Discover more from Advanced Geekery with David Gewirtz

My name is David Gewirtz and you're looking into my geek brain. Read on for geeky, cool, fun, fascinating, and sometimes freaky stories, videos, links, and more. Plus, there might be puppy pictures.

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What to do if you have a malicious Chrome extension, fixing a motherboard, and X's Grok tested

Plus, why lazy is productive, a humanoid robot, why time is an illusion, fixing a threshold, and a judge uses VR in court

Jan 13, 2025

I’m David Gewirtz. Welcome to this week’s Advanced Geekery newsletter. It’s been an exciting week. Let’s dive in.

My latest video

For those who were curious about why my review of the Anycubic Kobra 3 Combo seems to have been stalled, the answer is this: the motherboard was bad. In this video, I take viewers through the process of completely removing the old mobo and replacing it with the new one. Now it works.

Plus, there’s a super awesome flyby over the new motherboard with my macro probe lens.

My articles

Here’s a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.

I found a malicious Chrome extension on my system - here's how and what I did next: When Chrome flagged an extension for malware, it triggered hours of cleanup. Learn how to check your extensions, clear malware, and keep your browser secure for the future.
X's Grok did surprisingly well in my AI coding tests: Does Grok grok code? Pretty much, yeah. Dig in to read the full story and find out the one challenge that Grok couldn't fully grok.

This week’s project: fixing a threshold

This is (or, more accurately, was) the threshold between my workshop and the hall that connects to the Fab Lab. Every time I wanted to move a cart between the Fab Lab and the workshop, it had to go over this bump. That necessitated lifting the carts, each of which weigh 100 pounds or more.

The real gotcha is that it was impossible to just roll carts over that bump. Either I needed to enlist the help of my wife (one of us on one side, one on the other) to lift the cart over the bump, or I had to lift one side over, leave the house, go around the back and in another door, then lift the other side over.

This week we fixed it. I reached out to the concrete contractor who put in our sidewalk and asked if he would be able to create a smooth transition. And he did. Here’s the new version. It should cure within a few days and I can run carts over it as often as I want.

The hall tile extended under the aluminum buffer. The aluminum piece was removed, then the contractor dug into the concrete epoxy workshop floor and poured a new block of concrete, careful to provide a perfect ramp from the tile down to the workshop floor.

It took a day and made a mess, but I think it will prove to be well worth the effort.

Gadget of the week

USB hubs aren’t news. Not even close. But I use this one every day. What makes it special is that it has an included clamp, so it will attach pleasantly to a shelf or furniture upright. Here’s mine in action:

It gets my USB cables out of the way, with a nice easy way for them to be available to me when I need them. There are also versions with USB-A ports and SD card adapters and USB C ports.

Note: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Must-watch YouTube

Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.

CNET had a chance to take the Unitree G1 Humanoid Robot for a spin. It’s both impressive and completely unexciting, at exactly the same time.
This is an interesting deep dive into the Roddenberry Archive video that reconstructs Kirk and Spock (as well as some other characters) using AI video techniques.
CBS Morning News has an interesting take on why being lazy might be the most productive thing you could be doing.

Interesting reads

And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth reading.

Oh, now this is seriously cool. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace just published some fascinating research on the changes caused by generative AI — and they used one of my articles as source material (footnote 14).
Time is an illusion, say some scientists.
A judge used a Quest headset in court. We’re all going to hell.

Send in your projects

I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.

If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.