Managing Your Drives, Big Sur Tips, Ransomware, and More — Mac Geek Gab 840

These days most of us are using external drives at some level. Even if we’re not, our internal drives are always in need of some attention, pruning, or some other operation. Listen as your two favorite geeks answer all your drive-related questions. That’s not all, of course, we’ve got more Big Sur tips, ideas for mitigating ransomware, Cool Stuff Found, and much more! Press play and enjoy an hour-or-so with John and Dave!

Paleoanthropologist Dr. John Hawks - BGM Interview

Dr. John Hawks is a Distinguished Achievement Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, associate chair, and undergraduate advisor. He earned his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Michigan in 1999. His interests include Biological anthropology, Paleoanthropology, and Anthropological genomics.

John took us through the evolution of humans from a cultural and genetic viewpoint, starting about 3 milion years ago. In recent years there’s been an explosion in the fossil history of our ancestors that has greatly improved our understanding of Homo Sapiens. We spent some time covering the newest thinking about Neanderthals, including how Homo Sapiens interacted with them starting 100,000 years ago in Europe — and the mysterious disappearance of the Neanderthals. John provides fascinating details of our human evolution. Don’t miss this one!

Widgets, Wi-Fi, and Big Sur — Mac Geek Gab 839

The fall is a crazy ride for Apple users. New hardware, new software, lots of changes, and more. John and Dave are right there with you to answer your questions, share tips, and dissect the new technology to help us all understand everything better. Listen this week as your two favorite geeks answer some Wi-Fi questions, share Cool Stuff Found, and revisit Big Sur as it surely gets closer to release time. Press play and enjoy learning five new things!

Geeky Thoughts About Apple's "Hi, Speed" iPhone 12 and HomePod mini Announcements – Mac Geek Gab 838

Join John F. Braun and Dave Hamilton for the geeks’ dissection of Apple’s iPhone 12 and HomePod mini announcements. Digging into some of the deeper elements, your two favorite geeks cover some of the 5G nuances, OLED on all screens 12, LIDAR, speaker pairing, and more. Press play and enjoy, then send your feedback into [email protected].

Astronomy Professor Dr. Mario Juric - BGM Interview

Dr. Mario Juric is professor of astronomy at the Department of Astronomy of the University of Washington. He holds a Ph.D. in Astrophysical Sciences from Princeton University. His research is at the intersection of astrophysics and computer science and engineering: developing systems and algorithms for use with large data sets to answer questions about the Universe.

We chatted about how Mario was inspired to become an astronomer, and one notable name came up: James T. Kirk. That’s all it took. Oh, and also Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. Most of the show, however, centered around two things: mapping our Milky Way galaxy and and his work on the Vera C. Rubin Observatory project, previously the LSST. Starting in 2021, this telescope will capture panoramic images of the entire visible sky twice each week for 10 years, building up our deepest, widest, image of the universe. The result: hundreds of petabytes of imaging data for close to 40 billion objects. One mission: planetary defense!

Best Selling Science Writer Steve Silberman - BGM Interview

Steve Silberman is an award-winning science writer, award-winning book author, public speaker, TED talk speaker, sometime record album producer, and a life-long Mac user. His writing on science, culture, and literature has been collected in a number of major anthologies including The Best American Science Writing of the Year and The Best Business Stories of the Year.

Early in his life, Steve fell in love with science fiction, especially the works of Ray Bradbury. Later, he studied under poet Allen Ginsberg and learned about both effective research and the power of language. We chatted about his early writing at Wired and The Well, and that led him to discover the deeper story of autism. The result was a major, influential article at Wired, then his important, award-winning book NeuroTribes .