The Problem With Independent Thinking
In polite company, independent thinking is frowned upon. The people in charge of an organization like to be the ones who define what things mean. Questioning or analyzing those definitions is frowned up. It's akin to insubordination. The larger the organization is, the more entrenched the official version of the truth becomes, and the sin of asking “why” can be considered radical or unpatriotic. Take the role of the US military, for example. You know you've heard that they "fight for our freedom." After all, freedom isn't free, right?
Now, tell me how exactly rice farmers from Vietnam threatened the freedom of the United States in the 60s and early 70s. How they threatened it so much that the US had to sacrifice the lives of 58,220 service members. The majority of them were draftees forced to fight under penalty of law. Or, tell me how Iraq threatened our freedom because 19 Saudi Arabians flew planes into buildings in the US. If you ask those questions out loud, you are going to get labeled. If you teach US history in a public school, you will get fired. The safest thing to do is accept the narrative and wave the flag.
There is a sizable portion of white people in the US who believe we don't need programs to encourage diversity, equity, and inclusion. They believe racism is a thing of the past, that there is no need for the voting rights act and that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. himself would be against affirmative action. They believe this in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In my home state of North Carolina, as soon as part of the voting rights act was overturned by Supreme Court conservatives, the Republican Party crafted a bill. That bill, said the judge who overturned it, was designed with surgical precision to keep as many black people from voting as possible.
We should know, given quantifiable numbers like the achievement gap in public schools, the pay gap between white workers and their non-white counterparts and the incarceration rates for different races, all of which favor white people, harming everyone else, that a problem exists. Unfortunately, most white people, as indicated by the way they vote, believe the issue isn't racism, but that POC are...what? Well, they won't come out and say it unless they know you are a member of their club, but obviously, they think the issue is inferiority, laziness and entitlement. The fault doesn't lie with the in-group who've run this country for over 400 years. It lies with the people who only got something close to equal rights in my lifetime.
Once again, don't go into the company of powerful people, particularly white ones, and point out the obviousness of systemic racism. They have a label for that, “identity politics.” When you think independently of the narrative that people are comfortable with, you make them uncomfortable and based on my experience, that is a grave sin. It's certainly not polite. It's "discussing politics." It's frowned upon. Furthermore, it will get you fired. They'll say it was because of something else, but in the end, speaking truth to power is risky business.
Of course, today's majority reserves a spectacularly evil brand of groupthink to demonize their favorite victims, the people in the LGBT community. It's not a new community. They've been with us for all of recorded history, but only in the past few years have they come close to having the rights they deserve. There is no logic in denying them rights. In fact, society harms itself by persecuting them. One of the greatest minds of the 20th century, Alan Turing, credited with saving 20 million lives in World War Two by cracking Nazi codes that gave the allies the information they needed to defeat Germany, died by suicide. He was chemically castrated by the British government for being homosexual. If you are capable of thinking independently of popular opinion, you see bullshit for what it is.
To be anti-war, anti-racist and anti-hate you have to ask questions that make people uncomfortable because humanity in the 21st century is so warped that being a war - loving hate filled bigot is normal and opposing it is radical.
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The Assassination of Fred Hampton and The Truth in 2025
Because of the abdication of corporate media like the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC News and others, many people fear that the traditional role of the free press in the US to hold the power structure accountable is coming to an end. Additionally, the end of fact checking on the largest social media sites portends a future where the truth is undervalued.Elon Musk and the Heritage Foundation are attacking Wikipedia and even individual contributors. If you have the disk space, I encourage you to download the entire Wikipedia archive before the right wing destroys it.
One of the articles I'm afraid of losing to the fascists is about Fred Hampton, a 21-year old African-American organizer from Chicago who was assassinated in his bed by the Chicago Police Department, who fired more than 100 unanswered shots into the apartment where Hampton and other so called radicals were sleeping. The police were photographed grinning as they brought his bullet riddled body out to the street.
The raid was encouraged by J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director who feared that Hampton was so intelligent, so charismatic and such a natural leader that he was capable of organizing a multi-racial movement to overthrow the government of the United States. Remember, this was a 21-year old man. In a 1982 trial, Hampton's family sued the Chicago PD and the FBI. They won the equivalent of a multi-million dollar judgment. It was revealed during the trial from COINTELPRO documents and other sources that Hampton's death at the hands of the police department was a planned assassination at the urging of the FBI.
Fred Hampton considered fascism the greatest threat, saying "nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all." This is as true in 2025 as it was in 1969. It was revealed this week that the first mass roundup of undocumented immigrants is scheduled to happen the day after Trump in inaugurated. The location is Chicago.
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SnapMotion - High Quality Image Captures from Video, Made Easy
Trying to capture high-quality images from a video can be a frustrating and time-consuming ordeal, requiring the use of multiple apps , the limitations of your screenshot utility, inexact dimensions and extra post-production work. Or you could just use SnapMotion from developer Needed Apps.. SnapMotion can load and play any video format compatible with Apple's QuickTime Player: MPEG-4, HEVC and MPEG-2, MPEG-4, HEVC, H.264, H.263, H.261, Apple Pro Res, DV, Motion JPEG. It can easily handle 4K and 8K videos without bogging down.
To use the app, you can load a video from one of three sources:
- A file on your drive
- A video in your photos library
- A video from a URL, if the site allows it. The promotional material claims that SnapMotion works with YouTube URLs, but in testing, that turned out not to be accurate. Still, You can use an app like Downie to easily download about any video you can access online.
You can scrub through the video until you find the scene you want to capture as a still image, Then you can advance in increments as small as one frame at the time until you find the exact image you want. If our prefer, you can use the batch capture feature to generate thousands of images, which you can then evaluate individually.
SnapMotion captures images in four formats: PNG, JPEG, TIFF and HEIF. You can adjust the DPI up or down from the default of 72. If your source video contains metadata, you can elect to import that along with your images.
You can download a free trial of SnapMotion on the developer's website. It is also available for purchase on the Mac App Store for $8.99. Purchasing it from the App Store also provides you with access to the iPad and iPhone version. If you have a Setapp subscription, it is included.
SnapMotion - High Quality Image Captures from Video, Made Easy
Trying to capture high-quality images from a video can be a frustrating and time-consuming ordeal, requiring the use of multiple apps , the limitations of your screenshot utility, inexact dimensions and extra post-production work. Or you could just use SnapMotion from developer Needed Apps.. SnapMotion can load and play any video format compatible with Apple's QuickTime Player: MPEG-4, HEVC and MPEG-2, MPEG-4, HEVC, H.264, H.263, H.261, Apple Pro Res, DV, Motion JPEG. It can easily handle 4K and 8K videos without bogging down.
To use the app, you can load a video from one of three sources:
- A file on your drive
- A video in your photos library
- A video from a URL, if the site allows it. The promotional material claims that SnapMotion works with YouTube URLs, but in testing, that turned out not to be accurate. Still, You can use an app like Downie to easily download about any video you can access online.
You can scrub through the video until you find the scene you want to capture as a still image, Then you can advance in increments as small as one frame at the time until you find the exact image you want. If our prefer, you can use the batch capture feature to generate thousands of images, which you can then evaluate individually.
SnapMotion captures images in four formats: PNG, JPEG, TIFF and HEIF. You can adjust the DPI up or down from the default of 72. If your source video contains metadata, you can elect to import that along with your images.
You can download a free trial of SnapMotion on the developer's website. It is also available for purchase on the Mac App Store for $8.99. Purchasing it from the App Store also provides you with access to the iPad and iPhone version. If you have a Setapp subscription, it is included.
Blue Heron - in Greenfield Park and Gardens in Wilmington, NC #photography #birds
This Week's Bookmarks: 1000 Greatest Movies, Dinosaurs, An Epic Story, Terms of Service Nightmares, Worst Healthcare Ripoffs, What the Japanese Get Right, Amazing Fire Pictures
TSPDT - The 1,000 Greatest Films (by Ranking 1-1000) - I don't know why this site, They Shoot Pictures Don't They, wasn't on my radar. It is now, but be warned. It's a rabit hole if you like movies.
What Dinosaurs Were Really Like - YouTube - Take it from me, if you have access to any kids between. the ages of 4-10, show them this short video. Get ready for an outraged reaction and a lot of questions.
The Passengers a Norwegian Cruise Ship Left Behind - Do you like epic stories? Read this then. It's an epic story
ToS about - We all just click through those terms of service screens on apps and websites to get to where we want to go, but someone actually read them all and graded them. Unsurprisingly they found that we routinely give up our rights for the sake of convenience.
2024 Shkreli Awards - Welcome to the 8th annual Shkreli Awards, the Lown Institute's top ten list of the worst examples of profiteering and dysfunction in healthcare, named for the infamous "pharma bro" Martin Shkreli.
Lifestyle: 33 Ways To Improve Your Life, Japanese Style | The Journal | MR PORTER - Here, a few Japanese experts (and experts on Japan) divulge some ideas on what we can learn from life in the Japanese capital, and beyond.
Los Angeles wildfires: in pictures - BBC News - I'm not one to watch television news, but I do love to see good photojournalism. I've got nothing but praise for the BBC photographers.
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Would You Change Anything If You Could Live Life Over?
When playing the old parlor game, "Would You Change Anything If You Could Live Life Over," I always emphatically stress that I like the way my life is now, so I wouldn't change a thing. I fear the butterfly effect might get me. It could cause me to miss meeting Wonder Woman or have me choose a career in some other field that I might have loved less than the mostly great time I've had working in technology. That's a pretty boring answer when you are trying to kill time on a camping trip or a long car ride, so for the sake of not being a killjoy, I'll come up with a few "maybes".
That one time I voted for a Republican
When I lived with my Mom and step-dad in the early to mid-70s, politics was discussed with some frequency, mostly registering disgust with Richard Nixon and NC senator Jess Helms. During my freshman years of high school, I moved to my uncle's farm. Politics was never discussed there — ever. We discussed the likelihood of rain, who shot J.R on Dallas and what time the next football game was coming on. I turned 18 in 1983 and the following year I was eligible to vote in the election. I'd joined the military, and although I read the paper, I still didn't have strong political feelings, so when I went to the polls, I cast my ballot carelessly. When I finally did get some political sensibility, I wanted a time machine ride to go recast that vote, but it was too late.
The time I married a woman I met in rehab
I was never a successful drinker. The first time I tried to quit, I was 22. I'd been convicted of drinking and driving and to keep my job working for the state, I volunteered to go to rehab (at a place that is now a funeral home.) While I was there, I met a woman ten years older than me who was also in treatment. She liked me, and I liked being liked. I moved in with her after spending a single weekend together. Look, this woman was so evil, that when we were together, we refinanced our house. She was a legal secretary and did all the paperwork. When we inevitably split up, I found out that while I had signed the mortgage and was responsible for the loan, she'd left my name off the deed to the house. I had no leverage to make her take my name off the mortgage. My name stayed on it for over 20 years — until the bank finally foreclosed and gave me a big old frowny face on my credit report.
School Stuff
Although my mother probably is still holding on to hope, I never went to college. I never wanted to, and I'm not sorry one bit that I didn't. That is my story, and I am sticking to it. For the sake of contributing to the conversation though, I suppose if I had to pick a major, with the benefit of hindsight, I'd have probably gone with journalism. It's a low paying job with long hours. The people who practice it get little respect. Still, I've always loved writing. Crafting informative, well-researched blog posts on subjects I'm passionate about takes me to my happy place. I did work as a technical writer and editor for a few years at the same time my brother and sister, both graduates of our state's flagship university, were doing the same thing. Funny how life works.
Dad Stuff
I raised three kids. I'll spare you the details because it gets confusing, but if you really want to put the puzzle together, read The Fourth Time is a Charm. The kids were all different, as people tend to be. My parents were 17 when I was born. I was 18 when my son was born. My daughter came along less than two years later. Being a teenage parent didn't ruin anyone's life. I wouldn't change that. What I would change is the number of parent-teacher conferences I went to, the number of soccer games and swimming practices attended and things like that. I wish I'd said “maybe” a lot less to them and “yes” a lot more. My youngest daughter, who I raised from age six into adulthood and I have had a difficult time lately. Her mom died of cancer three years after we were divorced, and it has been hard for her. There is no guidebook for complicated relationships like ours. I don't know exactly what I would do differently with her, if given the chance, but I'd come up with something.
So there you have it. Those are my biggest regrets. None of them are the cause of lifelong trauma. Hopefully, I've made up for that errant vote. I'll count that unfortunate marriage as just practice. I live a comfortable life and I get to write all I want these days, so missing school didn't hurt. The great relationships I have with my two oldest kids and Wonder Woman's two daughters are a true source of happiness. The rocky time with my youngest still has time to heal.
Thanks for reading.
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Old Fashioned #FollowFriday - ShoutOuts today for a few Micro.bloggers and some others #FollowFriday to @tracydurnell @dansmock @hiro@social.lol @jarunmb@techhub.social @dennyhenke@social.coop
Old Fashioned #FollowFriday Post
One of my favorite activities is reading blog posts every night on my iPad before I go to sleep. I've got a feed built that contains nothing but different writers I've discovered on the IndieWeb. Here are a few to check out. Subscribe to their feeds and follow them on social media.
Beardy Guy Musings: Posts - by Denny Henke aka Beardy Star Stuff - Denny is a deeply principled guy who I appreciate for the times when he's gotten me to look at my own attitudes over privilege and consumption.
The Hiro Report - by Hiro - Hiro is active on the same Mastodon server as I am, social.lol. He also writes a weekly newsletter that comes out every Sunday night exactly at 8:00 PM. I'm usually reading it one minute later. It contains tips on tech, gadgets and more - always thoughtfully described .
jarunmb.com - by mb - This blogger and I have much in common, Gen X tech guys trapped in a Windows world at work, but loving Apple hardware on out own time. He's smart and engaging, a good writer who injects some personality into everything he puts online.
Dan Smock - I first encountered Dan when he commented on a blog post I wrote about the cushy job Army job I had at Ft. Hood back in the 80s. A fellow vet who shares most of my own feelings about the state of the US in 2025, Dan has well thought out insights on a great many things, including tech. I enjoy every encounter with him.
Tracy Durnell's Mind Garden – Thinking and Learning In Public - Tracy Durnell is a writer/blogger/cool person who lives in Seattle. When I was investigating starting a blog, she is one of the people who inspired me through some of her observations on the experience. Every time she's commented on something I've written, I've felt like rookie on a big league ball team.
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Quick Tips for App Installation Using Hazel
In this post, I show you how to automate the installation of Mac apps in the two post popular formats ZIP and DMG, so that all you have to do is download a file from a developer's website and with no further action from you, the app will end up in your Applications folder just like if you'd downloaded it from the App Store.
Typically, when you download a Mac app from a developer's website, it will come in one of three formats
- ZIP Archive
- DMG Disk Image
- PKG - Package Installer (requires manual installation)
You can automate the installation of ZIP archives and DMG dish images with Hazel and a ninety-nine cent app from the Mac App Store.
DMGs
The app that works best for me is RapiDMG. When you make RapiDMG your default app for opening disk images, double-clicking on the file mounts the disk image files, extracts the application contained in it to the Applications folder, deletes the DMG (if that is your preference) and then highlights your new installed app in the finder. To automate it, create the following rule in Hazel for your downloads folder.
ZIP Archives
You don't need any additional software to extract and move applications. Everything is built into Hazel. You'll need to add two rules for your downloads folder. The first will extract the app from the archive. The second rule will move it to the Applications folder.
Quick Tips for App Installation Using Hazel
In this post, I show you how to automate the installation of Mac apps in the two post popular formats ZIP and DMG, so that all you have to do is download a file from a developer's website and with no further action from you, the app will end up in your Applications folder just like if you'd downloaded it from the App Store.
Typically, when you download a Mac app from a developer's website, it will come in one of three formats
- ZIP Archive
- DMG Disk Image
- PKG - Package Installer (requires manual installation)
You can automate the installation of ZIP archives and DMG dish images with Hazel and a ninety-nine cent app from the Mac App Store.
DMGs
The app that works best for me is RapiDMG. When you make RapiDMG your default app for opening disk images, double-clicking on the file mounts the disk image files, extracts the application contained in it to the Applications folder, deletes the DMG (if that is your preference) and then highlights your new installed app in the finder. To automate it, create the following rule in Hazel for your downloads folder.
ZIP Archives
You don't need any additional software to extract and move applications. Everything is built into Hazel. You'll need to add two rules for your downloads folder. The first will extract the app from the archive. The second rule will move it to the Applications folder.
Facescreen - Useful Add-on for Screencasting and Presentations
I often have to create screen recordings on my job to distribute
to the people I support for tutorials. Occasionally I do screen sharing
through Microsoft Teams when conducting training. Facescreen,
a utility from developer Ram Patra, provides a useful complement to
these use cases. It adds a feed from my webcam with a small configurable
view of my face to personalize the video. In addition to the image,
Facescreen also lets me add text, such as my email or a website related
to the subject of the tutorial or training. It's a nice professional
touch.
Facescreen, like other apps from this developer, lets you customize almost every element of what is displayed.
Image Adjustments
- Shape
- Aspect
- Orientation
- Size
- Zoom
- Color
- Mirror option
Text Adjustments
- Font
- Size
- Color
- Background color
- Radius
- Padding
You have the option to run Facescreen as a login item and to customize keyboard shortcuts to show and hide the webcam image, toggle the text and adjust the size of the image.
More information on Facescreen is available at its website. Facescreen costs $4.99. It's a one-time purchase which includes all updates. It will soon be available on Setapp. Although there is not a free trial, the developer has a no questions asked money-back guarantee. For more presentation help from the developer, check out Presentify.
Facescreen - Useful Add-on for Screencasting and Presentations
I often have to create screen recordings on my job to distribute
to the people I support for tutorials. Occasionally I do screen sharing
through Microsoft Teams when conducting training. Facescreen,
a utility from developer Ram Patra, provides a useful complement to
these use cases. It adds a feed from my webcam with a small configurable
view of my face to personalize the video. In addition to the image,
Facescreen also lets me add text, such as my email or a website related
to the subject of the tutorial or training. It's a nice professional
touch.
Facescreen, like other apps from this developer, lets you customize almost every element of what is displayed.
Image Adjustments
- Shape
- Aspect
- Orientation
- Size
- Zoom
- Color
- Mirror option
Text Adjustments
- Font
- Size
- Color
- Background color
- Radius
- Padding
You have the option to run Facescreen as a login item and to customize keyboard shortcuts to show and hide the webcam image, toggle the text and adjust the size of the image.
More information on Facescreen is available at its website. Facescreen costs $4.99. It's a one-time purchase which includes all updates. It will soon be available on Setapp. Although there is not a free trial, the developer has a no questions asked money-back guarantee. For more presentation help from the developer, check out Presentify.
This morning’s sunrise comes to you from Carolina Beach, located on a barrier island near Wilmington.
Driving
I used to drive for hours a day. My office was 30 miles from my home, much of it over two-lane country roads teeming with school buses. The first year I had that job, I drove through Ft. Bragg but that came to a sudden and scary stop on September 11, 2001. During the day, I often traveled between schools spread out over the large rural county that employed me. I spent a lot of time listening to audiobooks and podcasts. I was once a big NPR fan, but they had a habit of playing clips of Mitch McConnell speaking and by 2008, I couldn't take his voice anymore. Finally, the Obama stimulus package from his first term kicked in and a good portion of my commute happened on multi-lane limited access roads.
I was a farm kid. I learned to drive in a 1976 Ford Ranger pickup on a hog farm in Johnston County, NC. By the time I took driver's education in high school, I could operate several kinds of tractors, including a vintage International Farmall and an even older Allis Chalmers. We had flatbed truck from the fifties named Spot and other vehicles in which we always left the keys. The actual acquisition of my state issued driver's license was delayed by my first run-in with the legal system. I got arrested for drunk driving when I was 15, BEFORE I had a license. That should have been a sign that I wasn't cut out for a relationship with Demon Rum.
In the Army I got to drive lots of things I only dreamed of as a kid. I've driven several different kinds of armored personnel carriers, an M1 tank, a Bradley fighting vehicle and the classic Army Jeep (we called the "Quarter Tons") that were replaced by HUMVEEs by the time my service ended.
The loneliest time of my life was when my first marriage split up. My ex moved from NC to PA with our two children. It was an almost 900-mile round trip that I drove on as many weekends as I could manage in a stick-shift Nissan Sentra with no radio and no AC. I couldn't afford to stop and eat along the way and I often made the drive on Friday night after working the whole day. Traveling on Interstate 95 still brings back those memories. After just a few years, the kids came to live with me and I didn't have to make that horrible lonely trip any more.
After that, the longest drive we made was when I'd take them to see their Nana, my mom, who lives at the coast. We made the trip in a variety of cheap cars over the years ranging from a $500 Chevette to Dodge Caravan I bought with a loan at 18% interest. My youngest was prone to car sickness and we would cheerfully point out to her all the spots where we had to stop for her to get sick over the years. Mom still lives in the same town today and I'm traveling the same roads to see, but Wonder Woman took over the driving a few years ago, so I have it easy now in the passenger where I might occasionally sneak a nap. Fortunately, I don't have to drive disposable cars any more either.
When I go visit my dad, who lives in the next county, I will sometimes accompany him when he takes my step-mother for her daily ride. She has severe memory issues and only gets pleasure from a few things anymore. One of them is riding slowly through the farm country and watching the cycle of the crops grown in our area: cotton, tobacco. corn, soybeans and grain. Occasionally someone will get a wild hair and plant sweet potatoes or peanuts or best of all, a huge field of sunflowers. She announces that it's time for her ride, by picking up her purse and standing in front of Dad, who always just gets his keys and heads with her towards their car. If I'm there, I climb in the back seat and go along.
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Expert Guide on How To Win an Argument on the Internet
Just for the hell of it today, I searched for "how to win an argument on the Internet." Let me be clear. This is not something I do. Hardly ever. Unless someone really needs correcting. Or I'm grouchy. But only then. For one thing, I simply do not have the emotional energy to argue with anyone over anything, on or off the Internet on most days. I don't know if you've noticed, but being alive in 2025 is exhausting. Come January 20th, it will be even more so.
I conducted this search today strictly for the lolz. I wanted to see if anyone could seriously write an article to answer this question in a studied, calm and professional manner. If I was a reporter who caught an assignment to write a serious article about how to fight with a computer, I would quit on the spot because I have worked for crazy people before, and I did not like it.
Of course, I did find such an article, and I am including it here for you to marvel at.
How to Win an Argument Online: 7 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow
I found a much better Reddit thread on the always helpful sub, r/UnethicalProLifeTips containing the kind of help I was envisioning. It advises you to misstate facts when arguing so that your opponent feels obligated to correct you. Let's say you are disputing what level of hell Donald Trump will be assigned to when the syphilis finally kills him. You should mention something about his 36 felony convictions so that the MAGAt you're fighting with has to say, "That's a lie. HE only had 34 felony convictions!"
I can tell the person who wrote this article is a truly experienced Internet debater because they correctly cited Rule Number Four
- AT SOME POINT IN TIME, CLAIM THE OTHER PERSON IS A NAZI. Every, and I repeat EVERY Internet argument should involve at least one comparison to either Hitler or the Nazis. This is one of the most basic requirements of an average Internet debate, and although ignorant outsiders may find it silly to compare a person arguing on the Internet with an individual responsible for the execution of millions, this action represents one of the most traditional pillars of every online debate
How to Win Any Argument On the Internet
The final puzzle piece discovered in my research, has an easy to follow 10 point plan
- You don’t have to be right. You just have to make your opponent feel like they’ve lost.
- Never argue with an eloquent debater.
- Never argue in a room where the crowd is already dead set against you, and is allowed to be as loud as they want to be, and whenever they want to be.
- Never argue with someone who’s a certified expert on the topic you’re about to argue about.
- Never argue with someone who is knowledgeable but never gets flustered.
- When trying to appeal to a crowd. Don’t worry about the facts. Appeal to their basest emotions, and their deepest fears. Remember, it’s not a lie if it’s 20% true.
- Make the crowd chuckle at your opponent. Make sure the crowd doesn’t perceive your opponent as a human being with feelings, care, and emotions.
- If you get the slightest of feeling you are being attacked by your opponent for whatever reasons. Make sure you make personal attacks that sound like zingers even though they have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the current argument. But you have to use this as a tactical weapon to divert from the topic of discussion. And not overdo it, or seem desperate when you do it.
- Don’t ever allow your opponent to get inside your skin. You might be losing your shit inside. But you have to be absolutely calm on the exterior.
- If they catch you in a lie. Use false equivalence. Use it as often as you can.
How to win an argument online - Quora
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Disk Drill Revisited - Recovering 87K Files from a Drive That Finder Could Not Read
I first wrote about Disk Drill several months ago. The review is below. I recently had a chance to put the paid version of the data recovery tools to work in a real-world situation. I was presented with a 2TB NTFS formatted drive that would mount on my Mac, but displayed the message "Drive not available" and showed no files structure in the Finder. The drive belonged to a relative who lost access to her cloud account when switching jobs and ended up with only one copy of her files from a 20-year career - on a bad drive.
Disk Drill scanned the drive, and it was able to see files on it. It wanted me to make a byte for byte copy, but I didn't have another 2TB drive on hand. I had two 1TB hard drives and a dual drive bay, though. I used the Mac disk utility to combine the two physical drives into one logical drive and tried to initiate the copy again, but still got a message that the drive was too small. Since I knew that there was less than 100 GB of actual data on the drive, I was able to adjust the size of the number of bytes to be copied and the backup started. Although data seemed to be moving quickly, the progress indicator said the backup would take 28 hours. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Rather than doing a byte for byte copy, which also includes unused space, I elected to Disk Drill's recovery option instead. I initiated it and began to copy files, sometimes quickly and at other times seeming to stop. I got messages about the disk having physical damage, but the program never quit. After about 90 minutes, I had 86K files recovered.
I did not have to pay the full retail price to use the recovery tools because the app is available as part of Setapp, a $10 a month subscription that gives you unlimited access to hundreds of software titles.
Original Review
Disk Drill 5 by Cleverfiles is marketed as data recovery software to retrieve lost files from internal and external drive media as well as iPhone, iPad and Android storage. Its website goes into considerable detail on its ease of use, its power and its ability to recover files. The free product allows you to preview what data is recoverable, but it takes the $89 paid product to actually recover your data using its full suite of tools. There are some free recovery options too, but they require you to implement some (included) tools before use.
Free Tools
Even if you aren't in need of data recovery, however, Disk Drill
is a worthy download because of the bundle of free tools it includes:
Disk Health
Free S.M.A.R.T. Disk Monitoring Stays
Alert for Any Potential Disk Issues. It works on both internal and
external drives.
Mac Cleanup
Analyze Disk Space, Locate Unused
Files and Space Hogs, Free Up Your Storage Effortlessly.
Duplicate Finder
Easily Find and Remove Duplicate
File Locations on Your Drive.
Recovery Drive
Create Your own Bootable USB Drive
for Free Mac OS X Data Recovery.
Data Protection
Protect Your Data with Recovery
Vault or Guaranteed Recovery. Recover it for Free.
Data Backup
Create Byte-to-byte Disk &
Partition Backups for Future Mac OS X Recovery. In my testing of this
feature on the internal hard drive of an M3 iMac, Disk Drill said "This
drive is encrypted with the Apple M1/2 Security Chip. You can still back
it up into a byte-to-byte disk image, but it probably won't be
recoverable." This leads me to believe that a product like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!
is better suited for the task. Disk Drill did fine, however, making a
copy of a 500GB external disk.
You can download all of these tools for free from Cleverfiles.
Disk Drill Revisited - Recovering 87K Files from a Drive That Finder Could Not Read
I first wrote about Disk Drill several months ago. The review is below. I recently had a chance to put the paid version of the data recovery tools to work in a real-world situation. I was presented with a 2TB NTFS formatted drive that would mount on my Mac, but displayed the message "Drive not available" and showed no files structure in the Finder. The drive belonged to a relative who lost access to her cloud account when switching jobs and ended up with only one copy of her files from a 20-year career - on a bad drive.
Disk Drill scanned the drive, and it was able to see files on it. It wanted me to make a byte for byte copy, but I didn't have another 2TB drive on hand. I had two 1TB hard drives and a dual drive bay, though. I used the Mac disk utility to combine the two physical drives into one logical drive and tried to initiate the copy again, but still got a message that the drive was too small. Since I knew that there was less than 100 GB of actual data on the drive, I was able to adjust the size of the number of bytes to be copied and the backup started. Although data seemed to be moving quickly, the progress indicator said the backup would take 28 hours. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Rather than doing a byte for byte copy, which also includes unused space, I elected to Disk Drill's recovery option instead. I initiated it and began to copy files, sometimes quickly and at other times seeming to stop. I got messages about the disk having physical damage, but the program never quit. After about 90 minutes, I had 86K files recovered.
I did not have to pay the full retail price to use the recovery tools because the app is available as part of Setapp, a $10 a month subscription that gives you unlimited access to hundreds of software titles.
Original Review
Disk Drill 5 by Cleverfiles is marketed as data recovery software to retrieve lost files from internal and external drive media as well as iPhone, iPad and Android storage. Its website goes into considerable detail on its ease of use, its power and its ability to recover files. The free product allows you to preview what data is recoverable, but it takes the $89 paid product to actually recover your data using its full suite of tools. There are some free recovery options too, but they require you to implement some (included) tools before use.
Free Tools
Even if you aren't in need of data recovery, however, Disk Drill
is a worthy download because of the bundle of free tools it includes:
Disk Health
Free S.M.A.R.T. Disk Monitoring Stays
Alert for Any Potential Disk Issues. It works on both internal and
external drives.
Mac Cleanup
Analyze Disk Space, Locate Unused
Files and Space Hogs, Free Up Your Storage Effortlessly.
Duplicate Finder
Easily Find and Remove Duplicate
File Locations on Your Drive.
Recovery Drive
Create Your own Bootable USB Drive
for Free Mac OS X Data Recovery.
Data Protection
Protect Your Data with Recovery
Vault or Guaranteed Recovery. Recover it for Free.
Data Backup
Create Byte-to-byte Disk &
Partition Backups for Future Mac OS X Recovery. In my testing of this
feature on the internal hard drive of an M3 iMac, Disk Drill said "This
drive is encrypted with the Apple M1/2 Security Chip. You can still back
it up into a byte-to-byte disk image, but it probably won't be
recoverable." This leads me to believe that a product like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!
is better suited for the task. Disk Drill did fine, however, making a
copy of a 500GB external disk.
You can download all of these tools for free from Cleverfiles.
Carolina sunrise. Good morning, y’all.
What I'm Using on Reddit in 2025
This repost from my Obsidian blog got a lot of play on Reddit
You can absolutely waste some of your wild and precious life if you start doomscrolling in the wrong places on Reddit. Used wisely, however, Reddit can provide you with information on just about anything you are interested in. If you use it wisely and in accordance with the peculiar culture of the site, you can also make people curious enough about what you are up to in your other web endeavors, if you write about topics that Redditors are interested in.
I tend to frequent subreddits that mostly pertain to technology and the federated social media these days. Here are my current favorites.
r/MacApps
This is where I spend the most time. The mods of this sub were cool enough to add a link to AppAddict in the sidebar after I made an effort to cross post my reviews in their entirety every day for a few months. I only link back to my blog in posts I make if I am answering questions about an app or making recommendations.
r/ObsidianMD
Aside from all the meaningless pictures of people's graphs, this sub is an excellent place to find out about new plugins, new workflows and new use cases for what I think is the best app since the invention of the browser
r/macOS
This sub is huge with over 400K members. I am a mod here, but don't post much. It's not the friendliest community. There is a lot of one-upping going on and you can see the neck-beards doing their neck-beard things, but if you overlook all that, you can learn a lot.
r/BlueskySocial
One of the coolest things about Bluesky, is the public APIs it has lend themselves to a lot of neat websites and small software tools being developed. This is the place where you can find out about them. It's also a place where you can get your fill of Twitter hatred whenever you need to re-up, because the folks who post here never tire of putting down the bird site.
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