The author did about every possible thing he could to prevent recovering his laptop. No “find my” usage. No registration to a known iCloud account. I have no sympathy. At some point, you’re just too stupid to save. Apple gives myriad tools to find and recover your laptop safely if you lose it, and this idiot went out of his way to completely avoid those tools. Hard lesson but I also don’t feel particularly bad for someone who blogs for a living and can easily drop a couple grand when things are inconvenient (as he did purchasing a “temporary” laptop until he got his back).