posts

Currently, there’s a Kickstarter page to fund a Girl Scouts San Diego project:

You may be wondering, “Why marshmallows?” and our answer would have to be, “Because they make it easy to be creative and learn how to program!” We provide the initial idea for the core group of characters and the game platforms - and then just let our scouts just take these and run with them. The idea of a bunch of marshmallows hanging out with chocolate, graham crackers and other friends makes it fun and easy for participants of any age to engage and come up with stories and scenarios for the characters, and in the process, learn the math and science of programming

Continue reading ⇢

Earlier this week, NASA announced the discovery of seven Earth-size planets around a single star.

The star itself is an ultra-cool dwarf, burning at much lower temperatures then our own sun. All seven of the TRAPPIST-1 planets are closer to their star than Mercury is to the sun, but the cooler temperature of the sun keeps them from being broiled like Mercury is.

All of these seven planets could have liquid water on their surfaces, but three of them are in the habitable zone of the star, meaning they are the right distance from the star to have Earth-like temperatures.

Continue reading ⇢

Apple’s new campus has a name:

Apple today announced that Apple Park, the company’s new 175-acre campus, will be ready for employees to begin occupying in April. The process of moving more than 12,000 people will take over six months, and construction of the buildings and parklands is scheduled to continue through the summer.

Envisioned by Steve Jobs as a center for creativity and collaboration, Apple Park is transforming miles of asphalt sprawl into a haven of green space in the heart of the Santa Clara Valley. The campus’ ring-shaped, 2.8 million-square-foot main building is clad entirely in the world’s largest panels of curved glass.

Continue reading ⇢

This week, on a very special episode of Connected:

This week, Stephen and Myke talk about the whirlwind of iPhone rumors and where they keep their data before Myke is joined by a special guest.

My thanks to our sponsors:

• TextExpander, from Smile: Multiply your team’s productivity.
• Ministry of Supply: Dress smarter. Work smarter. Get 15% off your first purchase.
• Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code WORLD at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.

Continue reading ⇢

I’m enjoying the latest episode of Pod Save America, on which Katie Couric talks about what the media is doing right — and wrong — under the Trump administration.

Continue reading ⇢

It may have been here for a bit, but I just noticed that the beta versions of Chrome had added support for Apple’s new Touch Bar:

Personally, I like Google’s approach here. Safari’s implementation is more complex, but I’m not sure it is better.

Continue reading ⇢

On Sunday, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket — loaded with a Dragon capsule full of supplies for the International Space Station — from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39A.

The launch and recovery of the first stage booster went smoothly, and Dragon should be at the ISS soon. It’s the company’s second successful mission after the AMOS accident last fall.

Launch Pad 40 was heavily damaged during the accident, and is still out of commission. Repairs continue, the company says it will return to Pad 40 this year with its Falcon 9.

Continue reading ⇢

It’s a shame this feature was so short-lived:

Target Display Mode lets you use the built-in display on a supported iMac as an external display for another Mac.

Continue reading ⇢

I came across this 1Password blog post in the Mac Power Users Facebook group:

As a result of an expired provisioning profile and format change in the developer certificate, customers who downloaded 1Password for Mac directly from our site will need to manually update to the latest version. Those using 1Password from the Mac App Store are not affected.

AgileBits’ blog post goes into the details of what happened. Like with the recent Instapaper outage, the honesty makes me feel better about the issue.

Continue reading ⇢

Michael Cohen at TidBits, after outlining a myriad of problems with Apple’s iBooks apps:

I cannot see into the heart of Apple to judge the depth of its love for iBooks, but, from external appearances, whatever affection it has seems to become ever more shallow with each passing release. And, for an ebook lover like me, that is heartbreaking.

Continue reading ⇢

I’m not one for linking to every ad Apple puts out, but these are great.

Continue reading ⇢

There’s something obvious I should state up front: no one needs this stuff. My exploration in this area has been under the guise of “I need a cool backdrop for YouTube videos,” but even that is probably not a great reason to spend a bunch of money on lights that change colors.

That aside, this stuff is fun to play with, and I like what I can do with it.

Continue reading ⇢