Cables Don't Eat Sandwiches

My wife reported that she has recently had trouble charging her iPhone 6 Plus. Normally she plugs it into a wall socket where the USB-to-Lightning cable is sandwiched between the Apple wall outlet adapter and a wooden laundry bin. Thinking that there could be something wrong with the iPhone Lightning port or the lightning connector on the cable, or the cable itself, I charged her phone using my USB-to-Lightning cable and Apple wall outlet adapter, and everything worked fine. To test the cord itself, I was going to try to charge my iPhone 6 Plus with her charging cable. Upon plugging her USB-to-Lightning cable (just the cable without an attached iPhone) into my iMac (running macOS Sierra 10.12.5), the following message appeared:

To confirm, I plugged the same USB-to-Lightning cable (again, cable only) into my wife's iMac (running Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.6) and saw the following message:

Therefore, it seems pretty conclusive that the USB-to-Lightning cable is defective. Upon visual inspection, both ends of the cable are noticeably bent near the connectors, probably from being sandwiched against the wall:

Lesson learned: be nice to your cables.

Walking + Running Distance on iOS Activity App

Lately I've been doing a little more running than usual, so I've taken greater interest in Apple's iOS Activity App. Since I often run the same route, I've measured the distance on Google Maps and have found the Activity app to be highly accurate in terms of estimating distances.

I wonder if distance is estimated using data from its built-in accelerometers and gyroscopes alone or if GPS data is also used to optimize precision. To investigate, I checked my Location Services settings. There is an option to toggle Location Services on/off globally, or one can globally enable Location Services but toggle it on/off for each individual app. I discovered that the Activity app is entirely missing from the list of apps:

So does that mean Activity does not use GPS at all? Inquiring minds want to know.

2017-07-24 UPDATE: Today I turned off Location Services, so in theory the Activity app should NOT be able to leverage GPS, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi to approximate my location while running. I then ran my usual 3-mile route, and the Activity app seemed to be just as accurate in estimating distance (walking + running distance: 0.3 miles before my run, 3.3 miles after my run), presumably from the accelerometer and gyroscope data.

Kernel Panic

Since I was going to be away for the Independence Day weekend, I had shut down my 27-inch Late 2012 iMac and turned off the power strip/surge protector. This evening I turned on the power strip and then turned on my iMac only to be greeted a few seconds later with a kernel panic:



Here's a closer look:



After a successful restart, I launched the Mac OS X Console application but could not find the text of the kernel panic or any detailed logs (I assume the system was unable to generate a log since the system had never successfully booted). Anyone able to deduce any information from the information above?

I hope this is an isolated occurrence and not a sign of impending disaster for my iMac.