Did you mysteriously start getting what look like a malware popup in Mac OS X for Google Earth—software you might have forgotten you ever installed?

Updated: I‘ve written a more detailed article about this that’s now up at Macworld. The tl;dr—if you‘re comfortable with the Terminal—copy and paste the following line, and enter your password when prompted to get rid of the Google software update without affecting any installed Google: software. (Note that's two hyphens before “nuke.”)./Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/ksinstall --nuke

Even long-term Twitter users are sometimes unaware of a few useful conventions and features. I’ve compiled several into this short post.

Thread multiple tweets of your own

I had been on Twitter since the stone ages—2007!—before I realized I could thread my own tweets. That is, make them appear as a series of messages in a sequence of my choosing. While by the time I learned this (from Ed Bott), Twitter had offered conversation threading for years, I hadn’t realized my own tweets could likewise be put in sequence.

It’s easy to do:

1. Post a tweet.
2. Reply to that tweet in whatever software you use.
3. If the reply includes your handle, remove your handle. (Twitter.com and many third-party clients remove or select your handle to avoid this.)
4. For your next message, reply to the tweet you just posted in reply.
5. Repeat.

You can still

On the occasion three years ago of the 110th anniversary of the recognized invention of the modern form of air conditioning, I wrote this little historical/modern explainer about how heat-exchange and air-conditioning systems work for the Economist. Yes, the terrible title, "It's the Humidity," is all mine.

But I was trying to explain to Rex, age 8, this morning how air conditioning worked. I tried a bunch of explanations and metaphors, but this one stuck.

Imagine you have a pool that's 90°F. There is an endless line of swimmers who have a natural resting temperature of 60°F waiting to jump in. Each time one jumps in, they warm up to the pool temperature, and the pool, by necessity, gives up some of its energy to each swimmer, becoming cooler. The swimmer is then shot out through a chute, the friction of which warms them up even more.

Working on my new Mac mini, everything froze. Moments passed. The mouse resumed action. The screen went black. Then a login screen appeared. At least it didn't fully crash, but it took a good 20 minutes before all the apps had recovered—longer than a reboot for whatever internal reason.

I'm working on my iPhone and the screen goes blank and then the Apple logo appears. The springboard crashed. This happens every couple of days.

My Apple Watch won't show apps that appear as installed via the Watch app. I installed 1.0.1. A bunch of icon previews (the outlines) show up on the Watch. Time passes. Everything rights itself.

In the morning, I pick up my watch and try to unlock it via my phone. It doesn't work. I tap in the Watch unlock code on its face, and it's lost the connection with the phone. Again. Even