of stories about these people and it always strikes me as so odd. Does anyone watching on TV really care if there’s an empty seat next to Jennifer Lawrence?

Quartz:

The suggestion to mask or obscure email addresses to avoid spam has been around for more than a decade. References to replacing the @ with (at) or .com with (dot) com to reduce spam can be found on online message boards and archives dating back to the 1990s.

But there are two realities here.

Do you agree? Do you still bother to conceal your email address in this way?

The Wall Street Journal:

A competition that was expected to be humdrum turned into one of the most remarkable ever. This account of how that happened was pieced together through extensive interviews with the sailors, engineers and other team leaders.

As a Nova Scotianer, I’ve always been fascinated by any kind of sailing. The America’s Cup yachts are the highest expression of sailing and amazing pieces of technology. Throw in the unbelievable comeback of Oracle Team USA last year and the story just gets better. Make sure you check out the embedded videos on the page for some incredible video highlights.

Quartz:

Diet soda was supposed to save the soda industry in a world worried by sugar. Instead it’s only dragging it down.

American consumption of fizzy drinks has dipped in each of the past five years, and by 30% since the turn of the century. By 2018, it is expected to have fallen by 40% since 2000.

Following on our previous story about America falling out of love with orange juice comes this one with the same issue regarding soda (or pop). While I still occasionally drink orange juice, I haven’t had a traditional soda pop in about ten years. Not out of any health concerns; I just “grew out of” drinking it.

Forbes:

If you’re one of the 1.14 million followers of the @HistoryInPics Twitter account, which posts delightfully obscure pictures of historical subjects and events, you may have asked yourself, “Are they making any money off this?”

The answer is yes. Quite a bit of money.

Is this one of those ideas you think, “Wow! I wish I had thought of this!” or do you bemoan the “watering down” of Twitter?

Sports Illustrated:

The NFL locker room is the ultimate boys club. Yes, we talk about horrendously inappropriate things. Yes, we make fun of each other. And yes, we have a tendency to take pranks a bit too far. But at the end of the day, this is not a normal job.

Interesting point of view from a guy in the room. I only played high school football but there are still faint shadows of the locker room he describes.

clutter:

Allow me to summarize what it means when a company wants to handle all disputes in arbitration:

No matter what they do (delete your data, privacy breach, overcharging, whatever), you don’t get to sue. Instead, THEY get to choose the arbitrator according to whatever criteria they want, and thus any dispute is decided by someone they’re paying.

Also, you can’t join a class-action suit against them.

Like the writer, I love Dropbox but I’m also recommending you go do this right now.

Ars Technica:

If you’ve been thinking about buying an Apple TV, Apple is trying to sweeten the deal for the next few days. Between now and March 5, anyone who buys an Apple TV in one of Apple’s stores or on its online store will get a $25 iTunes gift card with their purchase.

Anyone think this is a clearing out of stock ahead of a product refresh?

“Stripped”: The comics documentary:

Stripped is a full-length documentary on the world’s best cartoonists, featuring the first-ever recorded interview with Bill Watterson. The film explores the art of the comics strip, the cartoonists behind your favorite strips, and where the art form goes as newspapers die.

The trailer for this film looks really interesting if only for the different viewpoints of the traditional newspaper cartoonists vs the online ones.

NPR:

One 16-inch pizza has roughly the same area as 1.3 14-inch pizzas or 4 8-inch pizzas.

To get the same amount of pizza you get in a 16-inch pizza, you’d have to spend an extra $2.35 on 14-inch pizzas, or an extra $16.41 on 8-inch pizzas.

I always get the Large pizza if only because I’m a pig. Nice to know I’m getting better value to boot.

Digg:

You know that Meryl Streep is the queen of the Oscars, but do you know which fictional character has earned the most nominations? We’ll give you a hint, he was a king. We’ve put together this handy little guide because, let’s face it, even if you’re watching from home in sweatpants, spouting off weird trivia makes everyone feel like a winner.

I’m a huge Oscars fan (I’m tangentially related to an Oscar winner) and love these kinds of minutia stories that always pop up in the days ahead of the broadcast.

CNN:

A lot of consideration goes into designing a font, but somehow we’re all able generally to accept the typefaces around us, ignoring their subtle design quirks as though they’re as ordinary as air. We read their content but don’t think too much about their form.

One of the people responsible for the popular use of Helvetica, Mike Parker, died Sunday at age 84.

Now would be a good time to watch the 2007 documentary “Helvetica.”

I just want to know how they got Van Damme into space.

Film School Rejects:

The “In Memoriam” segment (of the Oscar telecast) is always a must-watch portion of the show, even if its biggest draw isn’t always a desire to honor the deceased talents of Hollywood, it’s to see who leads off and ends the piece, who was left off, and who you totally forgot passed away this year.

But how does one actually land on the list? Not surprisingly, it involves a paper trail, voting, and plenty of hurt feelings.

As expected, the first requirement is “Be dead”.

code:deck:

code:deck is a standard playing card deck sporting a stylish modern design. Each individual card features a code excerpt describing it in one of many programming languages.

Ever heard someone described as a “card carrying geek”? Well now, you can be a card playing geek.

For my part, I have no clue how the code relates to the card it is on.

The Atlantic:

The time that ends up on your smartphone—and that synchronizes GPS, military operations, financial transactions, and internet communications—originates in a set of atomic clocks on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory. Dr. Demetrios Matsakis, Chief Scientist for USNO’s Time Services, gives a video tour.

A little dry (and oddly shot/edited) but still an interesting overview of “the nation’s time keeping”.

Wired.com:

We need to consider the consequences of this latest batch of apps and tools that remind us to contact significant others, boost our willpower, provide us with moral guidance, and encourage us to be civil. Taken together, we’re observing the emergence of tech that doesn’t just augment our intellect and lives — but is now beginning to automate and outsource our humanity.

Leaving aside the juvenile frat boy “bro” word, the app they talk about (which I’m really hoping is a parody app) is offensive because being in an adult relationship means committing to it – not outsourcing it to some app.

Nikon Rumors:

Nikon published a new technical service advisory where they announced a free cleaning and free shutter replacement for all D600 owners, even those with expired warranty. You can send your camera even if you do not have a problem.

If you have an affected D600, go to the Nikon site and schedule your free service. If your D600 isn’t exhibiting any of the (sadly common) dust/oil issues (mine isn’t), hold off on scheduling the service until the first mad rush is over but make sure you definitely do it some time in the next three to six months.

There’s a bit of backstory here but all you really need to know is, when boys have unlimited funds, we will pull awesome pranks on our buddies. The best line in the video is when the friend says, “Travis was pretty rough on Jeff and Travis and I are friends so I was excited to help Jeff respond.” Ladies – that’s how men think. Thanks to Rob Griffiths for the link.