Doug Mejia

Remembering: The Exorcist 🍿

Happy Halloween! Seeing all these awesome costumes everywhere got me thinking about the scariest movie I remember watching as a kid.

When I was pretty young, the scariest movies around were A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Friday the 13th series. All the kids would watch them (most of us without our parents knowing), and we’d scare ourselves to death, then lie awake at night unable to sleep. But the scariest movie I ever saw as a kid was probably in early middle school, when I watched The Exorcist for the first time.

I had a TV with a VCR in my room, and we rented it from somewhere (probably Blockbuster). I remember sitting cross-legged on the floor, watching it at night. I was completely entranced and so absorbed in the movie that something happened and I screamed. I had never screamed involuntarily in my life, but I did that night.

Today, I don’t even remember what scared me so badly, but I know it was intense. After that experience, I didn’t watch many more horror films. They’re just not my cup of tea. I prefer action movies, comedies, and historical dramas.

That one movie might be the reason I got turned off horror films entirely. Now I can watch them with no real reaction besides the occasional ill-timed jump scare, and honestly, it doesn’t bother me. Some are so ridiculous that I roll my eyes at the few glimpses I catch when other people are watching them.

Anyway, since it’s Halloween, I thought it’d be fun to start a conversation. Let’s talk about movies from our childhood that left an impact. They don’t have to be horror films, just anything that affected you in one way or another. It could be a positive impact or, like mine, a terrifying one. Go nuts and share your stories!

Signal, the private messenger, posted that they will now support Chat Folders. Now we can organize our different chats into groups like family, friends, work or even projects. I think this is a great addition to Signal. I plan to make use of this feature as soon as I see it available on my apps.

Okay, this one is definitely for us nerdy types out there. We’ve all used some kind of AI service in the past, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini, or maybe even Microsoft’s Copilot. We use these guys on the web, but have you ever used them locally via your command line?

In this NetworkChuck video, he shows us how to use AI directly in the command line. He argues that it’s much faster and allows you to do things like keep the context of your chats locally in a folder and file structure.

Gemini CLI, for example, is free and in his video, he shows you how to install it and walks through the process. It can access files, run scripts, and allows you to have context management right from your terminal. But he doesn’t stop there.

He goes on to tell you about the awesomeness of Claude Code. This version of the AI service uses Anthropic’s Claude and does pretty much everything Gemini does, but it’s a little more versatile because it uses agents.

Agents are basically specialized versions of AI that you create. First, you create the agent by giving it the parameters and characteristics you want it to have. Then, you have it only answer questions it is an expert at. For example, you can designate one as an expert at networking, and then have that agent help you design the best home lab. While another agent that you designed to be a travel agent can focus on creating an itenirary for your weekend trip to New York.

He then kicks it up a notch and shows you how to put all these agents together to work collaboratively, finding the most thorough responses for you. It is a very powerful tool.

If you’re into experimenting and trying new things, especially on the command line, I would definitely give this video a look. He goes through it pretty quickly, but you can pause and examine things more closely, then do your own research to get the specifics down before trying it yourself.

I would caution you that these AI tools ask for a lot of permissions to access things on your computer and on the web, and you do have to give explicit permissions, which is a good thing. Although he shows you how to get around these safety nets, I would think carefully about doing so and know that you’re running it at your own risk at that point.

Just be careful and have fun.

What Is A USB ‘Rubber Ducky’?

It’s frightening to know you can plug in a regular-looking USB drive and suddenly your computer is taken over.

Have you ever found a random thumb drive and thought it was your lucky day? Well, after reading this article, you’ll think twice before inserting any random thumb drive into your computer.

Here’s why: these thumb drives can contain malicious payloads. Some attackers intentionally drop thumb drives in parking lots and other public places, hoping someone will pick one up and plug it into their computer to see what’s on it. Security experts call these intentional drops “candy drops” or “baiting attacks.”

When you plug one of these bad boys in, a script runs automatically, and your computer could be compromised. These attacks often use keystroke injection techniques that can enable tools like PowerShell and execute commands that take over your system.

Stay safe and practice smart computing habits. Don’t plug anyone’s thumb drive into your computer, and avoid using random USB ports in hotels or at airports for charging.

You never know what’s on the other side. It might just be a rubber ducky (a device that looks like a normal USB drive but acts as a malicious keyboard when plugged in).

I’m the guy who bought an Apple device right before a new one came out. I don’t regret it one bit

… if you already have an M4 iPad Pro, you shouldn’t worry about buying a new one.

A few weeks ago, I went to buy a new iPad. This time around, I decided to go with the M4 13-inch iPad Pro with cellular, which I love, by the way. I did this despite strong rumors that an M5 version would be coming out soon.

Once the M5 launched, I second-guessed my decision and thought maybe I should have waited the extra two or three weeks and just gotten the new one. However, I’m pretty much in the same boat as Filipe Esposito from Macworld.

Like him, I decided to get the M4 version for a few reasons. First and foremost, I needed the bigger screen iPad, so waiting wasn’t completely an option. Yeah, I could have pushed through and worked around things to make do, but I decided not to.

Second, I got some pretty good deals on it. For one, I got the educational discount, which I could have gotten with the M5 as well, but they also had some other promotions for accessories. I decided to go with the Magic Keyboard and got it almost half off its regular price.

After reading Filipe’s Macworld article, it confirmed what I already suspected: there’s not a lot of difference between the M4 and M5 versions of the iPad.

The screen is the same, the keyboard accessories are the same, the cameras are the same, and the speakers and hardware are all the same. As far as I can tell, the only two things that changed were the M5 chip and the fact that it comes with 12GB of RAM instead of my 8GB. Actually, come to think of it, I think the new M5 model also has Apple’s new modem in it, but again, the current modem in my M4 model works perfectly well.

Despite these upgrades, I don’t feel my iPad is suffering from any kind of slowness. I do everything on it and never wish it was faster.

As an aside, if you’ve never used a cellular-enabled iPad, I highly recommend it. Yeah, it’s a little more expensive and yeah, you have to pay the carriers, but it’s so freeing to just use it anywhere.

Before, I used to tether it with my phone’s hotspot, but that wasn’t always ideal and I had data caps on my hotspots to contend with. With the cellular plan, I get “unlimited” data.

As of yet, I haven’t even been throttled, so I think it really is unlimited with AT&T. Either way, it’s just nice to have one self-contained device, and I’m glad that it’s my M4 iPad Pro.

The Zipper Is Getting Its First Major Upgrade in 100 Years

The teeth were redesigned, the manufacturing process rewritten, and new machinery developed to attach the closure to garments.

Those days of pesky zippers getting stuck and you having to fight with your kids' jackets or book bags may have come to an end, if these new zippers become ubiquitous.

No one ever really thinks about the different zippers we use in our everyday garments, but you always notice them when they fail. With these new lighter and more eco-friendly zippers, maybe we can continue to overlook them again. They seem like a pretty cool improvement.

I received my Plotter order earlier than expected. The order consisted of the following items, as my introduction to the Plotter binder system. Since it is my first experience with this line of products, I decided to go with the Mini Size.

• Shrink 6-Ring Leather Binder PLT5003
• Plain 80 sheets PLT0003
• 2mm Grid 80 sheets PLT0004
• Blue Paper 2mm Grid Quadrant Graph 50 sheets
• Lifter 2pcs PLT0010
• Leather Ring Supporter PLT0013