The Right to Disconnect From Work

In France, the right to disconnect from work has been solidified into law. In the El Khomri law, every employee contract must include a negotiation of obligations required of an employee regarding how connected they are outside of office hours.

A new study has found you may be suffering from excessive stress and anxiety about work expectations even if you don’t actively check work emails in your off-hours. The mere expectation of being in contact 24/7 is enough to increase strain for employees and their families, the new research suggests. In today’s ultra-connected world, with many people often getting work emails sent to their smartphones, a growing number of countries and companies are endorsing “right to disconnect” laws, recreating a much-needed boundary between work and home.

Three Groovy, Geeky Gadgets

Dr. Mac checks out three groovy gadgets he uses every day — a laptop stand, a speaker that’s also a work of art, and the first lumbar support he’s tried that actually worked.

Dear Overlords of MacLand – Mac Geek Gab 708

It’s always something, and thankfully John and Dave are always here to help. This week we share some advice about geotagging your photos when shooting with a non-geo-smart DSLR camera. Then some talk about how to format Flash drives, and lots, lots more. It’s always a blast and you always learn at least 5 new things each and every time you get together with John and Dave.

Synology RT2600ac and RT1900ac: Your Apple AirPort Extreme Replacement

These days, many Apple users are looking to improve and update their home Wi-Fi connections. With Apple seemingly having abandoned any true hardware updates to their AirPort router line, Apple users are looking to third-parties to fill the gap for an AirPort Extreme replacement. To that end, Synology is among the cream of the crop in the standalone router market and provides many features never found in Apple’s offerings. Updated April 18, 2018 with lowered prices on Amazon. The RT2600ac is now available for less than an AirPort Extreme, with a lot more features and range.

TMO Background Mode Interview with Gravitational Wave Astrophysicist Dr. Chiara Mingarelli

Dr. Chiara Mingarelli is an astrophysicist currently working at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics where she’s a Flatiron Fellow. Chiara received her Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham (UK) in 2014, and her specialty is the study of gravitational waves: ripples in spacetime born of a cataclysmic collision of distant, super-massive objects. She’s been a Marie Curie International Fellow at Cal Tech and has worked at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. We chatted about her early years, how she was inspired by the night skies of her hometown in Canada and her early years studying mathematics and physics. There were definitely some challenges in her early career, but her mathematician father nurtured her through. If you’re curious about gravitational waves and Pulsars, this is the show for you.

TMO Background Mode Interview with Tidbits Security Editor Rich Mogull

Rich Mogull has twenty years experience in information security, physical security, and risk management. He specializes in data security, application security, emerging security technologies, and security management. Prior to founding Securosis, Rich was a Research Vice President at Gartner on the security team where he also served as research co-chair for the Gartner Security Summit. Currently, he is the security editor at Tidbits. We chatted about Rich’s career, then delved into some security issues of interest to Apple customers: the relative security of macOS vs. Windows 10, the security of iOS, whether AES-256 encryption is still “good enough,” iCloud security, and the technical feasibility of an unhackable backdoor into our iPhones for law enforcement. If you’re interested in all things security, this is the show for you.

TMO Background Mode Interview with VP of Marketing for Mayfield Robotics Chris Matthews

Chris Matthews is the VP of Marketing for Mayfield Robotics. They make the companion robot called Kuri that was recently shown to our Jeff Gamet at CES 2018. Having been a very interested observer of emerging robot technology, I invited Chris to be on the show. We talked about how Mayfield Robotics was formed, the founders, how the company got its name, the human and engineering design principles behind Kuri, what mistakes were avoided, how Kuri protects family privacy and security, the nuances of Kuri’s physical design, how Kuri communicates with the family, its processing power, the price and the shipping status. Kuri is probably going to be my first family robot, so tune-in as Chris explains how Kuri works in fascinating detail. You may want one too.

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