Well, it happened again. I was attending a group on management of adolescent behavior. I was there to observe and participate. Nobody knew I was a behavioral neuroscientist. I stayed quiet, until the group facilitator said “Science has proven that video games and social media contribute to behavior problems in adolescents.” I couldn’t keep quiet for that: I spend a great deal of time following the literature in this field, and there is no quality science that backs up that claim. In fact, believe it or not, the bulk of good scientific evidence (not observational reports or anecdotes) show a favorable effect of video games.
Back in December I posted about buying a used Tesla Model S, musing that I wouldn’t have to buy gas again. O, hubris! I loved the car — for eight days. Early on the ninth, Christmas Eve, I was driving to pick up some food for Christmas dinner. It was still dark. It was foggy and rainy. I was driving slowly on familiar streets. I’m still not sure what happened, but there was a big bang! and the car was on the center divider.
not a CAPTCHA!
I love biking to work, but there are ways that the county government makes it challenging. One thing I run into daily is traffic lights. Often, crossing the street at a light will mean dismounting, walking my bike over to the pedestrian crossing button (often involving lifting the bike over a curb), waiting, then either walking my bike across the road in the crosswalk or crossing back over a right-turn-only lane so that I can ride across legally. Drivers in automobiles sometimes get angry either way: “why aren’t you riding!” if they have to wait for me while I’m walking in the crosswalk, or “get out of the road” if I’m going back to the main traffic lane after pushing the button.
Braces have come to our household, and with them, the need for an electric toothbrush and water flosser. So there’s the Sonicare, three heads, the water flosser with three tips, and a tube of toothpaste. The bathroom counter was getting kind of crowded!
To keep the clutter under control, we printed an organizer on the 3D printer. It’s pretty specific to the Sonicare I and this Zerhunt Cordless Water Flosser, so I won’t put the files on Thingiverse. Just drop me an email if you have a need for the files.
I like bottled water. Yes, I know most of it is just filtered and flavored tap water, but so is Coca Cola. I keep a few bottles of Crystal Geyser in my car and always have an open bottle in the cupholder. I recently got a fresh ride, however, and the cupholders were a bit too generous for the water bottles, which would tilt and spill when I cornered.
No, it’s not a device for making rodents confess.
I use a MacBook Pro as my main computer, and I really love the trackpad. I only use a mouse for gaming and the occasional bit of high-resolution CAD work. I have really limited desk space, though, so the mouse was often unused but in the way.
This dirt-simple print (I don’t think it took me five minutes to design it in FreeCAD) lets me stow the mouse out of the way when I’m not using it.
Source and mesh files for your 3-D printing pleasure are on Thingiverse.
Back in April I decided to put down a deposit on a Tesla Model 3. When my number came up, though, the price for even a minimally-configured unit was far more than I was willing to pay, so I put off the purchase.
A recent article in TidBITS announced that the $20 WyzeCam Security Camera Is Almost Too Good to Be True. Joshua has been having a lot of fun with security cameras lately. He converted some old phones into surveillance equipment using Haven and Alfred. But $20 for a full-function dedicated camera just seemed like a deal we couldn’t pass up.
Sometimes, it’s simple things. We’re surrounded by wonders like smart phones and miracle drugs, but sometimes innovation can come entirely from just thinking about a problem differently. If you took an iPhone X 30 years into the past, it wouldn’t do much. Oh, it might be a shiny curiosity, but its function would be limited. Nor would someone in 1988 be able to disassemble it, discover its “secret” and make more of them: the main secret is layer upon layer upon layer of incremental improvements in processor design, chip fabrication, wireless technologies, display mechansims, battery capacities, operating system architecuture… the list goes on and on.
In spite of having cleaned up my container lid drawer, I still have problems with drawer clutter. One place I particularly notice is when looking for measuring cups. I like to bake, and so individual-size cups are essential, but I hate pawing through the drawer looking for the right one.
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