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Merry Christmas 2014!

Our gift wrapping took exactly 11 minutes today, and that was with everyone going one at a time.

Yay!

My Christmas Wish? Metric System!

It's time for the US to use the metric system

Underappreciated Movies of 2014

Best Movies Off the Radar 2014 - Rotten Tomatoes

Alan Partridge and Under the Skin looks like about the only ones I'd really want to see…

Illustrated Guide to Mac OS X

An Illustrated History of Mac OS X

I'm still gonna call it Mac OS X, dammit.

Iconic

Iconic: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation: Jonathan Zufi, Forest McMullin, Lisa Clark, Steve Wozniak, Jim Dalrymple: 9780988581715: Amazon.com: Books

Added to the wish list.

Volkswagen’s 300 MPG Car

Volkswagen's New 300 MPG Car Is Not Allowed In America Because It's Too Efficient

They're allowed in Europe, but they're still only making 2,000 of them.

New Mac Minis Worse?

The New Mac mini is Quickly Turning into a Disaster

I'm glad we didn't get one of these to replace the Mac Mini we use at Golf Evolution to run Analyzr.

Falkenberg Drill

I'm getting into table tennis a little bit…

The Falkenberg Drill and Why You Should Be Doing It

Why the Falkenberg Drill is Awesome

I love the Falkenberg drill. It's an absolute classic! Here are a few reasons why it's so good and why you should be doing it.

  1. It has big movements - The Falkenberg drill gets you covering the whole table. Other regular movement drills, such as BH, FH middle, BH, FH wide, can be practiced with only small adjustments of the feet. Falkenberg, on the other hand, has you constantly performing huge movements as you get round the corner (tough) and then move to play a second forehand wide (even tougher).
  2. It's versatile - The Falkenberg drill is extremely versatile. I'll go into a big more detail in a minute but beginners can play drives, more advanced players can topspin, even more advanced players could get the controller to counter-topspin. You can also change the line of play, start with a serve, play free after the first or second wide forehand. There are so many option available.
  3. It can be a warm-up - The Falkenberg drill can be toned down and used as a great warm up. Just play drive to drive and work your way through the shots warming up your upper and lower body. You can share the drill with a partner doing one set each and slowly building up the intensity over a few minutes. It'll get you warmed-up and ready to play much better than jogging around the hall!
  4. It's multiball friendly - As we saw in the video the Falkenberg drill is great for multiball. You can get a coach or feeder to speed up the balls to work on your fitness, agility and quickness. You could also get them to feed backspin balls to the three positions and work on your opening up with movement.
  5. It'll improve your balance - One of the biggest problems in table tennis is losing your balance. Once you've lost it you wont be able to move to balls, put power into your shots and you may end up just drifting further and further away from the table. The Falknenberg drill is great chance to practice improving your balance. Big movements, a quick feed, and knowing where the ball is going to go makes it perfect for working on keeping your centre of gravity low and central.

Sharks

The truth about sharks: Far from being 'killing machines', they have personalities, best friends and an exceptional capacity for learning - Nature - Environment - The Independent

Turn off the spine-tingling music and forget everything you thought you knew about this solitary, "mindless killing machine". Sharks have individual personalities. They socialise, choose best friends and create social networks of unusual complexity. They can be trained by humans to complete simple tasks, much more quickly than rabbits or cats, for instance, and retain the knowledge for much longer. Sharks also teach each other new tricks: how to find food, identify predators and charm mates. Like sea turtles, some travel huge distances to return to their own birthplace, again and again, to give birth themselves. Most don't need to swim continuously to survive. And rather than being near-blind and reliant on smell, which is the general perception, they in fact have advanced sight. They feel pain. And the boldest sharks face a greater risk of dying before adulthood.

Why does any of this matter? Well, we're killing about 100 million sharks every year, 11,000 an hour

Aperture Exporter

Aperture Exporter turns a process into a few clicks.

Supposedly.

I still mostly hope that Apple will reconsider, but that is at about a 0.01% chance and shrinking…

See also: Apple Stops Development of Aperture

DiskWarrior 5, Drive Genius 4

I've purchased both upgrades, though I think Drive Genius may not get re-upped for version 6. DiskWarrior is pretty safe though.

Mail to Self (iOS Extension)

Mail to Self

Wonderfully useful.

I email things to myself as a reminder to do something about them later. I used to iMessage myself, but this is even faster and easier. And I'm more likely to see an unread email.

Gruber/Benjamin Bond Anthology

The Talk Show Bond Anthology

Six Colors: James Bond will return in 'Spectre'

Procrastinators Rejoice!

How speakers make sound.

Mythbusters on Gorilla Glass

The second half is better.