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How cool must it have been to have Apple come to you and say, “Could you give us a hand with something?”

Spectacular.

Whenever I travel, I do research on the city and country I’m going to, no matter how big or small. I like learning new things about new places and Wikivoyage can help a lot.

At first blush, this seems idiotic but on reading the article, I understand and appreciate the point of the “service”.

I read a number of appreciation articles this morning, but this Wired piece by Adam Rogers was my favorite.

A few highlights:

He and the physicist Roger Penrose described singularities, mind-bending physical concepts where relativity and quantum mechanics collapse inward on each other—as at the heart of a black hole.

And:

His calculations helped show that as the young universe expanded and grew through inflation, fluctuations at the quantum scale—the smallest possible gradation of matter—became the galaxies we see around us. No human will ever visit another galaxy, and the quantum realm barely waves at us in our technology, but Hawking envisioned them both.

And, perhaps my favorite:

He proved time travel didn’t exist by throwing a party for time travelers, but not sending out invitations until the party was over. No one came.

Notably, Stephen Hawking died on Albert Einstein’s birthday and on Pi-day (3.14).

This is all kinds of mind-blowing and may have real consequences as we go forward into space.

That reasoning seems odd. What does “attention-grabbing products” have to do with a company’s reputation? Especially given that “film production company The Weinstein Co made its debut at 99th out of 100 on the list”. So – its reputation got better?

Another reason to be wary of “photo contests” in general and absolutely avoid paid contests.

Manjoo’s piece was widely shared on social media but I read it with my usual dose of hefty skepticism about everything Manjoo writes and he didn’t disappoint. Or rather, he disappointed in exactly the way I knew he would.

I used Texture back when it originally started up (it was called Next then) and liked the service’s potential, even if I didn’t use it after a few months. It will be interesting to see what Apple does with this going forward.

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Josh Centers joins me this week to talk about home automation and all the different things you can do with. We also discuss some of the limitations and the products he’s using in his home with Apple’s iOS.

Take Control of Apple Home Automation

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Amazing video showing some of the work that went into creating illuminated manuscripts.

Like most lists, this is completely subjective but, for at least the first eight on the list, I would have to agree.

I’m in the latter camp that can’t really use this (I use Twitterrific to manage this kind of stuff on a finer level) but for some of you, this might be useful.

It’s tax season so please make sure your less tech-savvy family and friends are aware of scams in general and this type specifically. My wife almost got caught in a “Canada Post” phishing scheme a few days ago.

Even a more-than-cursory look at the two photos would lead you to believe they were identical. Great story.

Heavy Metal was unabashedly sexist, even misogynist, but as a kid I devoured every issue, in particular, the amazing writing. I’d never read the fantasy genre before discovering it in the pages of Heavy Metal.

Western Australian Museum blog:

The world’s oldest known message in a bottle has been found half-buried at a West Australian beach nearly 132 years after it was tossed overboard in the Indian Ocean, 950km from the coast.

Until now, the previous world record for the oldest message in a bottle was 108 years, four months and 18 days between jettison and discovery.

The message is dated 12 June 1886 and was jettisoned from the German sailing barque Paula as part of a long-term German oceanographic experiment to better understand global ocean currents and find faster, more efficient shipping routes.

Fascinating. This is just a bit like time travel to me.

Raise your hand if you’d forgotten this even existed.

When this story first broke yesterday, I didn’t post about it because I thought, “Naw. He didn’t say that. No one would be that stupid.”

This view of the earth is oddly fascinating.

Good article pointing out the bottom line – Apple’s plans for the HomePod go far beyond the idea of just being a “smart assistant”.

I really shouldn’t find this story as funny as I do. And it’s an entirely predictable problem.

What a fun read about pinball, a game I still love to play.

Behind the scenes stuff always fascinates me and what goes on at a crematorium definitely qualifies.

Caution: This video may make you laugh uncontrollably.

This guy has the hands of a surgeon and the patience of a saint.

The skill and patience of this is mind blowing.

As we (I) get older, we can have a significant loss of flexibility. My wife is a long time yoga practitioner and has been teaching me some small movements I can do to increase strength and flexibility and this was a big help.

That big black circle we often see in movies and TV isn’t real but some of the images in this post are equally amazing.