Lukas F. Hartmann grew up on PCs like the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amiga 500, and while he appreciates the power and portability of modern laptops, he missed the character and invitation of experiment in these classic PCs. Read the rest “The MNT Reform: a modular, open source hardware, blob-free laptop inspired by classic PCs”

Louis Rossmann is an independent service technician in New York City who has repaired Apple products for years. Read the rest “Independent repair guy on the planned obsolescence of Apple products”

The Senate has approved a bill (which already passed in the House) that makes it legal for you to unlock the phones you own so you can choose which carrier you use. Read the rest “Senate passes phone unlocking bill”

The Slo-Mo Guys -- a YouTube channel filled with fast things in slow motion -- have a go at a hard drive. It's pretty amazing on its own -- seeing that blurred, too-fast-to-follow arm slowed down is like kung-fu bullet-time for electronics. But once they start splashing water on the mechanism? Woah.

How a Hard Drive works in Slow Motion - The Slow Mo Guys

(Thanks, Fipi Lele!) Read the rest “Hard drive in slow motion”

Nat sez, "You're on a racing yacht, 650 miles from the finish line of the fifth leg of an around-the-world race. Your mast breaks, you send a team member up to cut free the sail. He slashes at the rigging but also himself, and blood drips down the mast. He comes down white with blood loss and with a massive wound. What do you do? 'After talking to our team doctor we decided to staple him together. We took out the staple gun and put five staples in him and now he's as good as new, I think.' Nope, that's not what I would have reached for either. I wonder whether the team doctor is also the ship's carpenter?"

Groupama completed leg 5 last night with 20 points for third place, ensuring they remain in contention for the overall prize.

The French boat leapfrogged leg 5 winners Puma into second place overall, 20 points behind Telefonica, who are facing a hearing into allegations they carried an extra sail on leg 4 into Auckland.

Yachting: NZ sailor aboard Groupama seriously injured Read the rest “Yachting team uses staple-gun to fix up slashed sailor, completes race”