My belief is is much simpler: craft inhabits whatever medium or tool you work with, if you let it.

via Photography, hello — by Craig Mod.

Date posted: January 11, 2014 | Filed under art/design, shortlinks | Leave a Comment »

via xkcd: Photos.

Date posted: January 8, 2014 | Filed under humor, photography | Leave a Comment »

Between 1897 and 1930, Henry Chapman Mercer, a gentleman anthropologist, set out to collect the handmade tools of everyday American life, just as industrialization was making these tools obsolete. In 1913, Mercer began work on a six-story poured-in-place concrete castle to house them near his home in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

I so want to check this place out.

Date posted: January 8, 2014 | Filed under art/design, shortlinks | Leave a Comment »

It’s gearing up to be a blistering 2° here in Baltimore tomorrow. The wind is whipping around the windows and it’s currently 10° outside, but we’re all toasty in here.  The girls met me at the station after a late night at work, and Finn was already bundled up in her PJ’s, fast asleep in her carseat. There’s something immensely comforting and fulfilling about lifting her out of the car and carrying her inside, laying her in bed as quietly as possible, and watching her curl up under the covers, blissful and calm.

Date posted: January 6, 2014 | Filed under general | Leave a Comment »

I found out, quite by accident, that the maker of my current password vault application was purchased by Facebook some time ago and hasn’t been updating it since then. Password vaults are handy for capturing all one thousand online profiles the modern human needs to have in 2014; I say it’s better to have your banking login secure behind 256-bit AES encryption than on a Post-It taped to your monitor. I’ve slowly been searching for a better solution to having all my passwords available on each smart device I’ve got, and having something that can securely share them is key to the future, but now the need is greater.

After seriously considering 1password, I found LastPass, which is basically a browser plugin but which securely keeps passwords in an encrypted bundle and decrypts locally (so you’re not zinging your info all over the web). It has an iOS app available and the “premium” version is an affordable $20/year, which allows sharing between multiple machines and apps. And why is this so important, all of a sudden?

Firstly, I’ve got two laptops now. My trusty MacBook Pro is chugging along, and remains my primary machine for getting things done. Now I’ve got a laptop through WRI, which isn’t decked out as well as this one, but which has my work email and applications installed—something I’d rather keep off my personal machine. Sharing all of the passwords between two work machines is key to happy telecommuting.

Secondly, Santa brought me a shiny iPad Air this Christmas, the idea being to leave my personal laptop here at home instead of lugging it to and from the office every day. As long as I can access my personal email, passwords, VPN, and basic online accounts through the iPad I think I’ll be in fine shape. I’ve already loaded a ton of books on it, and I’ve got most of the apps I need set up.

Shiny

Leaving my laptop behind will feel like cutting off my left arm, but lugging two laptops back and forth has been less than pleasant. The only thing I can’t figure out is how to get photos from a phone downloaded and posted without going through my work machine. But that’s a small problem.

Date posted: January 3, 2014 | Filed under apple, geek, photo | Leave a Comment »

There hasn’t been much progress on the Scout front since the fall meetup, but small things have been happening. Santa brought me a couple of truck-related goodies, starting with a new tool wrap to replace the canvas one I was using before. The first one is heavy-duty but fat and unwieldy, and there’s noplace to put sockets. This one is made of heavy nylon and features a socket section as well as two sets of pouches, two sturdy cliplocks and a handle for carrying. The second is a book on engine rebuilding, which doesn’t answer every question but goes a long way to explaining the basic concepts.

I also updated the to-do list, which hadn’t been touched since last spring.

→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.

Date posted: January 1, 2014 | Filed under Scout | Comments Off on Winter Update