Eventually the thief will have to plug it in to charge.
Imagine if at that moment, the front camera snaps a photo and sends it to your email along with the exact location?
This isn’t an app.
It’s a built-in phone feature that you can set up in just a few minutes.
Here’s how to do it:
Open the “Shortcuts” app.
Go to the “Automation” tab and tap the plus sign in the upper right corner.
Scroll down the list and find “Charger.”
Select “Run Immediately” and turn on “Run Notifications,”
Go to the next page and create a new shortcut.
Next are the specific operations:
1. Airplane Mode: Search for this setting and turn it off.
2. Cellular Data: Set it to automatically enable network connection when the charging cable is plugged in. If the phone thief turns off all networks, this shortcut will automatically turn it on. Without a network, the photos and location cannot be sent out.
3. Get Current Location: Select the highest available accuracy.
4. Take Photo: Select the front camera and turn off “Show Preview.”
This last step is crucial; the other party won’t see anything on the screen.
5. Store Photos: Photos will also be saved to your photo album at the same time.
6. Send Email: Fill in the subject and the email address where you want to receive the information.
Enter the options for this action and turn off “Show Edit Draft.”
Save this automation, and you’re done.
Since then, every time someone plugs in this Phone to charge it will automatically turn on networking, acquires location, takes a photo with the front camera, and sends all the information to your email.
When I tested it for the first time, I received an email with a photo of my own face, taken in very poor lighting.
It really works.
To sum up: This is a Shortcuts automation, with the trigger condition set to “Charger,” enabling network access, acquiring location, taking a front-facing photo, and sending an email.
…and there will be no one left on Earth who will know or care.
Alternately, if we somehow manage to survive as a species and develop FTL travel, we’ll no doubt go out, capture it, and return it to Earth to put in a museum.
In any case, I think I can confidently say it will long outlive the civilization that created it.
An Apple AirTag just tracked a shipment of rare books to a secret Amazon AI facility in Las Vegas, where texts are cut apart, scanned, and destroyed to train AI models.
A groundbreaking investigation has exposed how tech giants are quietly acquiring physical books to train artificial intelligence models—by literally tearing them apart.
Suspecting that bulk purchases of rare and obscure books were destined for AI training, journalists at 404 Media teamed up with an independent bookseller to plant an Apple AirTag inside a volume shipped as part of an anonymous 1,000-book order. The tracking device traveled across multiple states, eventually terminating at a high-security Amazon facility in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Inside this warehouse, a specialized unit code-named VGT3 systematically processes incoming books by slicing off their bindings, scanning the pages for digital intake, and destroying the physical originals.
This aggressive scanning pipeline highlights the extreme lengths to which tech companies will go to secure high-quality training datasets, particularly pre-2022 literature that is completely free of AI-generated content. While independent booksellers watch their inventories get shredded, legal and ethical questions are mounting over the practice of turning physical, copy-protected books into digital training data before disposing of the evidence. Amazon defended the operation in a brief statement, claiming it purchases books through commercial channels to improve its products and services, but the revelation has ignited intense debate over the systematic destruction of physical human knowledge to fuel artificial systems.
source: Maiberg, E. (2026). We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility. 404 Media.
We are long past the time to eat the rich. Just chuck ’em into their own shredders and be done with ’em.
I used to run something very similar to this on my work laptop regularly: https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater. I can’t attest to the overall efficacy of the one in the panels about, but I know the one I linked works great.
What audio geek does not appreciate some nekkid pix?
I want to say that getting the top cover off was the hardest point, but getting it back on was much, much worse. More than once the fiddly bits that keep it locked in place went flying when I was trying to get them back in. Thankfully I found them each time.
Every year, like clockwork a new macOS appears at WWDC. And every year I swear I’m not going to install it until the final version is released to the public. At that point it’s generally assumed that all the big bugs have been worked out—although this isn’t the Apple of fifteen years ago and there are always seem to be glitches now.
Based on everything I’ve read online since last week, the latest iteration macOS, aka Golden Gate—even Developer Beta 1—is incredibly stable right out of the gate.
It purports to address all the complaints that have plagued Tahoe since it was released a year ago, kind of how Snow Leopard concentrated on fixing everything that was wrong with Leopard.
Naturally curious—but cautious since I’ve been burned too many times in the past—to play with a new OS, I created a new container on my Mac and loaded Golden Gate there. Yeah, this route is safest one possible short of installing it on an external drive and lets me play with it without putting any of my data at risk (I backup my entire drive every night to external storage, so even if something gets screwed up I can always wipe and restore everything from the night before). The downside is that this is basically a virgin installation and none of my apps are accessible (although even that seems to be working for the first time with Golden Gate), rendering the whole exercise kind of immaterial for personal real-world testing.
In a fit of madness last night, I threw caution to the wind. I made a full backup of my Tahoe installation, created a new USB Tahoe installer(in case I needed to wipe everything and reinstall that OS and then restore from my backup). And installed Golden Gate on my main drive.
After installing, the machine rebooted and…well, it worked.
I checked all my apps and everything functioned normally. (I know, I just jinxed it by writing that, didn’t I?)
16 hours in, and I’m pleasantly surprised. It’s far more responsive than Tahoe ever was, and for the most part all the graphic glitches and inconsistencies that Tahoe gave us are finally gone. Maybe the change of the head of software development at Apple is actually bringing about real change.
The only thing I worry about is that as the development cycle continues through the summer toward the release of the finished product in September or October is that in the past, each new beta—while squashing bugs in the previous release—often introduced new ones, rendering the whole installation unusable, or at least severely compromised from the previous version.
To that end, I’m going to keep my backup from yesterday intact, but I will also create another backup on a separate external drive of my new install and continue to back that up nightly so if—in case the unthinkable happens and some future beta fucks things up—I can still go back to Tahoe and restore any new material I created under Golden Gate since upgrading.
I’ve also learned to keep copies of the installers for each beta iteration so I can go restore to the most recent unfucked one instead of bailing completely and returning to the previous OS.
The one thing (well, actually one of many, TBH) that’s always annoyed me about macOS is the inability to save a desktop theme. Windows does this flawlessly, but for some reason it was a feature implemented on the Mac.
So—as is often the case—I enlisted the Google machine. And wouldn’t you know, my quest was immediately answered:
Very cool. Super simple (doesn’t require messing with SIP or anything like that). Works as advertised and definitely worth $20 if you like customizing your Mac experience.
“Mac OS X is the future of the Mac, and we hope it will delight our customers with its unrivaled power and ease of use,” said Steve Jobs, in 2001. “The Public Beta has generated incredible feedback and support from Mac users and developers, which has helped us to make Mac OS X the most advanced operating system ever.”
Mac OS X was a next-generation, UNIX-based operating system for the Mac, succeeding the classic Mac OS operating system. It ushered in Apple’s iconic “Aqua” interface, the Dock, an improved Finder app with hierarchical navigation, and more.
“Mac OS X is the most important software from Apple since the original Macintosh operating system in 1984 that revolutionized the entire industry,” said Jobs.
In the U.S., Mac OS X was priced at $129. Apple stopped charging for macOS releases in 2013, when OS X Mavericks was released free of charge.
Mac OS X was renamed to OS X in 2012 and to macOS in 2016:
Mac OS X 10.0 (2001): “Cheetah”
Mac OS X 10.1 (2001): “Puma”
Mac OS X 10.2 (2002): Jaguar
Mac OS X 10.3 (2003): Panther
Mac OS X 10.4 (2005): Tiger
Mac OS X 10.5 (2007): Leopard
Mac OS X 10.6 (2009): Snow Leopard
Mac OS X 10.7 (2011): Lion
OS X 10.8 (2012): Mountain Lion
OS X 10.9 (2013): Mavericks
OS X 10.10 (2014): Yosemite
OS X 10.11 (2015): El Capitan
macOS 10.12 (2016): Sierra
macOS 10.13 (2017): High Sierra
macOS 10.14 (2018): Mojave
macOS 10.15 (2019): Catalina
macOS 11 (2020): Big Sur
macOS 12 (2021): Monterey
macOS 13 (2022): Ventura
macOS 14 (2023): Sonoma
macOS 15 (2024): Sequoia
macOS 26 (2025): Tahoe
Mac OS X was a big part of Apple’s renaissance, which began when Jobs returned to the company in the late 1990s. Big hits in those first few years after his return included the iMac in 1998, the iBook in 1999, and Mac OS X and the iPod in 2001. In this sense, it is poetic that this milestone comes just a week ahead of Apple’s 50th anniversary.
I’ll say this about Sony: back in the day they certainly knew how to do green…and blue…and red…and orange—something Apple could take a lesson or two from now.
Very happy with my first foray into Japanese auctions! Upon arrival it powered up fine with an AA sidecar battery and/or power adapter, but wouldn’t recognize a perfectly good, fully charged internal gumstick battery—nor would it charge said gumstick. Even though the contacts on the external battery door looked okay, I knew there had to be corrosion inside, so after shining a flashlight in the battery compartment and confirming the internal contacts were caked with the infamous green corrosion, I gingerly removed the rear case. Armed with vinegar, an old toothbrush, q-tips, and isopropyl alcohol—and having watched numerous videos on how to do it—I set about removing the green gunk. Afterwards I put it all back together—and to my utter amazement, not only did it still work, but now it recognized the gumstick battery and even worked! And that color! Sony sure knew how to do orange!
…this one is undoubtedly one of my favorites. Sony was definitely at the top of their design game in the 90s and 00s, not only with Minidisc, but also with portable CD players.
For me, with the N707, it’s the color, the design, the tactile feel of the unit. And the sound? Absolute chef’s kiss. I can listen to this thing all day and never get burnt out. And of course, it works flawlessly. (Portable MD recorders/players, by their very nature, are much more complicated beasts than portable CD players and more prone to developing problems over years—especially if they’ve been neglected.)
PSA: If you’re not going to use your portable electronics for an extended period and they have removable batteries, remove them.
Apple propaganda notwithstanding, the reason tower PCs are big isn’t because they’re outdated. The reason tower PCs are so bulky is because they’re designed to be user serviceable. The case has lots of open space so your big, meaty hands can easily access all of the components, and everything is secured with friction-fit tabs and standard machine screws to minimise the need for specialised tools. A properly laid out tower PC is fully serviceable with a single Phillips-head screwdriver and no greater manual skill than your average Lego playset – heck, for some of the more modern case layouts you don’t even need the screwdriver, unless you’re performing major surgery like a full motherboard replacement.
Like, think about who benefits from convincing you that a fully modular computing device that can be serviced and repaired with your bare hands and minimal technical skill is unfashionable.
Back in the day, I used to build my own PCs. I’d run down to Fry’s Electronics, pick out a case, a motherboard, a CPU chip, memory, and whatever other components I needed. I’d drag it all home and assemble it myself. I’d load the O/S, power it up, and viola!
Back in early aughts, after receiving an unexpected windfall from the sale of some original Frank Lloyd Wright blueprints my dad gave me in the mid 80s that I’d been lugging around for over a decade, I used the funds and got into Minidisc in a big way—shortly before the time it was going to nosedive into irrelevance and obsolescence. (Hence the title of this post.) Despite the lukewarm reception the format received in the United States and the fact that it had been on the market since ’92, I nonetheless adopted it wholeheartedly. I bought a portable player and a full-size deck to incorporate into my stereo system from The Sony Store that had popped up at The Metreon near Moscone Center in San Francisco. While CD-Rs/RWs were coming into their own by this time and it seemed everyone was still carrying around portable CD players (myself included), the iPod—and the ultimate death of MDs it hastened—were still a year away when I made my purchase. I didn’t care about the format’s relative obscurity even then; if nothing else, there was just a cool factor about MD and the players that I found irresistible.
Even after the iPod appeared, I stubbornly continued my love affair with the MD. I replaced my original portable MZ-E75 with the awesome MZ-S1 shortly after moving back to Phoenix in 2002, and a year later replaced my original MDS-630 deck with a MDS-480. Hell, I even put a Kenwood MD deck into my car. I amassed hundreds of those candy-colored shimmering plastic discs that I greedily filled up with not only the contents of my CD library at the time, but also music ripped from my burgeoning vinyl collection. At the time the discs were still plentiful, dirt cheap and recording was a breeze.
For years, I resisted jumping on the iPod bandwagon, believing the sound quality of MP3 files was subpar to ATRAC, which was used in encoding the MD format.
But then in March 2010, after listening to some music on Ben’s iPod—and admitting the sound quality really was damn good—I broke down and bought my own. Not too long afterward—simply weighing the convenience of carrying an iPod containing my entire music collection versus all those discs, I sold my MD gear and practically gave away the discs.
I no longer have that iPod. I think I sold it when we were in Denver and I realized that most of the music I wanted to carry around with me could easily be swapped in and out of my phone. Having a separate device to do the same thing the phone could do was just…redundant. In the subsequent years, all of my listening has either been via vinyl on the “big” stereo in the living room or via headphones on my phone or Mac.
As y’all know, over the past eighteen months I’ve gotten back into CDs in a big way and they are still my preferred method of music consumption. I hadn’t really thought much about Minidiscs until a few months ago when a MZ-S1 popped up in a post on Reddit and I was—as the kids say—consumed with the feels and it triggered something. Did I really want to get back into Minidisc, knowing what it would ultimately entail? Logically, it made no sense. Emotionally, the answer was a resounding, “We’re about to descend into a dystopian hellscape, so why the hell not?” Still, I resisted the urge, but kept checking in on theMZ-S1 listings on eBay, gazing longingly and telling myself, no, no, no…
Until a week ago when I said fuck it.
Of course, the whole Minidisc landscape has changed over the past twenty years and getting back into it wouldn’t be as simple as a trip to Best Buy or Fry’s Electronics (which doesn’t even exist any more). New players were no longer being made, and while new recordable media is still being manufactured by Sony, the variety and the “fun” factor of the disc designs has completely disappeared. If you want new, you basically have a choice of black on white or grey on white. Thankfully, there are still dozens and dozens of folks on eBay selling entire lots of used discs, and—since MDs can be rewritten “a million times” [according to Sony]—there are still plenty of options available to get all the media I’ll ever want or need. On the whole, the hardware—both portable and deck variety—seems to have held up to the ravages of time much better than other “vintage” electronics, and can be found for cheap on eBay.
Which brings me to the present. I just received a MDS-JE480 deck that was in excellent condition that I snagged for a very reasonable amount of money. As of right now I have no remote control or media, but both should be arriving in the next few days. I also broke down bought a MZ-S1 portable that started this whole thing that’s scheduled to arrive on Monday.
THIS RETRO OPEN-FRONT CD PLAYER ALSO HAS AN AMBIENT LAMP, FM RADIO, AND BLUETOOTH SPEAKER
They say history always repeats itself. Vinyls are making a comeback right now, which means in a few years cassettes and CDs will make a resurgence all over again, and when compact discs do enter the mainstream, you’re going to be glad you had this cute CD player from Semetor. Spotted on the floor at IFA 2024, the K8 is a playfully retro CD player that embraces the design aesthetic of European appliances in the 50s. Designed with an open top that allows the CD to sit on its platter like a vinyl on a gramophone, the K8 comes with a few translucent typewriter-inspired buttons that let you control music playback. But wait, it’s 2024, and just being a CD player obviously won’t cut it… which is why the K8 also has an FM radio, a Bluetooth-enabled wireless speaker, and even an ambient lamp built into its adorable design.
The K8 isn’t a cutting-edge CD player… but it’s cute. It has the adorable demeanor of one of lofree‘s older products, with its retro aesthetic that’s brought about by its rounded form and use of pastel shades. What instantly grabs your eye first is the open-top CD player. While most players usually conceal the CD within a casing, this one does not. You see the CD spin as you play music, and the disc’s radial spectral finish looks absolutely gorgeous.
Playback is easy. For running a CD, just hit the CD button on the panel, and use the controls below to play/pause, or skip tracks. A BT/FM button lets you toggle the Bluetooth player or FM radio. Backlights in the button glow to let you know which mode you’re in, and a seven-segment LCD screen on the bottom allows you to see things like track number (for CDs) or radio station (for FM). A gold-plated ‘gear’ on the right side lets you switch on or off the K8.
If all that wasn’t enough, the K8 also packs a warm glow-light for ambient lighting. Hit the button on the top right and a halo around the CD player lights up. It isn’t enough to light a room, but it does bestow a warm wash of golden light in the immediate vicinity, perfect for late-night listening. Pair it with a nice soft jazz CD and you’re absolutely set!
