Episode 443: Immediate Electric Smugness

Sept. 19, 2019

DISCUSSED: Merlin has a cool new voice from talking to friends late last night; Dan has an automotive collision anecdote, while Merlin has thoughts on how preparation fails us in extreme moments; in follow-up, Listener Steve has terrific advice on dealing with bad hotel room technology; your hosts love insider information from pilots and other category pros; Dan ordered a watch, and Merlin is apparently not actually wrecking a plane; the guys respond to listener letters about ages of people in movies, Dan's world-destroying Disney fact (that he can't remember), plus a listener's concern about company password hygiene; and finally, Dan has great news about refreshing an iMac, but less great news about household password hygiene.

Links for this episode:

• Lizzo: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert - YouTube
  
• Amazon.com: Inteset 4-in-1 Universal Backlit IR Learning Remote for use with Apple TV, Xbox One, Roku, Media Center/Kodi, Nvidia Shield, most Streamers and other A/V Devices: Electronics
  
• Override Your Hotel Room Thermostat and Set It As Hot or Cold You Like
  
• Rivals of Waterdeep - YouTube
  
• Scooters (and Roller Skates) — Pessimists Archive Podcast — Overcast
  As cities freak out over e-scooters today, it’s worth looking back at when these devices were actually new. Why did people love motorized scooters in 1915, what’s different a century later, and what does all of this have to do with roller skates? They’re big questions. And the answers just might lead us to rethink how our cities are designed.
• Inteset Universal Remote Control Device Code Lookup
  
• Steve Whittaker (@swhitt) / Twitter
  
• Steve Whittaker on Twitter: "@hotdogsladies Also I always enable VIP mode on my hotel thermostat if it matches this guy: https://t.co/19pNzwgRCx" / Twitter
  
• Hotel remote trick
  
• Cockpit Confidential: Everything You Need to Know About Air Travel: Questions, Answers, and Reflections, Patrick Smith, eBook - Amazon.com
  
• AskThePilot.com » THE ULTIMATE RESOURCE SITE FOR EVERYONE WHO FLIES
  
• Toward better Master Passwords | 1Password
  The strength of a password creation system is not how many letters, digits, and symbols you end up with, but how many ways you could get a different result using the same system.
• xkcd: Password Strength
  
• 129 Cars - This American Life
  We spend a month at a Jeep dealership on Long Island as they try to make their monthly sales goal: 129 cars. If they make it, they'll get a huge bonus from the manufacturer, possibly as high as $85,000 — enough to put them in the black for the month. If they don't make it, it'll be the second month in a row. So they pull out all the stops.
• Amazon.com: Samsung T5 Portable SSD - 1TB - USB 3.1 External SSD (MU-PA1T0B/AM), Black: Computers & Accessories
  (Merlin's hotel room SSD drive. Load it up!)
• DIY Bundle 1.0TB OWC 6G SSD and HDD Kit for 21.5" iMac (2012 and later)
  

• Molekule (For $75 off your first order, visit Molekule.com and enter BACKTOWORK at checkout).

• Zapier (Right now through November, try Zapier free for 14 days by going to Zapier.com/backtowork).