I recently became aware of a project on the Broken City Lab website that used one of my AppleScripts as a reference: This post about Using AppleScript With Arduino, LCDs, and PHP documents Justin Langlois’s efforts to use AppleScript to drive an external hardware project. Not only do we share the same first name but, since his last name is the same as my Canadian grandfather’s, it has set me off on a wild theory about having a distant AppleScripting cousin north of the border.

And in another weird confluence, I discovered yet other AppleScripting Justin (how many of us are there, anyways?) — Justin Blanton. He recently served up this cool bit of code on his site: An AppleScript-driven “kitchen timer” that works with Launchbar. Some of his use-case examples are:

• Remembering to leave in 10 minutes to pick up the takeout order I just made.
• Remembering to get the coffee out of the french press in four minutes.
• Remembering to call someone back in 20 minutes.
• Remembering to take the pizza out of the oven in 15 minutes (when I’m not within earshot of the oven alarm).

Looks pretty handy…. well done!
(Via Broken City Lab and justinblanton.com )

The truth is that Mr. Mabhouh’s assassination was conducted according to the book — a military operation in which the environment is completely controlled by the assassins. At least 25 people are needed to carry off something like this. You need “eyes on” the target 24 hours a day to ensure that when the time comes he is alone. You need coverage of the police — assassinations go very wrong when the police stumble into the middle of one. You need coverage of the hotel security staff, the maids, the outside of the hotel. You even need people in back-up accommodations in the event the team needs a place to hide.

(Via www.schneier.com )