File this one under “What-if:” TransUnion is now offering credit freezes immediately for a fee of $10. The way I understand it, a credit freeze blocks access to one’s credit report and score, making it impossible for an identity thief to open accounts in someone else’s name. The other two credit rating companies have not changed their policies yet. Here’s a page with info for each state, and here’s the Maryland information. (via)
Undercover is a $49 MacBook utility that aids in recovery if the laptop is stolen. If the stories on the website are to be believed, the company is pretty involved in the recovery process—I wonder what customer service will be like with multiple thousands of stolen laptops. Related: Setting up firmware password protection via Apple.
Interesting. From an entirely different post on another weblog, I found a link to the Wikipedia entry on US Route 40, which (back in the day) used to connect Atlantic City with San Francisco. I left a comment about making a road trip out of this route, and I think the idea merits further investigation.
From Metafilter this morning: An excellent post about the Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay, which is the largest concentration of wooden steamship wrecks in this hemisphere. Here’s the history behind it—some things never change.
Tweaking my dual interest for airplanes and abandoned equipment, here are some photos of the Soviet space shuttle Buran, abandoned since 1989 at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Siberia. Here’s a little more on the subject. (via)
Right on the heels of my gadget diatribe yesterday comes this: the Leatherman Skeletool, a $75 work of art that weighs in at 5 oz., perfect for carrying in a bag or pocket. I can testify to how important weight is, because I’ve got an original Leatherman and it weighs about 50 lbs., although I’d never give it up.
The “blog” of “unnecessary quotation marks“. I find this subject “annoying” and “irritating”, so I’m happy that someone decided to “enlighten the rest of us”. (via)
A new (award winning) documentary about the Apollo space missions, compiled from remastered NASA footage, with interviews of the surviving astronauts. The trailer alone gave me goose bumps. It’s hard to even imagine what living through that time must have felt like. (via)
Having fixed the screen on the Powerbook, I’m looking for other ways to save money and repair things. Here’s a good place to start: Inside your notebook’s battery, How to rebuild your laptop battery, replacing cells in a Pismo battery, and a link to replacement batteries for the $40 Powerbook 1400.
I saw this news item show up on another message board a few days ago, but it seems like everyone suddenly found it yesterday: The Orbitron, a long-lost Ed Roth custom one-off, was located recently, abandoned outside an adult bookstore in Mexico, after a stint at a carnival. Lord knows how it made its way down there, or where the hood and bubble have gone, but the new owner claims he’s going to restore it.