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Drones and Privacy
A few months ago, I received a DJI Phantom 2 quadcopter for a present. For most people, a quadcopter is called a drone. Call it whatever you want, it is a fun toy for me (tool for others). I have it outfitted with a GoPro camera and a video transmitter so that I can see what is going on during flight. In a conversation with my in-laws where I was showing my father-in-law how it flies, my mother-in-law indicated that she thought the devices were creepy because they can be used to spy on people. This is the same thing that the media is playing up and catering to the fears of people.
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Thoughts on Storyboards
When Apple came out with Storyboards in Xcode, I thought that they would be quite useful in making it easier to see how an app was laid out. However, after attempting one project with them, I determined that they had limited utility as they wouldn't scale and wouldn't work well for multi person teams. I left storyboards for a year and didn't revisit them.
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Lessons in home remodeling
Almost a year ago, we embarked on the journey to transform our house into a home. It has been an interesting journey, to say the least. I've learned a lot about myself and a lot about the process. While I love our house and I consider it down, the most important lesson I've learned is that I never want to do this again! Why would I say this? Remodeling a house requires you to make hundreds and hundreds of decisions ranging from what faucets to get to what color paint to put on the wall. We had a general contractor who handled all the sub contractors. Dealing with the general contractor was easy and he was quite responsive.
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Another Stab at using OS X Server
I've had a few run-ins (as I like to call them) with OS X Server in the course of my career. I've been very comfortable with UNIX/Linux machines for a long time (I compiled my own Linux kernels when I was right out of college) and found them to be quite reliable and highly configurable. The lack of a GUI didn't scare me and I thought it was a plus as there are tons of options for services like Apache and named (DNS) and a there was no way that a GUI could expose all of them.