Day: December 17, 2008

iPhone thief thwarted

While at the dry cleaner one day, Rob’s iPhone was stolen. He immediately chalked it up as gone forever, and proceeded to purchase a brand new one that same evening. It was the next day when unfamiliar contacts began to appear on the new phone. The (not-too-bright) thief was unwittingly supplying him with names and phone numbers of his or her closest friends, via the magic of MobileMe synchronization from the stolen phone to the cloud and eventually to his new phone. “It didn’t take long for me to realize that MobileMe was leading me right to the thief!” wrote Rob.

Thanks to the fact that he caught on to it before he’d had time to remotely disconnect his account, MobileMe provided the groundwork for a little social engineering. Rob made quick work of wrangling a name and phone number from the provided contacts, supplying the police with everything they needed to get Rob his phone back. By the end of the night, he had his original iPhone in his possession.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

December 17th

William Safire is 79 today.

He once wrote a list called “William Safire’s Rules for Writers.” The rules included: “Remember to never split an infinitive,” “The passive voice should never be used,” and, “Last, but not least, avoid clichés like the plague.”

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Barry Livingston of My Three Sons is 55. Barry was the fourth son, Ernie.

The great conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, Arthur Fiedler, was born on this date in 1894.

The poet John Greenleaf Whittier was born on this date in 1807.

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.

Above, the opening to Snow-Bound, published in 1866.

Bicycle mechanics

First Flight

Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully made the first four sustained flights of a heavier-than-air machine under the complete control of the pilot at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, 105 years ago today. Their fourth attempt, at 10:35 am, lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet.

The photograph (click to enlarge) “shows Orville Wright at the controls of the machine, lying prone on the lower wing with hips in the cradle which operated the wing-warping mechanism. Wilbur Wright running alongside to balance the machine, has just released his hold on the forward upright of the right wing.” (Source: Library of Congress)

The most prominent man attempting to build an airplane at the time was the third Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Samuel Langley. He had been studying aeronautics since 1886, and by 1899 he had a large endowment from the U.S. War Department and an entire staff of workers building his design.

One of the problems with Langley’s design, however, was that his plane lacked an ability to steer. He made two test flights in the fall of 1903, and in both cases his plane went straight up and then crashed straight back down. His test flights were covered by all the major newspapers of the day, and such disastrous failure made it seem that motor-powered flight might never be achieved.

The Wright Brothers, by contrast, had believed from the start that steering and balance were the most important aspects of flight. They ran a bicycle shop, so they understood the importance of balance, and they designed their plane to be steered by the pilot shifting his own weight. They began testing gliders with their steering system in 1900, and it was almost as an afterthought that they decided to add an engine.

The Writer’s Almanac (2005), which has more.